Vatican City, Oct 16, 2024 / 09:10 am (CNA).
Pope Francis expressed hope for “reconciled differences” between Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant Christians during his Wednesday general audience, reflecting on the centuries-old “Filioque” dispute that has divided Western and Eastern Christians.
In his catechesis on the Holy Spirit on Oct. 16, Pope Francis reflected on the words of the Nicene Creed: “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son.” Adopted in its earliest form at the First Council of Nicaea in 325, the Nicene Creed is recited by Catholics during Sunday Mass.
Pope Francis noted that the later addition of the “Filioque,” Latin for “and from the Son” in the creed, sparked a dispute that “has been the reason, or pretext, for so many arguments and divisions between the Church of the East and the Church of the West.”
The pope added, however, that “the climate of dialogue between the two Churches has lost the acrimony of the past and today allows us to hope for full mutual acceptance, as one of the main ‘reconciled differences.’”
Francis underscored the importance of moving beyond past disputes, calling for unity and reconciliation among Christians despite their differences. “I like to say this: ‘Reconciled differences,’” the pope said.
“Among Christians, there are many differences: He follows this school, that one another; this person is a Protestant, that person … The important thing is that these differences are reconciled in the love of walking together,” Pope Francis said in St. Peter’s Square.
Pope Francis’ comments come as his designated peace envoy Cardinal Matteo Zuppi wraps up a trip to Moscow where he met Tuesday with a top-ranking member of the Russian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Anthony of Volokolamsk, the head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations.
More than a dozen Orthodox and Protestant leaders are also in Rome this month as “fraternal delegates” in the ongoing Synod on Synodality assembly, including representatives of the Patriarchate of Alexandria and all of Africa, the Syrian Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch, the Lutheran World Federation, and the World Mennonite Conference.
Pope Francis emphasized that the Holy Spirit is “life-giving” and said that this truth can unite Christians today. “Having overcome this obstacle, today we can value the most important prerogative for us that is proclaimed in the article of the Creed, namely that the Holy Spirit is ‘life-giving,’ the ‘giver of life,’” he said.
In his reflection, the pope described how in the Genesis creation account, God’s breath gave life to Adam, turning a clay figure into a “living being.”
“Now, in the new creation, the Holy Spirit is the one who gives believers new life, the life of Christ, a supernatural life, as children of God,” Francis explained. He quoted the apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans 8:2: “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death.”
Pope Francis emphasized that the Holy Spirit grants eternal life, which is a source of great hope.
“Where is the great and consoling news for us in all this? It is that the life given to us by the Holy Spirit is eternal life,” the pope said.
“Faith frees us from the horror of having to admit that everything ends here, that there is no redemption for the suffering and injustice that reign sovereign on earth.” Citing Romans 8:11, he added: “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.”
“Let us cultivate this faith also for those who, often through no fault of their own, lack it and struggle to find meaning in life. And let us not forget to thank him who, through his death, has obtained this priceless gift for us,” the pope added.
Pope Francis offered greetings to pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square from England, France, Brazil, Poland, Denmark, Norway, South Africa, India, Kuwait, Malaysia, the Philippines, South Korea, Canada, and the United States.
At the end of the general audience, Pope Francis appealed once again for peace in the world, urging people not to forget to pray for countries at war.
“Let us not forget war-torn Ukraine, Palestine, Israel, Myanmar,” he said. “Brothers and sisters, let us remember that war is always, always, a defeat. Let us not forget this, and let us pray for peace and work for peace.”
The pope also offered advice to a group of young people in the crowd who recently received the sacrament of confirmation.
“Dear young people, open your hearts to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit to be courageous witnesses of the Gospel,” he said.
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I would believe the Synod are addressing the major dogmatic and political differences. I’m no expert and I have to leave church policy to the learned. However, I feel the most important is that Lutherans have only two sacraments, Baptism and the Eucharist. I see major differences that will be hard to change our “separated brethren”, many of which have been addressed before. Like the unmarried celibacy of clerics. Women pastors.
Martin Luther added penance. That leaves four. Pastors at mainline Protestant churches are much more likely to identify as liberal. Catholics lean toward Republican ideology, mainly on the abortion issue. Protestants have traditionally rejected the pope’s authority, the seat of St. Peter, Jesus’ rock.
We must pray that the Synod fathers will succeed in this effort. That massive unity of the children of God will change the world for the better.
To Morgan:
Most Lutherans and protestants in general only retain two Sacraments that the Catholic Church would recognize as valid in some cases: Baptism and Marriage. Lutheran eucharist isn’t valid because they don’t maintain apostolic succession from the Twelve, therefore the mystery of transubstantiation doesn’t exist in their faith. The Orthodox Sacraments are valid because they retained Apostolic succession from the Twelve, but they aren’t licit because they reject the authority of the Pope as the universal leader of the worldwide Church, both East and West. Hopefully they’ll reunite because they were one Church 1000 years ago. As for the other Christian denominations, like the Lutherans, episcopalians, other protestant groups and the methodists (who recently caved to the neoliberalism agenda to allow transgender/lgtbtq people to enter their clergy orders), they were doomed from the beginning since those particular faiths were founded off the teachings and ideas of men and not the Christ.
Catholic and Orthodox were One until the 1054 divorce.
The original founders of the protestant faiths of today such as Lutheranism and Anglicanism destroyed the unity by rejecting the Pope, and by trying to play God.
The Filioque was added in the West as a bulwark against resurgent Arianism. Are we to interpret a signal, here, that Arianism is now passe in both the West and the East, such that next year in 2025, the 1700th anniversary of Nicaea (deepened later at Constantinople), the Filioque can be dropped in the West—but only voluntarily, of course, in some polyhedral diocese and perhaps not in others?
And, are we to understand that the differences between Churches of the East and West on the one hand, are cut from the same cloth as differences with the Protestant ecclesial communities (lacking the apostolic succession)?
Walking with Pope Francis, how now to pick up where St. John Paul II left off, in his General Audience of November 7, 1990 in his Instruction on the “Filioque Debate, which concluded with this: “After the Council of Florence the West continued to profess that the Holy Spirit ‘proceeds from the Father and the Son,” while the East continued to hold to the original formula of the Council of Constantinople. But since the time of the Second Vatican Council a fruitful ecumenical dialogue has been developing. It seems to have led to the conclusion that the formula ‘Filioque’ does not constitute an essential obstacle to the dialogue itself and to its development, which all hope and pray for to the Holy Spirit.”
The most recent problem is that Cardinal Fernandez has possibly squandered the needed legitimacy for productive dialogue with the East (Fiducia Supplicans), and with believing Protestants as well by hanging his red hat a bit too much (some say) on the time-piece U.N. Declaration of Human Rights (Dignitas Infinita).
What, exactly, is the supposedly smooth fit between the historical “time is greater than space” and the historic Incarnation of the Triune One?
It seems that the issue of the Filioque (and the Son) isn’t today’s main divider of the Catholic/Orthodox split. It’s the authority of the Pope as the leader of the worldwide Church, Eastern and Western alike, purgatory, and the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady.
Fiducia may not have helped matters, but the document did not greenlight gay “marriage”. It only gave priests permission to bless the two individuals. I’ve mentioned before that Eastern Catholics, like the Orthodox, have a different interpretation of the meaning of “blessing”. Many people think of blessing as: ie, a priest making the sign of the cross over you, or for example “May God’s great blessings come upon you”. Both mean just that.
Blessing also means to give permission for something, and the Church can’t give permission for gay “marriage”. The UGCC Patriarch Shevchuk said that the Fiducia document doesn’t apply to the Eastern Catholic Churches because of their different interpretation of blessing.
I think it was Coptic Orthodox Church that suspended ecumenical relations with Rome over Fiducia. They’ve been separated from the Catholic Church since 451, over matters completely unrelated to this Vatican document.
The Filioque also affirms there is only One Son Of God, One Word Of Perfect Love Incarnate, One Lamb Of God Who Can Taketh Away The Sins Of The World, Our Only Savior, Jesus The
Christ and thus The Blessed Trinity Is a Trinity Of Persons, Father, Son, And Holy Ghost, Who Proceeds From The Ordered Communion Of Perfect Complementary Love Between The Father And The Son.
The original text of the Nicean/Constantinopolitan Creed in 325 stated the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father. As Beaulieu mentioned above, the Filioque was added to combat the Arian heresy, which at the time was denounced by Christians in both the East and West, and ultimately, Arius’s credibility was rightfully shattered. Christ also says that “The Father and I are One”. I usually point that out when talking about the Filioque. Unlike in the Roman Church,
many Eastern Catholic Churches recite the Creed without the Filioque, yet are in full union with Rome.
No matter how you look at it, we’ll never fully understand the mystical nature of the Trinity, One in Essence, and Undivided.
That’s where we should leave it.