Month: October 2010

Source: Orthodox Christian Laity

The work of the Episcopal Assembly is off to a slow start. The coordinators are not coordinating. Could it be that the Patriarch asked all to go to Istanbul so he too could understand where are the committees and how are they progressing. After all the Old World Patriarchs directed the bishops to meet and demonstrate that they can work together, what have they accomplished these past four months? Only 50 percent of the bishops have signed up to be members of the 12 committees. How many clergy and laity have been invited to serve? How will they be invited? Will all of the invitations be managed? Maybe the Patriarch has the same questions that I have.

My experience is that most bishops see themselves as islands unto themselves. Most bishops guard their turf. They seem to have a passive – aggressive ethos. Each bishop will need to give up something to make this consensus-building process work. The whole world is watching to see if this will happen. They need to share their staffs and manpower. Will they? They need to work together to assemble a staff and committee that will oversee the work of the committees. Someone needs to make sure the committees meet deadlines and do their work. I do not see this happening. Do the bishops know how to go about doing this – considering their mindsets?
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I’m not sure if the Pope is speaking of the Byzantine Rite Catholics or the Orthodox Churches here, but the admission of a distinctive tradition is good.

Source: Catholic Culture

The Eastern Catholic churches should protect and maintain their own distinctive traditions, Pope Benedict XVI said on October 9 during an audience with participants in a conference on the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches.

“In maintaining Catholic communion the Eastern Catholic Churches had no intention of renouncing faithfulness to their own tradition,” the Pope remarked. He said that the canon laws of the Eastern churches should contribute to the effort of “preserving their legal heritage and nourishing their traditions, which are a treasure for the whole Church.”

Pope Benedict also observed that the canon law of the Eastern Catholic churches traces its origin back to the sacri canones of early Christianity. Because the Orthodox churches draw their own canon law from the same source, he said, the canonical traditions of the Eastern Catholic churches “can make a specific and important contribution to the progress of ecumenism.”

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