www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News Pope Francis universally authorizes married Eastern priests

First of all, IMHO the Orthodox Churches need to address this issue on some high level. All these ecumenical dialogues that touch issues of primacy are all theoretical until concrete cases such as the married priesthood are addressed. If I were in a position to address this with a high-level Roman delegation this is what I would tell them:

1. In the event of full communion, there will be no Eastern bishop who will report to the Roman patriarchate for any reason whatsoever. If Rome has something to say to a specific bishop, it can be addressed to the relevant patriarch in whose synod that bishop is a member. In ordinary matters, that will not happen.
2. There will be no issue whatsoever of any Eastern bishop having to answer to anyone but his own synod over who he accepts for priestly formation nor who he ordains. The Eastern Churches are fully capable of making their own decisions in these areas based on their own canons and traditions.
3. In the event of full communion, there will be no issue with any man transfering to another bishop if he feels called to Holy Orders and the decision to accept or reject him will be entirely up to the bishop he approaches without any appeal or interference from Rome. so if a Latin man is rejected because he is married and an Eastern bishop feels he has what it takes and accepts him, there will be no comment from his former Latin bishop or from Rome.
4. In the event of full communion, the Oriental Congregation that has been the Roman Patriarch's medium of dealing with Eastern Churches in full communion up to that time will be abolished. The Pope can feel free to send a delegation to another patriarch to discuss any concerns he may have, but there will be no jurisdictional authority to interfere in the internal workings of another patriarchate unless based on the ancient canons wherein Rome is a last resort for certain limited matters. If Rome wants some sort of regular contact with other patriarchs, an ad hoc committee can be set up, but with no authority other than that granted by the patriarchs involved.
5. In the event Rome does not like these concrete statements of how life in renewed communion will be, then it will be Rome's fault that full communion cannot be achieved.

" . . . assure the Orthodox that the Catholic Church would respect their traditions . . ."

Forgive me, but this seems to make the assumption that everyone is becoming another Eastern Catholic Church. Is this man serious? It seems to me he needs a lot of education about what the other Apostolic Churches are all about, how they see themselves, and what they see an eventual reconciliation to be.

"[we were] to say, ‘Oh, by the way, you can’t have married priests in North America,’” he said."

I wonder what his reaction would be if the Orthodox would say "You're coming back into a communion you broke a millenium ago and you have the gall to think you can make any conditions on the Church you want to be reconciled to."

In defense of Fr Ron, I have heard some Orthodox say almost exactly what he said.

Could you clarify?

When I was instructed in the Orthodox Faith, I was told that a reconciliation would take a unanimous agreement of every canonical diocesan bishop. "Some Orthodox" wouldn't cut it from what my instructors had said.

I don't think there are Orthodox out there who would even dream of entering communion if it looked like what the Eastern Catholic Churches live today.

I think the link to the reply to the Chaldean patriarch by a bishop of the Church of the East could easily have been written by any Orthodox or Oriental Orthodox bishop and well states the approach of the Eastern Churches of Apostolic origin.

Bob