Catholic League - CENTENARY CELEBRATIONS

Centenary Festa 2013

100 Years of Catholic Ecumenism : 100 Years towards Anglican-Roman Catholic Unity

 

The President, Priest Director and Trustees invite you to join them in giving thanks for one hundred years of the Catholic League’s witness for the Church’s unity in Christ

 

Tuesday, July 2^nd2013 – Foundation Day

Church of the Assumption, 12 Warwick Street, London W1B 5NB

5 pm Afternoon Tea & Reception (preceded by AGM at 4-15 pm)

6 pm First Centenary Festival Lecture: Gregory Dix and the Necessity of the Papacy

The Revd John Hunwicke: Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham

 

7 pm: Solemn Sung Mass (Roman Catholic)

The Rt Revd Mgr Keith Newton, Celebrant

(Ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham)

Preacher: The Revd Michael Rear, President of the Catholic League

 

 Saturday, July 6^th 2013 – Inauguration Day

Church of St Magnus the Martyr, London Bridge, EC3R 6DN

12 noon: Solemn Sung Mass (Anglican)

The Revd Philip Warner, Celebrant

(Rector, in succession to the Founder, the Revd Henry Fynes Clinton)

Preacher: The Revd Canon Dr Robin Ward, Principal of St Stephen’s House, Oxford

1-15 pm Lunch Reception

 

2-30 pm Second Centenary Festal Lecture: The Quest for Unity – 100 Years of the Catholic League

Judge Michael Yelton, the Anglo-Catholic History Society

 

RSVP the Members’ Secretary  centenary@unitas.org.uk

Book Review by Fr John Hunwicke: The Anglican Papalist: a personal portrait of Henry Joy Fynes-Clinton

Fr Fynes Clinton, prime mover in the foundation of the League, was not only a seminal thinker in formulating the Anglican Papalism position, but also the development of the entire course of Anglican Ecumenism in relation to the Orthodox Churches, as well as the Catholic Church. The Very Revd Archimandrite John Salter, has written his long anticipated biography. Fr John Hunwicke writes this review for the Catholic League.

The Anglican Papalist: a personal portrait of Henry Joy Fynes-Clinton

by A.T. John Salter ; available from and published by the Anglo-Catholic History Society
ISBN 978-0-9560565-2-8
£20.00
Pbk; 194pages.

 

Fr John Salter’s book delivers precisely what it claims to provide; a personal account of the priest who was for half a century the dominant figure in the Papalist movement within Anglicanism, and Founder of the Catholic League. It is not a work merely of scholarship ... not a half-baked spin-off from a DPhil thesis; you will search in vain for the detailed footnotes of a youthful scholar covering his back. Far more - for, in compensation, you will find yourself personally immersed in a period and in a person both known intimately to the author. 

Anglican Papalists are often written up very engagingly and with due tribute to their eccentricities – as a body of people who appeared to pretend that they were Roman Catholics and whose deep sense of obedience to authority led them to disobey every maxim of the ecclesial body which paid them (perhaps unjustly, I have felt that this is the picture which emerges from the writings of Michael Yelton). Salter does not make this mistake. He perceives the deeply doctrinal significance of Fynes-Clinton’s life, and brings out what is creatively unusual in his witness. FC, for example, believed strongly that the See of Rome is the divinely appointed centre of unity; and that the decrees of the [first] Vatican Council are normative. But this in no way diminished his affection for the Orthodox East. Commonly, anti-papal Anglicans use Orthodoxy as a convenient weapon with which to attack the Papacy, while ultramontanes regard Orthodox as schismatics or worse. FC admired the Orthodox and secured their affection (and honours) by his unceasing hard work, especially for the troubled Serbian Church. But his ‘Romanism’ brought him into conflict with Canon J.A. Douglas and Mr Athelstan Riley and led to his removal from leadership in an Anglican-Orthodox society of which he had himself been one of the founders. FC instinctively realised the truth later to be expressed in the CDF document Communionis notio (1993): that, although ‘wounded’ by their separation from Rome, the Eastern Churches are true ‘particular churches’. He even planned for Hagia Sophia to be recovered from the Turks and handed over to the Orthodox rather than to Eastern Christians in communion with Rome! The little Orthodox chapel in the Anglican Shrine at Walsingham is an initiative of FC, just a few feet from the foundation stone of the Holy House, with its ‘papalist’ inscription (full text in Salter) which so infuriated the Bishop of Norwich. FC’s balanced stance, so obviously right to our way of thinking, represented in the inter-war years a rare combination.

 

Of very considerable importance – and relevance to our own times – is a document which Salter prints in full. Towards the end of 1932, in anticipation of the anniversary of the Catholic Revival, FC and Fr Robert Corbould composed a manifesto to which hundreds of papalist clergy subscribed. “In the modern Anglo-catholic movement much of the enthusiasm over the observance of the centenary cloaks a marked departure from the original Oxford principles ...” The authors describe the creeping influence of Modernism in matters Christological; the growth of Relativism (“mutual toleration of opposed teaching”).They disclaim the popular misconception that Catholic identity is assured “by revival of ceremony”. Firmly, they “reprobate the toleration and even positive support by certain Anglo-Catholics of the immoral sanction of artificial contraception given by many bishops at Lambeth”. Here are the authentic tones of S Pius X (Pascendi Dominici gregis) and the affirmation of Christian sexual mores by Pius XI (Casti conubii) and Paul VI (Humanae vitae). This manifesto anticipates by sixty years the current distinction between real Catholicism, resolutely counter-cultural, and the flaccid conformities of ‘Affirming Catholicism’. Inevitably, it concludes that “the real and essential goal is reunion with the Apostolic See of Rome ... the existence of the Church of England as a body separate de facto from the rest of the Catholic Church is only tolerable when it is regarded as a temporary evil”.

 

Salter’s book is to be unambiguously commended. By its pages you will live through the days when exiled East European royalty enlivened the social life of London, and you will be reminded by the heroic figure of St Elizabeth of the New Martyrs of the Communist Yoke of Russia, alias Her Imperial Highness Grand Princess Elizaveta, that Ruritania was not entirely a land of fopperies. You will meet the mysterious, little-known figure of the Jesuit bishop Michel d’Herbigny, who flutters through the period sabotaging ecumenism, playing off Greeks against Rumanians and Serbs against Russians and Catholics against Orthodox; who attempted unsuccessfully to infiltrate and sabotage the Malines Conversations. You may get some surprises: did you know that the Holy See was lobbying the British Government to stop Russia liberating Constantinople from the Turk and handing over Anatolia to Orthodox Hellenes? You will be shocked, I suspect, to know that Paul VI returned to the Turkish government the Ottoman flag captured at Lepanto. As our own day watches the Christian populations of Iraq and Syria being killed or driven into exile by a Western-encouraged ‘Arab Spring’, you may feel some sympathy with FC’s rhetoric about “the black trail of the Turk ... so hateful to the Englishman sickened with the massacres of Christians in these last years”. We who have been told so little about the realities of the ‘Kosovo’ problem, or the ‘enormity’ (FC’s word) of the Zionist appropriation of Palestine, may gain a more rounded understanding of how so many current problems arise from this little known yet comparatively recent period of history.

 

Should mainstream schools give up their endless courses about Nazi Germany and adopt Salter as the text-book for a new course enabling the kiddies to understand the world they are actually living in? No ... it would be too topical and too raw ... ‘Hitler’ is as safely irrelevant a syllabus as the Wars of the Roses.

My brother Andrew - Fr Mark Woodruff's article in The Tablet - The new Pope Francis and the Churches of the East

http://www.thetablet.co.uk/article/163991

When Benedict XVI resigned, Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople expressed more than surprise. There was clearly dismay that their “excellent cooperation”, which had overseen the re-engagement of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches in dialogue in 2007, after an impasse lasting seven years, might not fulfil its promise because of a “brief papacy”. The Roman pontiff is still regarded as the first of the patriarchs by Orthodoxy, even if Pope Benedict dropped his title “Patriarch of the West” in 2006 as defunct, standing in the way of realistic ecumenism. So why should a pope retire when urgent labours are in hand and their fruits within reach? “With his wisdom and experience he could have provided much more to the Church and the world”.

The Ecumenical Patriarch is regarded as primus inter pares by many, but not all, of the world’s Orthodox Churches. He is second only in the Universal Church to the Bishop of Rome, but he is not an opposite number, having no immediate jurisdiction beyond his small community in Turkey and parts of north-east Greece, although his general responsibility for Orthodox in diaspora affords him considerable influence. For wider leadership he relies as much on persuasion, prestige and moral authority as canon law. With painstaking plans for a Pan-Orthodox Council making progress, and an abiding sense of affinity between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches as both are dispersed alongside each other in every corner of the globe, Bartholomew invested much hope in Benedict’s papacy for mutual support and cooperation in the contemporary setting. Concerned for all Orthodox in diaspora, the continued growth of Christianity in Europe and the very survival of the Churches in their Eastern lands of origin, their joint efforts at solidarity and even communion appeared at risk with the prospect of a new leader.

Thus a statement from the Patriarchate explained Bartholomew’s decision to attend Pope Francis’ inauguration personally: the need for “a profoundly bold step ... that could have lasting significance”. It is the first time the Bishop of Constantinople has attended the inauguration of the Bishop of Rome ever, let alone since the great schism of 1054. Yet the Patriarch has already visited Rome a number of times since Pope Benedict’s visit to Istanbul in 2006. He was the only ecumenical leader invited to make a speech at the celebrations for the fiftieth anniversary of Vatican II and there have been annual visits between Rome and Constantinople on the feasts of their apostles for decades. But this latest visit was different: “after such a long division … authentic reunion will require courage, leadership and humility. Given Pope Francis' well-documented work for social justice and his insistence that globalization is detrimental to the poor … the Orthodox and the Roman Catholic traditions have a renewed opportunity to work collectively on issues of mutual concern… But such work requires a first step and it would appear as though Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew is willing to take such a step.” In one of those seemingly informal but resonant gestures that we are beginning to expect from Francis, the response was immediate and commensurate. The successor of Peter greeted the successor of the other Galilean fisherman as “my brother Andrew”.

Another dimension was revealed in a press interview within hours of Francis’ election by Patriarch Sviatoslav, Major-Archbishop of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, by far the largest of the Eastern Churches in communion with Rome, which shares the same origins in Kiev as the Russian Orthodox Church, as well as the same Byzantine Rite and tradition as the Church of Constantinople itself. He revealed that the young Jorge Maria Borgoglio frequently attended the Ukrainian Divine Liturgy served by Fr Stepan Chmil, a great mentor to him: “The Holy Father knows not only of our Church, but also our liturgy, our rites, and our spirituality.” Furthermore, as Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Francis was Ordinary for Eastern Catholics. In 2009 Sviatoslav arrived as the auxiliary bishop for the Ukrainian Catholic eparchy in Argentina and tells how his first steps in episcopal ministry were under the Cardinal’s watchful care. They have an even closer bond now, because a year later Sviatoslav was called upon to succeed his revered mentor Lubomyr Cardinal Husar, who retired like Pope Benedict has done. At the age of 41, his election boldly charts a new course for the Ukrainian Catholic Church in service of society and the unity of Churches at home and abroad for decades to come. Pope Francis will be looking East to a dynamic former protégé for inspiration as he charts his own new course.

Whether it concerns a renewed partnership with the historic Eastern Catholic Churches, or forging new bonds hopefully leading to communion with the Orthodox, the model for Pope Francis’s understanding of the Christian East, unlike his predecessors, is not European. They envisaged the re-composition of the old Christendom around the reference points of the Mediterranean. But in world Christianity, Borgoglio has seen that the East is now right across the West, just as the West has suffused the lands of the East and is likewise worldwide. To talk of our respective territories is, as Benedict realised, increasingly beside the point. Anthony O’Mahony, director of the Centre for Eastern Christianity at Heythrop College, estimates that there are now over 4 million Eastern Christians, Catholic and Orthodox across Western Europe.  But the weight of the diaspora seems to be shifting from Europe and North America to the emerging powers in the global south, notably Australia and Latin America. Here these old Churches are young and confident, able both to sustain their tradition as they also become indigenous and move beyond being simply ethnic chaplaincies. They can thus play strong roles alongside others in the work of evangelisation, spiritual renewal, ecumenical engagement and wider social development. This is what Pope Francis is used to and how he will approach the inheritors of Byzantium across Europe too, Catholic and Orthodox alike.

So, what of the Russian Orthodox Church, the largest of all? Moscow regards itself as Third Rome and the decisive player in the future of the Orthodox Church as a whole. It believes an alliance with the Catholic Church in “the struggle for the soul of Europe” is critical, but finds the universal primacy of the Roman see difficult to contemplate. It sent its Head of External Relations, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, who did his doctorate in the West at Oxford and is regarded as a likely successor to Patriarch Kirill. The message from Moscow present and future was clear: Pope Francis was firmly addressed as “primate of the Roman Catholic Church” and as Kirill’s peer. Despite progress in Orthodox-Catholic dialogue, which is seeking an agreed view on the Roman primacy in the first millennium as a basis for recovering communion, it feels out of place to the Russian Church, whose consciousness largely relates to the second, during which it has grown considerably, with little awareness of the need for a universal primacy. Its present size, resources and world diaspora mean that it is no longer local but a fact of life to come to terms with, not just for the Catholic Church but other Orthodox jurisdictions too. Importantly, Russia’s activity in the Middle East reanimates an Imperial role as protector of all Orthodox. Given that peace and stability for that region and its Christians will loom as large for Francis as for Benedict, because they directly affect the wellbeing of Europe, the significance of the Moscow patriarchate has to be faced.

Pope Francis’ intention to trust and work with the “local Church” resonates with many Orthodox. They have long been looking for signs that the collegiality set forth at Vatican II will turn into reality. They have noted how he has called himself not supreme pontiff or pope, but Bishop of Rome. They will be looking to see how the primate of the Church “presiding in love” at Rome, will treat the Eastern Catholic Churches: as subsets of the global Roman Catholic organisation, or as honoured Churches, firmly rooted in their local homeland, yet now living side by side with Latin Catholicism’s own diaspora in the emerging societies of the south and throughout the world. It will reveal how the new Pope envisages the restoration of communion between Catholics and Orthodox, since West and East must rely on each other for the future. The Orthodox will be hoping that indeed Pope Francis, Brother Peter to Brother Andrew, “knows our Church”.

Fr Mark Woodruff is a Westminster priest and Vice-Chairman of the Society of St John Chrysostom, which promotes Catholic-Orthodox relations and the unity of the Churches of East and West.

Pope Francis and retired Pope Benedict greet Archbishop Justin Welby of Canterbury at the time of his election and enthronement

POPE FRANCIS' MESSAGE FOR ENTHRONEMENT OF ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY Vatican City, 21 March 2013 (VIS) – Pope Francis has sent a message to the Most Reverend Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, on the occasion of his enthronement at Canterbury Cathedral in London, UK, this past Thursday. Archbishop Welby is the 105 Archbishop of Canterbury and the head of the worldwide Anglican Communion. “The pastoral ministry,” writes Francis, “is a call to walk in fidelity to the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Please be assured of my prayers as you take up your new responsibilities, and I ask you to pray for me as I respond to the new call that the Lord has addressed to me.” “I look forward to meeting you in the near future, and to continuing the warm fraternal relations that our predecessors enjoyed.”

4 FEBRUARY: POPE BENEDICT XVI CONGRATULATED MOST REVEREND WELBY ON HIS ELECTION AS ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY Vatican City, 21 March 2013 (VIS) – Today was made public the message that Benedict XVI wrote this past 4 February to the Most Reverend Justin Welby on the occasion of his election as Archbishop of Canterbury.   The Pope wrote that the archbishop was taking up his office “at a time when the Christian faith is being called into question in many parts of the Western world by those who claim that religion is a private matter, with no contribution to offer to public debate. Ministers of the Gospel today have to respond to a widespread deafness to the music of faith, and a general weariness that shuns the demands of discipleship. Yet the hunger for God, even if unrecognised, is ever-present in our society, and the preacher's task, as a messenger of hope, is to speak the truth with love, shedding the light of Christ into the darkness of people's lives. May your apostolate yield a rich harvest and may it open the eyes and ears of many to the life-giving message of the Gospel.” Benedict XVI concluded with the prayer that “the Lord grant you strength and wisdom” in whatever challenges the new archbishop may encounter and asking that “the Holy Spirit guide you in all that you undertake in his name.”

Homily by the Priest Director, Fr Mark Woodruff, at a Mass in Westminster to pray for Pope Francis

If I were to seek my own glory that would be no glory at all
21 March 2013 – Thursday of the Fifth Week in Lent

Fr Mark Woodruff writes:

Our new Holy Father has tagged himself with some luminous markers in his first week in office. His baptismal patron is St George, the soldier-saint chosen as the patron of the Crusades against Islam’s occupancy of the Holy Places; yet for his pontifical name he chose St Francis, who went to speak of the love of Christ to Sultan Malik al-Kamil in Egypt, so as to bring the Crusades to a peaceful end.


Quite apparently chosen by the Conclave to lead the Church in both institutional and spiritual renewal (and to those who were expecting a Vatican placeman this is reminiscent of the emergence of John XXIII from the midst of the Pian Church), the Jesuit might have been expected to look to the patronage of Ignatius of Loyola for reform or Aloysius Gonzaga for purity of life and purpose – and we have known neither a Pope Ignatius nor a Pope Louis before. Instead he lighted upon Francis, “the richest of poor men”, inspired by a fellow Cardinal, we are told, not to forget the poor who are the Church in his native Latin America.


Immediately, however, clever commentators thought he must have more in mind the great Jesuit missionary of Japan, St Francis Xavier, on whose evangelical sanctity and evangelistic labours the Catholic Church in the Far East was built, just at the time a Church apprehensive of true renewal was losing its northern flocks to the Reformation in the West. There could also have been the less than worthy Pope Alexander VI’s grandson, St Francis Borgia, who gave up his dukedom to enter the Society of Jesus, starting out as a cook and waiter at table, until he became a second founder of the Jesuits, consolidating its novitiates and setting up what was to become the Gregorian University. Another remarkable Francis was not a Jesuit, but an Oratorian, the beloved Francis de Sales, the beauty of whose preaching of the love of God, simplicity of life and purity of discipleship won many who had been excited into the ferment of Calvin’s Reform back to the unity of the Church. Although the city of Geneva of which he was bishop was lost to him, his proclamation and living of the gospel was truly the new evangelisation of its day. But all of these saints are named after St Francis of Assisi and modelled themselves on him. Likewise it is to the humble, innocent Poverello whom the Lord commanded to rebuild his Church - the person in whom perhaps more than anyone else Jesus Christ has come again - that our new Holy Father has turned for a pattern in living, inspiration in endeavour and protection in prayer. We have already heard from him that the greatest power in the Church is service; that the Church is a Church of the poor; and that its duty is to protect those whom worldly society rejects and resents, along with the creation God has given to sustain us all alike.


Another one of those luminous markers was the acceptance of a ring once belonging to Pope Paul VI as his own Fisherman’s Ring. After many years, in which the painstaking faithfulness and leadership during an ear of the greatest social changes of such a beautiful and holy soul as Pope Paul have been questioned and even despised, it is a blessing to the Church that Pope Francis has signified the hermeneutic of continuity between his new pontificate and that of the wise, bold popes of the great Second Vatican Council. So the great tradition goes on and the Church brings riches from its treasury both old and new.


Yet another marker is his insistence that he is from the first successor to Peter not with grand titles such as Supreme Pontiff or Universal Pastor but as bishop of the local Church of Rome. Thus he has honoured the remarkable Petrine ministry and teaching office of his predecessor not by reference to him as “the Pope Emeritus”, but as “our retired bishop”. In this he echoes Pope Benedict’s call as successor of the apostle Peter, that Britain heard in Westminster Abbey, to give a convincing account of the hope that lies within us, not by a facile accommodation to the spirit of the age but an ever deeper unity in the apostolic faith in Jesus Christ truly risen from the dead. It is worth noting here that it was the witness to Jesus’ resurrection and the purity of teaching conserved by the Church at Rome, in direct continuity from the apostles Peter and Paul, that caused it to be seen by all, in the words of St Ignatius of Antioch, as “the church that presides in love”. Its prime role in speaking for the whole Church and resolving the authenticity of its teaching was thus respected for a millennium in both East and West. In our own day, Pope Francis is well aware that the Eastern Churches’ diaspora is now everywhere in the West; just as the Latin West is diffused throughout the world of the Christian East too. His apparent expectation that the local Church of Rome will be trusting the Churches locally to respond to the needs of humanity for the gospel by the lights of where and who they are, whether that is Rome or Istanbul, Buenos Aires or Lusaka, Kiev or Beijing, seems to take into account the realities of how the People of God belong in the communion of the Body of Christ, the need for the Churches to act and live in collegial concert, and the urgency of mutual union among Christians for the sake of realising the blessings in the Sermon on the Mount, “on earth as it is in heaven”. Thanks to the openness of his immediate predecessor to the Orthodox Church, which enabled some notable progress in the joint Orthodox-Catholic theological dialogue, the ground has been prepared for a Patriarch of Constantinople to witness for the first time the inauguration of the local bishop of the Church which presides in love. And the real power-wielder in Orthodoxy, the confident and globally expanding but also “local” Russian Orthodox Church, was significantly represented in Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, a likely successor to Patriarch Kirill someday, who studied for his doctorate here in the West in England. The Moscow Patriarchate has long advocated an alliance from Latin West and Russian East in concert across Europe, for recalling it to the faith that once civilised it by bringing it to Christ. In rooting the Roman bishop’s wider ministry, authority and witness in the faith, needs and experience of the City and culture where he is set – serving as its own apostle of the gospel, rather than primarily ruler of the global church - Pope Francis strikes a chord with Orthodox Churches that have a strong sense of their local purpose, and challenges those which are tempted to rival the Roman curia for binding communion to central control, rather than a presidency in love. Perhaps Pope Francis will prove to be as radical for Christian Unity as his predecessor was in ending the existential papacy, so that the primacy of episcopal office might succeed him.


Perhaps the Pope’s most luminous marker is to share the concerns of the poor. Of course it is true to say that the poor are not necessarily poor because of the rich and the rich are not necessarily rich because of their abuse of the poor. The causes are as complex as the solutions are unpalatable to those with the power to deliver them. But poverty is not just economic and social. It is spiritual too. The Holy Father seems to be referring to another great saint of his Church of Rome, the 3rd century deacon, St Lawrence. When commanded by the prefect of Rome to hand over the wealth of the Church, Lawrence distributed it to the poor and told him that the poor, the disabled, the blind and the suffering were the true treasures of the Church. Sealing his own death sentence, he said that in them “the Church is truly rich, far richer than your emperor”.


All these markers point to a new course to the Church’s life for sure. In every image that Pope Francis has conjured up, and every holy person whose name he seems to have invoked, he puts us in mind of the Lord’s words in today’s Gospel: “If I were to seek my own glory that would be no glory at all.” Instead, the Jesuit like the Master seeks “the greater glory of God”; and, according to his own motto, is deeply aware that the Master has chosen him not because he has some gifts or characteristics that the Lord could now find useful, but miserando atque eligendo purely out of having mercy upon him.

Habemus Papam

May God bless and keep Pope Francis ad multos annos

May he also bless and keep Archbishop Justin of Canterbury.

"May they all be one" !

Statement by His All-holiness Patriarch Bartholomew at the announcement of the retirement of Pope Benedict XVI, Pope of Rome

Upon being informed on the way to his native island of Imvros of the imminent retirement of Pope Benedict from the Petrine ministry on the Throne of Rome, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew issued a formal declaration and personal statement to the media, responding with sadness to the news. His All-Holiness closely cooperated with Pope Benedict during his papal tenure, issuing joint statements on contemporary problems facing humanity and realizing official exchange visits, but above all resuming in 2007 the conversations of the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches (established in 1980 and interrupted in 2000). Immediately upon his election, His Holiness Pope Benedict accepted a formal invitation from His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew to visit the Phanar in November, 2006, on the occasion of the Patronal Feast of the Church of Constantinople. He also invited the Ecumenical Patriarch to deliver the only address by an ecumenical leader during the official celebrations in St. Peter’s Square for the 50^th Anniversary since the opening of the 2^ndVatican Council in October, 2012. Below is the text of the formal statement by His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew.

It is with regret that we have learned of the decision by His Holiness Pope Benedict to retire from his Throne, because with his wisdom and experience he could have provided much more to the Church and the world.

 

Pope Benedict leaves an indelible mark on the life and history of the Roman Catholic Church, sealed not only by his brief papacy, but also by his broad and longstanding contribution as a theologian and hierarch of his Church, as well as his universally acknowledged prestige.

 

His writings will long speak of his deep theological understanding, through his knowledge of the Fathers of the undivided Church, his familiarity with contemporary reality, and his keen interest in the problems of humankind.

 

We Orthodox will always honor him as a friend of our Church and a faithful servant of the sacred proposition for the union of all. Moreover, we shall rejoice upon learning of his sound health and the productivity of his theological work.

 

Personally, we remember with emotion his visit to the See of the Ecumenical Patriarchate over six years ago, together with the numerous encounters and excellent cooperation, which we enjoyed throughout the duration of his primatial ministry.

 

From the Phanar, we pray that the Lord will manifest his worthy successor as the head of the sister Church of Rome, and that we may also continue with this successor on our common journey toward the unity of all unto the glory of God.

Pope Benedict's Address on Resignation From the See of Rome

Dear Brothers,

I have convoked you to this Consistory, not only for the three canonizations, but also to communicate to you a decision of great importance for the life of the Church. After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry. I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with words and deeds, but no less with prayer and suffering. However, in today’s world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the bark of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me. For this reason, and well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of Saint Peter, entrusted to me by the Cardinals on 19 April 2005, in such a way, that as from 28 February 2013, at 20:00 hours, the See of Rome, the See of Saint Peter, will be vacant and a Conclave to elect the new Supreme Pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is.

Dear Brothers, I thank you most sincerely for all the love and work with which you have supported me in my ministry and I ask pardon for all my defects. And now, let us entrust the Holy Church to the care of Our Supreme Pastor, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and implore his holy Mother Mary, so that she may assist the Cardinal Fathers with her maternal solicitude, in electing a new Supreme Pontiff. With regard to myself, I wish to also devotedly serve the Holy Church of God in the future through a life dedicated to prayer.

From the Vatican, 10 February 2013

BENEDICTUS PP XVI

Pope Benedict's Homily At Conclusion of Week of Prayer

VATICAN CITY, January 28, 2013, thanks to Zenit.org - Here is the translation of Pope Benedict XVI's Homily during the ecumenical celebration of Vespers of the Solemnity of the Conversion of St. Paul the Apostle. The occasion marked the end of the XLVI Week of Prayer for Christian Unity on the theme: "What Does the Lord Require of Us" (Micah 6:6-8)

* * *

Dear Brothers and Sisters!

It is always a joy and a special grace to come together, around the tomb of the Apostle Paul, to conclude the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. I greet with affection the Cardinals present, first of all Cardinal Harvey, Archpriest of this Basilica, and with him the Abbot and the community of monks who are hosting us. I greet Cardinal Koch, President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, and all the collaborators of this dicastery. I express my cordial and fraternal greetings to His Eminence Metropolitan Gennadios, representative of the Ecumenical Patriarch, to the Rev. Canon Richardson, personal representative in Rome of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and all the representatives of the different Churches and ecclesial communities, gathered here this evening. In addition, I am particularly pleased to greet the members of the Joint Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Churches, to whom I wish a fruitful work for the plenary session that is taking place these days in Rome, as well as students of the Ecumenical Institute of Bossey, on a visit to Rome to deepen their knowledge of the Catholic Church and the Orthodox and Eastern Orthodox young people who study there. Lastly, I greet all those present gathered to pray for the unity of all the disciples of Christ.

This celebration is part of the Year of Faith, which began on 11 October, the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council. Communion in the same faith is the basis for ecumenism. Unity is given by God as inseparable from faith; St. Paul expresses this effectively: "There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism,  one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all"(Eph. 4:4-6). The baptismal profession of faith in God, the Father and Creator, who revealed himself in his Son Jesus Christ, pouring out the Spirit who gives life and holiness, already unites Christians. Without faith - which is primarily a gift of God, but also man's response - the whole ecumenical movement would be reduced to a form of "contract" to enter into out of a common interest. The Second Vatican Council reminds Christians that "the closer their union with the Father, the Word, and the Spirit, the more deeply and easily will they be able to grow in mutual brotherly love"(Decr. Unitatis redintegratio, 7). Doctrinal issues that still divide us must not be overlooked or minimized. They should rather be faced with courage, in a spirit of brotherhood and mutual respect. Dialogue, when it reflects the priority of faith, can open to the action of God with the firm conviction that we cannot build unity alone: it is the Holy Spirit who guides us toward full communion, who allows us to grasp the spiritual wealth present in the different Churches and ecclesial communities.

In today's society it seems that the Christian message affects personal and community life less and less, and this represents a challenge for all the Churches and ecclesial communities. Unity is in itself a privileged instrument, almost a prerequisite to announcing the faith in an ever more credible way to those who do not yet know the Saviour, or who, having received the proclamation of the Gospel, have almost forgotten this precious gift. The scandal of division that undermined missionary activity was the impulse that started the ecumenical movement that we know today. Full and visible communion among Christians is to be understood as a fundamental characteristic of an even clearer witness. While we are on the path towards full unity, it is necessary to pursue concrete cooperation among the disciples of Christ for the sake of passing on the faith to the contemporary world. Today there is a great need for reconciliation, dialogue and mutual understanding, not in a moralistic perspective, but in the name of Christian authenticity for a more incisive presence in the reality of our time.

True faith in God is inseparable from personal holiness, as well as from the pursuit of justice. In the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, which ends today, the theme offered for our meditation was, "What Does the Lord Requires of Us," inspired by the words of the prophet Micah, which we have heard (cf. 6:6-8). It was proposed by the Student Christian Movement in India, in collaboration with the All India Catholic University Federation and the National Council of Churches in India, who also prepared the aids for reflection and prayer. To those who have collaborated, I want to express my deep gratitude and, with great affection, I assure you of my prayers for all the Christians of India, who sometimes are called to bear witness to their faith in difficult conditions. "Walking humbly with God" (cf. Micah 6:8) above all means walking in radical faith, like Abraham, trusting in God, or rather placing in Him all our hopes and aspirations, but it also means walking past the barriers, past hatred, racism and social and religious discrimination that divide and harm society as a whole. As St. Paul says, Christians must first provide a shining example in their search for reconciliation and communion in Christ, that overcomes every kind of division. In the Letter to the Galatians, the Apostle of the Gentiles says, "As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.  There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus"(3:27-28).

Our search for unity in truth and in love, then, must never lose sight of the perception that Christian unity is the work and gift of the Holy Spirit, and goes far beyond our own efforts. Therefore, spiritual ecumenism, especially prayer, is the heart of ecumenical commitment (cf. Decr. Unitatis redintegratio, 8). However, ecumenism will not bear lasting fruit unless it is accompanied by concrete gestures of conversion that move consciences and foster the healing of memories and relationships. As stated in the Decree on Ecumenism of the Second Vatican Council, "there is no true ecumenism without interior conversion" (no. 7). Authentic conversion, as suggested by the prophet Micah and of which the Apostle Paul is a significant example, will bring us closer to God, to the center of our lives, in such a way as to draw us also closer to each other. This is a key element of our ecumenical commitment. The renewal of the inner life of our heart and our mind, which is reflected in everyday life, is crucial in any process of reconciliation and dialogue, making of ecumenism a mutual commitment to understanding, respect and love, "so that the world may believe" (Jn 17:21).

Dear brothers and sisters, let us invoke the Virgin Mary with confidence, the incomparable model of evangelization, so that the Church, "a sign and instrument of intimate union with God and of unity among all men" (Const. Lumen Gentium, 1), may announce with all frankness, even in our time, Christ the Savior. Amen.

[Translation by Peter Waymel]

Disunity - the Fault Disfiguring the Countenance of the Church: Pope Benedict's Angelus Address in the Week of Prayer for Unity

VATICAN CITY, January 20, 2013 thanks to Zenit.org - Here is a translation of the address Benedict XVI gave today before and after praying the midday angelus with those gathered in St. Peter's Square.

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Dear brothers and sisters!

Today the liturgy proposes the Gospel passage about the wedding at Cana, an episode narrated by John, an eye witness of the event. This episode is part of this Sunday that immediately follows the Christmas season because, together with the visit of the Magi from the east and with Jesus' baptism, it forms the trilogy of the epiphany, that is, of the manifestation of Christ. The manifestation at the wedding at Cana is, in fact, "the first of the signs" (John 2:11), that is, the first miracle performed by Jesus, with which he publicly manifested his glory, awakening the faith of his disciples. Let us briefly recall what happened at the wedding feast of Cana in Galilee. It happened that the wine had run out, and Mary, the Mother of Jesus, pointed this out to her Son. He told her that his hour had not yet come; but then followed Mary's intervention and, six large stone jars being filled with water, he transformed the water into wine, an excellent wine, better than the wine that had been served earlier. With this "sign" Jesus revealed himself as the messianic bridegroom, come to establish the new and eternal Covenant with his people, according to the words of the prophets: "As the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so your God will rejoice over you" (Isaiah 62:5). And the wine is the symbol of this joy of love; but it also alludes to the blood that Jesus will pour out at the end to seal the nuptial pact with humanity.

The Church is the bride of Christ, who makes her holy and beautiful with his grace. Nevertheless, this bride, made up of human beings, is always in need of purification. And one of the gravest faults that disfigures the countenance of the Church is the injury to her visible unity, in particular the historical divisions that have separated Christians and that have not yet been overcome. Precisely at this time, from January 18 to 25, the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is observed, a time that is always welcome to believers and to communities, which reawakens in everyone the desire and spiritual commitment to full communion. In this sense the prayer service that I was able to celebrate with thousands of young people from all over Europe and with the ecumenical community of Taizé in this piazza was very significant: it was a moment of grace in which we experienced the beauty of being one in Christ. I encourage everyone to pray together so that we can realize "what the Lord requires of us" (Micah 6:8), which is the theme of this year's Week; it was a theme proposed by some communities in India, which invites us to move decisively toward visible unity and to overcome, as brothers of Christ, every type of unjust discrimination. Next Friday at the conclusion of these days of prayer, I will preside at Vespers in the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls in the presence of representatives of other Churches and ecclesial communities.

Dear friends, once more to the prayer for Christian unity I would like to add a prayer for peace so that, in the various conflicts now going on, the slaughter of civilians cease and all violence end, and the courage for dialogue and negotiation be found. For both of these intentions let us invoke the intercession of Mary Most Holy, the mediatrix of grace.

Following the recitation of the Angelus the Holy Father greeted those present in various languages. In English he said:

I greet all the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors present at today's Angelus. In these days, we are celebrating the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Let us join our prayers to those of our brothers and sisters of all Churches and communities, that we may dedicate ourselves ever more earnestly to working towards our visible unity in Jesus Christ. God bless you and your loved ones!

[Translation by Joseph G. Trabbic]