“Francis wants to achieve unity also by reforming the papacy”

“The Pope plans to reform the papacy and this will benefit relations with the Orthodox,” says the Prior of the monastic community of Bose, Enzo Bianchi. Yesterday Pope Francis appointed Bianchi as one of the new consultors of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, the Vatican dicastery led by Cardinal Kurt Koch who is in charge of ecumenical matters. The newly appointed cleric welcomed his nomination with surprise (“I didn’t expect it, he hadn’t told me anything”), predicting a synodal evolution of the Catholic Church; he urged Christians around the world not to leave their brothers and sisters in the Middle East, particularly in Iraq and Syria, alone and emphasized the fact that the various Christian denominations that exist in Ukraine have managed to avoid a “political immersion”.

“I didn’t expect this nomination, it caught me by surprise,” Enzo Bianchi says. “The Pope received me in audience last 2 July. It was the third time I saw him since the start of the pontificate and I was delighted; we spoke about Church unity and about what needs to be done to promote this unity. But he didn’t speak to me about this nomination.”

Speaking about ecumenism, the Prior of Bose said: “I think the Pope has one main concern: unity is not created with the spirituality of unity, it is a command we must follow as it is Christ’s command. It is a commitment, which he sees as a priority. He sees unity with the Orthodox Church as an urgent goal. I think the Pope wants to achieve unity also through the reform of the papacy. A papacy which his no longer feared, said Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew with whom Francis shares a friendship.” A reform of the papacy means “a new balance between synodality and supremacy. The Orthodox Church exercise synodality not supremacy, we Catholics have papal supremacy but we lack synodality. There can be no synodality without supremacy and there can be no supremacy without synodality. This would help create a new style of papal primacy and episcopal government.” A change like this would be practical: the Synod of Bishops has been around since the Second Vatican Council” and the 9-member Council of Cardinals that advise the Pope on Curia reform was the Pope’s idea. In the future, however, there is the possibility of creating “an episcopal organization that assists the Pope in leading the Church without calling papal primacy into question.”

Enzo Bianchi, who has dedicated his life to ecumenism, drew attention to “the delicate situation” in Ukraine, where Christian communities are fragmented: “It must be said, however, that all Churches, the various Orthodox Churches, Latin Catholics and Greek Catholics have been intelligent enough not to immerse themselves in politics; this demonstrates a better ecclesial awareness than expected.” In terms of the dramatic situation faced by Christians in the Middle East, Enzo Bianchi said “they need to feel the fraternity and solidarity of fellow Christians.” The Prior of Bose reiterated the importance of an ecumenism of the blood, which Pope Francis had stressed: “I am thinking of the Christians in Iraq and Syria: never before have there been as many martyrs as today and they are Christians of all denominations. The blood of all Christians is united beyond theological and dogmatic decisions.”

Nehru Jackets all around :

Seems to me you don't have to dig all that deeply to figure out that getting back to the fundamentals is the way to go. New lingo, less of this, more of that, it's all just shining the brass on the bridge.

How about getting back on the original heading?

Start with 1900. What justified the whole 20th being internal turmoil?

What does "reform" of the Papacy mean?

The "reform" of everything to be more Protestant with cheap Grace has been a crippling blow, and now the Papacy?

Seriously, I'm asking.

O Mary, Mother of Mercy and Refuge of sinners, we beseech thee, be pleased to look with pitiful eyes upon poor heretics and schismatics. Thou who art the Seat of Wisdom, enlighten the minds that are miserably enfolded in the darkness of ignorance and sin, that they may clearly know that the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Roman Church is the one true Church of Jesus Christ, outside of which neither holiness nor salvation can be found. Finish the work of their conversion by obtaining for them the grace to accept all the truths of our Holy Faith, and to submit themselves to the Supreme Roman Pontiff, the Vicar of Jesus Christ on earth; that so, being united with us in the sweet chains of Divine charity, there may soon be one only fold under the same one Shepherd; and may we all, O Glorious Virgin, sing forever with exultation: Rejoice, O Virgin Mary, thou only hast destroyed all heresies in the whole world. Amen. (Pope Pius IX)

NYer gives a good summary of most of the most salient differences, though we Orthodox would regard his first and third points as part of the same issue — both represent a difference in ecclesiology.

There is, however, another one, which matters very much to our monastics, who will be the toughest crowd to convince should reunion become immanent: we Orthodox are dubious that you Latins hold a correct understanding of grace. Yes, I know, your latest Catechism shaded toward the Palamite view more than prior documents, but the Thomist notion of “created grace” has hardly been repudiated in favor of the Palamite view of the grace as the Uncreated Divine Energies, and the discussion of grace in the Acta of Trent sounds too much like the Thomist/Barlamite view to Orthodox hearers. (And if the promulgation of a new Catechism somehow overrules the acta of a council you profess to be Ecumenical, as some Latin posters here at FR tried to argue with regard to this point back when East-West religious discussions were much less cordial, prior to the election of Benedict XVI, I think another sticking point would arise on the ecclesiology front.)

From our point of view, you Latins’ more rigorist approach to marriage (the forbidding of the ordination of married men to major orders in the Latin Rite, and the lack of ecclesiastical divorce) is not likely to be a sticking point, unless you would propose to change our canon law on these points to fit yours, particularly when the pastoral use of annulments has become functionally indistinguishable from our ecclesiastical divorce — a point I realize offends your hard-liners and idealists, but a fact nonetheless. (Incidentally, we too have annulments, but they are exceedingly rare.)

we Orthodox are dubious that you Latins hold a correct understanding of grace.

Grace? You immediately lost me when you matched Thomist vs Palamite. It would be helpful if you could spell out each one, with clear examples.

The greater problem would definitely be the Orthodox view that one can divorce up to 3 times.

There is yet another issue, not raised, but definitely a sticking point from the Catholic position (and I would appreciate it if you would refrain from using the term Latin, generically). That would be CONTRACEPTION. From what I have read, the Orthodox position has evolved over the past decade and now resides with the couple's spiritual director, i.e. pastor. This is not to suggest that catholics do not use artificial contraceptives but not in cooperation with official church teaching. Perhaps there are even certain priests who give a wink and not approval while carefully selecting their words. The bottom line is that the Catholic Church steadfastly maintains a ban on the use of all artificial contraceptives.

Your comments are, as always, appreciated.

Actually, on the matter of remarriage (the real issue in a divorce) there is a matching problem going the other way: you Latins will permit any number of marriages after widowing, while our limit of three marriages (with increasingly penitential rites for the second and third) applies even when the prior marriage ended in the death of a spouse. I suspect if the doctrinal and ecclesiological matters could be ironed out, allowing different canon law to persist in different rites of a reunited church could smooth out both problems.

On the matter of grace, the Orthodox understanding is that grace is the eternal and uncreated energy or activity of God in which we are able to participate (again after the fall) by virtue of the Incarnation, Passion, Death, Resurrection and Ascension of Our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ and the descent of the Holy Spirit. The clearest formulation of this understanding occurs in the writings of St. Gregory Palamas, and in the decisions of the Fifth Council of Constantinople which vindicated his views against Barlaam of Calabria, who subsequently died in the communion of your church after being consecrated as Bishop of Gerace.

Aquinas, in contrast, wrote of “created grace”, even considering sanctifying grace within this category, holding that without created grace somehow the effect of grace would not be real (an argument I do not follow, perhaps because I am insufficiently familiar with the niceties of Aristotelian thought). To the Orthodox is absurd: the only holiness is God’s holiness, so sanctification, and thus sanctifying grace, must be a participation in God.

The critique of the doctrine of purgatory offered by St. Mark of Ephesus in his “Against the Latin Chapters Concerning Purgatorial Fire” also turns on this, and purgatory is seen by the Orthodox as part and parcel of the erroneous doctrine of created grace. (Though if you want, you can separate it out as another, separate, sticking point.)

You are also right that contraception might be a sticking point — the Orthodox position does take into account the fact that the ancient understanding of conception on which patristic commentary which equated contraception with abortion rested is inaccurate — so that our bishops see little difference in whether the technology used to avoid conception involves a barrier, spermicide and/or hormones (providing it is not abortifacient) or only the minute monitoring of a woman’s fertility and periodic abstinence. Certainly NFP has the virtue of calling couples to a mild asceticism if they wish to avoid children for a time and the poetic virtue of greater intimacy. The argument of the couple being open to God is addressed in our usage by reference to the spiritual father’s blessing — not necessarily their pastor, some Orthodox Christians have a monastic priest, or even a simple monk know for spiritual discernment as their spiritual father — and that of openness to child bearing by the fact that, absent serious medical reasons, a blessing is not given for a couple to remain childless indefinitely.

As to my preference for the usage of the Fathers at the time of the Western schism (or of all Arabic speakers, regardless of religions) of using Latin as the name for those of your confession, remember that as an Orthodox Christian, I do not credit your communion’s claim to be the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church since I believe that Church subsists in the Orthodox Church, organized as it has been from the beginning as local churches, each fully Catholic in the original sense, not as universal, but “according to the whole”, each completely the Church even as each offering of the Eucharist is completely the Body and Blood of Christ. “Latins and Uniates” is infelicitous, “papists” is usually thought offensive, so I’ll stick with St. Mark of Ephesus and the folks in my patriarchate’s Old Country. (Honestly, I thought we’d gotten over my insistence on this usage a while back when someone posted an explanation written by a Jesuit of a homily Patriarch +Bartholomew gave on a visit to Rome, in which the Jesuit in explanations written as if in +Bartholomew’s voice repeatedly wrote “You Latins...” You’re the first to complain since then.)

This is what I've always been taught: "In Orthodoxy, communicants in the sacramental mysteries are not only obliged to be steadfast in the Christian faith and perpetually repentant over their failures, they are also obliged to take full responsibility for the Church’s teachings and practices, and to be ready, at least in intention, to defend them unto death. For this reason, those who publicly affirm and promote homosexual behavior (sodomy), like those who publicly advocate abortion, cannot be sacramental communicants in the Orthodox Church." - Fr Thomas Hopko (Christian Faith and Same-Sex Attraction, 108)

I think what happens too often is that someone will look at the Orthodox Church and judge it by those statements which are outside of our received faith.

It would be the same if someone tried to use the statements of pro-abortion Roman Catholic politicians to "prove" something about the teachings of the Roman Catholic faith.

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Francis has nominated the Prior of Bose, Enzo Bianchi, as the consultor of the ecumenical dicastery. He speaks of “synodality and supremacy”, the martyrs of the Middle East and the intelligence of the various denominations in Ukraine