Pope's ecumenist urges revival of Catholic-Orthodox talks (06/28/98)

Pope's ecumenist urges revival of Catholic-Orthodox talks

by Jerry Filteau
Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON - According to Catholic News Service, Cardinal Edward I. Cassidy, head of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity has called for the return of the international Catholic-Orthodox theological dialogue to the program that was suspended in 1990.

About 120 Roman Catholic, Eastern Catholic and Orthodox bishops, priests, theologians and others attended the June 9-12 conference at The Catholic University of America to explore Catholic-Orthodox relations, especially in light of Pope John Paul II's 1995 encyclical on Christian unity, "Ut Unum Sint."

The four-day conference was co-sponsored by the Society of St. John Chrysostom, Eastern Churches Journal and Catholic University's School of Religious Studies. Titled "Orientale Lumen II," it was a follow-up to a similar conference at the university last year, which focused on "Orientale Lumen" (The Light of the East), Pope John Paul's 1995 apostolic letter praising the riches of the Churches of the East and urging a restoration of East-West Church unity.

One of the elements of the encyclical that Cardinal Cassidy highlighted was the pope's statement that on the journey toward the "necessary and sufficient visible unity" of the one Church willed by Christ, "one must not impose any burden beyond that which is necessary."

He linked the question of necessary and sufficient unity with the reminder in the encyclical of the distinction, made at the opening of the Second Vatican Council by Pope John XXIII, "between the deposit of the faith and the formulation in which it is expressed."

"I regret to state that such a reminder is even today necessary for some Catholic theologians," said the cardinal.

He said the pope drew wide attention in other Churches with his request to theologians and leaders of other Churches to explore with him how he might exercise his primacy as bishop of Rome in ways that might better serve the unity of all the Churches.

The most negative comments in this connection have come from the Reformed communions. It is indeed difficult to find a place for the primacy of the bishop of Rome in an ecclesiology that does not have a significant role for the ministry of the ordained bishop," he said.

However, from among those in the Reformed tradition "there have been several thoughtful and hopeful statements," he added, citing the Church of England and the Lutheran World Federation. He said that the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches gave a reflective, detailed response.

Cardinal Cassidy expressed particular disappointment at the response of the Orthodox Churches, noting that Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople took the occasion to criticize the Roman Catholic Church for "theologically mistaken demands for a world primacy (of the pope) in the jurisdictional sense - or even worse, for personal infallibility over the whole Church and independently of it."

He said other Orthodox leaders, however, took a much more positive view of the encyclical.

In response to several questions from the audience about the recent Vatican order against married Ukrainian Catholic (Byzantine Rite) priests exercising ministry in Poland, the cardinal expressed disappointment at the decision and called it ecumenically harmful.

But he suggested that Latin Rite bishops in the U.S. might be the ones to take the lead in changing the situation.

He also said that the ban in some places on married clergy for Eastern Churches in union with Rome was also brought up as a concern at the recent Synod of Bishops for Asia.

"This is something, first of all, that is against their legitimate tradition," he said, "and, secondly, which has a very negative effect upon the ecumenical movement."

He said his office was not involved in the Vatican decision, which came at the request of the Latin Rite bishops in Poland.

Cardinal Cassidy added, "I think the whole question really concerns the United States, because it was here, first of all, that this procedure was requested of the Holy See."

In 1929 the Vatican reluctantly acceded to repeated requests by bishops in the U.S. to forbid the ordination of married men to the priesthood in the Eastern Rite in the United States, or the sending of married priests from the native regions of this rite to serve immigrants in the United States.

"So maybe the first thing is to ask the (Latin Rite) bishops in the United States to change their attitude and then put the Polish bishops in a difficult position," he continued.