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One cannot heal a rift by promoting an injustice. Rome and Moscow tacitly colluded to ignore the existence of the Greek Catholics prior to 1989 in order to promote dialogue. They accepted at face value the Russian claim that the Greek Catholics had all been successfully assimilated into the Russian Orthodox Church, despite the protestation of Patriarch Josef. The Greek Catholic problem had been resolved, time to move on. What is amazing is a man so familiar with Soviet duplicity and so forcefully opposed to Soviet oppression as Pope John Paul II would have bought into the fiction--or allowed his Curia to do so. Rome was perhaps shocked nearly as much by the emergence from the catacombs as Moscow--but it should not have been, had it been fulfilling the pastoral obligation it claims to have over the Eastern Churches.

Pope John Paul II also made certain promises to Patriarch Josef, but the Latin Church has treated them like the dinner invitations extended to Elwood P. Dowd (Jimmy Stewart in Harvey):

Man: You must come over for dinner some time.

Dowd: When?

Man: (flustered) Soon!

Yes, you must come to dinner as soon as we find that recipe for Roman Rite/Eastern Rite Casserole!

A good deal of which is perceived or interpreted as doing exactly the opposite. Hence my original opinion.

lol!

I think that they tried to bake that dish starting with Archbishop Ireland and it gave anyone who remained loyal to the Eastern traditions indigestion, whether they remained Greek Catholic or became Orthodox. If the records of my now-Orthodox, formerly Greek Catholic parish are reflective of what happened across the US, about 33% of the parish left and founded the neighboring Byzantine Catholic parish, 33% stayed and became Orthodox by assimilation and the remainder either became Slovak Catholic or nothing.

I wouldn't recommend partaking of that particular delicacy! lol!

Hang around in the UGCC for a while and keep your eyes and ears open, and this will almost surely temper. Patriarch +Josyp famously pleaded "Have mercy on us, for we are Greek Catholics!" at one of his interventions at Vatican II. Patriarch +Josyp also likened our situation to that of carrying two crosses, one of the separation from our Constantinopolitan Orthodox brethren through the fallout from the Union and the other being almost completely misunderstood and even in some cases actively supressed from the Latin majority. We've offered millions of martyrs for our fidelity to the Union, which is sometimes not reciprocated in respect.

Blessed Vasyl Velychovsky listed the Polish Latin hierarchy along with Moscow as the greatest hindrances to his pastoral work in pre-World War II Ukraine. Even after the UGCC emerged from the catacombs the Polish hierarchy launched a new assault claiming "scandal" from the presence of married UGCC clergy in Eastern Poland (although they had been there for about four centuries). The fallout from Ea Semper and Cum Data Fuerit speak for themselves.

"Unity", as we in the UGCC painfully learned during the infamous attempted "Quadripartite Commission" is often at the expense of, rather than including the Greek Catholics. And similar tales can be told for other Greek Catholics, such as the Melkites, Romanians, etc.

Any efforts will have to be taken and made by us, not waiting for "Big Mama" to act. The most regular and fraternal Greek Catholic-Orthodox episcopal consultation is between the UGCC, UOC-USA and UOCC bishops in North America. That was begun because the bishops and metropolitans wanted to do it, and not because some dicastery in Rome like "The Pontifical Council for Promoting Unity" requested it.

Hi Constantine. I agree that everyone should appreciate, or at least try very hard to appreciate, PJII's and Benedict's attempts and how difficult of a position they found themselves in, through no fault of their own.

But, having said that, I do have to take issue with the word "everything", because I can think of something that Rome could do without annoying the ROC. Namely, with respect to her canonical territory -- I mean Rome's territory, not the ROC's territory -- she could declare ECs to have free rein to appoint their own bishops, ordain married men, etc.

Dear brother Peter,

Have the Easterns ever formally requested this from the Pope? AFAIK, the Oriental (+Melkite) bishops at the Middle East Council was the first time this topic has been broached? of course, I've only been Catholic for about 5 years, and am certainly no expert on the Byzantine end of the Catholic spectrum.

If the Middle East Council was the first time it has been presented for consideration, we should exercise a little patience. After all, it's not like any Patriarch has ever had a natural prerogative to install bishops of their own Church in the territorial jurisdiction of another Patriarch. This would be a new situation in the ecclesiastical order of things. The Pope could establish this new order on his own - in conference with all the bishops involved, of course - but the more I think about it, it seems the best way to do it is through an Ecumenical Council. This may admittedly take a while. I suppose the Oriental Congregation could get involved. I've noticed Eastern and Oriental Catholics offer only disparaging remarks about the Oriental Congregation, but perhaps in this instance, it may be convenient to speed things up a little.

Blessings,
Marduk

It creates awful heartburn!

The highest honor Rome has ever given the Eastern Church is Blessed Pope John Paul's visit to Ukraine.
Pope Benedict needs to demonstrate much more appreciation and love for the other "lung" of the Catholic Church starting with acknowledging the holiness of +Metropolitan Andrew Sheptitsky.

Just posting my "two cents /dva sente".

Дві копійки?

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I doubt the Basilians would ever accede to the canonization of someone who busted their monopoly and challenged their interpretation of Greek Catholicism.

Let me get back to you on whether it was "formally requested" or not. Continuing on down you post ...


That may be true concerning the way things have been in the past; but I know for a fact that at the present time the Pope has the prerogative to install Latin bishops anywhere in the world, regardless of whose canonical territory it is in.

Times are changing - actually the younger generation of Basilians in Ukraine, including among them more-Eastern leaning bishops such as Kyr +Vasyly (Medvit) and Kyr +Volodymyr (Yuschak) are quite in favor of his canonization.

The Church includes more than Basilians.

No doubt, and even with them certainly all is not lost. As Metropolitan Andrey was himself a Basilian, few of those formed more recently would object to his canonization.