Patriarch Kyrill - AOI Observer

His Holiness Patriarch Kirill: Surrender of the principle of consensus in the pre-Council process can bring about disorders in world Orthodoxy

December 23, 2011 3:12 PM

Reading between the lines it seems two questions are in play: 1) How to treat the autocephalous Churches and 2) whether consensus or majority vote will be used to determine how decisions are made. My question is if consensus is chosen, how will it be determined when consensus is reached? Source: Russian Orthodox Church Department of External Church Relations A process of preparation for the Pan-Orthodox Council launched fifty years ago has become brisker, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia noted in his report delivered at the meeting of the Moscow Diocesan Assembly. All Local Orthodox Churches, which take part in the preparation, have got agreement on the ten topics of the Council out of ten. According to His Holiness, the advance is unthinkable without preliminary agreement that ought to be reached at the Pan-Orthodox pre-Council meetings; the principle of taking decisions unanimously or by consensus is fixed in the rules. Last February, however, … [Read more...]

Fr. Gerald Murray: Homily at the Funeral of Bernard N. Nathanson, M.D.

March 5, 2011 5:10 PM

I first heard Dr. Bernard Nathanson speak over 25 years ago. I was very young and had just read his book "Aborting America." There were probably not more than twenty people crowded into a room to hear this man who was one of the three founding members of the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) describe the massive public relations campaign they undertook, successfully as it turned out, to overturn the cultural attitudes against abortion. All the shibboleths of the pro-choice cause, from the count of women who died from illegal abortions (the number was pulled out of thin air, Nathanson wrote), to the argument that the opposition to abortion is a "religious" issue came out of their early meetings. Nathason wrote that he had performed over 75,000 abortions when doubts began to surface about whether or not the fetus (Latin: little one) was indeed an inert clump of cells. Neo-natal medicine was advancing at the time and Nathanson, when taking a hard look at life in the womb, … [Read more...]