Ukrainian Orthodox and Byzantine Catholics

... are together building a new church! Sounds like a great venture.

Moscow and Rome: on a joint mission to Europe?

Moscow and Rome, East and West -- joining hands to save Christendom in Europe?

May it be so!

Clarifying how the Church established by Christ subsists in the Catholic Church

The Holy See clarifies why it uses the word "subsists" rather than "is" when Lumen Genium declared:

"This Church constituted and organized in the world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him,(13*) although many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside of its visible structure. These elements, as gifts belonging to the Church of Christ, are forces impelling toward catholic unity."

Why is this being clarified today? Papa Benedict has been steadily and firmly working towards visible Christian unity. The recent motu proprio which clarifies the perpetual validity of the Tridentine Rite also points out the unacceptability of broad and liberal experimentation with the liturgy. This reaches out to those who reject the Novus Ordo because of grave liturgical abuses of the past generation or so. This clarification on Lumen Gentium is also relevant to the same people, some of whom protested at the word "subsists", so strong was/is their need to reject false ecumenism that was grounded on politeness and relativism. This also reaches out to the Orthodox Churches, our sisters in the East. But how do Protestants react in the way they are addressed? I guess we'll have to wait and see if they react at all. In any case, I think the clarification is about being precise, which is a necessary ingredient in true dialogue anyway.

Updates: A very good follow-up at the blog of Fr. Philip N. Powell. The Pertinacious Papist identifies a very good Evangelical response. And Lito at extra nos says "I told you so".

In Communion with Peter

This is amazing. As palliums are conferred to archbishops, Orthodox delegates are present. What a sign of hope!

[Source of link: The Catholic Report.]

What fascinating support for papal supremacy

From the saints of the East, at that. Some of them having been Popes themselves. Amazing!

[Source: Catholic and Enjoying It!]

Would YOU officially affiliate your church with an excommunicated leader of his church?

Jan. 31, 2007 (CWNews.com) - The primate of the Greek Orthodox Church has criticized the Patriarchate of Constantinople for accepting the affiliation of Orthodox bodies which, in effect, compete with established Orthodox churches in other countries. Archbishop Christodoulos of Athens made his comments in response to the decision by the Constantinople patriarchate to welcome Bishop Basil Osborn, who had been the head of the Russian Orthodox Church in Great Britain. By accepting the affiliation of Bishop Basil-- who has been excommunicated by the Moscow patriarchate-- the Ecumenical Patriarchate is creating a “dangerous divisive situation,” the Greek archbishop said.

I am sympathetic to both camps. I understand the need for fraternity among Christians, even extended to those excommunicated, but on the other hand, what's the point of excommunication if it only results in a splinter church whose leader has not reconciled with the Church? Would he not lead his flock to ruin? At the same time, there is this practical problem that Christians outside the Catholic Church truly must deal with: in the absence of a single arbiter, how is excommunication of any use? Excommunication is not a consignment to hell, as people often mistake it to be, but a means of effecting repentance and reconciliation -- exactly as the Lord taught to those who go astray (Matthew 18). But excommunication is worth nothing without the concept of a bottom-level foundation for the authority to excommunicate. This authority was given, of course, to the Apostles, and the Orthodox patriarchs are certainly exercising their authority in the cited report. But what if it is a clash between patriarch and patriarch? Bishop and bishop? If an excommunicated bishop or patriarch were to up and take along with him his own flock, then who is the highest administrative arbiter?

Well, of course I was going to say the Successor of St. Peter, who was given the particular role of holding the keys of the kingdom in Matthew 16, for binding and loosing on earth as in Heaven! If not the Pope, then who else? If not anyone, then what's the point in the Lord even mentioning excommunication?