On Sunday the Vatican published a personal letter Pope Francis wrote to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople suggesting the leaders' gathering.

That same day Cardinal Kurt Koch — who heads the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity — hand-delivered the letter to Patriarch Bartholomew during his visit to Istanbul for the Orthodox Church's patronal feast of St Andrew.

"The now imminent 1,700th anniversary ... will be another opportunity to bear witness to the growing communion that already exists among all who are baptised in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" Francis wrote to Bartholomew.

Reflecting on six decades of Catholic-Orthodox dialogue while looking ahead to future possibilities for unity, Francis was positive.

He acknowledged the progress made since Vatican II's Unitatis Redintegratio decree marked the Catholic Church's official entry into the ecumenical movement 60 years ago.

Koch is firm that efforts toward unity must focus on "the innermost centre of self-revelation in Jesus Christ".

There must be an "ecumenism of blood" he says.

"Christians are not persecuted because they are Catholic, Lutheran or Anglican but because they are Christian."

Building peace in a time of war

While celebrating the "renewed fraternity" which Catholic-Orthodox communities had achieved since Vatican II, Francis also wrote in his letter to Bartholomew that full communion, particularly sharing "the one Eucharistic chalice", remains an unfulfilled goal.

Speaking of contemporary global tensions, Francis pointedly connected ecumenical efforts to peace-building.

"The fraternity lived and the witness given by Christians will also be a message for our world plagued by war and violence" his letter says. He specifically mentioned several war-torn countries by name, including Ukraine, Palestine, Israel and Lebanon.

He also highlighted Orthodox representatives' recent participation in October's Synod on Synodality.

The traditional Catholic-Orthodox exchange of delegations occurs twice a year. Catholic representatives travel to Istanbul for St Andrew's feast on November 30 and Orthodox delegates visit Rome for the feast of Sts Peter and Paul on June 29.

The delegation participated in the Divine Liturgy at the Patriarchal Church of St George, Phanar. It also held discussions with the synodal commission charged with relations with the Catholic Church.

Source

• CNA

The claim is that the pope has not sufficiently condemned the crimes of Hamas and, furthermore, that he has created a symmetry between Hamas and Israel in his comments.

If that were not enough, apart from the pope, the church officials charged with dialogue with the Jewish people—first and foremost among them Cardinal Kurt Koch, head of the church's Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews— have chosen thunderous silence, not responding at all to the horrific events that took place in Israel.

The Jewish expectation was that as the fruit of the blessed process of dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Jewish people, the church and its leader would stand by our side in our fight against the terrorism of Hamas.

It is not my interest here to enter into a debate with the criticism that is being leveled, and there might or might not be some truth in it.

Rather, I seek to present the issue within a broader context, that of interreligious dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Jewish people.

Interreligious dialogue, by its very nature, is expressed through formal institutions, whether they be those of the Jewish rabbinic establishment or those of the church.

At the same time, precisely because the dialogue is developing in positive ways, it inevitably breaks through the formal frameworks that have been established and is practiced in the best possible way — through people rather than through institutions, and through those who do not need an official role in the dialogue in order to talk to one another.

In other words, the most successful interfaith dialogue takes place between religious leaders who desire to talk to one another, rather than between those who are formally obligated to talk to one another.

When we began to realise the extent of the horrors of Oct. 7, many of my Catholic friends contacted me immediately because of their deep concern.

This concern was personal and human, and my friends also expressed genuine anguish for the Jewish people because of the tremendous crisis it was experiencing. Such concern, bursting from the heart, is dearer to me than a thousand official letters from senior bureaucrats in the church.

On the night of Oct. 7, I discovered that my friends in the Catholic Church do not simply engage in diplomatic relations with me. Rather, they are truly my friends and friends of the Jewish people.

One good example of the kind of friendship I am referring to was provided by Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem.

He expressed himself in an exceptional way on Oct. 16, when he offered himself in return for the Israelis who had been kidnapped: "I am ready for an exchange, anything, if this can lead to freedom, to bring the children home. No problem. There is total willingness on my part."

It was completely evident that his words were sincere, and the sorrow he expressed was completely authentic.

In all of Cardinal Pizzaballa's statements, even those in which he expressed his deep concern for the residents of Gaza and criticised the practices of the State of Israel (perfectly logical considering that he is the patriarch first and foremost of his Palestinian flock), he continued to harshly condemn the criminal acts of Hamas on Oct. 7. Continue reading

• Guy Alaluf is an Israeli Orthodox rabbi and teacher who researches the relationship between Judaism and the Catholic Church. He leads the Daath and Tvuna (Knowledge and Understanding) Orthodox Jewish Community in Rosh HaAyin, Israel.

The closed-door meeting between the Swiss cardinal and Bishop Georg Bätzing, president of the German Bishops' Conference (DBK), took place on Wednesday in Rome, according to a DBK communique.

The encounter between the two prelates was meant to put an end to a controversy that erupted on September 29 when the conservative German weekly Tagespost published an interview with the 72-year-old cardinal.

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Bätzing had demanded an apology from the Vatican's Koch (pictured) over comments that brought up Germany's Nazi past.

He lamented what he called Koch's "untenable statements" about the German "synodal way".

Koch, charged with promoting Christian unity, is reported to have compared the German bishops' Synodal Path process with a mistaken Christian ideology that underpinned the rise of Nazism.

In an interview with the Catholic weekly "Die Tagespost," Koch said that he was shocked that the German Synodal Way was talking about new sources of revelation.

"This phenomenon already existed during the National Socialist dictatorship, when the so-called ‘German Christians' saw God's new revelation in blood and soil and in the rise of Hitler," Koch said.

At the end of the German bishops' plenary assembly on September 29, Bätzing said that, with his remarks, Koch had "disqualified himself from the theological debate" about the Synodal Path.

"If a public apology does not happen immediately, I will file an official complaint with the Holy Father," Bätzing said.

That evening, Koch published a statement rejecting the accusations. He said he had in no way compared the Synodal Path reform project with Nazi ideology, "and I will never do so".

Koch said he has been misunderstood: "I simply assumed that we can still learn from history today, even from a very difficult period. As the vehement reaction of Bishop Bätzing and others show, I have to realise in retrospect that I failed in this attempt. And I also have to realise that memories of phenomena in the National Socialist period are obviously taboo in Germany."

The following day, Bishop Bätzing intensified his criticism. He said he could not accept the cardinal's response "since Cardinal Koch, in essence, does not apologise for the indefensible statements, but — on the contrary — aggravates them".

Bätzing added he still expects a "clear dissociation from these statements."

Bätzing said the cardinal must have "consciously chosen" the comparison to the Nazi era, thus placing the participants of the Synodal Path "in the horizon of the regime that brought unimaginable suffering, especially to the Jewish people".

Following demands for an apology and a threat he might "file an official complaint with the Holy Father," the German Bishops' Conference president met with a Vatican cardinal in Rome this week.

Sources

National Catholic Reporter

Catholic Review

Several attempts, often led by Orthodox bishops, have been made over the past 100 years to push for a common date for Easter. It seems most Christians agree in principle but picking the date or the calendar or the formula has been elusive.

Different Christian communities celebrated Easter on different days until the Council of Nicaea in 325. That council decided that for the unity of the Christian community, Easter would be celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox.

But the Julian calendar, used by Christians in the fourth century, was out of sync with the actual solar year. So March 21 — generally assumed to be the date of the northern hemisphere's spring equinox — gradually "drifted" away from the actual equinox.

In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII, relying on the work of the best astronomers of his time, reformed the calendar. He dropped 10 days, making the equinox fall on March 21 again.

But Orthodox Christians continue to use the Julian calendar to calculate the Easter date instead of the Gregorian calendar. Because the Julian calendar calculates a slightly longer year, it is currently 13 days behind the Gregorian calendar.

Orthodox Archbishop Job Getcha of Telmessos suggested that the year 2025would be a good year to introduce this calendar reform. That year will be the 1,700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council of Nicea.

The First Council of Nicea, held in 325, decided that Easter would be celebrated on the first Sunday after the full moon following the beginning of spring. That made the earliest possible date for Easter March 22 and the latest possible April 25.

Speaking with the Swiss news agency Kath.ch, Cardinal Kurt Koch welcomed the proposal. He said the anniversary of the Council of Nicea was "a good opportunity" for this change.

Cardinal Koch said, "I welcome the move by Archbishop Job von Telmessos. I hope it will meet with a positive response."

"It will not be easy to agree on a common Easter date, but it is worth working for," he stated. "This wish is also very dear to Pope Francis and also to the Coptic Pope Tawadros."

Sources

Catholic News Agency

Catholic Philly

It can no longer be seen as "optional" by bishops. They won't be left to work out how on their own though.

The new guidebook, released by the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, offers practical ways for bishops to promote unity between Christians.

Bishops must pray "personally and publicly for other Christian leaders," promote ecumenical work online and appoint ecumenical officers and commissions.

At the same time, the guide warns against getting involved in heated arguments or "misrepresenting the positions of other Christians."

Instead Catholics should focus on "weighing truths rather than simply enumerating them," it explains.

The goal of Christian unity may not be straightforward, however, as it raises a number of big questions.

One relates to Catholic-Anglican unity. Unless Pope Leo XIII's decree that Anglican orders are "absolutely null and utterly void".

"I think we must have a better interpretation," Cardinal Kurt Koch, the president of the pontifical council says.

"I think it's a very important question because the validity of the ordination is the biggest obstacle for sharing the same altar ..."

Another problem concerning Anglican-Catholic unification relates to the ordination of women as priests and bishops - a decision that is unacceptable for the Catholic Church.

The guidelines indicate there is no change in the offing regarding sharing communion with Christians from other denominations. The current rules - that allow this to happen in "certain circumstances" - are restated.

Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of People, says a "lack of unity among followers of Jesus" undermines evangelisation.

"The non-Christians are scandalised, really scandalised, when we all claim to be followers of Christ, and they see how we are fighting one another," he said. "The lack of unity and even this almost outright anger toward one another - it weakens evangelisation."

The 26-page guidebook has Pope Francis's approval.

Throughout his pontificate has adopted an approach of "walking together, praying together and working together" with other Christians. He has consistently focused on what unites rather than divides denominations.

Source

• The Tablet
• Image: Wikipedia