www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Byzantine Pope?

Dear Alex:

You seem bent on limiting the "powers" of the Pope!

(I know, I know, you want the UGCC to glorify her "own" saints, but you are in communion with us, right? So the Pope has the honors and the authority!) :p

Yes, I agree that the veneration of the recently beatified married couple may be limited to a particular spere, in this instance to Italy or whatever, but you just stopped there and conveniently forgot to clarify that the "Blesseds" are one miracle away from canonization as "Saints."

No, I disagree that the beatification of the married couple is merely a function of the Pope as Bishop of Rome or as Metropolitan of the Roman Province or as "Primate" of Italy. As the last step to the eventual canonization of the couple, the beatification process is a function proper to the Pope's role as Supreme Pontiff of the universal Catholic Church.

There's nothing to prevent us, Catholics outside of Italy, from venerating the Blessed couple.

The future canonization of the Blessed couple as "Saints" is to be understood as the concession of public worship in the Universal Church, and that involves Papal Infallibility!

Amado

Dear Memo,

Actually, what you raise is an important point.

We EC's don't believe we are "under" the Pope in a jurisdictional sense, save and except in a moment of ecclesial crisis and/or if our Church authorities themselves invite the pope to step in and settle a matter of dispute.

Jurisdictionally, Rome has, ideally, allowed us to govern ourselves and be responsible for our own internal matters.

We are in communion with the Pope in his universal Petrine role for the purpose of the unity of the Church as we all believe Christ wills it and for the above purpose.

We certainly recognize the Pope as Bishop of Rome etc., but this has no impact whatever on us as EC's.

So, yes, we are in communion with the Pope as Bishop of Rome (one of our priests in Toronto ONLY refers to the Pope in the Liturgy as "John Paul, Bishop of Rome" !) and the other titles.

But only one of them affects us directly and at all.

Alex

"We Eastern Catholics don't believe we are 'under' the Pope in a jurisdictional sense, save and except in a moment of ecclesial crisis/and or if our Church authorities themselves invite the Pope to step in and settle a matter of dispute."
"We are in communion with the Pope in his universal Petrine role for purpose of the unity of the Church as we all believe Christ wills it and for the above purpose."

There it is in a nutshell, two sentences. Kudos, Alex!

Dear Amado,

First of all, please take note of Bill's post above!

Secondly, in fact, there was an article I came across that argued the Pope had beatified that couple as Bishop of Rome for Rome - if the author was wrong, that's fine, I don't know. I've always assumed beatification is the right of the Pope.

However, even when Pope Urban VIII came out with his Bull reserving even beatifications to the papal office, many Italian and other bishops continued to beatify locally - and these Blesseds later made it into the Roman calendar (most of them, anyway).

Personally, I've never understood why Rome insists on reserving beatifications to it alone. That really is overkill on the authoritarian control score.

Local bishops in the Latin Catholic Church have the right to declare images as being miraculous (a form of canonization, to be Frank . . .) and this right developed with that of declaring local saints.

This resulted in the unfortunate situation in the Roman Church, corrected by the current Pontiff, where about 90% of the canonized saints of the Latin Church came from the three main Latin countries alone.

It is a good thing Pope John Paul II came to Rome, is all I can say.

When God calls His servant to another throne, should the next Pope be Italian, he'll have a lot of canonizations to do before he catches up with the Polish-Slavic polyglot that is on your calendar now!!

(Are there potential candidates in the Philippines that could help the Italians out, just in case? ).

Alex

Dear Alex:

Surprisingly, I agree with Bill wholeheartedly!

(Thus far, we just got only one Filipino Saint: San Lorenzo Ruiz de Manila.)

And to think that we now have the 3rd largest Catholic population in the world at around 73 million and rapidly rising, after Brazil and Mexico. The USA, Italy, France, Spain, Colombia, Poland, and Argentina complete the top 10!

If the Pope's election was ever democratized, we could sway the votes in favor of a hispanic Cardinal or an Asian Cardinal easily, or in favor of a Byzantine Slav for that matter!

I don't know if there's something wrong with us?

Amado

Dear Amado,

I've always esteemed the Catholicism of the Filipino people very highly - as it is worthy of all esteem!

By the way, is there a particular Good Friday devotion practiced by the Filipinos?

A kind of devotional reading on the Passion?

Alex