Roman Catholic Church

As We Move Towards Unity

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The Crumbling of America and the American Orthodox Church

The real institutional danger facing Orthodoxy in American arises less from malfeasance and more from reasonably well-intentioned individuals making decisions without a sense of their own limits and the frailty of the Church as a social institution.

On Holy Saturday, Peggy Noonan published an interesting and important editorial in the Wall Street Journal (The Catholic Church’s Catastrophe). She writes that often leaders of “mighty and venerable institutions” can, over time, “become blithely damaging” to the very institution they serve. This happens when we—and as a priest I need to include myself in this—allow ourselves “to think of the institution as invulnerable—to think that there is nothing [we] can do to really damage it, that the big, strong, proud establishment [we’re] part of can take any amount of abuse, that it doesn’t require from its members an attitude of protectiveness because it’s so strong, and has lasted so long.”

This has happened, she goes on to say, in “the past decade on Wall Street.” Ironically it was “those who said they loved what the street stood for, what it symbolized in American life” who “in the end tore it down, tore it to pieces” by their indifference to Wall Street’s institutional vulnerability. To be sure those who destroyed it “loved Wall Street” but their actions nevertheless “killed it.”

Moving from business to politics Noonan points out the same thing has “happen[ed] with legislators in Washington who’ve grown to old and middle age in the most powerful country in the world, and who can’t get it through their heads that the actions they’ve taken, most obviously in the area of spending, not only might deeply damage America but actually do it in.”

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Dialogue on Katyn Massacre between the Russian Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches

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This is a compelling interview, although the promise towards reconciliation it offered may be delayed, or worse, cut short, with the terrible airplane crash of Polish dignitaries near Moscow yesterday. They were flying to Russia to commemorate the Katyn Massacre (called “tragedy” below), and, if the interview below is accurate, look for some common ground to heal this grave wound of historical memory. I can’t help but think that an event of great promise has been lost. Certainly the crash is catastrophic for Poland, and the lost opportunity may be a grave loss for the rest of Europe. An Orthodox bishop was one of the fatalities.

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‘The task of the Russian Orthodox Church’s dialogue with the Catholic Church in Poland is to rise above political conjuncture’. Interview of DECR vice-chairman Hegumen Philip Riabykh with Blagovest-infor news agency.

Father Philip, on April 7 Russia and Poland will mark the sorrowful date, the 70^th anniversary of the Katyn tragedy. The Russian Orthodox Church will take part in this commemorative event. Please tells us what exactly will leaders of the two Slavic nations remember on this day?

The Katyn tragedy or the Katyn shooting are the names given to the execution of Polish officers who were captured in the course of the Red Army’s entry into the territory of Western Ukraine and Byelorussia in 1939. It is rather a conditional name because Polish captives were shot to death in other places, too, such as Kalinin (now Tver), Kharkov and other places in the former Soviet Union. The Katyn forest near Smolensk became a common grave for about four and a half thousand Polish officers. It is not the largest burial place since at Mednoye near Tver over six thousand Poles were buried.

However, these executions are firmly associated with Katyn as this place was discovered first, already during World War II.

April the 7^th, 1940, chosen as the commemoration day of the Katyn victims, is considered to be an estimated date of the executions near Smolensk, which continued till the middle of May.

Can we say that Katyn is a common grave only for Polish officers?
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Russia brings music to Constantinople on “The Three Romes” tour

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They also performed at Agia Irene (St. Irene) Church Museum. (From the Russian National Orchestra website.)

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Orthodox and Catholic churches unite with music TV-Novosti

Russian spiritual music was ringing out in Istanbul last night as part of a major international project aimed at uniting the main centers of Christian culture.

The project is the brainchild of the Russian Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches.

The performance of the Moscow Synod Choir was the second stop of its “Three Romes” tour.

It kicked of in Moscow on Thursday and will end with a concert in the Vatican in May, bringing together the leaders of the Orthodox and Catholic churches.

The choir is performing The St Mathew Passion, a piece based on an evangelical text, which aims to celebrate common Christian heritage.

Cardinal Levada: Union with the Catholic Church is the goal of ecumenism

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A summary of a recent speech from a Catholic Cardinal who argues that all ecumenical activity should lead to a reconciliation of all Churches with Rome. Read the full text of the speech. Orthodoxy is only mentioned in terms of the “Eastern Catholic” practices.

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St. Peter's Basilica

In a lengthy address delivered in Canada on March 6, Cardinal William Levada, prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, stated that the reception of communities of Anglicans into the Catholic Church is consistent with Anglican-Catholic ecumenical dialogue because “union with the Catholic Church is the goal of ecumenism.”

Tracing the history of Anglican-Catholic dialogue since the Second Vatican Council, Cardinal Levada noted that Anglican decisions to ordain women and countenance homosexual activity were not consistent with earlier statements agreed to by Anglican and Catholic theologians. “No wonder, then, that the ordination of a bishop in a homosexual partnership in New Hampshire, with subsequent approval by the General Convention of the Episcopal Church of the United States in 2003, and the authorization of rituals for the blessing of gay unions and marriages by the Anglican Church in Canada, have caused an enormous upheaval within the Anglican communion,” the cardinal observed.
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Patriarch of Constantinople´s New Encyclical Defends Catholic-Orthodox Dialogue

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The Catholic take on +Bartholomew’s Sunday of Orthodoxy encyclical. Caveat: I am a columnist for Catholic Online.

ISTANBUL, Turkey, (CNA Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople´s newest encyclical encourages dialogue between the Orthodox Church and other Christian churches and laments those who are “unacceptably fanatical” in challenging such dialogue. He specifically condemned the false rumors spread about Catholic-Orthodox dialogue.

Patriarch Bartholomew

Patriarch Bartholomew´s patriarchal and synodal encyclical was dated Feb. 21, Orthodoxy Sunday, when the Orthodox Church celebrates the defeat of the iconoclastic heresy.

His letter began by noting the failure of those who tried to suppress, silence or falsify the Orthodox Church. He said that the Ecumenical Patriarchate cares about “protecting and establishing” the unity of the Orthodox Church in order that the Orthodox Christian faith may be confessed “with one voice and in one heart.”

Orthodoxy, he said, must be promoted with humility and interpreted in light of each historical period and cultural circumstance.

“To this purpose, Orthodoxy must be in constant dialogue with the world. The Orthodox Church does not fear dialogue because truth is not afraid of dialogue,” Bartholomew continued, saying that a Church enclosed within itself would no longer be “catholic.”

Dialogue with the outside world must first pass through all those who call themselves Christian, he wrote.
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