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Cardinal says Vatican, Orthodox reps to meet to set dialogue agenda
By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service
ROME (CNS) -- Orthodox and Vatican representatives will meet in Rome in early December to establish a theme and agenda for the first meeting of the churches' international theological commission in more than five years, said Cardinal Walter Kasper.
The cardinal, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, said "the ice is thawing" in relations with the Russian Orthodox Church and is proceeding well with 14 other Orthodox churches.
Cardinal Kasper spoke Oct. 24 to reporters at Rome's foreign press club about the Catholic Church's commitment to dialogue as well as about topics raised during the Oct. 2-23 Synod of Bishops on the Eucharist.
While pointing to progress in discussions with the Russian Orthodox, Cardinal Kasper said it is unlikely that Pope Benedict XVI and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow will meet within the next year.
Although such a meeting was "the desire" of Pope John Paul II and is "the hope" of Pope Benedict, the cardinal said he saw no quick way to meet the conditions set by the Russian Orthodox for a meeting.
The Russian Orthodox repeatedly have said that the Catholic Church must stop proselytizing in lands traditionally part of the Russian Orthodox Church.
The Catholic Church has said it rejects proselytism, which it understands as enticing or coercing people away from their church. However, the Vatican says respect for an individual's freedom of conscience means that those who freely approach the church must be assisted.
Cardinal Kasper said he does not see the Catholic and Russian Orthodox churches resolving their differences anytime soon.
However, he said, the Russian Orthodox have named a representative to the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue Between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church. The commission has not met since a session in July 2000 faltered over questions regarding the Eastern Catholic churches, which share liturgical and spiritual traditions with the Orthodox but are in union with Rome.
The December meeting of the dialogue's coordinating committee should set the stage for a full meeting of the commission in mid-2006. The Serbian Orthodox Church has offered to host the gathering.
Cardinal Kasper also was asked about issues raised at the Synod of Bishops: Communion for divorced and civilly remarried Catholics and the possibility of ordaining married men to the priesthood in the Latin-rite church.
The cardinal said the synod discussion about the pastoral care of Catholics who cannot receive the Eucharist because of irregular marriage situations "was much more open than previously."
Although the propositions the synod gave to Pope Benedict do not call for a change in church policy, the propositions "are not the final result" because the pope still must consider whether he wants to address the issue in a post-synodal document, the cardinal said.
"I think the problem of the divorced and remarried is very much a burning question," especially in the West, he said. "Every bishop in the Western countries knows this is a serious problem, so I cannot imagine the discussion is closed."
The cardinal said Pope Benedict, speaking to priests in northern Italy in July, indicated he wanted further study on the issue.
In 1993, when Cardinal Kasper was a diocesan bishop in Germany, he and two other bishops issued pastoral instructions telling priests they could give Communion to divorced and civilly remarried Catholics who were convinced their first marriages were invalid even if they had not received an annulment of that union.
At the same time, the three German bishops affirmed church teaching that a validly contracted, celebrated and consummated marriage could not be annulled.
A year later, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, issued a document insisting that the divorced must obtain an annulment before they could remarry with the church's blessing and receive Communion.
As for the synod's discussion of the possibility of ordaining married "viri probati," men of proven virtue, Cardinal Kasper said he is convinced that "celibacy is a gift" that the church must maintain.
However, he said, the church must ask itself whether, "in certain cases, it would be better also to have the so-called 'viri probati'" to meet the needs of Catholics where there is a shortage of priests.
The ordination of married men, he said, is "a hypothesis that was and remains open," but which would have to be accomplished "without abandoning celibacy."