Rome Newsroom, Jun 11, 2024 / 14:15 pm (CNA).
The Vatican will publish a study document on papal primacy and ecumenism on Thursday that will contain proposals “for a renewed exercise of the bishop of Rome’s ministry of unity” recognized by all Christians.
The document, titled “The Bishop of Rome: Primacy and Synodality in Ecumenical Dialogue and Responses to the Encyclical Ut Unum Sint,” will be released on June 13 with the approval of Pope Francis.
The Vatican’s Dicastery for the Promotion of Christian Unity put together the study document to summarize the ecumenical dialogue that has occurred on the question of papal primacy and synodality in the past 30 years.
In particular, the document includes 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”).
According to the Holy See Press Office, the document “concludes with a proposal from the dicastery identifying the most significant suggestions put forward for a renewed exercise of the bishop of Rome’s ministry of unity ‘recognized by one and all.’”
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 encyclical acknowledges that “the Catholic Church’s conviction that in the ministry of the bishop of Rome she has preserved, in fidelity to the apostolic tradition and the faith of the Fathers, the visible sign and guarantor of unity, constitutes a difficulty for most other Christians, whose memory is marked by certain painful recollections.”
It notes that the “primacy of the bishop of Rome has now become a subject of study” in the Church’s dialogue with other Christian communities.
In his encyclical John Paul II wrote: “As bishop of Rome I am fully aware, as I have reaffirmed in the present encyclical letter, that Christ ardently desires the full and visible communion of all those communities in which, by virtue of God’s faithfulness, his Spirit dwells.”
“I am convinced that I have a particular responsibility in this regard, above all in acknowledging the ecumenical aspirations of the majority of the Christian communities and in heeding the request made of me to find a way of exercising the primacy which, while in no way renouncing what is essential to its mission, is nonetheless open to a new situation,” the pontiff said.
“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,” he added.
The Polish pope invited Christian leaders and theologians to “to engage with me in a patient and fraternal dialogue on this subject.”
Notably absent from the 1995 encyclical is the word “synodality,” which appears to be one of the novelties in the Vatican’s new study document.
The Vatican will hold a press conference featuring Anglican and Armenian representatives to discuss the new papal primacy document on June 13.
Cardinal Mario Grech, the secretary-general of the General Secretariat of the Synod, will join Cardinal Kurt Koch, the prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, in presenting the study document at the press conference.
Ian Ernest, the director of the Anglican Center in Rome and personal representative of the archbishop of Canterbury to the Holy See, will join the conference remotely via video link as will Khajag Barsamian, the Armenian Apostolic Church’s representative to the Holy See.
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From the back bleachers, this notion on how to understand the precise challenge of the study document, ” “The Bishop of Rome: Primacy and Synodality in Ecumenical Dialogue and Responses to the Encyclical Ut Unum Sint.”
Readers might also note the underlying “Lumen Gentium” of the Second Vatican Council, and one of the three Ordinary Synods convened since Pope Paul VI authorized synods–in 1985 on the 20th Anniversary of the Second Vatican Council…
(There have been 3 Extraordinary Synods, 16 Ordinary Synods, and 11 Special (local) synods since 1967. And, historically, many other synods, one of the first being Carthage in A.D. 393 which identified which books are canonical and which are not—the bible itself being part of the living Tradition. In the recent synods, participation has included consultation with Eastern Orthodox Churches which, unlike Protestant ecclesial communities, have retained the apostolic succession and the valid sacrament of Holy Orders.)
The 1985 Extraordinary Synod was convened partly “…in order to avoid divergent interpretations [of the Council]” (John Paul II, Closing Remarks). The FINAL REPORT (also Dec. 7, 1985) flagged “the need to further promote the knowledge and application of the Council, both [!] in its letter and in its spirit” (n. 20); AND, warned against “a partial reading of the Council, [as] a unilateral presentation of the Church as a purely institutional structure devoid of her mystery” (n. 4); …AND, “We cannot replace a false unilateral vision of the Church as purely hierarchical with a new sociological conception which is also unilateral” (n.3).
Presumably, in addition to responding to Ut Unum Sint” (1995), the “study document” will clearly reflect all of the Council’s “Lumen Gentium” (1964), and will retain the challenging balance affirmed by the Extraordinary Synod of Bishops in 1985—as succeeded but not replaced by documents received or produced after, say, 2013.
QUESTION: A real opportunity, but what is the irreducible line between synods of the Eucharistic Church, and an outreaching but possibly contour-challenged “synodal” church?
In a bad dream and only if Lewis Carroll were the ghost writer. . . might a “walking together” Alice encounter—up a tree—a “smile without a cat”?
That is, only in Fantasyland would a “backwardist” Church be faced by an expertly-worded, polyhedral, and institutionally and doctrinally invertebrate whatever. A post-apostolic and post-Lumen Gentium mirage. Hoisted up by its own bootstraps—by the non-objecting silence of an ambulatory Synod 2024…
But will the Copts be there?