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Russian Patriarch Laments Anti-Christian Trends in Europe


MOSCOW, JUNE 8, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexy II appealed to Catholics and Orthodox to address together the "negative anti-Christian tendencies" present in Europe.

The patriarch made his plea Tuesday when meeting with Pier Ferdinando Casini, president of the Italian Chamber of Deputies.

In his exhortation, reported by Vatican Radio, the patriarch of Moscow and All Russia presented one of the "crucial" challenges that Catholics and Orthodox must address together: to bring Christian values back to Europe.

Alexy II criticized the "absurd tolerance" that in a secular Europe virtually "impedes Christian from making public profession of their own values."

"It is strange that in a society that presents itself as free, Christians are impeded from expressing the faith freely," lamented the patriarch, who explained to Casini that he followed closely the case of Rocco Buttiglione, Italian candidate for European Commissioner who was "persecuted because he thought in a different way."

"Second-class"

Buttiglione was Italy's nominee to the European Union's executive commission. He stood down last year after he was sharply attacked by Europarliamentarians and the press for his traditional Catholic views about the sinfulness of homosexual acts.

Alexy II said that he counts very much on Benedict XVI to work together "against violence, egoism and moral relativism."

The president of the Italian Chamber summarized his conversation with the patriarch saying that "that there is great fear that, in the new Europe, Christians will be considered as second-class citizens."

Moreover, Alexy II pointed out "the opportunity lost by the European Constitution, in which there is no specific reference to the Christian identity," reported Vatican Radio.

Amen!

This is great!! Anybody believes that this time a common enemy will speed up our reunion?

Patriarch Alexy should consider visiting the Vatican and inviting His Holiness to Moscow sometime soon.

Lets pray for our unity!

God bless

This is good news indeed!

Poor Russia has many problems today. I was just speaking to a wealthy Russian university student who has had the priveledge of attending private boarding schools and college here in the U.S.

He said that, although prostitution is illegal, it is so acceptable that it is practically legal. He said that many young women in Russia, including those attending universities, engage in it to make money.

I would say that spreading the message of Christianity needs all the help it can get in Russia and in Europe...therefore, the Orthodox and the Roman Catholics do really need each other and the cooperation of their Churches in the endeavor to save souls and bring God given dignity and purpose back to people.

In Christ,
Alice

the Orthodox and the Roman Catholics do really need each other and the cooperation of their Churches in the endeavor to save souls and bring God given dignity and purpose back to people.

Through the early centuries isn't this one of the things that kept the Church together, their mutual need to withstand the attacks of the world. God in his mercy is using it again to draw the Churches together. Hopefully, the Orthodox and Catholics will hasten to the call.

Also, it must be really hard for the Russian Orthodox Church, who after being persecuted behind the Iron Curtain for so many years, now finds the world trying to impose a similar situation of God's people. Countries have forgotten what happened to Egypt so many years ago. They don't think God will do the same today. As by brother-in-law use to say when they were kids, they better hide and watch. Hopefully, we as Christians will latch onto the power the Holy Spirit desires to give us, cease being timid, and do what God is asking of us so there will be no need for frons, gnats, and flies.

Pani Rose -
who realizes it is 3AM and is thinking oddly

OH MY, it is now 3:30 too funny. After my statement on the previous post, Countries have forgotten what happened to Egypt so many years ago. They don't think God will do the same today. As by brother-in-law use to say when they were kids, they better hide and watch. Hopefully, we as Christians will latch onto the power the Holy Spirit desires to give us, cease being timid, and do what God is asking of us so there will be no need for frons, gnats, and flies, I went to spiritdaily.com to see what was on there. This is an article that I found...

Frogs rain down on Serbia

Traffic came to a halt and locals fled inside after thousands of frogs fell from the sky onto a Serbian village.

Residents in Odzaci told local daily Blic they thought the world was coming to an end.

Aleksandar Ciric said: "I saw all these small frogs just start raining down. There were thousands of them."

Another villager, Caja Jovanovic, added: "This huge 'cloud' seemed to come out of nowhere and its shape and colour looked very strange.

"We were all wondering what it was when suddenly frogs started to fall from the sky. I thought maybe a plane carrying frogs had exploded in midair."

But climatology expert Slavisa Ignjatovic said there was a simple scientific explanation for the incident.

He said: "A whirlwind has sucked up the frogs from a lake, the sea or some other body of water somewhere else and carried them along to Odzaci where they have fallen to the ground. It is a recognised scientific phenomenon."

On a more serious note, I found this article also. Seems to me if Pope Benedict is willing to share power with his bishops, then he is possibly open to developeing a clearer difination with the Patriarchs of the East. Pani Rose

Pope Reportedly Wants to Share Power
Pope Benedict XVI Wants to Share Power With Bishops, Dominican Rev. Augustine Di Noia Says
By NICOLE WINFIELD
The Associated Press

May. 12, 2005 - An American who has worked with Pope Benedict XVI has suggested the pope would embrace sharing more power with local bishops a big issue in the United States, where Catholics have sometimes chafed under Rome's control.

Dominican Rev. Augustine Di Noia, undersecretary in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, told Vatican Radio Wednesday that it was "significant" that the pope had included the bishop's miter in his papal coat of arms rather than the traditional papal tiara.

He said the choice indicated Benedict didn't want to be seen as a "monarch" but rather as the bishop of Rome who wanted to see more collegiality in the church, the Vatican term for power-sharing with local bishops.

"It can be seen to express an enthusiastic embrace of collegiality," Di Noia said.

Catholics in the United States have sometimes chafed about the level of control the Vatican exercised over the U.S. church during Pope John Paul II's tenure. Others, though, say Rome had to step in because the bishops were too lax in keeping the faith.

Many people will be looking to the next Synod of Bishops the meetings that bring bishops from around the world to Rome to discuss and advise on topics assigned by the pope for a sense of the new pope's policies. On Wednesday, Benedict confirmed the synod would take place Oct. 2-23, the Vatican said.

Di Noia made the comments in a lengthy interview with Vatican Radio about his impressions of the new pope gleaned by working for the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger at the Vatican's doctrinal watchdog office.

"He's a person of real dedication, disciplined, focused in many ways. I suppose academic in the sense of a dedicated man who reads a lot and thinks a lot and writes a lot and is willing to share his knowledge with anyone who's willing to listen or talk with him," Di Noia said.

He said the pope had a "tremendous inner tranquility" and followed the church's liturgical calendar in his own spirituality, which he described as "almost monastic." He said Ratzinger, for example, would usually take this time of year as a retreat and was a great devotee of St. Augustine and St. Benedict.

Di Noia said he was "exasperated" by the labels placed on Benedict in the media and elsewhere that he was a cold, office-bound conservative. He said a more appropriate label would be that he is "tradition-minded."

He said Benedict saw the 1962-65 Second Vatican Council less as a series of meetings that brought the church into the modern world than as a "recovery of the deepest sort of identity of the Catholic tradition going back all the way to the scriptures, the fathers of the church and the liturgy."

Di Noia urged the faithful and others not to speculate about the pope's future policies, saying such musings were "as if we're talking about the transition from President Clinton to President Bush."

"The pope is more bound to be faithful to the tradition than any of us are," Di Noia said. "He is its articulator, and for him, the tradition is what he's received. He is the successor of Peter. Just as Peter received the Gospel and the message of the salvation of the world from our Lord ... so does the successor of Peter."

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Does anyone else here believe its coincidental that Alexy II has (more or less) suddenly warmed up to Rome in exactly the same week Major Archbishop Husar and the Ukranian Greek Catholic episcopacy were in Rome for a chat? Simultaenously moreover Russia began the first steps towards full diplomatic relations with the Holy See this week also. This is idle speculation but do you reckon that what Pope Benedict and Ukranian hierarchy discussed has had some bearing on Alexy II's attitude? Is it possible that behind the scenes Benedict XVI and Alexy II are talking a lot more than we realise?

I would add that this is not just a European problem. In North America, there are increasing signs that a post-Christian era is emerging.

Here are two such signs from today's news:

In St. Augustine, Florida, USA, a local court has ordered the city to fly "gay pride" flags.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-68gayflags,0,277561.story?coll=sfla-home-headlines

In Canada, the Roman Catholic bishop of Calgary reported how a government official tried to intimidate him, because the bishop criticized the Canadian Prime Minister for supporting gay "marriage."
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005/jun/05060805.html

There are many other such signs. Just one example was from a year or so ago. The government of the U.S. state of California ordered Catholic Charities to include birth control in its health care coverage of its employees. This is despite the fact that artificial birth control is (at least officially) against Catholic beliefs.

Of course, none of this should come as too great of a surprise. In America alone, we legally kill approximately 700,000 - 1,200,000 children per year through abortion. They are killed because they are unwanted and because they are unable to speak for themselves. Now, this spring (March, 2005), America graduated to legally killing adults by �euthanasia� without their permission. Terri Schiavo, a 41 year old woman, was starved to death. She wasn�t unplugged from a life-support machine. Instead, she wasn�t fed. She was starved to death by her doctors, at the request of her husband, by the order of the court, and with the support of 2/3 of the American people. She was killed because she was a cripple and because she was unable to speak for herself. In short, in America it is increasingly legally permitted to kill people who are inconvenient and who are mute.

And these murders are taking place within a culture that is increasingly enslaved to selfishness by being increasingly enslaved to its passions. North America is increasingly enslaved to gluttony, greed and lust: through an ethic of selfishness, that is gilded as success, and that is justified by secularism.

The real turning point was the legalization of abortion. There has always been selfishness and indulging the passions and sin. But it was the legal permission to kill one�s own children --still in the womb!-- that changed everything and that made selfishness to be acceptable as an ultimate goal for life. There is no more intimate, self-giving moment than when a child is growing in his or her mother�s womb. If people are willing to murder their own child at that utmost time of intimacy for their own selfishness, anything is permissible for selfishness. And that is exactly what is happening and what has been happening since abortion was legalized: increasingly, anything is permissible for selfishness.

What is most worrisome is that this change is freely chosen by the people of North America. Unlike the socialism and communism and fascism of the 20th century, the current secularism was not initially imposed by governments. It was permitted by North American governments. When the governments of the U.S. and Canada legalized abortion, they permitted abortion but they did not force abortion. In other words, the governments of North America --of the U.S. and Canada-- did not round up pregnant women and force abortions on them. Instead, the government permitted abortion. Then, it was the people of North America who freely chose to kill their inconvenient children by abortion, in order to �free� themselves to pursue their selfishness. It is also the people of North America who otherwise and increasingly freely choose to live for their own self-gratification by gluttony, greed and lust. None of this is being imposed; all of it is being chosen.

Yet, these choices of the people are increasingly being reflected by the governments of the people. The governments of North America are democracies, and democracy is the government of the people. Well, if the people choose to become selfish, their governments will reflect that selfishness, and their governments will enforce the �right� to be selfish. That includes �protecting� people from others who would threaten the �right� to be selfish: increasingly including Christians who condemn or merely criticize others for selfishness and sin.

Thus, I must conclude three things:

(1) There is a small but real and looming threat of future persecution in North America. Specifically, there is a real threat in North America of future persecution of Christians who challenge immorality and secularism. Indeed, unless North America repents, the wicked will sink more and more into the sins of selfishness. As they do so, they will become more and more pained by the example and the call to righteousness of those who keep and preach the Gospel. And then, like Christ Himself, those Christians could be killed for their witness. If the secularists are willing to kill babies and women for being inconvenient to their own selfishness, they will be willing to kill Christians who inconveniently remind them of their wickedness.

(2) It is time for Christians to unite as much as possible in order to stem the tide of immorality and secularism or, if we fail, to better bear the resulting persecution.

(3) It is also time for Christians in North America to seriously practice penance and to seriously work at our sanctification. Again, this is to try to stem the tide of immorality and secularism or, if we fail, to better bear the resulting persecution.

--John

Great news!

Still, I feel that Bernardo's question:

is maybe a bit premature. Talk of reunion would probably only upset things for now.

But, I am curious:

- Does Patriarch Alexei also hope to include the Anglicans and the various "sectarians" (as they call them) in this cooperation? If Rome is the only non-Orthodox group His Beatitude hopes to cooperate with, that's very significant.

- What's behind Patriarch Alexei's post-JPII change in heart towards Rome? Some may say it has to do with dislike of Poles or something like that (or perhaps they need to tread around post-Soviet resentment of JPII).

Still, my guess is that the MP has probably watched Cardinal Ratzinger for years and have been favorably impressed by his attitude towards moral relativism and his writings on the future of the Church (especially his positive attitude towards Orthodoxy).

No, his change of heart has come because John Paul the Great is now in heaven praying for him!
-Daniel

I'm not sure that there's a "change of heart". He's not talking about union, or ecumenism, noly about working together against a common enemy.

Photius

No, his change of heart has come because John Paul the Great is now in heaven praying for him!

AMEN Daniel

Whatever the state of grace that is taking place, I also feel that JPII has something to do with it. He is able to accomplish much more for us now that he is at home. He was confind in this world, now he is free of the cumbrances that held him down although I am sure his suffering gained much grace for us as a Church, the body of Christ wherver we are.

Pani Rose

Pani Rose wrote: Frogs rain down on Serbia

Demons are no less common in our day than in the past. The difference is only that today modernity refuses to recognize them as demons.

Demons afflict our lives, even across the generations. May our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ deliver us from them!!!

I pray daily for the reconciliation of Christians (not for reunion, which can only come later), but for simple reconciliation, for example, a simple invitation from the Patriarch of Moscow that a Pole, a Slav, John Paul II, might be able to visit Russia, and pray in some of Russia's holy places.

Reconciliation doesn't demand full communion, identitical agreement on all points of faith. It requires simply a purity of heart, an agreement that we share something of our common faith. We can reconcile with one another without absorbing one another completely within ourselves.

I pray daily that the unanswered prayers and the unfulfilled wishes of John Paul II be accomplished during my lifetime. I am reassured, then, that there will be a peace and a building up of brotherhood between Catholics and Orthodox. I pray we will see it in our lifetime.

Stojgniev

Womderful news!

Hopefully we can unite against this increasingly post-Christian secular humanist environment where the faith of many is growing cold.