Brother Roger Schutz, 90, a native of Switzerland, «is the very image of lived ecumenicalism, and an example for all of us,» wrote the Swiss bishops.
Brother Roger founded the Taizé community, in the south of Burgundy, France, in 1940. The community is composed of 100 brothers, of different Christian backgrounds, who «are committed for their whole life to material and spiritual sharing, to celibacy, and to a great simplicity of life,» says the community’s Web page.
John Paul II visited Taizé Oct. 5, 1985.
During John Paul II’s funeral Mass, Brother Roger was the first to receive Communion, in a wheelchair, from the hands of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.
