Capuchin Friar Blessed Leonard Melki was murdered along with other Christians, including Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants, by Ottoman troops at Mardin.
Included in the murdered was Blessed Ignace Maloyan, Armenian Catholic Archbishop of Mardin.
The French advanced 550 yards at Neuville-Saint-Vaast, France.
British and French forces took control of all garrisons around Garua, German Cameroon.
Last edition:
This is huge.
It's a long document, we'll just skip to the conclusion.
Conclusion
5.1 Major issues complicate an authentic understanding of synodality and primacy in the Church. The Church is not properly understood as a pyramid, with a primate governing from the top, but neither is it properly understood as a federation of self-sufficient Churches. Our historical study of synodality and primacy in the second millennium has shown the inadequacy of both of these views. Similarly, it is clear that for Roman Catholics synodality is not merely consultative, and for Orthodox primacy is not merely honorific. In 1979, Pope John Paul II and Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios said: ‘The dialogue of charity … has opened up the way to better understanding of our respective theological positions and thereby to new approaches to theological work, and to a new attitude with regard to the common past of our Churches. This purification of the collective memory of our Churches is an important outcome of the dialogue of charity and an indispensable condition for future progress’ (Joint Declaration, 30 November 1979). Roman Catholics and Orthodox need to continue along that path so as to embrace an authentic understanding of synodality and primacy in light of the ‘theological principles, canonical provisions and liturgical practices’ (Chieti, 21) of the undivided Church of the first millennium.
5.2 The Second Vatican Council opened new perspectives by fundamentally interpreting the mystery of the Church as one of communion. Today, there is an increasing effort to promote synodality at all levels in the Roman Catholic Church. There is also a willingness to distinguish what might be termed the patriarchal ministry of the pope within the Western or Latin Church from his primatial service with regard to the communion of all the Churches, offering new opportunities for the future. In the Orthodox Church, synodality and primacy are practised at the panorthodox level, according to the canonical tradition, by the holding of holy and great councils.
5.3 Synodality and primacy need to be seen as ‘interrelated, complementary and inseparable realities’ (Chieti, 5) from a theological point of view (Chieti, 4, 17). Purely historical discussions are not enough. The Church is deeply rooted in the mystery of the Holy Trinity, and a eucharistic ecclesiology of communion is the key to articulating a sound theology of synodality and primacy.
5.4 The interdependence of synodality and primacy is a fundamental principle in the life of the Church. It is intrinsically related to the service of the unity of the Church at the local, regional and universal levels. However, principles must be applied in specific historical settings, and the first millennium offers valuable guidance for the application of the principle just mentioned (Chieti, 21). What is required in new circumstances is a new and proper application of the same governing principle.
5.5 Our Lord prayed that his disciples ‘may all be one’ (Jn 17:21). The principle of synodality-primacy in the service of unity should be invoked to meet the needs and requirements of the Church in our time. Orthodox and Roman Catholics are committed to finding ways to overcome the alienation and separation that occurred during the second millennium.
5.6 Having reflected together on the history of the second millennium, we acknowledge that a common reading of the sources can inspire the practice of synodality and primacy in the future. Observing the mandate of our Lord to love one another as he has loved us (Jn 13:34), it is our Christian duty to strive for unity in faith and life.
This doesn't resolve the schism, but it's really edging up on it. The Pillar notes that in the head of the Greek Orthodox Church had his way, the schism would likely end immediately.
We're getting pretty close.
The final break, more or less, between the Catholic and Easter Orthodox Churches can somewhat be dated to 1453, making it only a few decades older than the start of the Reformation in 1517. We've written in regard to the collapse of the Reformation here recently, and here's an example of how that's playing out.
African bishops are indeed the leaders of the conservative branch of the Anglican Communion, with the Anglican Communion's conservatives being very close in their outlook to Latin Rite Catholicism. Indeed, the theological point they assert is that they are a separated church, like the Orthodox, a position that Rome does not agree with.
Anyhow, it's interesting to note that as the Reformation more and more collapses due to the seeds of individuality it inserted into Western Culture in the first place, the more conservative branches pull more and more towards Catholic orthodoxy, something liberal Catholics may wish to take note of as they sometimes try to tack in the opposite direction.
Archbishop Tikhon, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, was expelled by the church and declared a traitor by the Communist dominated All Russian Church Council and declared "henceforth a simple citizen—Vasily Bellavin."
The body further declared:
Inasmuch as the Soviet Government is the only one in the whole world fighting capitalism, which is one of the seven deadly sins, therefore its struggle is a sacred struggle. The Council condemns the counterrevolutionary acts of Tikhon and his adherents, lifts the ban of excommunication he laid on the Soviet Government, and brands him as a traitor to the Church and to Russia. It hereby formally abolishes the office of Patriarch forever and establishes an annual Church Council as the supreme directive body in Church affairs.
The Russian Orthodox Church naturally did not recognize the move, and he continued to offer Devine Liturgy for the rest of his life, which at this point was not to be much longer. The Russian Orthodox Church has declared him to be a saint. The move by the All Russian Church Council lead to the establishment of a competing church, which died out in the 1940s. Of note, the establishment of competing government aligned churches is a common practice by authoritarian regimes. Communist China at one time established a rival church to the Catholic Church, aligned with the government, and Nazi Germany attempted to create an aligned Lutheran Church, although the German efforts failed.
The move would lead to a period of irregular leadership in the Russian Orthodox Church, which was unable to procedural choose a successor in the regular method for a period of time, after Tikhon's death.
Tikhon had been a clergyman for a very long time, but had only been head of the Russian Orthodox Church since 1917. Earlier in his career he had been the Bishop of the Aleutian Islands and Alaska, which became the Diocese of the Aleutian Islands and North America, and was a naturalized American citizen. He was a participant, which is to say receptive, to the conversion of Byzantine Catholics into the Orthodox Church due to the ill feelings caused by Catholic Bishop John Ireland's view toward Eastern Rite Catholics comporting with the Latin Rite and Pope Pius X's restriction on Eastern Rite priests marrying, the latter which was later changed and the former which is recognized as a signficant mistake by Bishop Ireland.
The guest, early on, makes a comment about the beginning of the 20th Century, end of the 19th, and mentions "archeology was new". I thought I'd misheard that, but he mentioned it again, and added sociology.
He explained it, but it really hit me.
Archeology, and sociology, in fact, were new. Many academic disciplines were.
Indeed, that's something we haven't looked at here before. People talk all the time about the decline of the classic liberal education (at a time that very few people attended university), but when did modern disciplines really appear?
Indeed, that's part of what make a century ago, +, more like now, than prior to now. Educational disciplines, based on the scientific method in part, really began to expand.
So, we can take, for example, and find the University of Wyoming recognizable at the time of its founding in 1886.
But would Princeton, as it is now, be recognizable in 1786?
And interesting also how this effected everything, in this case, the Church's look at its liturgy.
But also, everything, really, about everything, for good and ill.
At one time, I assumed that the entire globe had the same Catholic Holy Days of Obligation, but this is not true. No, not at all.
The United States has the following:
In a message that Pope Francis sent to you on the feast of St. Andrew 2020, he expressed his desire for full communion between Catholics and Orthodox Christians. “Although obstacles remain, I am confident that by walking together in mutual love and pursuing theological dialogue, we will reach that goal,” he wrote. Do you share the pope’s confidence that full communion is possible?
Unless we share hope and yearning for full communion, then we cannot really say that we are disciples of Christ. Union and communion is a mandate of the Lord Himself, who — on the night he was betrayed — prayed with tears that his disciples may be one (John 17:21). Dialogue and reconciliation are not optional for us; they are directives and commandments.
Boris Johnson and his longtime girlfriend, Carrie Symonds (now Johnson) married.
So what, you may ask. Indeed, dulled by the long 2019-2021 parade of bad news of one kind or another, that was my initial reaction, even though there's an obvious Christian point to this story from the onset, as by marrying, they're no longer shacking up, if you will, even though they certainly haven't been shacking up in quarters that could be compared to a shack.
Frankly, as an Apostolic Christian, I'd normally have probably made a comment at some point about their living arrangements as its clearly contradictory to the tenants of the Christian faith, and even in Europe this would have been poorly regarded in almost any society up until, well right now. Now, it pretty much produces a yawn, as do the majority of other serious religious tenants shared by all of the Abrahamic religions on a variety of matters related to sex. I.e., this conduct is regarded as seriously sinful by all the Christian religions, Judaism and Islam. In the modern world, it seems, Christians, including some serious ones but also a lot of nominal ones, have decided that most of what the Apostles wrote down was elective in nature and that people pretty much get a vote on what is and what isn't sinful.
More on that here later.
That's not what sparked the news, as soon became apparent. What did, is that Johnson and Symonds married in a Catholic cathedral in a Catholic ceremony. For people who like to be shocked, amazed, or scandalized, this was shocking, amazing, and scandalous. And the press all over the English speaking world reacted with a giant "WHAT? How could this be?" For example, the New York Time ran this headline:
Why Could Boris Johnson Marry in a Catholic Church?
The Guardian, a British newspaper that has made inroads into this US, ran this bizarre historically dim headline:
Boris Johnson’s outdone Henry VIII in having his third marriage blessed by the Catholic church
Apparently the writers at this British paper are historical dimwits.
The Irish Times, less dim on the topic, ran this one, which was actually interesting and informative.
Boris Johnson baptised Catholic and cannot defect from Church, says canon law
And the Times headline gets to the crux of the matter.
That didn't keep, however, an Irish priest from stating that the wedding made a "mockery" of the Church's laws.
Which it does not.
I don't know much about Johnson personally, Or indeed, hardly at all. And among the things I didn't know is that his mother was Catholic and he was baptized by a Catholic priest. His mother raised him as a Catholic as a child, but when he was in Eaton, he was confirmed (rather late, if we look at North American anyhow) by an Episcopal Bishop.
And that makes him an Episcopalian, right?
Well, that depends.
Carrying the story forward, in the 1980s he married Allegra Mostyn-Owen. The couple divorced in 1993 after six years of marriage. She's currently married to a man 22 years her junior who is a Muslim, which has lead Johnson to put Mostyn-Owen on a Muslim relations task force. Reportedly, she's given her husband permission to have more than one wife as she is unlikely to be able to bear children and of course polygamy is a feature of Islam, although that would not be legal anywhere in Europe, in so far as I know. [1].
His second wife was Mariana Wheeler, a childhood friend of Johnson's. They married twelve days after his first divorce and she was pregnant at the time. Their marriage lasted seven years.
So, eeh gads, surely this is contrary to Catholic teaching, right? I.e., his current marriage to Symonds, age 33 (Johnson is 56), just can't happen, right?
To read the press, you'd think so. I've read everything, however, from this can't happen as Catholics don't allow divorce to this could only happen as Catholics don't recognize the marriages of other faiths.
That doesn't grasp the interesting religious angle, however, of this at all.
In reality, all of the Apostolic faiths, as well as some of the Christian faiths that are close to the Apostolic faiths and regard themselves as Apostolic, take Christs' injunction against divorce seriously, although they don't all approach it exactly the same way. Interestingly, and completely missed in all of this, the Church of England doesn't recognize divorce. The mother church of the Anglican Communion, that is, regards it as invalid, just as Catholicism does, which isn't surprising as High Church Anglicans regard themselves as a type of Catholic, even if the Catholic Church completely rejects that assertion as "completely null and utterly void".
We'll get to more of that in a minute, but perhaps the most peculiar of the approaches to divorce is the Orthodox one. The Orthodox allow more than one marriage under a vague application of a mercy principal that tolerates, in some cases, up to three marriages. It's tempting to compare this to the Catholic concept of annulment, and indeed it is somewhat comparable, but lacking in the formality. The basic approach, however, is that the Orthodox only recognize one valid marriage, but accept that human nature is frail and people goof up, so it applies some leeway essentially as it generally feels that the problem of sex in human nature makes it difficult not to. I'm not Orthodox, so I could be off on this by quite some margin.
The Catholic Church doesn't recognize divorce at all. It does apply the principal of annulments where it judges that one of the original marrying parties lacked something to make that marriage valid. I don't' know what percentage of people who go through the annulment process obtain one, but frankly it seems rather shockingly high, which as been a long criticism of it, and a valid one in my view. Outside of that, however, Catholics hold that once you are married, its until death. No exceptions, save for the one noted, which would hold that the first marriage wasn't valid, and therefore wasn't really a marriage.
So how on Earth could Johnson and Symonds marry in a Catholic cathedral?
Well that leads to messy press analysis.
The Irish Times, not surprisingly, had it best.
Contrary to what some of the press elsewhere would have it, the Catholic church fully recognizes the marriages of non Catholics, and for that matter, non Christians. If two Muslims marry, the Catholic Church regards them as married. Married and can't divorce is how the Catholic Church would regard it, irrespective of how Muslims may view it.
And also contrary to what some of the press is claiming, the Church also recognizes the marriages of people who are two different faith, or no faith at all. Go down to the Courthouse and have the judge marry you, in other words, and you are married.
So what's the deal here?
That's where you get into Canon Law.
Originally the overwhelming majority of Christians, all of whom were Catholic, married outside of a Church ceremony. Indeed, it was extremely informal. People just decided they were to marry, and they were. No wedding ceremony at all.
That first began to change with monarchs, as their marriages were also effectively treaties between nations, and they wanted it to be really clear and official in every respect possible. But also, during the Middle Ages, things began to change with regular people as the need for marriage witnesses arose. This was principally because one member of the couple would claim they were never married, usually the man, leaving he other, usually the woman, in a very bad position.
Indeed, even with very early Christian monarchs you can see this at work. Some early Saxon and English kings, for example, had queens who were subject to this. Hardecanute is a famous one who married with King of England, but who had a Scandinavian queen before and during that period. What was she? Harold Godwinson, the last Saxon king of England, had a Saxon queen who was "married in the old style" and a Welsh queen to whom he was more formally married. When he died at Hastings, it was apparently the Saxon queen, still around, that identified his body.
This presents a series of obvious problems and the Church therefore worked to clear it up, imposing the Canon law that Christians had to be married by a priest. This served a number of purposes, one of which was that the wedding was therefore witnesses and couldn't be simply excused away.
It would be tempting to think that the current situation came about immediately upon the Reformation, but that would be in error. Indeed, it's important to keep in mind that at the parish level, while the fact that the Church was in turmoil was obvious, the severance wasn't necessarily immediately apparent in the pews. All of the original Lutheran priests, for example, had been ordained Catholic priests. No Bishops followed Luther into rebellion in what is now Germany, so there was no way to ordain valid new priests in the eyes of the Catholic Church there, but in Scandinavia things muddled on in an unclear fashion for some time and the Scandinavian Bishops did follow their monarchs into a series of murky positions.
In England, the situation in the pews was also unclear. All of the original Anglican priests had been Catholic priests and most, but not all, of the Bishops followed Henry VIII into schism. Edward VI took the country as far from the Catholic folds as he could, but then Queen Mary brought the country back into the Church, although without completely success. Then Elizabeth struck a middle ground, most likely for political reasons more than anything else. As late as the Prayer Book Rebellion, 1549, Catholicism was still so strongly rooted in the minds of average Englishmen that they revolted over the introduction of the Book of Common Prayer which the conceived of as too Protestant.
The point of this isn't to introduce a treatise on the history of religion in England, but rather to note that for average people this must have been distressing, but if they were going to get married, they still went to the same place, the Church, and the presiding cleric presided over it. This is important to our story here as, at least in England, in spite of an outright war by the Crown against Catholicism, the Church did not prohibit Catholics from marrying in a ceremony presided over by an Anglican priest and no dispensation was required for a "disparity of cult".
Indeed, it's widely believed that as late as 1785 the man who would reign as King George IV married Maria Fitzherbert, a Catholic. The marriage remains really murky in terms of details, as it was conducted in secret, and was arguably invalid because George IV had not obtained permission from George III, which was a legal requirement. The marriage did not, however, require Fitzherbert to obtain permission from the Catholic Church and its believed it was conducted by an Anglian priest. Interestingly, while George IV would later deny that the marriage was valid, and their relationship was rocky, it never completely ceased altogether and he asked to be buried with a locket containing her image. George IV was officially married to his cousin Caroline of Brunswick in what was pretty clearly both an arranged and unhappy marriage that he did wish to terminate. He died first.
So when, exactly, the current canon came in requiring permission for a marriage outside of a Catholic officiation, I frankly don't know. It may not have occurred everywhere at the same time, for that matter. Having said that, it seems to have been first mentioned as a Church law, and therefore a legal requirement binding Catholics, in 1563, so the example given above is problematic.
Note, however, that it binds Catholics. Not other people, and the Church has never stated otherwise.
Additionally, it binds Catholics as its a law of the Church. In order for a Catholic to have a valid marriage, it must be presided over by a Catholic priest or there must be some dispensation. If that doesn't occur it isn't valid, as to Catholics.
And that's what we have here. It's not change in the law of the Church in any fashion. Boris Johnson was baptized as a Catholic and so he is a Catholic, the way that Catholics understand that. Carrie Symonds is also a Catholic, and indeed, press comments about her routinely refer to her as a "practicing Catholic". Her status in that regard is problematic as she and Johnson have been shacked up, which is contrary to Catholic moral law in a major way, but with their marriage, and presumably with a Confession that preceded it, that's no longer an issue of any kind. And Symonds' views would otherwise be evident in that she had their son, born out of wedlock (see issue above again), baptized in the Catholic faith.
So, why al the fussing?
Well, for the most part at least knowledgeable Catholics aren't fussing. Not everyone likes Johnson politically, but Catholics pretty much take a "welcome home" view towards this sort of thing. So, the past is what its, and Boris is back. All is fine, religion wise.
Of course, some Catholics who don't know the doctrines of their own church, or who simply want to have a fit, are. But its' a pretty misplaced one.
Non Catholics can have a fit if they're predisposed to, as they don't understand the Church's law and they are often surprised to find that the Church retains its original position that as it is the original Church, which is indisputable, all others lack in some fashion. [2]. So this serves to remind people that the Anglican Church and the Catholic Church have a lot of similarities, but no matter what the Anglican Communion may maintain, the Catholic Church doesn't regard it as Catholic. Of course, not all Anglicans wish to be regarded as Catholics, but some of them are offended as the fact that the Catholic Church isn't according them equivalency with the Catholicism is offensive to them.
More than that, however, a long held cultural anti Catholicism that came in with the reformation is still pretty strong in certain Protestant regions of Europe in spite of the decline of their Protestant established churches. This is very evident in England, and is very strong in Scandinavia. It's somewhat ironic in various ways, not the least of which is that these regions have become highly secularized and as that has occurred, the Church that has remained strong has been the minority Catholic Church, which has not only survived its long Reformation winter, but which has gained new adherents.
Does this mean that Johnson has fully returned to the Catholic fold and will be at Mass next Sunday? Well, Catholics should hope so, and frankly so should Protestants as well. And there is some evidence that Johnson, who has lived a fairly libertine life, may in fact be taking his Christianity more seriously than he did in earlier days. His recent address regarding the Pandemic specifically referenced Christ and his mercy, something that very few politicians would generally do, and European ones even less.
So, while people can have fits if they want to, all in all, they shouldn't. Indeed, no matter what a person thinks of Johnson one way or another, there's reason to be happy about this development, and not just in being happy for the apparently happy couple if a person is inclined to be such.
Footnotes
1. Having said that, I don't know if polygamy is legal in Turkey, which is obviously a Muslim majority nation, and which is in Europe, depending upon how you draw the continental lines. Turkey has become increasingly Islamic under its current leadership but had years of aggressive secularism, so the status of Muslim polygamist marriages isn't a given, and I don't know the answer as to its status there.
2. The various Orthodox Churches also stretch back to Apostolic origins, which is why the Catholic and Orthodox Churches regard each others sacraments as valid, and also regard their separation as schismatic, depending upon which you are in, rather than an outright rebellion and departure as was the case with the Protestant Churches.
