SUMMIT OF THE HEADS OF THE EASTERN CATHOLIC CHURCHES – 21 November

Vatican City, 29 October 2013 (VIS) – Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, prefect of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches, announced in his address at the opening of the new academic year of the Pontifical Oriental Institute that a summit meeting of the patriarchs and major archbishops of the oriental Churches of Syria, Iraq and the Middle East will be held in the Vatican, in the presence of the Holy Father, on 21 November.

The meeting, which will take place from 19 to 22 November, will take as its general theme the debate “The Eastern Catholic Churches fifty years after Vatican Council II”.

 

The cardinal declared that “Pope Francis has agreed to repeat the meeting which took place for the first time in 2009”, when the heads of the Eastern Churches met with Benedict XVI in “a fruitful morning of reflection”, and will now have the opportunity “to speak before the Pope on the situation of eastern Christians”.

Published by VISarchive 02 – Tuesday, October 29, 2013

 

 

Will this engagement signal a new relationship between the Eastern Churches and the Pope as Primate of the Latin Roman Catholic Church on the one hand, and as Universal Pastor on the other? Which of the Pope’s roles will the Oriental Congregation serve? How will it be reconfigured, along with the rest of the Papal curia to be of service to the Eastern Churches and their patriarchs and heads, as well as to the Pope, and strengthening the bonds of communion? Since no Eastern Catholic bishop serves on the Holy Father’s “G8”, is the curial reform to concern only the Pope’s work as primate of the Latin Roman Catholic Church, and is the Oriental Congregation therefore somewhat outwith the scope of the current review? Is a regular meeting between the heads of each of the Catholic Churches, including the Pope as head of the Roman Catholic Church and as Bishop of Rome presiding in love among the other churches, the basis for a different form of East-West engagement within the communion of the whole of the Catholic Church? What, too, will be the Eastern Catholic Churches’ engagement in the reformed papal curia’s ecumenical engagement currently through the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity: is this to be largely a Roman Catholic engagement with the Christian East, or will it act for the Eastern Churches in their own right as well?