‘Will the Holy Father refute the statements of the Final Joint Communique of the Ecumenical Conference that he called to discuss the plight of Christians in the Middle East?’
His policies have refuted it in advance. If the Pope was to spend his time correcting misstatements made by one or another of the one and a half billion Catholics, even those who were his guests, he would have no time to run the Church.
Approved at the end of the synod assemblies, the text (presented here in full) is rich in ideas: the sad political situation in the Middle East, and the fatigue of Churches, emigration and the Diaspora, the desire to build a society with Jews and Muslims based on full equality of citizens, condemnation of anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and anti-Christianity, the appeal to the UN and the international community to ensure peace in the conflict between Israel and Palestine, in Lebanon, in Iraq.It is interesting that the statements of the Monsignor Archbishop Bustros of the Greek Melkite faith were not in the approved document from the Vatican, although the statements regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are there.
It sounds as if this final joint communique referred to in the original article may have been from a few secularist minded prelates that attempted to spin the outcome of the conference.
This is a different take on the story and also describes the participants.
Middle East Christians are told to embrace secularist drive
Catholic bishops in the Middle East have called for Christians in the region to be advocates of separating faith and politics