Some Eastern Patriarchs want more powers -
and to automatically take part in a papal conclave
by Paolo Rodari
Translated from
October 15, 2010
They feel that they are the suburbs of Catholicism and they would like greater consideration, especially from Rome, from the Vatican adn from the Pope.
They are the 23 Eastern Catholic Churches, which are in full communion with Rome even if they have their own rites, and whose representatives are taking part in the current special assembly for the Middle East of the Bishops' Synod.
In the past few sessions, some of them have presented specific requests to the Pope during their interventions at the Assembly. The strongest words so far have come from Vartan Waldir Boghossian, leadaer of Armenian Catholics in latin America, who said:
"The Patriarchs of the Eastern Catholic churches, by their identity as fathers and heads of
sui iuris Churches which contribute to the catholicity of the universal Church, should be members, ipso facto, of the college that elects the Supreme Pontiff, without the need to have the Latin title of cardinal. For the same reason, they should even have precedence over the cardinals of the Latin rite".
It is a direct request to be part, by right, of the Catholic world's most exclusive college. If Benedict XVI acts on the request, it would revolutionize the papal election process.
In the early centuries, the Bishop of Rome was elected by
the entire community [How exactly was that done when the communities were dispersed and farflung?], until in 336, Pope Marcus decided that only priests of Rome could aspire to the title.
Cardinals acquired the right to elect a Pope in the 11th century. In 1059, a few years after the Great Schism, Nicolas II entrusted the election only to cardinal bishops, and in 1179, Alexander III extended the right to all cardinals.
Boghossian did not stop at that first request. He also asked Rome not to limit the activities of the Eastern-rite Patriarchs to a circumscribed territory, which apparently does not apply to the Latin-rite Patriarchs.
Boghossian claims it is unjust, "because even from the ecumenical viewpoint, full jurisdiction over our own faithful in all the continents would be for our separated brothers a concrete anticipation of the situation after full communion with Rome".
It seems that the problem of the Petrine primacy is of some concern among the Eastern Catholic churches.
[Why now? Outside of the seven apostolic churches in the Middle East, the other Eastern-rite churches that chose full communion with Rome did so knowing that it meant, in practice, recognizing the Petrine primacy! Whey suddenly call that into question now?
Also, there's a contradiction here between claiming the right to automatically take part in electing a Pope even if they are not cardinals, and then refusing to be bound by the Petrine primacy! The Church has enough problems with the Orthodox to have to face this too among its Eastern-rite members. It would be like having the tail wagging the dog.]
Bishop Guy-Paul Noujaim of Lebanon recalled that John Paul II had expressed the wish for "a new form of exercising the Petrine primacy that will not damage the Church mission and would be inspired by ecclesial forms of the first millennium, which although diverse, did not make Christians ill at ease either in terms of spirituality, moral life or structure".
[But aren't the Eastern Churches all more or less autonomous already - and have been all along? The only common thing they have is allegiance to Rome - and that means the Pope - and therefore following a common Code of Canon Law for the Eastern Churches, and being coordinated by the Congregation for Oriental Churches.]
In essence, Noujaim wants a return to a state when the Oriental Patriarchs had more powers and privileges. Here is what he proposes: "That His Holiness assign a commission composed of expert theologians, historians and pastors, to propose concrete solutions to these difficulties, and that the Church commit herself to applying these without delay".
[But the Eastern Patriarchs already have full powers and privileges over their own faithful. How can they possibly extend them more? Certainly not to the affairs of Latin-rite churches!]
Following Noujiam, even Robert Stern, secretary-general of teh Catholic Near-East Welfare Association, noted that even if "the mystery of teh Church can be described using 'models', nonme of these models are adequate to describe it. Of course, there is a model that the Eastern churches look at preferentially - that which was in effect during the first millennium. 'The early Church saw unity in terms of peace and communion'" That 'peace and communion', he implies, which is perhaps not at all visible these days.
I find this development troubling - not because the Synodal fathers are speaking out on what obviously concerns them most, but because by doing so, they are losing sight of the primary purpose of this assembly - which is how to stem the outflow of native-born Middle Eastern Christians from the region. Obviously, it is a task that no individual sui iuris Church can do, or we would not be having this assembly at all! The idea is to develop a common strategy that does not just involve the local churches but the universal Church. Is this the time to ask for 'greater powers' for each Church? Such powers are obviously not for the particular Church per se, but for its Patriarch.
Unfortunately, for various reasons, I have not had the time to read the session reports on the Assembly so far, but I will find time to see if this is a trend or the trend... And I hope somebody else writes about it if it is as significant as Rodari makes it out to be.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 15/10/2010 20:28]