Source: National Catholic Reporter by Josephine McKenna Religion News Service VATICAN CITY — A Vatican spokesman said it’s premature to suggest a gathering between Catholic and Orthodox faiths to mark the 1700th anniversary of the first church council held in Nicea in 325 A.D. Despite cordial meetings between Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople during the pontiff’s visit to Jerusalem in May, the Vatican has rejected media reports that a 2025 event had been confirmed. “Several news agencies, publications and individuals have reported on this gathering as a fait accompli,” said the Rev. Thomas Rosica, a Vatican spokesman, in a statement. “No formal announcement…
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Source: Religious Information Service of Ukraine (RISU) Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I in an interview with the Italian agency SIR said that today there are many issues that both churches must address together, Religion in Ukraine reports, with a reference to Pomisna. “Today, perhaps more than 50 years ago, there is an urgent need for reconciliation. This means the meeting with our brother Francis Pope in Jerusalem is very important,” said Patriarch Bartholomew about the upcoming pope’s visit to the Holy Land. Among the issues that the Orthodox and Catholic Churches are facing, he described the suffering and injustice experienced by people…
Source: The New York Times By PETER MANSEAU ANNAPOLIS, Md. — ONE year into his astonishingly popular papacy, Pope Francis has become the perfect divining rod for uncovering assumptions about the future of the Catholic Church. After an interview last week, during which he responded to a question about civil unions with a discussion of how “secular states” used them “to regulate different situations of cohabitation,” some mainstream media outlets reported that he had signaled a new openness to same-sex unions. More cautious analysts countered that he had done nothing of the kind. Wishful thinking is rampant where Francis is concerned, perhaps…
Source: Press Republican By Terry Mattingly, On Religion This elderly patriarch’s image is striking, with his stern face and a gray beard that flows over his chest, contrasting with the colorful clothing typical of his flock and his unique line of work. Just before Christmas, he created a stir with a blunt statement on a very controversial issue. No, this wasn’t the Duck Commander in Louisiana. This patriarch resides in the city his followers formally refer to as Constantinople-New Rome. “The Lord appointed the marriage of male and female in the blessed family,” proclaimed Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, while discussing Mary,…
Source: Huffington Post By Naomi O’Leary (Reuters) – Pope Francis called for renewal of the Roman Catholic Church and attacked unfettered capitalism as “a new tyranny”, urging global leaders to fight poverty and growing inequality in the first major work he has authored alone as pontiff. The 84-page document, known as an apostolic exhortation, amounted to an official platform for his papacy, building on views he has aired in sermons and remarks since he became the first non-European pontiff in 1,300 years in March. In it, Francis went further than previous comments criticizing the global economic system, attacking the “idolatry…
Source: Reuters BY PHILIP PULLELLA VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Pope Francis will receive Russian President Vladimir Putin on November 25, an encounter that could help mend strained relations between the Vatican and the Russian Orthodox Church. Russian-Vatican relations have been fraught since the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union, with Moscow accusing the Roman Catholic Church of trying to poach believers from the Russian Orthodox Church, a charge the Vatican denies. But Putin is the first Kremlin leader since the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution to publicly profess religious faith – to the Orthodox church – and has several times advocated ending the long…
Source: Catholic News Service By Carol Glatz ROME (CNS) — Recent remarks by Pope Francis about the need for a stronger pastoral approach to marriage and divorced couples, do not signal the church is overturning its laws or practice of denying communion to Catholics who divorce and remarry, said two canon law experts. When Pope Francis made parenthetical reference to the Orthodox churches permitting, in some cases, a second marriage, he was referring to an issue that has been under discussion for decades, said U.S. Cardinal Raymond L. Burke, prefect of the Supreme Court of the Apostolic Signature. The pope…
Source: Vatican Radio (Vatican Radio) The head of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, Cardinal Kurt Koch, heads off to Ukraine on Wednesday for a visit aimed at deepening the dialogue between Catholics and Orthodox in the former Soviet state. The Cardinal will spend two days in the capital Kiev, meeting with the small Greek and Latin Catholic communities there. He’ll also hold talks with the Ukrainian Orthodox leader, Metropolitan Volodymyr, of the Moscow Patriarchiate,and other representatives of that Church. On Saturday the cardinal travels to the Western city of Lviv, the Catholic heartland of the country and on…
By Fr. Johannes L. Jacobse Source: Catholic Online Pope Francis is faithful to moral tradition and also appears to be courageous (these days there is no faithfulness without courage). He understands the moral crisis in Christendom and appears to be as committed to the restoration of the Christian foundations of culture as his predecessors were. This portends a good future for Orthodox-Catholic relations and will hopefully make more Orthodox aware of the grave crisis facing us. NAPLES, FL. (Catholic Online) – Several weeks ago I spent a weekend with Catholic and Orthodox scholars in a colloquium titled “Liberty, Society, and…
Source: Virtueonline The Time Is Now by Fr. Victor E. Novak Special to Virtueonline ONE HOLY CATHOLIC AND APOSTOLIC CHURCH For the first millennium of Christianity there was only one Church. Denominationalism as we know it today did not exist. The Church was one. No matter where a Christian lived, whether in Jerusalem, Antioch, Asia Minor, Greece, Rome, Gaul, Britain, Ireland, Russia, Africa, or anywhere else, everyone belonged to the same Church and believed the same thing. The Church was known as the “Catholic” Church, and we find that word in use to describe the Church as early as AD…
Source: Zenit Prelates Release Joint Statement on Revisions to Legislation WASHINGTON, D.C., December 28, 2012 (Zenit.org). The U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) Department of Communications and the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America issued the following statement in support of the Federal Trade Commission’s revisions to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) that were announced on December 20. “We applaud the Federal Trade Commission and Chairman Jon Leibowitz for these important steps to keep children safe in the ever-evolving digital world,” said Helen Osman, Secretary of Communications for the USCCB. “The Commission is to be especially commended for…
Source: Christian Today Prayers were said at a service held by the Catholic-Oriental Orthodox Regional Forum (COORF) in central London celebrating forty years of common statements by the Churches. Prayers were also said for the ongoing work by the two Churches towards unity. The service was joined by COORF Catholic Co-Chair, Archbishop Kevin McDonald, who spoke of the historical connections between the Churches. Oriental Orthodox Co-Chair Bishop Angaelos referred to John 17 as he spoke of the importance of common witness in the UK and throughout the world. Metropolitan Seraphim read from the letter of St Paul to the Galatians,…