Pope Francis has asked for forgiveness for the behaviour of Catholics against other Christians. He made the comment after walking through the Holy Door of the Basilica of St Paul Outside the Walls with an Orthodox metropolitan and an Anglican archbishop. “As Bishop of Rome and Pastor of the Catholic Church, I want to beg for mercy and forgiveness for un-Gospel-like behaviour on the part of Catholics against Christians of other churches,” the Pope said at a prayer service concluding the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. “We ask most of all for forgiveness for the sin of our divisions, which are an open wound on the body of Christ. “At the same time, I ask all my Catholic brothers and sisters to forgive if, today or in the past, they were hurt by other Christians,” he said. “We cannot erase what happened, but we do not want to allow the burden of past faults to continue to poison our relationships.” As is customary, Pope Francis led the service at the Basilica of St Paul Outside the Walls, which tradition holds is the burial site of the Apostle. Orthodox Metropolitan Gennadios, representing the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, and Anglican Archbishop David Moxon, representing the Archbishop of Canterbury, joined the Pope in prayer at St Paul’s tomb at the start of the service. St Paul and countless martyrs throughout the centuries gave their lives for their faith and now enjoy “full communion in the presence of God the Father”, the Pope said. He prayed that the martyrs would sustain today’s Christians with their prayers and example. The Pope told the ecumenical gathering that the path to Christian unity was about drawing closer to Christ and finding each other there.