Statue of St. Peter in front of St. Peter’s Basilica. / Credit: Vatican Media
Rome Newsroom, Jun 13, 2024 / 09:42 am (CNA).
The Vatican published a 130-page study on papal primacy on Thursday containing suggestions from Orthodox and Protestant Christian communities for how the role of the Bishop of Rome might look in a future “reunited Church.”
The study document, titled “The Bishop of Rome: Primacy and Synodality in Ecumenical Dialogue and Responses to the Encyclical Ut Unum Sint,” is the first Vatican text since the Second Vatican Council to outline the entire ecumenical debate on papal primacy.
In addition to identifying the theological questions surrounding papal primacy in ecumenical dialogue, the document goes a step further to provide suggestions “for a ministry of unity in a reunited Church,” including “a differentiated exercise of the primacy of the Bishop of Rome.”
The end of the text published on June 13 includes a section of proposals from the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity on “the exercise of primacy in the 21st century,” including recommendations for “a synodal exercise” of papal primacy.
Synodality
The dicastery concludes that “growing synodality is required within the Catholic Church” and that “many synodal institutions and practices of the Eastern Catholic Churches could inspire the Latin Church.”
It adds that “a synodality ad extra” could include regular meetings among Christian representatives at the worldwide level in a “conciliar fellowship” to deepen communion.
This builds off of dialogue with some Orthodox representatives who have asserted that “any restoration of full communion between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches will require, on both sides, a strengthening of synodal structures and a renewed understanding of a universal primacy – both serving communion among the churches.”
At a Vatican press conference on June 13, Cardinal Mario Grech, the secretary-general of the General Secretariat of the Synod, said that this study document is being released as a very “convenient time” as the Church prepares for the second session of the Synod on Synodality in the fall.
A representative of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Archbishop Khajag Barsamian, who joined the press conference via video link, underlined that “the synodality of the Catholic Church is an important criterion for the Oriental Orthodox churches on our way to full communion.”
Defining responsibilities of the pope
The Catholic Church holds that Jesus made Peter the “rock” of his Church, giving him the keys to the Kingdom and instituting him as the shepherd of the whole flock. The pope as Peter’s successor is the “perpetual and visible source and foundation of the unity both of the bishops and of the whole company of the faithful,” as described in one of the principal documents of the Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium.
The new study document proposes “a clearer distinction be made between the different responsibilities of the Pope, especially between his ministry as head of the Catholic Church and his ministry of unity among all Christians, or more specifically between his patriarchal ministry in the Latin Church and his primatial ministry in the communion of Churches.”
It notes the possibility of “extending this idea to consider how other Western Churches might relate to the Bishop of Rome as primate while having a certain autonomy themselves.”
The text notes that Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Churches emphasized the importance of regional leadership in the Church and advocated “a balance between primacy and primacies.” It adds that some ecumenical dialogues with Western Christian communities also applied this to the Catholic Church by calling for “a strengthening of Catholic episcopal conferences, including at the continental level, and for a continuing ‘decentralization’ inspired by the model of the ancient patriarchal Churches.”
Invoking the principle of subsidiarity, which means that no matter that can properly be dealt with at a lower level should be taken to a higher one, the text describes how some ecumenical dialogues argued that “the power of the Bishop of Rome should not exceed that required for the exercise of his ministry of unity at the universal level, and suggest a voluntary limitation in the exercise of his power.”
“In a reconciled Christianity, such communion presupposes that the Bishop of Rome’s relationship to the Eastern Churches and their bishops […] would have to be substantially different from the relationship now accepted in the Latin Church,” it says.
‘Rewording’ of teachings of Vatican I
Another concrete proposal put forward by the dicastery is “a Catholic ‘re-reception’, ‘re-interpretation,’ ‘official interpretation,’ ‘updated commentary,’ or even ‘rewording’ of the teachings of Vatican I,” particularly with regard to definitions on primacy of jurisdiction and papal infallibility.
The First Vatican Council, which took place between 1869 and 1870 under Pope Pius IX, dogmatically defined papal infallibility in the constitution, Pastor Aeternus, which said that when the Roman Pontiff speaks ex cathedra, that is, when he officially teaches in his capacity of the universal shepherd of the Church on a doctrine on a matter of faith or morals and addresses it to the entire world, the defined doctrine is irreformable.
An Anglican representative who spoke at the Vatican press conference highlighted how certain aspects of Vatican I have been a particular “stumbling block” for Angelicans.
The study document released by the Vatican pointed to how arguments have been made in ecumenical dialogue that some of the teachings of Vatican I “were deeply conditioned by their historical context” and suggested that “the Catholic Church should look for new expressions and vocabulary faithful to the original intention but integrated into a communio ecclesiology and adapted to the current cultural and ecumenical context.”
It describes how some ecumenical dialogues “were able to clarify the wording of the dogma of infallibility and even to agree on certain aspects of its purpose, recognizing the need, in some circumstances, for a personal exercise of the teaching ministry, given that Christian unity is a unity in truth and love.”
“In spite of these clarifications, the dialogues still express concerns regarding the relation of infallibility to the primacy of the Gospel, the indefectibility of the whole Church, the exercise of episcopal collegiality and the necessity of reception,” it adds.
‘That they all may be one’
The document summarizes responses by different Christian communities to Pope John Paul II’s 1995 encyclical on Christian unity, Ut Unum Sint (“That They All May Be One”).
In particular to the Polish pope’s invitation in the encyclical for Christian leaders and theologians to engage in a patient and fraternal dialogue on papal primacy.
“It is out of a desire to obey the will of Christ truly that I recognize that as bishop of Rome I am called to exercise that ministry. I insistently pray the Holy Spirit to shine his light upon us, enlightening all the pastors and theologians of our Churches, that we may seek — together, of course — the forms in which this ministry may accomplish a service of love recognized by all concerned,” John Paul II wrote.
Ut Unum Sint says that the bishop of Rome as the successor of the Apostle Peter has a “specific duty” to work for the cause of Christian unity.
The study document published by the Vatican is the result of more than three years of work summarizing some 30 responses to Ut unum sint and 50 ecumenical dialogue documents on the subject.
Orthodox, Protestant, and Catholics experts were consulted in collaboration with the Institute for Ecumenical Studies at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas.
Cardinal Kurt Koch, the prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, noted at the press conference that one of the fruits of the ecumenical theological dialogue in the past three decades has been “a renewed reading of the ‘Petrine texts,’” in which dialogue partners were invited to “consider afresh the role of Peter among the apostles.”
The Vatican notes that the “the concerns, emphases and conclusions of the different dialogues varied according to the confessional traditions involved.”
As a study document, its goal is only to offer “an objective synthesis of the ecumenical discussions” on papal primacy, and “does not claim to exhaust the subject nor summarize the entire Catholic magisterium on the subject.”
Cardinal Koch explained that Pope Francis gave his approval for the dicastery to publish the document, but this does not mean that the pope approved every sentence.
Ian Ernest, the director of the Anglican Center in Rome, thanked Catholic leaders for publishing the new document, which he said “opens up new perspectives for ecumenical relations on the much debated question of the relationship between primacy and synodality.”
“As the personal representative of the archbishop of Canterbury, I am delighted that one of the most comprehensive and detailed responses to St. John Paul II’s invitation in Ut unum sint was given by the House of bishops of the Church of England in 1997,” he said.
Ernest described the Anglican Lambeth Conference and Primates’ Meeting as examples of “synodality at work,” which enable the Anglican communion “to prayerfully understand the ecumenical dialogues and new perspectives which touch on … important doctrinal aspects.”
In response to questions from journalists, Cardinal Grech acknowledged that different Christian churches have different ways of conceiving synodality.
Grech noted that the synthesis report from the 2023 assembly of the Synod on Synodality asked theologians to examine “the way in which a renewed understanding of the episcopate within a synodal Church affects the ministry of the Bishop of Rome and the role of the Roman Curia.”
He added that “the debate is still open” as the Church continues the synodal process with the second assembly in the fall.
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Thank you, the articles are informative and interesting. The Prince Harry article is well worth reading, very good writer. The Father Pavone accusation is sad, must say that now I am finding it difficult to make any more donations tp Priest for Life. What to do?
Is there some skullduggery going on against Pavone as there may have been against Pell?
@The Problem of Evil
We’re inquisitive creatures. That’s a good thing. Not when we seek entry into the mind of God.
Fr. James Dominic Rooney, OP brilliant Dominican theologian enters where angels desist. His thesis in a larger than ordinary nutshell is that God’s rationale for permitting evil is to bring good out of it. There is some scriptural reference, the great Apostle for instance that alludes this, God permitting Israel to defect that salvation would reach all eventually Israel. And Augustine, that God permits our waywardness at the beginning of his creation that he might display his mercy [does God require to prove his love to himself?].
I believe in saints, although I’m not obliged to accept as Gospel everything they might muse [although Paul’s theorem makes sense since sin was already a factor].
Fr Rooney ends with a soupy finale God wanting to throw us into the eternal fire yet heartstruck, the beloved humanity clinging in want, God succumbing in an eternal embrace of love.
How about this? Isn’t it more consistent with the divine nature, despite omniscient awareness of the Fall from grace, that out of his infinite good, benevolent intent, his prescient love he creates regardless of where the chips may fall? That foreknowledge of evil events cannot prevent that love from being expressed, making us in his own image with the freedom to love him since love is love only if freely given?
“Sitting on the Fence” (#5) mentions the Lambeth Conference of 1998. But, going back even before the sexual devolution of 1968, at the 1948 Lambeth Conference the long-defeated (from 1930) Anglican minority still told it like it is:
“It is, to say the least, suspicious that the age in which contraception has won its way is not one which has been conspicuously successful in managing its sexual life. Is it possible that, by claiming the right to manipulate his physical processes in this manner, man may, without knowing it, be stepping over the boundary between the world of Christian marriage and what one might call the world of Aphrodite, the world of sterile eroticism?” (Citation by Cardinal John Wright, “Reflections on the Third Anniversary of a Controverted Encyclical,” St. Louis: Central Bureau Press, 1971).
“The world of Aphrodite”?
Among the pseudo-Catholic illuminati, the real “seamless garment” weaves together contraception, then abortion, then blessing of the active gay subculture with gay “marriage,” then resonance from the German non-synodal uprising, and then Cardinal Hollerich’s signaled reversal of the inborn and entire natural law (and therefore the Catechism) on sexual morality.
Clever guys, or whatever, these seamstresses:
The marginalized “facilitator” bishops defer to their synodal block parties, the “aggregated, combined and synthesized” diocesan reports defer to word-merchant “experts,” the harmonized “continental” phase then defers to the worldwide and tautological Synod on Synodality, then this body is in the incomparable hands of Cardinal Hollerich, who then defers to moral cliff-walker Fr. Radcliffe to kick off the climax master debate.
You just can’t make this stuff up.
I suggest that Catholics and Church of England members who are Christians give the Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrel, a present. It could be via one of those online fundraisers. He will be provided with a trip to Jerusalem, a rental of a horse, and a map. He will be pointed in the direction of Damascus, and told to ride. It worked once before.
According to my Catholic calendar this would be a very fitting day to do that too.
🙂
The T-word went along with the P-word, “pain and trauma”; and for now both got shelved. Maybe pigeon-holed. Whether as a stop-gap measure for the Church of England, or intra-period transitioning, it surely has the approval of the to-be-crowned King of England the head of that Church. As such it would correlate nicely his vision of the Anglican Communion, as he claims that to be, remaining flexible in the inter-religious dialogue while yet now matching the expressed views of Pope Francis, on the particular matters homosexual and their otherwise “sensitive” content. Whatever is gained accrues to the power of the monarch who assents to both the civil law legalization and to the Anglican blessings and arrangements; from his magnanimity.
It nonetheless serves to reveal and underscore the error in the Pope proclaiming specialization of laws for homosexual “civil union”!
‘ The pastoral office, it is said, is entrusted to the Church; she preaches for the faithful but does not teach for the theologians. But such a divorce of preaching and teaching is most profoundly opposed to the essence of the biblical message. It merely rehashes that division between psychics and gnostics, whereby the so-called gnosis of antiquity had already tried to secure for itself, a free zone; which in reality placed it outside the Church and her faith. ‘
– Joseph Ratzinger, The Nature and Mission of Theology ( Ignatius, trans. Adrian Walker, original 1993, Johannes Verlag, at page 62 )