Posted on 10/21/2004 10:43:47 PM PDT by Destro
Invitation for Pope to visit Serbia-Montenegro in the works, president says
Updated at 13:00 on October 20, 2004, EST.
BELGRADE, Serbia-Montenegro (AP) - Serbia-Montenegro's president said Wednesday he is preparing an invitation for Pope John Paul to visit the Balkan country.
President Svetozar Marovic said in a statement that he is certain both the Serbian and Montenegrin leaderships would support the Pope's visit. Marovic said a papal visit "would reaffirm the European sense of tolerance and strengthen Christian values . . . not only in Serbia-Montenegro but throughout southeastern Europe."
The pontiff has visited nearly all of the countries that border Serbia-Montenegro. Here, he had often been branded by nationalists as an enemy of Christian Orthodox Serbs.
Relations between the Vatican and Serbia-Montenegro, the former Yugoslavia, have improved since the ouster of former president Slobodan Milosevic in 2000.
Serbs waged several wars during the 1990s, including hostilities against predominantly Roman Catholic Croatia after it broke away from Yugoslavia.
The Canadian Press, 2004
His regime recently introduced Montengro's new-old anthem (Oy svietla maiska zoro -- O Bright May's Dawn), an old Montenegrin Serb patriotic song, with altered words so as to not make any mention of the Montengrin Serb national and cultural makeup, but rather the words written by a Montenegrin WWII Quisling who lived in Ustasha Croatia's capital during the war and was a fascist sympathizer and collaborator! Serbian Patriarch Pavle, in an unusually candid letter, publicly called to this fact.
It is also a fact that Montenergo's pathetic nationalists seek support from an anti-Serb coalition cocktail of Bosnian Muslims, Albanian Muslims and Catholic Croats who live there, and only through them manage to get a bare-minimum majority in the parliament.
It is also a fact that Djukanovich's Montenegro has been persecuting Serbian Orthodox Church in Montenegro, and that under his regime emerged an old-new caricature under the name Montenegrin Orthodox "Church," which -- like the so-called Macedonian Orthodox "Church," -- is not recognized by any Orthodox Church in the world (and, curiously enough, they don't recognize each other either!).
So, Marovich, being a loyal Montenrgin, who says "I guess I am Orthodox," wouldn't mind accomplishing this for the Imperial powers that he has been serving so willingly. It will denigrate Russia's Orthodox leadership's opposition to the Pope's visit, and give Marovich's collaborationist government a sugar cube of approval from the master, or even a carrot.
Most people in the West don't understand what the fuss is all about. The Pope, surely has every righ to visit any country with diplomatic relations between that country and the Holy See. The Pope is also a secular head of state of the Vatican, which is a Papal City-State. Thus, one head of state to another, extending an invitation for a visit.
But the Pope is also the first in honor among patriarchs (East and West). His visit is automatically connected with the his religious leadership instead of his statemanship. His visit is automatically seen as a concilliatory and even subservient act of sumission to another Patriarch, in territories where he was historically never the executive head, but only first in honor.
The Serbian Church would be wise to refuse to meet with the Pontiff, just as his Holiness Alexey II, Russian Patriarch, refused -- until, if and when the relations between the two halves of one church are reconciled theologically and the spiritual communion is restored.
Why wait? Because the Serbian Patriarch, just as his Russian counterpart, recognize the Pope as someone who is higher in honor then they are but they cannot fully welcome him as such because our churches are theologically (but not sacramentaly or in authoirty) divergent. In other words, both Churches are, from the beginning, one and the only Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church, whose authority is derived from Apostolic Succession, both have valid clergy and both share the seven Sacraments, in other words -- things divine.
But the Churches differ on issues that have to do with additions to the faith, stubborness, unwilligness to admit error, pride, fear of losing face, etc. in other words -- things human.
Until these issues of human nature are ironed out, the two churches will continue to teach and preach slightly different faith, while sharing valid Sacraments and priesthood. Until they teach exactly the same thing they cannot be in communion. It has nothing to do with not recognizing the Pope!. The Orthodox do recognize the Pope! The two Churches are theologically schismatic in such teachings as Mariology, and completely bipolar on issues on papal infallibility or Purgatory/Limbo.
What can I say -- Serbia isn't fertile enough for another Putin. Right now all it has are reformers ala Yeltsin and the gang.
kosta50, I won't dispute any of your statements regarding the internal politics of Serbia and Montenegro as I am sure you are far more familiar with the situation than I am.
However, there are other factors which should be known in order to have a fuller picture:
1) Patriarch Pavle and the Serbian Orthodox Church are highly regarded in Rome. While the Vatican did not like the Milosevic regime, it has no quarrel with the Serbian people. It recognises Serbia as an Orthodox country and has no "expansion plans" there.
2) Contacts between the Serbian Orthodox hierarchy and Catholic hierarchies in both Serbia and Croatia have become increasingly fraternal. The Vatican considers the Serbian Church to be an ally in fighting the increasing secularisation of Europe and does not want to see the country pushed out of the developing EU. (There are forces in the EU which want to see countries such as Serbia kept out).
3) The Vatican is very concerned about the fate of the Orthodox people and patrimony in Kosovo. While you will not see any public pronouncements on this, Rome is one of the few international bodies that continues to exert pressure in the U.N. via its diplomatic sources. Some of the thinking in Rome is that such a visit would help to focus the world's attention on this situation again.
4) Though I hear what you say about the "relative honour" of the different patriarchs, the Pope's view is much more simplistic, if somewhat naive. He is actually quite a humble man and he simply views the patriarchs of all the Eastern Churches as brothers and equals. He sees his specific vocation from God to further the unity of all the local Churches and part of his mission is to meet with other patriarchs to apologise for the failures on the part of the Latin Church to preserve that unity.
He sees repentance as being a necessary pre-requisite for any "dialogue" or discussions to bear spiritual fruit and that can only be done properly in person. This is partly because he sees these "pilgrimmages" in almost sacramental terms, and partly because he wants to give a forceful sign to Catholics that he is really serious about this.
I fully understand why many Orthodox are suspicious of and dislike these overtures - there has been enough in our history to cause suspicion - and many Catholics have problems with these "pilgrimmages" as well. However, I do believe that they are born out of JPII's sense of responsibility for the unity of Christ's Church and also his genuine love for the Eastern Churches. Whether his successor would continue in a similar vein is anybody's guess.
For a very deeply intellectual man, he sometimes has some very simplistic approaches to things - perhaps he just tries too hard?
As for the "relative" honor of the Pope -- it's not relative; it's absolute. The Council of Chalcedon decreed that "The bishop of Constantinople however shall have the prerogative of honor next after the bishop of Rome, because Constantinople is new Rome." (Canon 294)
Subsequently, Emperor Justinian reiterated the decision of Chalcedon. Therefore, the position of honor of the Pope with respect to other patriarchs is not relative. Ecumenical Councils are part of the Holy Tradition and are on the par with Scriptures. So, the Primacy of the Pope is carved in stone. This is not just a figure of speech.
As to your comments about JPII being a humble man who considers other Patriarchs his brothers and equals -- it shows the Pope's orthodoxy: he knows that the Apostles were equal in authority and that among them Peter was given a special place of honor to keep the keys of the Church and to serve as Her cornerstone, not to rule over other Patriarchs.
Speaking of humility, it should be mentioned that Patriarch Pavle (Paul), is also a humble man, now 90 years old. Although he is a Patriarch, his appointments are always a matter of some flexibility, as he takes public transportation (buses and trams) to get to his destinations.
Serbian and Catholic clergy have been visiting each other and maintaining the dialogue and brotherly relations. The same is true with Russian and Catholic clergy, but the visits of a Latin Patriarch, who is the first in honor among others, without proper reconciliation is impossible. Not being in communion means we do not teach the same faith; it's not about recognizing the Pope.
HH Pavle will be in a serious bind (he already turned down the invitation of the Pope when he visited Bosnia), not because he as an Orthodox Christian who does not respect the Pope but because he cannot receive him as his titular head in honor, which he must. This comes not from downplaying the importance of the Pope -- but rather from taking the eminence of the Pope to its fullest meaning. On the one hand he is obligated to honor him as the head of the Church, while on the other the Roman Church is not in teleological communion with the rest of the Patriarchs!
Maybe a meeting on a neutral ground would be a better idea -- in passing. I will be checking the SOC site to gage how this was received.
Instead of making impossible visits -- it would be better in my opinion for JPII to call for an Ecumenical Council that will sit until our theological differences are ironed out, or until both sides concede that just as there are many rites in the one and the same Christian church, there can be two faces of the same coin when it comes to the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. One way or another, the decision has to be that which is arrived at by both sides in good faith and with love.
Would most of the Orthodox patriarchs respond positively to such a call?
Fascinating stuff. This approach has hope of eventual reconciliation.
"Instead of making impossible visits -- it would be better in my opinion for JPII to call for an Ecumenical Council that will sit until our theological differences are ironed out, or until both sides concede that just as there are many rites in the one and the same Christian church, there can be two faces of the same coin when it comes to the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church."
I agree with you. I wonder, though, if he isn't using these visits to sound out the other patriarchs on the feasibility of a Council. Knowing how these things work, no Pope would call one unless he knew that the people he wanted to be there would come. I am sure this is why meeting with +Alexey is so important for him.
"As for the "relative" honor of the Pope -- it's not relative; it's absolute."
I was using the term "relative" in the sense of how one thing relates to another, but your expression sounds much more Catholic - mea culpa! ;)
Is that mainly because of the Roman Catholic Church's dogmatic definition of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption, or are there other reasons, like possibly Fatima?
"Instead of making impossible visits -- it would be better in my opinion for JPII to call for an Ecumenical Council that will sit until our theological differences are ironed out, or until both sides concede that just as there are many rites in the one and the same Christian church, there can be two faces of the same coin when it comes to the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. One way or another, the decision has to be that which is arrived at by both sides in good faith and with love."
This is a good idea. Especially since the last ecumenical council (from the Roman Catholic Church perspective) led to such division within the Roman Church itself, it would be a good thing to have a new Ecumenical Council, recognized as such by all of the Patriarchs of the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, at which healing divisions and restoring unity is discussed.
Some of the reconciliation would, no doubt, have the effect of effacing some of the more divisive (and to some egregious) devolutions that resulted from (though were not intended by) Vatican II.
There would be a little bit of humble pie on the Western Church's part, of course, but this does not bother JPII, and shouldn't bother anyone sitting in the Seat of Peter in the 21st Century.
Of course the gut-wrenching question is: IF the Pope agreed that everything since the Seven Councils all branches of the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church agree were Ecumenical is to be on the table to be discussed until the Holy Spirit helps us all find agreement, would all of the Orthodox Patriarchs agree to come? Clearly once the Church was truly called together, by the Pope, into a council at which Moscow and Constantinople, Alexandria and the other patriarchates (I confess to ignorance - do Antioch and Jerusalem still exist as Patriarchates, as such? Are there a lot of new ones?), it would be incumbent on everyone who truly desired to repair and reunify the Church to at least attend the Council.
But would they really do it?
The scary thing would be that if the time was not ripe, major Orthodox Patriarchs would refuse the attend the Council, and under the context that the Pope really did put it all on the table for review, and called on all to be there, that really would be schismatic in the truest sense.
Is the Russian national church, in particular, at the point that it can come and have this discussion?
All of those who have suffered under the emprise of the Muslims for 1000 years know the terrible price of Christian disunity, just as in the West, our divisions into Protestant and Catholic teaches us Catholics the terrible price of having Popes and prelates who press the concept of authority too far and indulge in excesses and abuses beyond the willingness of the truly faithful to bear.
Maybe we've learned something.
But Moscow is a different animal. They lived under the Mongols, and then the Communists, but neither had an effective and aggressive proselytizing faith to chew up the laity on the ground. In Russia, Orthodoxy is tied to nationalism and nationalism is tied to Orthodoxy, and it has been a SUCCESSFUL nationalism too. Russian Orthodoxy has not been chastened by conquest and division, the way Roman Catholicism and Greek Orthodoxy have. Moreover, the Russians have just thrown off the Communists and the Russian Orthodox Church is resurgent.
If the Pope calls, with the Patriarch of Moscow come?
And if he does not come, will the other Eastern Patriarchs come?
My fears are manifold:
- that once a serious Roman Papal call for a true Ecumenical Council that could lead to real reconciliation was made, with Rome humbly submitting even 1000 years of Catholic developments to conciliar review (and therefore potential alteration or rather, "reinterpretation"), that Moscow in particular would refuse to come, and that many Eastern Patriarchs would show solidarity with Moscow and similarly refuse. This would make the Great Schism permanent, because Rome would have expended all of its capital and goodwill among the Catholic laity to try and get everyone to the same table to talk. Even I would no longer be able to maintain the mystic belief that Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism are really the same Church after that.
The Greeks, I think, would come of their own freewill. But would they come if Moscow refused?
And would Moscow refuse?
I fear that Moscow is not ready, because I secretly fear that the Greeks and Levantine Orthodox think that the Pope is first, but that the Russians, deep down, believe that Moscow is the Third Rome, and that it has in a sense replaced the Western Rome that fell into heresy and the New Rome that fell to the Muslim.
Perhaps my intuition about Russia being different, and there being a stiffer sense of nationalism that would lead to maintaining the Schism, is incorrect.
I hope it is.
Of course, JPII is old and sick. He will not be calling this Ecumenical Council of reunification. And whoever the next Pope is will not be able to do that out of the blocks either. He will require years and years to establish his own distinctive reign, and to establish the same bona fides with the East. So there is still time yet before any such Council happens.
Actually, what am I talking about?
Precisely because a Papal call to a true Ecumenical Council of reunion, to which the East did not respond, would effectively destroy any hope of the Church ever being reunited, the Holy Spirit - God - is simply not going to let us call that Council until the time is right. And when the Council is called, Moscow will be there along with everyone else.
So I guess I've answered my own question: the fear is real, and if the Council were called now, the East might not come. Which is why the Council won't be called now. God isn't going to let us get this wrong and wreck His Church. It will come in good time.
That faith resolves the rest of it.
When the time is right, there will be that Council.
That time will not be in the distant forever either. We are not talking about millennia. Probably decades. Maybe a century. It won't happen before Moscow has been secure in its seat and religiously independent of government oppression for long enough to be able to reflect well on pan-Church issues.
The outcome of that Council will be the reconciliation of East and West in true communion.
The trick to getting Patriarch and Pope to meet will be to style such meetings patriarchal discussions in preparation for the Ecumenical Council of Reunion. Then it's not an honor trip, it's a summit between Patriarchs, with the problems of authority and communion firmly in sight, and the reason for the meeting to be to prepare the way (eventually) for an actual Conciliar resolution. That would probably be acceptable everywhere, maybe even in Russia.
Since Orthodoxy has more appeal to Protestants than Catholicism, once Orthodoxy and Catholicism are in communion, it will simply be easier for many of the traditionalist Protestant sects to negotiate with the Orthodox end of the Church than with the Italians, so to speak.
With God, all things are possible.
The key to Fatima, or Lourdes, is not theological but factual. There really is no new theology out of Fatima or Lourdes. Actually, there's not even anything new about Mary.
These occurrences are straight questions of fact: did the Virgin Mary really appear to certain people at a certain time and say certain things, or was it a hallucination or a hoax.
Certainly at Lourdes, there is the abiding reality of the spring that sprung up there, and the annual drumbeat of astonishing cures, as well as the 66 formally designated miraculous cures there. Mary wasn't telling the future at Lourdes, she showed herself.
At Fatima there are the predictions, or secrets. Mary had stuff to say.
Now, if either of those things really happened, if Mary appeared, then everyone in the world, from Presbyterian to Confucian, had better become Christians devoted to the Cult of Mary, because by the very fact that God allowed such things to happen, Mary's particular role and power in Christianity is proven by the fact she showed up.
It's sort of like the voices of Joan of Arc. They told her how to defeat the English and crown the King. One can take three approaches. She was insane. She was really possessed by evil spirits. She was talking to the angels of God. If the former two, one may ignore Joan of Arc. But if the latter, then Joan of Arc was the medieval equivalent of the Prophet Jeremiah or Isaiah or Moses: God spoke directly to her and through her, commanded everyone else in the world what to do. Maybe the Pope and the Church ultimately have the responsibility to decide if they really believe the kids at Fatima, or the Soubrious girl from Lourdes, or St. Joan, but once they decide that they DO believe that those things were real, then the authority of what came from God or Mary out of the mouths of any of them is directly from God, and has greater authority than the Pope and the Church. Indeed, IF Mary or the angels or God spoke through them, then their words are The Word of God, and have exactly the same authority as Jesus in the Gospels. God is God, after all, and if God chooses to speak here, now, what he tells us here, now, is binding on us here, now - more binding than anything else we have.
Of course, that gets us right back to the factual question: How do we know it's God? How do we know anyone was spoken too?
And the truth is, we don't know for sure. All that we, or the Pope, can do is compare what God says now to what we believe God said in the past. If it all falls on the same line, but the new revelation applies what we already knew to an immediate circumstance, we can have greater comfort that we are not being deceived, that the person is not crazy or lying.
With Lourdes especially, we very clearly have the geyser of miracles that have never stopped...but of course Lourdes is the least controversial, when compared to Joan or Fatima, because at Lourdes Mary's intervention in the world was to simply show herself and provide a healing spring in the glory of God. At Fatima, and even moreso with St. Joan, Mary and God injected themselves into human history and took sides in a political argument. Obviously if one is on the short end of that argument, one is going to have a lot more doubts about the real Truth of the revelation.
The official position of the Catholic Church on these three persons/circumstances is different.
Joan of Arc is a Saint, full stop. Her voices and acts are considered to have been her miracles, and that's why she's a Saint. God had his reasons for doing that, but whatever those reasons were, that he actually DID is confirmed by her canonization. A Catholic is not free to believe that Joan of Arc was perpetrating a hoax and a fraud.
On the apparitions of Mary, however, the Church does not bind Catholics to specifically believe these things. One is free to form one's own opinion.
Mine is that the miracles of Lourdes prove that Lourdes is real. About Fatima, I just don't know. I never paid a lot of attention to it, so I don't know what happened there. Nor do I really know what it is that Mary was supposed to have said there. It's sort of out of the orbit of the "things Catholic" I think about.
Lourdes is front and center to me because it proves - in times of doubt and weak faith - both the continuous miraculous presence of God in the modern world, through the medical miracles. And it also proves - against the harsh critics of Catholic devotion to Mary - that God favors devotions to Mary, since only the power of God could do that river of healings, and the only place where the power of God manifests itself so constantly, in so many regular medical miracles that defy modern medicine, is in a shrine devoted to Mary in the most garishly Catholic way.
Nobody but God could make Lourdes work.
Lourdes works.
Lourdes is a Catholic Shrine to the devotion of Mary, and it was an apparition of Mary who founded by appearing and revealing the spring.
Ergo, all arguments that Mary was not special, and should not be adored in the Catholic fashion are defeated by the revealed power of God in the miracles of Lourdes. To me, it is Lourdes that proves that Catholic Marianology is pleasing to God, because God would not make the most miraculous place on Earth, the only place anything like it, in a place devoted to anything idolatrous. Idols have no power. Lourdes is a place of miraculous healing power. That fact proves to me that the theology of Lourdes is correct. It is Lourdes that makes me accept the Assumption of Mary and the Immaculate Conception, even though they are not in the Bible and are later developments, because the miracles of Lourdes would not be bestowed by God on a Shrine to Mary - and nowhere else like it - if God was in any way offended by any of the beliefs about Mary held by the people to whom he permitted Mary to reveal herself, or the people healed at a Shrine to her.
The fact of Lourdes is to me a complete and empirical proof of the correctness of the Roman Catholic position on Mary.
Joan of Arc is my personally chosen patron saint, not because she was French (there are plenty of French saints), but because she proved that crazy people who hear voices actually can be holy and hearing God and may not be crazy after all.
Fatima? Don't know. Don't follow it. There is no fountain of medical miracles at Fatima that forces me to accept the reality of it.
There are two other claims of divine revelation in post-Apostolic history that need to be taken seriously and addressed, because they are the foundation stones of the other two revealed religions:
The angel that spoke to Mohammed in his tent, and the angel that spoke to Joe Smith.
One cannot simply dismiss a claim of divine revelation, God speaking or angelic visitations, because there is Lourdes, and St. Joan, maybe Fatima, certainly other saints.
And one cannot just dismiss these two claims because they didn't happen within the Church. God can reveal Himself to whoever, however He pleases.
With Joe Smith and Mohammed, we're back to the content business. Is the content of whatever spirit revealed to them whatever it revealed on the same sight line as all of the other revelations in which we have confidence?
With Fatima and St. Joan, the answer was yes.
At Lourdes, the answer is that a spring came forth and people are healed by the thousands, so it has a physical reality that can't be gainsayed.
With Joe Smith, it all seems Christian...maybe it's true...but then the angel tells him that it will kill him if he doesn't accept polygamy.
Now wait a minute.
Maybe that's an angel, but maybe that angel ain't Gabriel.
With Mohammed...well...read the Koran. An angel might indeed have been talking to Mohammed in his tent. But what that angel had to say was what an angel that was an enemy of Christ would say: it openly declared that calling Christ the Son of God and God incarnate was blasphemy.
So, probably Mohammed was speaking with an Angel, but it was an Angel in the camp opposed to Jesus and his Angels, if you get my drift. I can guess at its name too.
"The key to Fatima, or Lourdes, is not theological but factual. There really is no new theology out of Fatima or Lourdes. Actually, there's not even anything new about Mary.
These occurrences are straight questions of fact: did the Virgin Mary really appear to certain people at a certain time and say certain things, or was it a hallucination or a hoax."
The fact that Panagia may have appeared at Lourdes or Fatima is certainly not the issue with the East. As I have said in the past, our old people speak with her regularly. Having communication with her, while a great thing, isn't viewed as terribly out of the ordinary in the East. The attitude seems to be, "why wouldn't she be talking to yiayia, or this nun or that monk or papou praying out in his grove?" The problem lies with those Fatimists who insist that what Panagia said to the children was the Soviet Russia be converted to Roman Catholicism.
You: "The problem lies with those Fatimists who insist that what Panagia said to the children was the Soviet Russia be converted to Roman Catholicism."
What Mary is supposed to have actually said referring to Russian Communism was that it would:
"..spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, various nations will be annihilated. In the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, and she will be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world."
Now, when I read this, I think that this is what happened. The Communists did do just that with Russia. Then they fell, and Russia has now reconverted to the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.
I suppose the controversy arises among those who don't understand that the Orthodox Church is the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, separated from full communion with Rome because of the political disputes of the past. Russian Orthodoxy is Catholicism. It's just not Roman Catholicism, and there is obviously a separation with Rome.
But it's not permanent. Reconciliation is a work in progress.
But the reconversion of Russia of which Mary spoke has already come to be.
You: "The problem lies with those Fatimists who insist that what Panagia said to the children was the Soviet Russia be converted to Roman Catholicism."
What Mary is supposed to have actually said referring to Russian Communism was that it would:
"..spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, various nations will be annihilated. In the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, and she will be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world."
Now, when I read this, I think that this is what happened. The Communists did do just that with Russia. Then they fell, and Russia has now reconverted to the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.
I suppose the controversy arises among those who don't understand that the Orthodox Church is the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, separated from full communion with Rome because of the political disputes of the past. Russian Orthodoxy is Catholicism. It's just not Roman Catholicism, and there is obviously a separation with Rome.
But it's not permanent. Reconciliation is a work in progress.
But the reconversion of Russia of which Mary spoke has already come to be.
"But the reconversion of Russia of which Mary spoke has already come to be."
The Holy Faith NEVER died in Russia. The great Russian people kept it alive despite the most horrible trials and tribulations. But now, as a society, the Church preaches Her truths openly and without fear and the churches are full and Orthodoxy has been restored to its place in Russian society.
You: "The Holy Faith NEVER died in Russia. The great Russian people kept it alive despite the most horrible trials and tribulations. But now, as a society, the Church preaches Her truths openly and without fear and the churches are full and Orthodoxy has been restored to its place in Russian society."
Yes, that's fair. But it was brutalized, truncated, and the numbers dramatically hollowed out. Generations grew up in Russia without it. There remained, of course, the persecuted faithful remnant. With Communism gone, the faith is again sweeping over Russia, and people who had no personal experience of it are awakening to it. This is indeed a reconversion. If it was Our Lady at Fatima, she wasn't wrong.
"This is indeed a reconversion. If it was Our Lady at Fatima, she wasn't wrong."
That is certainly my read of what she said and what has happened.
Everyone should realize that such a Council would be a monumental event that would shape things for centuries to come.
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