August 2007 Print

 

^{Fr. Hervé Gresland}

The Supremacy of the Pope

We now have to study the different doctrinal problems at stake in the relationships with Orthodoxy. And we will begin with what Cardinal Lercaro called "the crux of the matter",¹: the supremacy of the pope.

The other doctrinal points which separate the Orthodox from the Catholic Church are not many and do not seem impossible to overcome: the Filioque, Purgatory, the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption, because these dogmatic definitions were pronounced after they had broken away from the Catholic Church. The main doctrinal obstacle to union, the real stumbling block is the dogma of the universal supremacy of the Roman Pontiff and his infallibility.

For the Orthodox, the Church is not presided over by one single supreme head who has an ordinary and immediate authority over all and everybody in the Church. They see it more as a society governed by a collegial power given by Christ to all the Apostles and, after them, to the entire united episcopal body. They consequently affirm that the local Churches enjoy a certain autonomy, which they call "autocephaly," which means that each is its own head. The pope is no longer the vicar of Christ, but is on par with an Orthodox Patriarch.

The Orthodox have always held firm to this doctrine ever since their schism, and they do not hide it in ecumenical dialogue.² As an example, in a discourse to the Swiss bishops in Zurich, in December 1995, Patriarch Bartholomew, who succeeded Dimitrios, who passed away in 1990, spoke thus about the pope's supremacy:

The idea according to which the Lord, when choosing the twelve Apostles, entrusted to one of them the task of governing them, has no basis in Sacred Scripture. When the Lord commanded Peter to be the pastor of his sheep it did not mean that He was entrusting this latter with a pastoral charge higher than that of the other disciples.³

The Orthodox have the merit of being frank. If after this, conciliar Catholics do not understand, there are only two possible explanations. Either they do not want to understand too much and hope that "dialogue" and time will improve the situation. Or they do not themselves attach too much importance to this truth of the Faith, namely, the supreme authority of the Sovereign Pontiff. And indeed Pope John Paul II asked them to think about another mode of exercising his supremacy which would no longer be an obstacle to ecumenism. In other words, how can we diminish the role of the pope so as to make the pontifical supremacy acceptable to the Orthodox?⁴ So be it. Cardinal Husar, the archbishop of Lviv in the Ukraine, stated in May 2001 about the Eastern Catholic Churches and the Orthodox that there was between them only a modest difference: the supremacy of Peter. Besides, the Catechism of the Catholic Church does not fear to affirm, following Pope Paul VI, that the "communion [with the Orthodox] is so deep that very little is lacking to attain the fullness which would authorize a joint celebration of the Eucharist."⁵  Communion with the Sovereign Pontiff is considered as "very little."

It is surprising to see that, in the framework of ecumenism, Rome makes so little of the authority of the Sovereign Pontiff and communion with him, whereas it wields them as a weapon against the faithful who hold the Catholic Faith, and goes so far as excommunicating those who disagree with the suicidal ecumenism she practices.

By attacking the supremacy of Peter, the rock upon which the one Church of Christ is founded, ecumenism consequently undermines the visible unity of the Church which rests, among other things, upon obedience to one and the same pastor. It is paradoxical that what is the principle and visible support of the Church, namely this primacy, is proclaimed to be a great obstacle to union, whereas the absence of this supreme authority wreaks so much havoc in the communities which do not have it.

The Doctrine of the Sister Churches

In the year 2000, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith published a note on the expression "Sister Churches." In this clarification, Cardinal Ratzinger said:

In the proper sense, the Sister Churches are only the local Churches between themselves....We cannot say, properly speaking, that the Catholic Church is the sister of a particular Church or of a group of Churches. It is not only a matter of terminology, but rather of the respect due to a basic truth of the Catholic Church: namely the unicity of the Church of Christ.

Consequently, the use of expressions such as "our two Churches" must be avoided because these expressions are a source of misunderstanding and theological disorientation: they insinuate, if applied to the Catholic Church and the whole of the Orthodox Church (or one of the Orthodox Churches), a plurality not only on the level of the particular Churches, but on that of the one, holy, Catholic and apostolic Church.⁶

This note, meant to bring back to mind the Catholic doctrine, was only making matter worse for the Vatican: Cardinal Ratzinger was admitting that the Orthodox "Churches" were real Churches. He added: "We can speak of sister Churches in the proper sense, with reference to particular Catholic or non-Catholic Churches." This theory of sister Churches cannot be accepted if you want to apply it to Eastern schismatic Churches. Besides, as we are going to see, the expression was often used in a sense contrary to that which he recommended (and which was already contrary to the divine constitution of the Church).

The text of the Second Vatican Council which we have quoted above (on the decree about ecumenism) is meant for local Churches. But the term "sister Churches" for the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church is often found in the official texts from the Patriarchate of Constantinople in the years following the council. So the Orthodox were the first to adopt the formula, and the popes followed suit. We will only quote a few examples.

In 1967, Pope Paul VI wrote to Patriarch Athenagoras: "The Lord grants us to rediscover one another as sister Churches."⁷ This is the first pontifical document to use the expression sister applied to the Churches considered as a whole. On June 5, 1991, in the Orthodox cathedral of Bialystok, in Poland, John Paul II addressed the representatives of the Orthodox Church:

Today, we see better and more clearly that our Churches are sister Churches. To say "sister Churches" is not a mere phrase for the circumstance, but a basic ecumenical category of ecclesiology.⁹

Cardinal Lubachisvsky, in the pastoral letter already quoted, spoke of

the basic truth which characterizes the relations between Catholics and Orthodox; the Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church are sister Churches.¹⁰

This notion of sister Churches rests upon the conciliar subsistit, about which we will say more later. If the Church of Christ is not identical with the Catholic Church, if it is not "reduced" to the Catholic Church, but only subsists in the Catholic Church,¹¹ and if it is constituted by a more or less perfect communion¹² in the Faith and the hierarchy, then a non-Catholic community can become a "sister Church" on condition of having what gives the quality of "Church": a valid priesthood and valid sacraments.

But since, according to sound doctrine, the Church of Christ is identical to the Catholic Church, and ecclesial "communion" does not admit greater or lesser degrees, but is lost entirely by those who live outside the visible boundaries of the Catholic Church, it follows that these separated communities do not deserve the name of Churches, nor of sister Churches, which is something proper to the Catholic Church and its local Churches. They are not as such means of salvation, because they were born from a revolt against the Holy Church, and they were constituted by this very refusal. On the contrary, being separated, they resist the Holy Ghost and are a more or less great obstacle to the salvation of their adepts. What is true, on the other hand, is that the Holy Ghost, without using their communities which keep souls captive of error, can act in these souls to free them from error.

From this doctrine of the "sister Churches" flows forth a whole series of consequences. Let us begin with the hierarchy: since the Orthodox Church is a "genuine Church of God," her heads are consequently real pastors. And indeed, Pope Paul VI taught this as early as 1967: the heads of the Churches must "recognize and respect themselves mutually as pastors of the portion of the flock of Christ which is entrusted to them."¹⁴ When Pope John Paul II received Abuna Paulos, the patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, he used the same words again:

Catholics and Orthodox, by recognizing and respecting themselves mutually as pastors of the portion of the flock entrusted to them, have no other aim than the increase and cohesion of the people of God.¹⁵

To recognize and respect the Orthodox bishops as pastors of the faithful is to affirm their legitimacy in following Jesus-Christ. And the Balamand Declaration proclaims: "Bishops and priests have the duty before God to respect the authority that the Holy Ghost gave to the bishops and priests of the other Church."¹⁶ These words are unacceptable. The Orthodox bishops are not the pastors of a portion of Christ's flock. Christ can entrust His sheep only to Catholic pastors. The situation of the Orthodox bishops is that of illegitimate pastors with no mission; and even more, the anti-Catholic obstinacy of many of them makes them formal and not merely material schismatics. If, materially, the life of grace passes through them to the sheep of Christ, these latter are kept by them outside the sheepfold of Christ.

Contrary to what the Balamand Declaration says¹⁷, only the Catholic hierarchy possesses formal apostolic succession; the separated Eastern bishops only have a material apostolic succession. And they have no jurisdiction: the Catholic Church supplements for this, for the sake of the spiritual good of their faithful.

Proselytism

Consequently, there flows from this a new missionary attitude: since the Orthodox already belong to the true Church of Christ, why and to what should we try to convert them? They have no need for conversion.

The members of the commission renew the condemnation of proselytism already pronounced on many occasions by the authorities of both Churches. Any form of proselytism must be avoided in the relations between our faithful, and must be eradicated wherever it may exist.¹⁸

Proselytism is what they now call the missionary work of the Church.

Pope John Paul II and Patriarch Dimitrios 1st specified together: "We reject any form of proselytism, any attitude which is or could be perceived as a lack of respect."¹⁹ The directives from the Pro Russia Pontifical Commission in June 1992 take the following dispositions: Rome sends to the Eastern countries bishops and apostolic administrators, but in order that they minister exclusively to the Catholics:

The apostolic structures which the bishops set up in the territories entrusted to them have for their objective to answer the needs of the Catholic communities present in those territories. They absolutely do not aim at causing the Catholic Church to enter into competition with the Russian Orthodox Church or with the other Christian Churches present in the same territory.

Thus, each "Church" will be able to accomplish her mission without being hindered by the others (especially by the Catholic Church). The Balamand Declaration confirms this explicit agreement made by the conciliar Church with the Orthodox Church: she promises no longer to seek the conversion of the Orthodox:

In the effort to re-establish unity, it is not a question of seeking the conversion of persons for one Church to the other in order to ensure their salvation.²⁰

The pastoral activity of the Latin as well as the Eastern Catholic Church does no longer tend to make the faithful pass from one Church to the other, namely it does no longer aim at proselytism among the Orthodox. Her objective is to answer the spiritual needs of her own faithful and she has no desire to grow at the expense of the Orthodox Church.²¹

We come to the interdiction of the apostolate and of missionary zeal towards the Orthodox. The present state of ecumenism includes de facto the renunciation to the expansion of the Faith. But the Catholic Church can at no time cease to be missionary. To refuse the work of the conversion of souls in order to bring them back to the one true Church of Christ is to resist the command of the divine Master. This "dialogue" which has as its condition the paralysis of Catholic proselytism bears the hallmark of the devil.

The Uniates

The Uniate Churches (united to the Catholic Church), we can guess, are posing great problems to present ecumenism. The Uniates are themselves an obstacle to ecumenism, therefore Rome is distancing herself from them. In 1979, Metropolitan Juvénaly, president of the Department for Foreign Affairs of the Patriarchate of Moscow, reacted strongly after Pope John Paul II sent a letter to Cardinal Slipyj on the occasion of the millennium of Catholic Ukraine. Cardinal Willebrands answered him on behalf of the Pope²²:

The pope had no intention at all to present the union of Brest-Litovsk as the model for our relations with the Orthodox Churches today or as the model of a union to be considered in the future....

According to this same spirit, Pope John Paul II asked for a correct appreciation of what was done in the past centuries with the intention of bringing about again the union of the Churches:

From these efforts accomplished under circumstances different from ours, and inspired by a theology which is no longer ours today, were born the united Catholic Churches. Their existence allowed Christians to express their communion with the Church of Rome according to the demands of their conscience. Inside the Catholic Church, they were a concrete reminder that the Latin tradition was not the only truly authentic Christian tradition. In this sense, their existence has been and remains beneficial. On the other hand, we must acknowledge that, unfortunately, their foundation also caused a breaking of the communion with the Orthodox Churches and new tensions between Catholics and Orthodox.

Nothing better could be said to disown the immense apostolic work accomplished by the Church to bring these peoples back to the one true Church of Christ. "A theology which is no longer ours today...." They realize that they are turning their backs on traditional teaching. And the Uniate have "unfortunately broken the communion with the Orthodox Churches"; it takes a lot of nerve to write this!

The Balamand Declaration

In the historical section of the relations between Catholics and Orthodox, we mentioned the meeting of the Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, which took place in Balamand, Lebanon, from June 17-24, 1993, in order to tackle the problem of Uniatism as a priority. At the end of the session a joint declaration was signed. This document is made of two parts: first the principles, then the practical rules. Its clarity and frankness are remarkable. It explains the new ecclesiology introduced by the Second Vatican Council. There is nothing new as far as the principles are concerned, but the great advantage of the document is that it sums up all that had been previously said on the subject. We quote here some passages;[²³ first, about the principles.

The Eastern Catholic Churches were born of

a breaking of the communion with their mother Churches in the East....Thus was created a situation which became a source of conflicts and sufferings first for the Orthodox, but also for the Catholics. (§8)

The true mother-Churches were not those schismatic Churches, but the original Eastern Churches united to Rome up to the time of their respective schisms. And to blame the ensuing rupture upon the Uniate conflicts is to show a terrible cynicism, as if it were not persistent schism which poisoned their relations with the converts.

Progressively, missionary activity tended to inscribe the effort for the conversion of other Christians among its priorities, in order to make them "return" to its own Church. The Church developed the theological vision according to which she presented herself as the unique depositary of salvation in order to legitimate this tendency which was a source of proselytism. (§10)

"The theological vision" in question is as old as the Church, for the simple reason that it is a dogma of Faith, taught by Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself who made His Church the unique ark of salvation. Consequently, through this declaration, the Church acknowledges that she is not the unique depositary of salvation.

Further down (§30) the Declaration says that we must "go beyond the outdated ecclesiology of the return to the Catholic Church"! Thus she agrees with what the Orthodox have been asking for these past thirty years:

We must acknowledge on both sides that propaganda, proselytism, the tendency to have one Church absorb the other, as well as the invitation to a return are so many outdated methods, rejected by Christian conscience and which can only widen the breach, strengthen distrust, and unquestionably perpetuate the aftermath of the separation.²⁴

Because of the way in which Catholics and Orthodox consider one another once again in their relation to the mystery of the Church, and re-discover themselves as sister Churches, this form of "missionary apostolate," described above, and which was called "Uniatism," can no longer be accepted either as a method to follow, or as a model of the unity sought by our Churches. (§12)

The Declaration goes on to speak of the measures which, in practice, will rule the relations between Catholics and Orthodox. Or to be more precise, it enumerates the obligations imposed upon the Catholics. "In order that there may no longer be room for distrust and suspicion," the Catholic Church promises not to take any pastoral initiative "without consulting beforehand with the Orthodox leaders," in other words without their placet (§ 22, 25, 26). Any apostolate on the part of the Catholics must be controlled by the Orthodox! Financial help received from Western Catholics must be shared with the Orthodox (§24).

As His Holiness John Paul II recommended in his letter of May 31, 1991, the use of any violence must absolutely be avoided. The use of violence to take over a place of worship goes against this conviction. On the contrary, let the celebrations of the other Churches be facilitated by placing your own church at their disposal through an agreement enabling celebrations to take place alternatively in the same building. (§27-28)

Plainly speaking: Eastern Catholics claim their churches were confiscated during Communism. Sometimes they were returned to them by the governments, but the schismatics refuse to give them back: Catholics, it would be anti-fraternal of you to want to get your churches back. But we will grant you from time to time a liturgical space in them.

On this point of ecumenism for places of worship, the Pope gave the example. He placed one church of Rome, St. Theodore's, at the disposal of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, "so that it may be destined to the worship and pastoral activities of the Orthodox community in the city."²⁵

Thus excluding in the future any proselytism and any desire of expansion of the Catholics at the expense of the Orthodox Church, the Commission hopes that it has suppressed the obstacle which urged some of the autocephalous Churches to suspend their participation to the theological dialogue. (§35)

This text shows that the Uniates are less well considered by Rome than the "separated brethren," because the former are anti-witnesses to ecumenism. The official line of the conciliar Church in Russia is expressed by a bishop:

The Orthodox Church is the Church of Christ sent to the Russian people. If the Orthodox Church is truly for us a Church, why establish another opposite of her?²⁶

There you are! Our Lord Jesus Christ founded the Orthodox Church just as well as the Catholic Church. Gradually this false and pernicious idea that the true Church of God in the Eastern countries is the Orthodox Church is gaining ground. We refer to the Orthodox as "the Eastern Church." For the Balamand Declaration, the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church are like two territorial Churches, two big dioceses. The Uniates must not say that the Orthodox are schismatic. Russians do not have to belong to Catholicism in order to be faithful to Jesus Christ; they can remain in Orthodoxy. All the Catholics of the Greek rite would do much better to go back to Orthodoxy which they should never have left in the first place, since it is the Church sent to them by Jesus Christ.

Instead of a return of the Orthodox to Catholicism we may well have more or less a return of the Uniates to Orthodoxy. Let us hope that they will remain staunch Catholics, in spite of Rome's treason. Eastern Catholics receive many converts from schism, for instance those who were disgusted by the servile attitude of the Orthodox Church under the Communist regime. But we are no longer allowed to speak of the past collaboration of the Orthodox with Communism, nor of the persecutions they organized against the Catholics.

There is a twofold attitude towards the Orthodox: one of great opening towards those who have no desire at all to convert, and another of great reserve towards those who want to become Catholics. These latter are tolerated more than supported. Of course, because of religious liberty they cannot be prevented from changing their religion, but if they convert, they will become an obstacle to Christian unity. If an Orthodox goes to the Catholics with the intention of converting, he runs the risk of being discouraged from carrying out his design and of being told to go back where he belongs! Bishop Fellay gave some examples a few years ago:

When Orthodox want to convert, after having recognized that the Catholic Church is the only true Church; when they ask to enter it, the Catholic Church shuts the door in their face! We know personally of several examples not only of simple faithful, but of priests, of prelates, of Orthodox bishops to whom entry into the Catholic Church was denied.

Even better, in 1989, a Catholic bishop who up to then had been the underground bishop of Lviv in the Ukraine, and who had therefore suffered persecution to remain Catholic, used to receive many Orthodox into the Church. At that time, with the apparent collapse of Communism, the hold of the State on religion had relaxed and people massively went for religion, and among others many Orthodox converted. Entire parishes went all at once from Orthodoxy to Catholicism, or simply went back to Catholicism. So this bishop, Msgr. Vladimir Sterniuk, received not only these faithful, these parishes, these priests, but even two bishops from the patriarchate of Moscow. Then the enraged patriarch of Moscow contacted Rome. And Rome said that, since only the pope could receive Orthodox bishops into the Church and since he had received no such request, no Orthodox bishop could enter the Church. And they forced Bishop Sterniuk to send away the two bishops he had received into the Catholic communion!²⁷

Collaboration with the Orthodox

Since the Orthodox Church is a Church founded and willed by Jesus Christ, she is, with the Catholic Church, "jointly responsible for maintaining the Church of God faithful to the divine design," reads the Balamand Declaration.²⁸ When Pope John Paul II received Abuna Paulos, the patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, he basically said the same thing:

We must avoid any hostility and any spirit of rivalry, in order to commit ourselves resolutely to a mutual collaboration in view of the growth of our Churches.²⁹

Consequently, Catholics must collaborate to the growth of a non-Catholic religion.

The various Churches consider each of them as a part of the whole: the Church of Christ. It is the will of Christ Himself that the flock be legitimately distributed between them. Any desire to recuperate the whole flock would cause a new rent contrary to the Gospel's announcement. No, each Church must support the other just as she is, and Catholics must be the first to give the good example:

The present circumstances urge us to work together in the pastoral field, in order not to hinder the most sacred of all causes: the preaching of the Gospel to all creatures.³⁰

"In this spirit we will be able to face together the re-evangelization of our secularized world."³¹ One of the "characteristics" of the new evangelization promoted by Pope John Paul II is ecumenism, as if the mission could belong jointly to the legitimate and the illegitimate pastors! Seeing sister Churches in the Orthodox Churches, the Catholics must consequently support them positively: "The Catholic Church," said Pope John Paul II,

recognizes the mission that the Orthodox Churches are called to fulfill in the countries in which they have been established for centuries. She has no other desire than to help this mission and collaborate with it.³²

And so the Catholic Church will support the Orthodox Church in her mission.

Special attention must be given to the formation of the future priests:

To prepare the future relationships between the two Churches, special attention will be given to the formation of future priests....Their formation must be objectively positive towards the other Church....They will avoid using history in a polemic manner....³³

On the occasion of the inauguration of the major Seminary of Moscow, Pope John Paul II sent a message to Bishop Kondruziewicz, apostolic administrator for Western Russia, in which he reminded him that the seminarians must be trained to "develop the necessary good relations with the Orthodox Church."³⁴

To help the Orthodox Church also means to give her financial support, for even if the Orthodox do not like the Catholics at all, they very readily accept their money! The organizations which work in Russia have received directives from Rome in this sense. The organization Aid to the Church in Need, founded by Fr. Werenfried Van Straaten, was a marvelous work at the time when it would help Catholic priests and faithful in countries under the Communist yoke. Now this organization also supports the Orthodox Church: its money serves to form Orthodox seminarians, to help the Orthodox press, etc. As a matter of fact, in the March 1993 newsletter, Father Werenfried explained that we had to help Orthodox services, seminarians, and preaching. "We want to comfort the Orthodox Church," he wrote, and he invited his benefactors to show "an ecumenical generosity."³⁵

Ecumenical Holiness

Since the Orthodox belong to the Church of Christ, they can have saints. In the Apostolic Letter Tertio Millenio Adveniente (November 10, 1994) preparing the jubilee of the year 2000, John Paul II wrote: "The witness given to Christ even to the shedding of blood has become a patrimony common to Catholics, Orthodox, Anglicans, and Protestants." (§37) On May 7, 2000, in Rome, at the Coliseum, the Pope presided over an ecumenical commemoration of the "witnesses to the faith in the 20th century," which was probably one of the worst acts of the Jubilee. In the text presenting it, the Pope said:

Many men and women, Christians of all denominations, races and ages, have born testimony to their faith in the midst of harsh persecutions, in captivity, in the midst of privations of all kinds, and many of them also shed their blood to remain faithful to Christ, to the Church, and to the Gospel.

In his homily, he spoke of "the example of those who remained heroically faithful to their faith."³⁶

If a non-Catholic can be a martyr, this is to admit that he can bear this most glorious title as a member of a false religion. Now let us ask the question: Will this martyr still be Orthodox in heaven? It would be a great injustice to Mother Church to think that the saints in heaven have God for their Father without venerating her as their Mother.

In his famous treatise on the canonization of saints, Pope Benedict XIV makes a fundamental distinction concerning the non-Catholics killed out of hatred for their faith. The learned Pope admitted that they could be martyrs before God, but not before the Church. Indeed, theses persons may have been in invincible ignorance, and be ready, with the help of grace, to believe what the Church teaches. But the Church cannot judge the interior dispositions of someone she sees dying in heresy or schism; she cannot know whether he has the requisite dispositions. Consequently, Pope Benedict XIV does not deny the possibility of martyrdom for a non-Catholic of good faith, but he states that it is impossible for the Church to declare him such. This did not stop Pope John Paul II from celebrating as martyrs those who, though they died in anti-Christian persecution, did not belong to the Catholic Church. What is impossible has become possible!

The Churches' Equality

Ecumenism presupposes as its basis the equality of all the Churches before the problem of union. And this under several aspects: First, all the Churches must acknowledge themselves guilty of the separation, so that instead of accusing one another, each must ask pardon. Pope Paul VI confessed this in the address he made for the opening of the second session of the Council. John Paul II, always ready to ask pardon for the "faults" of his predecessors, hurried to do likewise:

We can only humbly acknowledge that, in the past, in the relations between the Churches, the spirit of evangelical brotherhood did not always reign. We all bear the burden of historical faults, we all made mistakes. With sincere and deep sorrow, we acknowledge this today before God, and ask Him to forgive us.³⁷

"The responsibilities for the separation have been shared, and left deep wounds on both sides." (Balamand Declaration, §30) The ecumenists tamper with history by exaggerating the wrongs of the Catholics, and they forget what is essential, namely defection from Catholic unity. To practice ecumenism you must consequently take away from the Church the halo of her holiness.

Second, no Church, after the separation, can believe herself to be the one and complete Church of Christ, but she is only one part of this Church. Consequently, none may arrogate the right to oblige the others to come back to her, but they must rather all feel under obligation of reuniting among themselves in order to reconstitute this Church. "The union of the Churches to form all together the one true Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ," such was the idea already defended in 1926 by Msgr. Roncalli, the future Pope John XXIII.³⁸

The ecumenist heresy is crystallized in the famous formula of the Second Vatican Council³⁹: "The Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church," instead of the traditional doctrine which teaches that the Church of Christ is the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church is the one and holy Church founded by Christ. According to Vatican II, the Church of Christ is no longer the Catholic Church; she only subsists in the Catholic Church: the Catholic Church is not the whole Church founded by Jesus Christ, there exist other parts of it elsewhere, namely in the other Christian Churches. The Church of Christ also subsists in them, and all must realize this common subsistence in Christ. Consequently, the union of all the Churches must not take place in the Catholic Church by the return of the separated brethren to the Catholic Church, but in the Church of Christ, and by a movement of all the denominations towards a center which is outside of each one of them.

The future ecumenical Church resulting from this union cannot be identical to any of the Churches now existing. She will surpass all particular Christian denominations. The Catholic Church, together with all the other denominations, must only concur in the convergence towards this center which is outside of her. The total Christ will be achieved by the synthesis of all the scattered members of Christianity. Patriarch Athenagoras professed this openly:

In this movement of union there is no question of one Church going towards another, but all the Churches go towards the common Christ. It is a question of rebuilding the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.⁴⁰

So the unity of the Church has to be built. And it will be first of all the fruit of dialogue. John Paul II was convinced of this and it was a constant element in his thinking: we must reconstitute Christian unity, rebuild the lost unity of the Church by means of dialogue, as if this unity did not already exists and was not one of the characters of the Spouse of Christ, but some sort of "omega point" after the fashion of Teilhard de Chardin.

According to the words of Pope John Paul II [in the Encyclical Slavorum Apostoli], the ecumenical effort of the sister Churches of the East and the West seeks a perfect and total communion which is neither absorption nor fusion, but meeting in truth and love.⁴¹

We already find this same idea in the letter Cardinal Willebrands wrote on behalf on Pope John Paul II in 1979:

The union we seek is not absorption of one by the other, nor the domination of one over the other, but full communion between Churches who share the same faith and the same sacramental life.⁴²

A unity which is "neither absorption nor fusion, but meeting": yet it is clear that unity in the acknowledgment of the pope's supremacy will necessary lead to the absorption of the Orthodox structures into the Catholic Church: patriarchates, bishoprics, parishes, with all their hierarchy will become Catholic in submission to the pope.

Third is the Churches' mutual enrichment. In his Instruction of December 20, 1949 about the "ecumenical movement," Pope Pius XII gave the following warning:

We will avoid speaking in such a way that, coming back to the Church, they imagine that they bring her an essential element which would have been missing to her up to now. They must be told these things clearly and without ambiguity, first because they seek the truth, and secondly because outside of the truth there will never be true union.

The conciliar Church acts very differently. On November 30, 1985, on the occasion of the Feast of St. Andrew, John Paul II sent a message to Patriarch Dimitrios in which he said: "In the quest for Christian unity, there is a source of mutual enrichment for the unity of the faith." That same year, in a letter addressed to the presidents of the Bishops Conferences in Europe, Pope John Paul II declared:

If, in the course of the centuries, there unfortunately occurred the painful rupture between the East and the West, from which the Church is still suffering today, the duty of rebuilding unity is particularly urgent so that the beauty of the Spouse of Christ may appear in all its splendor. For precisely, from the fact that they are complementary, both traditions are, in some measure, imperfect if considered separately. They can complement one another and offer a less inadequate interpretation of the "mystery which hath been hidden from ages and generations, but now is manifested to his saints."

Certain features of the Christian mystery have at times been more effectively emphasized" in religions other than the Catholic Church, said John Paul II.⁴³

So the Catholic Church needs what the Orthodox are going to bring her. Nobody possesses the whole truth, the Orthodox have part of it. In order to have the whole truth, we must "achieve unity," namely bring together the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle. And the Church will derive from this an increase of beauty and perfection.

So that the Catholic may be apt to receive this enrichment, Pope John Paul II asked of them a movement of conversion: "This change [of attitude] can only be the fruit of a deep conversion and of a continual effort of renewal."⁴⁴ "There is no true ecumenism without interior conversion, without overcoming prejudices and suspicions." Catholics must eliminate their prejudices against the Orthodox, overcome courageously their laziness and the narrowness of their hearts.⁴⁵ Through this magnanimous act of humility and opening they will become capable of hearing "what the Spirit says to the Churches,"⁴⁶ and of receiving his graces.

What Are the Results of Ecumenism?

Before this "ecumenical generosity" of the conciliar Church towards the Orthodox world, what is the reaction of the Orthodox? Pope John Paul II multiplied his visits to Eastern countries in which, most of the time, Orthodox are more numerous than Catholics: Romania (May 1999), Georgia (November 1999), Greece and Syria (May 2001), the Ukraine (June 2001), Kazakhstan (September 2001), Azerbaijan and Bulgaria (May 2002). These journeys, on his part, were obviously the occasion of ecumenical objectives: during his visits, he multiplied ecumenical meetings or celebrations, to such a point that we could not conceive a journey of his without some meeting of this kind. But his desires did not always become reality, because of the reticence of the Orthodox who were displeased to see him come into their domains. He went to the Ukraine in spite of the hostility of the Russian Orthodox Church. These visits to Eastern countries, they said, give the impression of an expansionist Catholicism.

Pope John Paul II desired to go to Russia, but the Patriarch of Moscow always strongly opposed it. The establishment of Catholic dioceses in Russia had deeply irritated him. In the summer of 2002, he published several official communiques. Concerning the activity of the Catholic Church in Russia, Alexis II pointed out that, "under cover of pastoral activity, it is doing nothing less than simply taking faithful away from the Orthodox Church." All this activity proved "the determination of the Vatican to pursue a policy of missionary expansion, which is unacceptable in the eyes of Orthodoxy." And the patriarch of Moscow concluded: "This can only give rise to distrust and increase the distance which separates our Churches."⁴⁷

Among the Orthodox and in public opinion, we see a rancor and a spirit of hostility against the Catholic Church. The Orthodox accuse the Catholics of trying to expand at their own expense. The Patriarchate of Moscow asked the Church to fulfill the pastoral ministry only for the already existing Catholic population, and to limit her activity to people of Polish, Lithuanian, or German origin.

In 2002, the Catholic Church experienced a certain number of obstructions and problems (for instance, visas were confiscated) with the civil authority in Russia. The Patriarchate of Moscow denied any implication, but did not voice any criticism of what was done. The Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I, is more deeply involved in ecumenism than the Patriarch of Moscow, Alexis II. For instance, he was present at the Prayer Day in Assisi on January 2002. According to Cardinal Lubachivsky, he was a personal friend of John Paul II.

But all in all, these 40 years of dialogue and concessions produced very few positive results on the side of the Orthodox hierarchy. We cajoled it, but without meeting with any reciprocity. Sympathy and friendship are not sufficient to solve all the problems. There are various reasons for this. We must not underestimate the immense difficulties, simply on the psychological level, involved in a reunion occurring after centuries of separation. Such obstacles would exist even if ecumenism were undertaken in a Catholic spirit. Cardinal Bea could see this clearly:

Obstacles of the psychological order seem by far to be the most important. Different mentalities progressively became alien to one another. We no longer understood each other. We ceased to feel we were brethren and ceased to deal with the other as with a brother. We hardened in our opposition to the other. We stressed and over-emphasized the differences. We became encysted. We wanted to justify at Church level a de facto separation caused exclusively, or almost so, by non-theological factors. For centuries, this attitude shaped Christian mentality on both sides. We now have to re-build what those centuries have undone.⁴⁸

Ecumenism is slowing down, and it even seems to be getting bogged down. During the first years, there were exceptional manifestations, but it became a "normal" activity of the Church. In the 1970's came the disillusions. Pope Paul VI said in a dramatic discourse:

The difficulties we meet with to form again a true unitary fusion between the various Christian denominations are such that they paralyze any human hope to see it historically achieved. The fractures have become ossified, solidified, organized to such a point that any attempt to rebuild a well-unified body, attached to the head which is Christ seems a utopia.⁴⁹

For some years now, the doctrinal discussion has lost much of its enthusiasm. Pope John Paul II wrote to Patriarch Bartholomew:

In the year 2000, after a long interruption of its works, the International Joint Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches was able to meet again in Baltimore for its eighth plenary session. Such a meeting is in itself an important event and was the occasion to underline the complexity of the issues under study. However, much to our regret, we must admit that it did not make possible any real progress in our dialogue.⁵⁰

Theological dialogue is at a standstill, acknowledged Pope John Paul II.⁵¹ We would rather say that it went down a blind alley. To consider only what unites us is to be an ostrich, and sooner or later we realize that such a policy has its limitations. Schism did not occur because of the issues upon which we agreed, but because of the divergences. And the points of divergence are not of secondary importance. The Orthodox realize this much better than the Catholics:

Without one only faith, the unity of the Churches cannot be imagined. It would be merely an artificial union. In other words, not a vital union but a false union.⁵²

A good example of this ostrich policy is the indissolubility of marriage. The Orthodox Church sometimes allows divorce. We saw this when Mrs. Kennedy, widow of President Kennedy and a Catholic, married Mr. Onassis, an Orthodox, canonically married a first time, and whose marriage had been dissolved "according to the Canon Law of the Orthodox Church," but not according to that of the Catholic Church. The man was really married. The Orthodox Church, through Metropolitan Meliton, the highest authority after Patriarch Athenagoras defended this second union: "This marriage is a mixed marriage, perfectly legal and valid for the Orthodox Church and it must be defended by her."⁵³ And the Catholic Church only had to keep quiet. But it is true that she now does not do any better in the field of marriage annulments. Ecumenical conversations carefully avoid tackling this moral issue, which is, however, of capital importance.

The sunny side of this ecumenical utopia is the certitude that it will never achieve anything. Its dream of unity is a chimera. Except for a few, the partners of the ecumenical Catholics do not wish the success of this utopia. They are content to accept as due to them the concessions made by the Catholics, and do not consider that these call for any reciprocity. They do not mean to give in on any point. They interpret what the Catholics relinquish as so many signs of weakness and thus feel strengthened in their errors. Forty years later, the Orthodox are still Orthodox. On the other hand, there is considerable damage among the Catholics who have become less Catholic and even often heretical. By keeping quiet about the truths denied by the schismatics, ecumenical dialogue causes doctrinal confusion. Ecumenism is carried out at the expense of the Faith and of the divine constitution of the Church. It slows down conversions; it leads Catholics to indifferentism. "This [ecumenism] is what the Church is presently dying of," said Archbishop Lefebvre.⁵⁴Nevertheless, Pope John Paul II kept on going according to his own idea: "I want to say that the Catholic Church's commitment to the ecumenical movement was an irrevocable decision," he proclaimed in 1985.

Powerful graces will be needed to convert both the conciliar Catholics and the Orthodox. But in Fatima, the Blessed Virgin promised that she would convert Russia if that country was consecrated to her Immaculate Heart by the pope and the bishops. Let us beg God to enlighten them: may they understand again the meaning of true Catholic unity, which is based not on a pseudo-charity, but on the Faith. After having breathed the poisoned atmosphere of ecumenism, a breath of fresh Catholic air will do us good. St. Augustine provides it for us:

He shall redeem my soul in peace from them that draw near to me: "for among many they were with me." In many things they were with me: we had the same baptism, in this they were with me; we were reading the same Gospel, in this they were with me; we celebrated the feasts of the martyrs, there they were with me; we frequented the Paschal solemnity, there they were with me. But they were not with me in all things; in heresy, they were not with me. In the few things in which they were not with me, it was of no use to them to have been with me in many things....Observe that the straw is close to the wheat. It comes together with it from the same seed, both took root in the same field, the same rain nourished them, the same harvester cut them down, they were threshed together, the same winnowing fan waited for them; the barn alone separated them.

 

From Christendom, No.10. Christendom is a publication of DICI, the press bureau of the Society of Saint Pius X (www.dici.org). The article was edited by Angelus Press for clarity. However, since Benedict XVI considers ecumenism with the Orthodox as one of the priorities of his pontificate, this study by Fr. Gresland has lost none of its interest. Fr. Hervé Gresland, a Frenchman, was ordained in 1983. After several assignments at priories in France, he is now at the Sierre Priory in Switzerland.

¹ La Documentation Catholique (D.C.), January 21, 1965. Cardinal Lercaro was one of the four moderators of the council.

² November 29, 1973. D.C., January 20, 1974.

³ D.C., February 4, 1996.

⁴ Encyclical Ut Unum Sint, §22. See also the homily of the Pope (quoted above) on December 6, 1987.

⁵ §838. Address of Pope Paul VI on December 14, 1975.

⁶ D.C., October 1, 2000; Osservatore Romano, October 28, 2000.

⁷ See footnote 22.

⁸ Letter of September 1979. D.C., November 1979.

⁹ D.C., July 21, 1991.

¹⁰ See footnote 10 in Part I (The Angelus, July 2007).

¹¹ Lumen Gentium, §8.

¹² Unitatis Redintegratio, §3.

¹³ Declaration of Bari. D.C., No.1945.

¹⁴ Address at the Phanar, July 25, 1967. D.C., August 6, 1967.

¹⁵ Osservatore Romano, French edition, November 30, 1993.

¹⁶ §29.

¹⁷ §13.

¹⁸ Communiqué at the end of the Bari meeting between Catholics and Orthodox on June 16, 1987. D.C., No.1945.

¹⁹ Declaration of December 7, 1987.

²⁰ §15.

²¹ §22.

²² See footnote 9.

²³ Declaration of the International Joint Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, Balamand, January 23, 1993. D.C., August 1 and 15, 1993.

²⁴ Address of Msgr. Meliton, President of the Conference, at the Pan-Orthodox Conference of Rhodes, on November 1964. D.C., May 2, 1965.

²⁵ Letter to Patriarch Bartholomew on November 25, 2000. D.C., January 7, 2001.

²⁶ Bishop Daucourt, at the time bishop of Troyes (France). D.C., No.2078.

²⁷ Sermon for the ordinations of June 29, 1996.

²⁸ §14.

²⁹ Osservatore Romano, French edition, November 30, 1993.

³⁰ Idem.

³¹ Balamand Declaration, §32.

³² Address to Patriarch Theoctist of Rumania, October 12, 2002.

³³ Balamand Declaration §30.

³⁴ D.C., No.2080.

³⁵ Letter to Benefactors of November 15, 1994.

³⁶ D.C., June 4, 2000.

³⁷ John Paul II, June 5, 1991, ecumenical meeting in the Cathedral of Bialystok, in Poland. D.C., July 21, 1991.

³⁸ See Marcel Lefebvre by Bernard Tissier de Mallerais (Kansas City: Angelus Press, 2004), p.272.

³⁹ Cf. Not 68 (Lumen Gentium, §8).

⁴⁰ Informations Catholiques Internationales, No. 311, May 1, 1968.

⁴¹ Balamand Declaration, §14.

⁴² Letter to Metropolite Juvenaly, September 22, 1979. D.C., November 18, 1979.

⁴³ Encyclical Ut Unum Sint, §14

⁴⁴ Address to the delegate of the Patriarch of Constantinople in 1993. D.C., No.2078.

⁴⁵ Homily of October 13, 2002, at St. Peter's Basilica in the presence of the Rumanian Patriarch Theoctist.

⁴⁶ Apoc. 2:7.

⁴⁷ Nouvelles du Monde Orthodoxe, November 2002.

⁴⁸ Interview granted to the daily To Vima, May 12, 1965. D.C., July 18, 1965.

⁴⁹ D.C., February 5, 1978

⁵⁰ Letter of November 25, 2000.

⁵¹ Address to the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch, October 22, 2001.

⁵² Conference by the metropolite of Patras on November 27, 1980. D.C., November 1, 1981.

⁵³ D.C., January 19, 1969.

⁵⁴ Sermon at Le Bourget, November 19, 1989.