Bizarre move: Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople writes article for L'Osservatore Romano endorsing Amoris Laetitia.Revisiting the contrasting positions of Moscow and Constantinople at the Synod of 2015

In what is surely one of the most bizarre twists in the debate on Amoris Laetitia, Pariarch Bartholomew, Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople, has penned an article unabashedly endorsing that exhortation. While it is no secret that the Kasperite and liberal wing have partly taken inspiration from Eastern Orthodox praxis, that L'Osservatore Romano would go to the extent of publishing an article from Bartholomew in support of AL will only exacerbate the concerns of those who do see this document as intending a departure from perennial Catholic teaching. 

The full text of the editorial, in English, can be found here: "God is Love (1 John 4:8)".

Op-Ed: "Kneeling Before Luther", by Roberto de Mattei

Roberto de Mattei

Corrispondenza Romana

November 2nd 2016

It is with deep sorrow we say this.

"The 'historical' meeting between Francis and Kirill"

Roberto de Mattei

Corrispondenza Romana

February 17, 2016

Among the many successes the mass-media attributes to Pope Francis, is the “historical meeting” with the Patriarch of Moscow, Kirill, which took place on February 12th in Havana. An event, it is written, that saw the collapse of the wall which has divided the Church of Rome from the Eastern Church for a thousand years. The importance of the meeting, according to the words of Francis himself, was not in the document - of a merely “pastoral” nature - but in the convergence towards a common destination, not political nor moral, but religious. As for the traditional Magisterium of the Church, articulated in documents, Pope Francis seems to want it substituted by a Neo-Magisterium, transmitted through symbolic events. The message the Pope aims to give is that this is a turning-point in the history of the Church. Yet it is precisely the history of the Church we need to start with to understand the significance of the event. Historical inaccuracies are indeed many and need to be corrected, since it’s exactly upon false historians that doctrinal deviations are frequently built.

First of all, it is not true that a thousand years of history separate the Church of Rome from the Patriarchate of Moscow, seeing that this came about only in 1589. In the preceding five centuries, and even before that, Rome’s Eastern interlocutor was the Patriarch of Constantinople.

For the record: the Russian No1. No to change of date for Easter2. No imminent meeting between the Pope and the Patriarch of Moscow

These should put an end, at least for the time being, to the never-ending rumors of a change in the observance of Easter for the entire Christian world, and of the meeting between the Pope and the Patriarch of Moscow that never, ever materializes. 

UPDATE: Vatican Radio: Pope to lead common worship service with Lutheran leaders in Lutheran cathedral.BREAKING NEWS: Pope Francis to participate in ceremony commemorating the 500th anniversary of the Reformation

Update: Vatican Radio confirms (Pope Francis to travel to Sweden for joint Reformation commemoration) that the event on October 31 is intended to kick off a whole year of events marking the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation.

For the record - the never-ending quest for more reforms.1) CDW Secretary: Non-Catholic spouses of parishioners could be selected for foot-washing rite.2) Lutherans given communion during Mass in St. Peter's Basilica

1. Even as the reform of Maundy Thursday foot washing was being announced, its loopholes were already being explored by the supporters of further reform. Buried in Catholic News' Agency's report on yesterday's change (Women may now have their feet washed at Holy Thursday Mass, Pope says) we find the following interpretation from Archbishop Arthur Roche, Secretary of the CDW (our emphases):

Although the Pope has previously chosen to wash the feet of both non-Catholics and non-Christians, Archbishop Arthur Roche, secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship, cautioned that the new change does not necessarily include them.

In Jan. 21 comments to CNA, the archbishop said that the changes are meant for “the local community,” and members of “the local parish.” 

He said that reading the decree as an invitation for non-Catholics to participate would be a “selective interpretation” of the text, and that while this could be something that happens “in the future,” it’s probably not what the Pope’s decision intended. 

However, Archbishop Roche did say that although the decree is meant for the local community, it’s possible that a non-Catholic spouse of a parishioner who regularly attends the Catholic liturgy could be chosen to participate. 

Luther and the Holy Roman Church in His Own Words (Strong Language) - Guest-post

Martin Luther and the Catholic Church

a guest-post by John R. T. Lamont

          

"HERE I STAND":
Luther's version of the "NON SERVIAM"(Gedaechtniskirche, Speyer)

A number of favourable comments about Martin Luther have been made by Catholic authorities to mark the occasion of the 500^th anniversary of the Reformation in 2017. In particular, the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, whose president is Cardinal Kurt Koch, has issued a Catholic-Lutheran ‘Common Prayer’ for 500 years of Reformation together with the Lutheran World Federation. This ‘Common Prayer’ includes the following prayers: ‘Help us to rejoice in the gifts that have come to the Church through the Reformation’, and ‘The ecumenical journey enables Lutherans and Catholics to appreciate together Martin Luther’s insight into and spiritual experience of the gospel of the righteousness of God, which is also God’s mercy’; ‘Thanks be to you O God for the many guiding theological and spiritual insights that we have all received through the Reformation.’ This is not of course an initiative of the magisterium of the Church, but it is as effective in forming the beliefs of Catholics as a magisterial statement, since it is presented in the media as a position of the Church. This initiative urgently requires comment and criticism from faithful Catholics.

A fixed, "unified" Easter? Not so fast!Part I: Why a unified Easter will not be implemented in the foreseeable future.

Introduction

Last year, Pope Francis reportedly spoke of the need to unify the date of Easter among Christians during the meditation that he preached to the World Retreat of Priests at the Basilica of Saint John Lateran in Rome. The text of the meditation itself seems to be missing from the Vatican website (although there is a video) and Zenit's own translation of the meditation (Part 1, Part 2) does not include any references to Easter. The Pope's call to spread the charismatic-pentecostalist practice of "Baptism in the Spirit" (his third and most explicit endorsement of it, by our count) actually warrants far more attention, although none has been forthcoming.

Now we have Justin Welby, the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury speaking of the need to put Easter Sunday on a fixed date. Various news reports (such as this) quote him as saying that it should be fixed on the second or third Sunday of April and that he expects the change to happen between 5 and 10 years' time. Although the reports don't mention it, he is echoing a proposal first made by Paul VI in 1975. (See below.) Some of these reports mention Coptic Orthodox Patriarch Tawadros II as a proponent of a unified Easter, specifically on the third Sunday of April. It is true that Tawadros II has been vocal about the idea; but it remains to be seen if his fellow Oriental Orthodox (especially the more numerous Ethiopians) are willing to follow him on this matter. Welby reportedly mentioned the support of Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople for a unified Easter, but for reasons explained further in this article this support seems to be overstated.

UPDATE: A note on where to find the text of the "Common Prayer", and the letter co-signed by Cardinal Koch promoting it.Important - Lutheran World Federation, Pontifical Council for Christian Unity launch "Common Prayer" service extolling Martin Luther and the Reformation

By their fruits...

UPDATE: In my original post I neglected to mention where the text of the "Common Prayer" can be found. It can be downloaded via a link at the bottom of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) webpage containing the press release we reposted below: Press Release: A joint Catholic-Lutheran “Common Prayer” for 500 years of Reformation. 

De Mattei on the Pope's pronouncements and video: It's not only heresy that offends the Catholic Faith

Not Only Heresy Offends The Catholic Faith

Roberto de Mattei

Corrispondenza Romana

January 13, 2016

In a long interview published on December 30th in the German weekly Die Zeit, Cardinal Ludwig Müller, Prefect for the Congregation of the Faith, raised a question of crucial relevance today. When the interviewer asked the Prefect what he thought of those Catholics who attack the Pope defining him “a heretic”, he replied: “Not only because of my office, but from personal conviction, I must disagree. A heretic in the theological definition, is a Catholic who denies obstinately a revealed truth proposed by the Church that they are obliged to believe. It’s another thing when those who are officially charged to teach the faith express themselves in a somewhat inappropriate, misleading or vague way. The teachings of the Pope and bishops are not above the Word of God, but serve it. (…) Moreover, papal pronouncements have a different binding nature – ranging from a definitive decision pronounced ex-cathedra to a homily which is used rather for spiritual analysis.”

Pope Francis on Interreligious Dialogue

Below is the final scene in the video, shortly after the Pope has announced his intention for this month: "That sincere dialogue among men and women of different faiths may produce the fruits of peace and justice":

Here's how this video came about, and the announcement that all of the pope's monthly intentions will now be in video format:

Ecumenism: An Essay by Don Pietro Leone

Five years after Don Pietro Leone’s first contribution to our site, on the Roman Liturgy, we are happy to present the following essay on Ecumenism. We also recommend to our readers Pius XI’s encyclical Mortalium Animos, issued on January 6, The Feast of the Epiphany, 1928, which contains everything a Catholic needs to know in order to  evaluate ecumenism correctly. Don Pietro Leone is the pen name of a priest who celebrates the traditional Mass in full and peaceful communion with his Ordinary somewhere in that great cradle of civilization known as Italy.

For the record: New Vatican document on Jewish-Christian dialogue calls for "principled rejection" of "institutional" missionary work to Jews

So pre-Vatican II! 

The Commission for Religious Relations with Jews, headed by Cardinal Kurt Koch of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, issued today a new document on Christian-Jewish dialogue. (Full text on Vatican Radio: The Gifts and Calling of God are irrevocable.) To our knowledge, this document contains the most explicit rejection so far by the Vatican of any attempt to convert Jews to Catholicism, even as it affirms the "universal and therefore also exclusive mediation of salvation through Jesus Christ". It also contains an extended attack on supersessionism, which is explicitly named as a target of the document.

With the surprise revival in recent days of pressure from some hierarchies against the Good Friday Prayer inserted in the 1962 Missal by Benedict XVI, this issue is certainly of interest to Traditional Catholics, and bears watching. 

The document is described early on as "not a magisterial document or doctrinal teaching of the Catholic Church", but we have little doubt that it will be treated in practice as having magisterial authority. Here we post its most relevant (for us) portions, with our emphases. 

On Supersessionism:

On the part of many of the Church Fathers the so-called replacement theory or supersessionism steadily gained favour until in the Middle Ages it represented the standard theological foundation of the relationship with Judaism: the promises and commitments of God would no longer apply to Israel because it had not recognised Jesus as the Messiah and the Son of God, but had been transferred to the Church of Jesus Christ which was now the true ‘new Israel’, the new chosen people of God. Arising from the same soil, Judaism and Christianity in the centuries after their separation became involved in a theological antagonism which was only to be defused at the Second Vatican Council. With its Declaration “Nostra aetate” (No.4) the Church unequivocally professes, within a new theological framework, the Jewish roots of Christianity. While affirming salvation through an explicit or even implicit faith in Christ, the Church does not question the continued love of God for the chosen people of Israel. A replacement or supersession theology which sets against one another two separate entities, a Church of the Gentiles and the rejected Synagogue whose place it takes, is deprived of its foundations. From an originally close relationship between Judaism and Christianity a long-term state of tension had developed, which has been gradually transformed after the Second Vatican Council into a constructive dialogue relationship.

On mission to the Jews:

It is easy to understand that the so-called ‘mission to the Jews’ is a very delicate and sensitive matter for Jews because, in their eyes, it involves the very existence of the Jewish people. This question also proves to be awkward for Christians, because for them the universal salvific significance of Jesus Christ and consequently the universal mission of the Church are of fundamental importance. The Church is therefore obliged to view evangelisation to Jews, who believe in the one God, in a different manner from that to people of other religions and world views. In concrete terms this means that the Catholic Church neither conducts nor supports any specific institutional mission work directed towards Jews. While there is a principled rejection of an institutional Jewish mission, Christians are nonetheless called to bear witness to their faith in Jesus Christ also to Jews, although they should do so in a humble and sensitive manner, acknowledging that Jews are bearers of God’s Word, and particularly in view of the great tragedy of the Shoah.

Lamont on Catholicism, Islam and the Neomodernist betrayal of Christians suffering at the hands of the Mohammedans.

Catholics and Islam

John R. T. Lamont

A special essay for Rorate Caeli

The recent terrorist attacks by ISIS have increased the urgency of understanding the ideology that drives the attackers. Catholics naturally look to the leadership of the Church for guidance on the nature of Islam, its relation to the ideology of ISIS, and the approach that Catholics should take to the threat of ISIS terrorism and to Islam itself.  Unfortunately, the episcopal leadership of the Church has not provided such guidance. If anything it has done the opposite, in Europe and North America at least; it has misled the faithful on the nature of Islam and the relationship between terrorist extremism and the main tenets of the Muslim religion. A good example of this deception can be found in a pamphlet recently issued by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, entitled 'Catholics and Muslims in Canada: Believers and Citizens in Society'. It is worth examining this pamphlet in some detail, to better understand both the character of this deception and the real content and implications of Muslim belief.  

For Pope's Environment Encyclical, an unusual line-up of presenters for official Vatican press conference, including climate change radical.

The Vatican has just revealed in today's Bollettino the line-up of speakers for the official presentation of the "Environment Encyclical", Laudato Si, on June 18 at the New Synod Hall.

- Cardinal Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson, President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace;


- His Eminence Metropolitan John (Zizioulas) of Pergamon, representing the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Orthodox Church;


- Prof. John Schellnhuber, Founding Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

Metropolitan John, 84 years old, is the Patriarchate of Constantinople's leading figure in ecumenical discussions and has long been close to the Catholic ecumenical establishment. However this is the first time that an Orthodox metropolitan would be officially co-presenting a papal Encyclical. There are reports that the Encyclical will draw upon the teaching of Patriarch Bartholomew (whose interest in environmental issues is well known) and that there was even a proposal -- which proved to be "not possible" -- that the Encyclical be jointly promulgated by both the Pope and the Patriarch. 

Perhaps of far greater interest to most of our readership would be the presence of Prof. Schellnhuber on the panel. The father of the "two-degree target" to stave off global warming, he is the founding director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany (which is funded by the German government), Chair of the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU), and a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. He was one of the experts (alongside Jeffrey Sachs) tapped by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences to write their joint statement on climate change published in April of this year, titled "Climate change and the common good: a statement of the problem and the demand for transformative solutions". A description of the final document's call for a "zero-carbon world" can be found here; the final published version seems to have been removed from the official website Pontifical Academy of Sciences, but to our knowledge has never been retracted.

A Permanent Synod and Expanded Council of Cardinals for the Catholic Church?

The Servizio Informazione Religiosa (SIR) published an interview last Friday with Bishop Franghískos Papamanólis, the President of the Greek Episcopal Conference, that made its ad limina visit last week. Most of the interview is about the political and economic situation of Greece and the state of Catholicism (which is almost entirely of the Roman Rite) in that country, but towards the end touches on the ongoing reform of the Curia and Francis' push for 'synodality' in the Church. (The following translation of the final portion of the interview is courtesy of a theology professor and friend of this blog.)

The meeting with the Holy Father lasted an hour and 25 minutes. What else did you talk about?

“Ecumenism is close to the heart of the Pope and he suffers much because its importance is not being fully understood. I believe that the first thing to do would be to purify the structures in a way so that a right way of believing corresponds to the right way of operating. Even in the Catholic Church there are many things to correct and the Pope understands this well. To purify the structures is that which the Holy Father would want to do with the reform of the Curia. Many traditionalists within it, who are the expression of strong and powerful churches, do not understand the conditions in which the Catholic Church struggles in many nations of the world. Go and talk to the bishops of other Continents and listen to the things that they would say to you . . .” 

First, you cited the reform of the Curia, have you and the Pope spoken about it and in what terms? 

"We have spoken to the Pope of synodality, of a permanent Synod. How to do this should be studied, and it is here that the experience of the permanent Synod of the Greek Orthodox Church could be of help in understanding. How to render permanent the Commission of Eight Cardinals should be studied, expanding it before anything else (ampliandola innanzitutto). The reform of the Curia is not able to limit itself to increasing or diminishing the dicasteries, or replacing personnel.  The true reform of the Curia is the purification of its structures."

No more apologetics, then? Pope Francis' January 25 homily on ecumenism

January 25, as usual, saw the celebration of Second Vespers at the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls, with the Pope leading it, in order to mark the end of the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (January 18-25). Francis' homily for this year's Second Vespers is mostly a reiteration of previous post-Conciliar papal messages on ecumenism (including the denunciation of "proselytism") but contains two new elements: an explicit call to reject not just "polemical" but also "apologetic" approaches, and a public and more formal dismissal of the theological debates over controverted issues in favor of an ecumenism primarily based upon cooperation and "encounter". (Bear in mind that the congregation in this particular Vespers included representatives from Orthodox and Protestant confessions.) It is worth noting that Francis describes the theological debates between different Christian groups as "subtle theoretical discussions" over "opinions", as if the Church-dividing doctrinal issues are mere matters of opinion.

New Year, Old Lunacy: Cardinal Marx says Catholics can "learn from Luther"

Lutheran niceties: Luther preaches Christ, Pope and Catholic clerics in the jaws of hell
(from the workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder)

Cardinal Marx, also known as "Cardinal Bling", drowning in his Kirchensteuer millions, is a gift that keeps on giving.

From Die Welt:

Why Catholic-Orthodox reunion probably won't happen:Five recent statements from Patriarch Bartholomew, and a reminder from 2009

Compared to the reign of Benedict XVI there has been less talk in the current Pontificate of the reunification of Catholicism and the Separated Eastern Christians that accept the first Seven Ecumenical Councils (the "Eastern Orthodox") being a lot nearer or even imminent, but it has not entirely died out. We saw a bit of it when Vladimir Putin met Pope Francis last year. We are also seeing a bit of it now on the media, with Pope Francis in Constantinople on a visit that has already produced surprises such as the first papal prayer inside a mosque and the first time that a reigning Pope has publicly asked an Eastern Orthodox Patriarch for his blessing. 

Do these gestures -- especially the second one -- presage an even more momentous step: the imminent reunion of Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, or at least a tangible and concrete sign that such a union is imminent? We, of course, cannot predict the future, but if history is any guide what we will see tomorrow is going to be more of the same as in the last 50 years. Perhaps there will be another extravagant gesture, but by no means a declaration that the tragic division between the two is at an end. 

Never before seen - Francis bows his head and asks Separated Patriarch: "Bless me and the Church of Rome"

From Zenit: