Cardinal Husar speaks on eve of Permanent Synod's meeting in Canada

by Christopher Guly
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

OTTAWA - While the Ukrainian Catholic Church is "on the right road" toward being granted a Patriarchate, achieving Catholic-Orthodox unity will require a "more imaginative" approach, according to the leader of the estimated 6 million Ukrainian Catholics around the world.

In an exclusive, 45-minute telephone interview with The Weekly on the eve of a historic May 22 to 29 meeting of the Ukrainian Catholic Church's Permanent Synod in Winnipeg, Cardinal Lubomyr Husar said that though he didn't know when the Holy See would formally give him the title "patriarch," he said the Church is "going in that direction."

The "difficulty," he explained, comes from two groups opposed to a Ukrainian Catholic Patriarchate.

"Within the Church, there are fears that such a Patriarchate could separate us from the [Catholic] Church. And then there are also ecumenical considerations. There is much opposition on the part of some Orthodox neighbors," said 72-year-old Cardinal Husar, who is officially known as the major archbishop of Lviv for Ukrainians.

Last year, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the archbishop of Constantinople and the world's most senior Orthodox patriarch, warned that the establishment of a Kyiv-based Ukrainian Catholic Patriarchate would risk a break in ecumenical relations between the Orthodox communion and the Vatican.

But Cardinal Husar said the creation of a Patriarchate would not give the Ukrainian Catholic Church "something extraordinary" based on "merit" or in recognition of the years of suffering the Church endured after being forced underground by the Soviets.

"It is a natural form of existence," explained the white-bearded, five-foot-10, Lviv-born major archbishop.

However, Cardinal Husar who is often referred to as "patriarch," also rejected the idea of a Patriarchate as an all-or-nothing proposition.

"There are those who say, 'If we have it, we'll survive; if we don't have it, we will not survive.' It is not that way. The Church has survived and it simply wants a [Patriarchate] within the bounds of its tradition - [and] within the concept of [Catholic] communion."

Embracing that notion of communion could also lead to Catholic-Orthodox unity, said the cardinal, who has been head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church since January 2001. "In Ukrainian, it's what we call 'soprechashtia' - a basic concept that allows for unity in multiplicity. Communion establishes unity but allows people to be themselves, to observe their own traditions," said Cardinal Husar, a Ukrainian Studite monk who in 1977 was secretly ordained a bishop in Rome by the late Cardinal Josyf Slipyj (who used the title of patriarch).

"If you look at it theologically, we all are Orthodox and Catholic at the same time - it's simply where you put the accent," he added.

While "there is a general desire on the part of the people" of Ukraine for Catholic-Orthodox unity, achieving it has been bogged down in "politics" and the repetition of past "stereotypes without an effort to see things anew," Cardinal Husar explained.

"The general attitude has been that everything will be all right if everybody comes to us. That's a very one-sided ecumenism that has been exercised - or at least has been seen to be - by a great many people within and without the Catholic Church," he continued. "Maybe what we need is a more imaginative approach and not be afraid to take some actions together."

This week's meeting of the Ukrainian Catholic Church's Permanent Synod which the cardinal convened in Winnipeg, was the first time his "advisory group" of bishops had assembled in Canada.

It was also only the second time that the Church's senior executive - which includes Cardinal Husar, U.S. Metropolitan Stefan Soroka, the archbishop of Philadelphia, as well as Bishops Michael Hrynchyshyn of France, Yulian Voronovsky of the Ukrainian Eparchy of Drohobych-Sambir and Volodymyr Juszczak of the Polish Eparchy of Wroclaw-Gdansk in Poland - has met outside Ukraine.

Last year, one of the permanent synod's meetings was held in Przemysl, Poland.

Speaking in fluent English from the residence of Canadian Ukrainian Catholic Metropolitan Archbishop Michael Bzdel of Winnipeg - a city he last visited two years ago - Cardinal Husar said that though the annual meeting of the general Synod of Bishops will continue to be held in Ukraine, the permanent Synod will hold one of the three meetings it has every year "in one of the countries or regions where our Church is already established."

He added that the five-member Permanent Synod plans to hold one of its meetings in the United States in 2007.

Opening the weeklong event was a May 22 patriarchal divine liturgy at Ss. Vladimir and Olga Cathedral concelebrated by Cardinal Husar, along with Archbishop Luigi Ventura, the apostolic nuncio (the Holy See's ambassador) to Canada, the Ukrainian Catholic and Roman Catholic archbishops of Winnipeg Metropolitan Bzdel and James Weisgerber; and several Catholic archbishops and bishops of the Ukrainian and Latin rites.

On the agenda at last week's meeting in Winnipeg was some administrative work: a 1995 manual on how to conduct meetings of the Synod of Bishops needed updating, according to the Ukrainian Catholic primate.

But one of the major reasons for taking the Permanent Synod on the road is to get first-hand reports on the situation of the Church in various parts of the world - in this case, Canada, and hear from the country's six (three are retired) active Ukrainian Catholic bishops.

Some of the issues and concerns raised could be of relevance for the entire Church and, in turn, be discussed when the general synod next meets in Ukraine later this year, explained the major archbishop, who was elevated to the rank of cardinal by Pope John Paul II in January 2001.

Cardinal Husar also met with about 200 Ukrainian Catholic priests from across Canada (about two-thirds of the country's total), along with female and male members of religious communities and monasteries, deacons, seminarians and the wives of married clergy in a three-day workshop dubbed "Encounter 2005," which ran from May 24 to 26.

The last time the Ukrainian Catholic Church in Canada held a similar meeting was in 1962, when the late Metropolitan Archbishop Maxim Hermaniuk of Winnipeg convened a sobor in the city with bishops, clergy and the laity from across the country.

Though Cardinal Husar said he came to Winnipeg to "listen" to what his Ukrainian Catholic flock in Canada had to tell him, he did have one issue he wanted to address: vocations.

Over the next few months, seven Ukrainian Catholic men are to be ordained to the priesthood across the country. "Numerically, that is absolutely insufficient," said the cardinal.

By comparison, there are nearly 750 men studying to become priests in Ukraine. (The Rev. Ken Nowakowski, press officer for the Ukrainian Catholic Church in Canada and rector of Holy Spirit Ukrainian Catholic Seminary in Ottawa, points out that Ukraine has a greater population base with about 4.5 million Ukrainian Catholics compared to under 150,000 in Canada.)

And regardless of how many seminarians - and where - the Ukrainian Catholic Church is attracting, "we shouldn't be complacent," said the cardinal.

"There is a tendency still to consider priesthood as a profession and not as a vocation, and this causes some problems," said Cardinal Husar, who was appointed head of the Exarchate of Kyiv-Vyshhorod in 1996, the same year he was appointed auxiliary to the late Cardinal Myroslav Lubachivsky.

"We have to exercise a lot of wisdom and [distinguish between] who is coming for a profession or who really wants to serve God and the people," Cardinal Husar noted.

Still, Cardinal Husar said he feels that Ukraine could help Canada with its shortage of priests. (2003 statistics for the Archeparchy of Winnipeg, for instance, indicate that only 21 parishes throughout Manitoba had a resident pastor; 108 churches did not, though many of them only consist of a handful of parishioners.)

Perhaps Ukrainian Catholic priests from Ukraine could bring their ministry to Canada, said the cardinal.

"This is certainly one of the solutions, since we have an abundance. And, maybe this is also a way for Ukraine to show its gratitude for the help given to [it] by our churches - our communities - here [in Canada]. When the Church in Ukraine had to be silent, they spoke for us. They were the voice of the voiceless," he pointed out.

He said priests from Ukraine are already serving in Ukrainian Catholic eparchies in Canada and the U.S., but added that those who wish to follow "must be ready to adjust" and be prepared to "learn the ways and traditions" of North America.

"It is not simply a question of language - it is a question of enculturation," explained Cardinal Husar, who himself spent several years in the U.S. as a seminarian and a priest, earning a master's degree in philosophy from Fordham University in New York and later serving as a pastor in Kerhonkson, N.Y., and as prefect of St. Basil's Seminary in Stamford, Conn.

Having a married clergy could also help inspire more vocations in North America, but the primate wouldn't speculate about whether women could one day be ordained priests in the Ukrainian Catholic Church.

The cardinal said that while the issue has become a "very hot potato" in Western Europe and "very much a problem" there and in North America, the Ukrainian Catholic Church has not been caught up in the "uproar" and "disquietude" surrounding the debate over extending holy orders to women.

"Since we do not have this problem, I never gave it much thought or had much interest in it," Cardinal Husar candidly admitted.

"I do know that the late holy father [John Paul II] excluded the possibility. My deficiency is the knowledge of the exact reasons why he took such a stand. There must certainly be a very good reason. I would simply have to study it," he added. However, he noted that he "cannot imagine at this time" that the Ukrainian Catholic Church would include female priests.

Indeed, 10 years ago, Pope John Paul II issued an apostolic letter, "Ordinatio Sacerdotalis," in which he declared that the Church had no power to ordain women, since Jesus had only male Apostles, and that "this judgment is to be held by all the Catholic faithful."

His right-hand man at the time and the Catholic Church's theological watchdog, German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, said that Pope John Paul's position was "infallible." Now, as Pope Benedict XVI, he is unlikely to change that seemingly doctrinal position.

The new pope is also "quite well-informed" about "some aspects" of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, explained Cardinal Husar, who participated in last month's conclave that chose Cardinal Ratzinger to be the 265th pontiff. "I myself gave him trouble," said Cardinal Husar, laughing.

"It's only been 15 years that [the Ukrainian Catholic Church] is legal [in Ukraine], so there are different problems, new situations that face our Church today that we had to submit [to the Holy See] to receive opinions," Cardinal Husar said.

However, he observed that whenever he met with Cardinal Ratzinger, in his role as the Roman Curia's prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, the future pope was "always very open to listen and to react."

But Pope Benedict should not be expected to be as familiar with the Ukrainian Catholic Church as was his predecessor, the cardinal explained. As a Pole, Karol Wojtyla (Pope John Paul II) was a "neighbor, [who] lived under a Soviet Communist regime and had a very good understanding of the situation in Eastern Europe. "The present pope, coming from a different milieu, cannot be expected to have such a close understanding."

When asked whether 78-year-old Benedict XVI could become the second consecutive pope to visit Ukraine after John Paul II's historic 2001 visit, Cardinal Husar replied: "If he lives long enough, I hope."

On participating in his first papal election, Cardinal Husar said the conclave was "very interesting and very well organized" where one could "feel the coexistence of age-old traditions with modern necessities." He also said that going into the sequestered meeting, he didn't expect Cardinal Ratzinger to emerge as pope.

Apparently, neither did John L. Allen Jr., the Rome correspondent for the Kansas City, Mo.-based National Catholic Reporter, who included Cardinal Husar - but not Cardinal Ratzinger - on his list of "papabile," or top candidates for the papacy.

Cardinal Husar "is a moderate, easily the most articulate and theologically engaged of the Eastern Catholic prelates," Mr. Allen wrote before the conclave commenced.

He also wrote: "He is amiable and humble, and speaks English and Italian with ease. He holds a U.S. passport, though most electors might exempt him from the taboo against a 'superpower pope' since he is actually Ukrainian.

"It would be difficult for many electors to choose another Eastern European after Wojtyla. Yet there is much in Husar's background they might find attractive: As an Eastern patriarch he feels in his bones the argument for the independence of local Churches; he is pastorally gifted and politically sophisticated; and he is a warm, smiling, slightly chubby prelate who could remind the world of John XXIII.

"Husar performed brilliantly during John Paul's June 23-27, 2001, trip to Ukraine, and that opportunity to introduce himself to the world's media did not hurt."

Cardinal Husar's reaction to the glowing endorsement: "I didn't take it very seriously."

He does, however, take the Ukrainian Catholic Church's mission and role in Ukraine very seriously. "The Church enjoys the confidence of the people more than any other organization," explained the major archbishop. "But on the other hand, the Church has to be very careful not to get involved in worldly matters, such as politics. It must try to preserve its spiritual character."

He said he was compelled to issue a pastoral letter and sign a joint statement with other Christian Church leaders during last year's Orange Revolution out of a sense of "duty to help people in critical moments."

But while the cardinal expressed hope Ukraine's presidential election would be free and fair, he did not endorse any candidate - and added that he and his fellow hierarchs "make sure that we try not to do it, even indirectly" in any election.

And while Viktor Yushchenko has reached out to the Church by paying a visit to St. George's Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral in Lviv, Cardinal Husar said his rapport with Ukraine's president is "no more, no less" than with Mr. Yushchenko's predecessor, Leonid Kuchma.

The Ukrainian Catholic primate said that when "individual communities" within the Church have tried to establish authority through "connections and influence in the political arena," the effects have been "destructive." According to Cardinal Husar, "It's always been ultimately negative - and always, they lost their credibility."

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, May 29, 2005, No. 22, Vol. LXXIII

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