REVISITED: Pope’s Dropping of Title

Recently, I posted a bishop’s take on the Pope’s dropping the title “Patriarch of the West” … in the Comments on that post, I mused that perhaps it was a “trial balloon.” Well, the following piece has a whole different take:

From the National Catholic Reporter …

Without any fanfare, Benedict XVI last week set aside a traditional title of the Roman Pontiff for roughly 1,500 years, “Patriarch of the West.” While initial speculation construed the move as a gesture of ecumenical sensitivity to the Orthodox, most experts say the real logic was almost certainly the exact reverse – a rejection of attempts to impose Eastern concepts upon the ecclesiology of the Catholic Church …

Yet … the decision did not fall from the clear blue sky. Recent debate on the nature of the papacy has highlighted the question of whether the universal primacy of the pope can accurately be understood on the model of the patriarchs, a concept that comes out of Eastern Christianity.

“My best guess is that this amounts to a refusal on the part of the Vatican of an attempt to put the Petrine primacy into a framework that’s not perceived as proper to it,” [Jesuit Fr. Robert Taft, an expert on Eastern Christianity at Rome’s Oriental Institute] said.

“Calling the pope ‘Patriarch of the West’ could be seen as an attempt to Orientalize Western ecclesiology,” Taft said.

Ecumenical observers also warn that renouncing the title may alarm the Orthodox about a lack of sensitivity for the legitimate autonomy of Eastern traditions. On that score, there are already early indications of negative reaction.

Thanks to FWD from Fr Miguel Grave de Peralta

Yesterday’s new item from the Vatican bears witness to the above …

Vatican City, Mar. 16, 2006 (CNA) – Today, the Vatican released a letter sent by Pope Benedict XVI to Cardinal Lubomyr Husar, major Archbishop of Lviv of the Ukrainians, recalling the forced fusion of Catholics into the Orthodox Church by the communist Soviet government in 1946.

The Pope’s message served to mark what he called “the sad events to which the cathedral of St. George at Leopoli was witness, in March of sixty years ago.”

In the letter, which was dated February 22nd, the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter, the Holy Father recalled the infamous March 1946 date, during which “a group of prelates meeting in a pseudo-synod which took upon itself the right to represent the Church, made a serious attack against ecclesial unity.”

“Violence against those who remained faithful to the Bishop of Rome intensified,” he wrote, “giving rise to further suffering and forcing the Church to descend once again to the catacombs.”

Despite this, the Pope expressed his thanks to God that “the Greek-Catholic Church did not disappear but continued to bear her own witness to the unity, sanctity catholicity and apostolicity of the Church of Christ.”

Then there’s this, from the Pope’s message to Greek Orthodox seminarians:

We must confront the challenges that threaten faith, cultivate the spiritual humus that has nourished Europe for centuries, reaffirm Christian values, promote peace and encounter, even in the most difficult conditions, and deepen those elements of faith and ecclesial life that can lead us to the goal of full communion in truth and in charity, especially now that the official dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church as a whole is resuming its journey with renewed vigor.