Pope Francis has praised John Wesley for leading people to “knowledge of Jesus Christ”. The founder of Methodism brought many people to Christ through prayer and Bible reading, Pope Francis said. Speaking to leaders of the World Methodist Council last week, Pope Francis praised 50 years of dialogue between the Catholic and Methodist churches. In the Old Testament, a golden jubilee was a moment to free slaves, the Pope said. He added: “we too have been freed from the slavery of estrangement and mutual suspicion”. “We are no longer strangers,” he said, but rather, through our shared baptism, “members of the household of God”. Speaking about John Wesley, the 18th-century Anglican clergyman who founded the Methodist movement, Pope Francis said his example converted many people to God. We cannot fail to rejoice when the Holy Spirit works through other Christian denominations, the Pope said, as they “also help us grow closer to the Lord”. Pope Francis said that faith becomes tangible when it takes the concrete form of love and service to the poor and marginalised. When Methodists and Catholics work together to assist those who are alienated or in need, they are responding to the Lord’s summons, he said. He hoped that the dialogue encouraged Christians everywhere to be­come “ministers of reconciliation”, adding that we cannot grow in holiness without “growing in communion”. He asked his listeners to “prepare ourselves with humble hope and concrete efforts for that full recognition which will enable us to join one another in the breaking of bread together.”