www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Eastern Cardinal as Pope?

That's typically the black and white way the "debate" is framed, yes. In reality, I think there is a great deal more color present on both sides of the fence. While certainly a substantial task, the fact of the matter remains that, for 1,000 years, the Church was one and must return to that full unity. There are not a few us who will do whatever we need to (pray, fast, dialogue, etc.) to ensure that happens.

Will it happen next week? No. Will it be an easy process? No. But it's a critical one, and with God, all things are possible.


Sort of ironically, DMD, that's precisely the point. It's precisely because we see all the Catholic Churches as having equal dignity that the concept of an eastern bishop becoming pope is feasible in the minds of many Catholics.

This said, there is the whole issue of the primacy of the See of Rome and the fact that the "Roman" Church is western that does offer an ostensible stumbling block in this regard. For whatever it's worth to anyone (very little, I'm sure since no one here knows me from Adam), it's an issue I'm mulling over extensively and will comment further on at a later time if anything of any sort of value comes to mind.

In the interim...


And that would be their problem, not the problem of the rest of the Church.

Prediction: Patriarch Sviatoslav Shevchuk will be in the running next election. Do not be surprised if he's elected Pope.

Dear Pavloosh,

God forbid! The UGCC needs him more than the Roman Church ever would.

Besides, the Roman Trads would consider him to be a liberal as he would want a married clergy, Communion in both Kinds, the Sacraments of Initiation given all at one to infants etc.

The liberals would consider him an abomination since he would want to bring back the weekly Psalter and longer services, possibly even "ad oriente . . ."

The Orthodox would protest vehemently against him as further proof that Rome is promoting a "pro-uniate" agenda, Balamand be damned . . .

Not to mention "His Holiness'" support for that Maydan thing . . .

Rome's biggest argument against making Svyatoslav pope would be that, if elected, the first thing he would probably want to do is approvate a UGCC patriarchate . . .

There are too many arguments against such a thing ever happening.

Nice try, though!

Alex

Because, from an ontological standpoint, this would seem to be a contradiction in terms to some.

The Catholic (and high Petrine Orthdox) claim is that the See of Rome holds pre-eminence over all others. (Not because, colloquially speaking, Rome is "cooler than everybody else" or any fool thing, but simply because it was the See of Peter, and presumably because it was the "See" of the wordly kingdom opposed to the kingdom of Christ before Christ toppled it and handed the keys to his vicar - cf. Dan. 7) The Church of Rome, the Church "belonging" directly to the Roman See is the Roman Catholic Church. The See is Latin by its very nature.

Many of us would see no problem with an eastern bishop taking the reigns as far as having universal jurisdiction over the Church goes. It's not hard for us to fathom someone, for example, going from being head of the Greek Church to being head of the universal Church.

However, doing so would seem to create a strange interpolation. The question arises, in an event of this kind, does this patriarch remain patriarch of the Greek Church as pope? If he does, to what extent does the See of Rome then matter? It looks as if the bishop of Athens or Moscow or Antioch may just as well be pope as the bishop of Rome. So much for the primacy of the Roman See.

If, on the other hand, he does not and now becomes the patriarch of the Latin Church instead...This kind of seems like "craddle robbing", for lack of a better descriptor, to many in the East.

If the whole premise of East-West ecumenical relations these days is that the western Church and eastern Churches all truly enjoy equal dignity, then what's with "yanking" an eastern bishop out of his eastern Church and transferring him to a western Church, I think is what those who object are getting at?

To which, at this point, I would probably respond by having to reference 1 Cor. 1:10-13 and Eph. 4:1-16. While the individual sui iuris Churches are all "independent" in one proper sense, they are not independent in another. As Paul notes, there is but one Christian faith, one hope, one baptism. "ONE, holy, catholic, and apostolic church."

This is to suggest that while the differences between sui iuris Churches are real and unquestionably of value, that value is limited and subordinate to the unity of the Church as a whole.

To offer a rough secular parallel, an American lieutenant who works with NATO may be asked at some point to go and take over operations at a base in Germany. (Not an American base in Germany, a German base in Germany.) Said general may think to himself, "Ugh. Move to Germany and watch over German troops? I'm not German and I don't much like German culture." But he answers the call anyway and makes the move because his American culture is not absolute, and the greater good of NATO compels him to leave it behind (not in an absolute sense, just in terms of the milieu into which he'll be inserted).

Peanut gallery??

You'll see!

Alex,

I, too, believe with Pavloosh that His Beatitude will become Pope.

Did anyone foresee Saint John Paul II becoming Pope, a non-Italian from a communist country?

Did anyone foresee an Argentine Jesuit from the New World becoming Pope in the last conclave?

Ever since he was elected patriarch of the UGCC, there is something about His Beatitude that just screams "POPE!".

He's good friends with His Holiness Francis, he has been on the religious forefront in the current situation with Ukraine, he is fluent in nine languages and he is only in his 40's.

I just think this is all preparing him for the See of Peter. Yes, he is not a Cardinal just yet, but I am sure that will change.

In light of the decades of atrocities that the UGCC has suffered for Her fidelity to the Pope of Rome during Soviet times, it seems --in my opinion--that a Ukrainian will be elected to the See of Peter...and that Ukrainian is Patriarch Svyatoslav.

If 50 years ago the Catholic Church came that close to having an Armenian Catholic Pope, then it is all the more certain that we are coming this close to a Ukrainian Greek Catholic Pope.

Just my two cents.

He'd technically be pope, already. He has a sheep he shepherds, in Ukraine. I don't see why it would be advantageous for him to leave his present flock, for a flock who doesn't know him?

Hmm - in the past I seem to remember that HB Lubomyr was also strongly tipped as well

And, as Pope, he'd still be shepherd of his Ukrainian flock. He'd just have a much larger flock in addition. I mean, the Ukrainian *CATHOLICS* wouldn't stop being Catholic, would they?

One would like to think that it's not really a matter of what's "advantageous" to a specific man who would be Pope, or to the flock he shepherds before his election, but rather what is advantageous to the Church as a whole. Or, more to the point, what should matter is if it is God's will that he be Pope.

How many Catholics have *ever* known all that much of any *new* Pope?

What most people know of ecclesiology would fit into a thimble.

Well, all I know is I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of my copy of Soloviev's "The Russian Church and the Papacy." If I understand Soloviev correctly (and I may not) he says that sobornost can only be fulfilled in communion with Peter. So, if we consider that the Russians first became Christian at Kiev, can we extrapolate a "Rus Magna" (not as Tsars/Putin do) and hope that a Ukrainian pope might fulfill some of those hopes and combine the Slavic ideals of world salvation with the catholicity of Rome?

A thimble?? I'm not even sure I could define the word! I mean, really, now...six (count 'em---6) syllables!?!? Oy Vey!!!

That's being rather generous, in my estimation.

I admit I don't know (or care to know) much about ecclesiology. And my mother was a dressmaker/seamstress and I have her collection of thimbles on my computer desk here . . .

All I know is a thing or to about ostpolitik and the Vatican.

There is NO way that Patriarch Svyatoslav will ever be Pope (of Rome).

Pope of Alexandria - well that's something altogether different.

And, Pavloosh and Griego - I think I'm older than both of you put together.

Listen to your elder here . . .

Alex

The Pope is the Pope first and foremost because he is the Bishop of Rome. The sooner all Catholics remember this and stop treating the Pope like the Catholic Dalai Lama, the sooner the Church will return to a healthy ecclesiology.