“Conversion
is required of the Latin Church that she may respect and
fully appreciate the dignity of Eastern Christians, and
accept gratefully the spiritual treasures of which the
Eastern Catholic Churches are bearers, to the benefit of the
entire Catholic communion.”
- Pope John Paul II,
The Light of the East, Orientale Lumen, 2nd May 1995,
Par. 21
Why did the Holy Father
urge Catholics with such forcefulness
TO change
THEIR WAYS? He
replies, "to show concretely, far more than in the past,
how much the Church esteems and admires the Christian East
and how essential
she considers its contribution to the full
realization of the Church's universality".
History tells us that things were not always so. During the
17th and 18th centuries Latin Catholic missionaries went to
many countries in the Middle East and beyond, inhabited by
numerous Eastern Catholics. Campaigns were mounted to
convert these peoples to Latin Catholicism or at the very
least to Latinize the various Eastern Rites in which these
Eastern Catholics worshipped; the autonomy of many
churches was abrogated to Latin bishops; the faithful were
often denied the ministry of their own priests. It was
frequently held at the highest levels of the Roman Catholic
Church that the Latin Rite was “superior” to all other
rites.
By
1891, when our St. John’s Ukrainian Catholic parish was
founded, things had changed only very slightly. This is why
so many of our parishioners were and still are not even
aware that there are real and concrete differences in
theology, spirituality, liturgy and canon law between the
Latin Church and our own Church.
It
was not until 1964, that the bishops of the Universal
Catholic Church gathered at the Second Vatican Council, from
both East and West, met and proclaimed a renewed and more
balanced theology of the Church. The Council taught
that the Universal Catholic Church is "a communion of
Churches" [Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen
Gentium, par. 23]. This was thrashed out with a clearer
refinement in the Council's document on the Catholic Eastern
Churches as follows:
“The
Church is made up of the faithful who are organically
united in the Holy Spirit by the same faith, the same
sacraments and the same governance. They combine into
different groups, which are held together by their
hierarchy, and so form individual churches.” [Decree on
Eastern Catholic Churches, Orientalium Ecclesiarium,
par. 2]
The cold
reality is harsh.
Many things continue to happen which do harm to the
Christian upbringing of Eastern Catholic children and
adolescents. Eastern Catholic Bishops frequently deal with
complaints about the many attempts to confirm the children
of their churches who have already been
baptized
and
chrismated
in infancy. Latin Catholic clergy frequently refuse
communion to young children who are entitled to receive holy
communion from the time of their reception of the mysteries
of initiation which includes first Eucharistic communion.
The lamentable ignorance of some Catholic school teachers
is demonstrated by the not infrequent claims that Catholic
schools are designed and meant for the education of Latin
Catholics exclusively; all others must simply accept the
regular religious practices offered in a one size fits all
approach.
When
children of Eastern Catholic descent go to Catholic schools,
they become educated in a Latin Catholic spirituality to the
extent that they tend to become Latin Catholics themselves
and abandon their Eastern Church of origin.
This is obviously a highly undesirable state of affairs from
the point of view of all the Catholic Churches.
It is
high time that the Catholic school system systematically
respected the rights of all those Eastern Catholics who
choose to enroll in Catholic Schools. Take for example the
wearing of the prayer rope (chotki)
which is clearly a religious emblem; most schools treat this
as a piece of jewelry and thus forbid it. Eastern Catholic
and Eastern Orthodox youth respond to such intolerance with
an attitude of keep your head down, tell no one that you are
different; they feel that they must hide their identity and
comply with the expectations of the school's dominant
religious practices.
In
1995, Pope John Paul II proposed to respond to this problem
even more strongly. He listed six approved means by
which mutual understanding and unity might be improved
between the Latin and the Eastern Churches. He reasoned
that an improved knowledge of one another must be a good
thing. The six means follow:
-
To know
the liturgy of the Eastern Churches; To deepen
knowledge of the spiritual traditions of the Fathers
and Doctors of the Christian East;
-
To follow
the example of the Eastern Churches for the
enculturation of the Gospel message;
-
To combat
tensions between Latins and Orientals and to encourage
dialogue between Catholics and the Orthodox;
-
To train
in specialized institutions theologians, liturgists,
historians and canonists for the Christian East, who in
turn can spread knowledge of the Eastern Churches;
-
To offer
appropriate teaching on these subjects in seminaries
and theological faculties, especially to future priests.
The
Pope of Rome then added the following remark,
"These remain sound recommendations on which I intend to
insist with particular force."
[Orientale Lumen,
par. 24]
Finally, the demands of ecumenism and international dialogue
with the East have assumed primary importance in the agenda
of Pope Benedict XVI. Not only ought we support this
program of dialogue but we need to be very clear about
our identity as Eastern Catholic Churches.
[The
above was adapted for our St John’s church bulletin and most
of it is copied from a much larger document, authored by Fr.
Olexander Kenez and Fr Brian Kelty, entitled “Some
Issues regarding the Education of Eastern Catholic children
in Latin Catholic Schools”,
endorsed on March 13, 2009, and sent by the Australian
Eastern Catholic Bishops to the Australian Roman Catholic
Bishops and Roman Catholic Teachers.]
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