Pope Francis greets Astrid Kaptijn, a professor of canon law
and president of the Society for the Law of the Eastern Churches, Sept.
19, 2019, during an audience in the Clementine Hall of the Apostolic
Palace at the Vatican. (CNS/Vatican Media)
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Vatican City — The
search for Christian unity must involve all aspects of the churches'
lives, including their different church laws, Pope Francis said.
"Canon law is essential for ecumenical dialogue," the pope told
members of the Society for the Law of the Eastern Churches, which is
made up mostly of canon lawyers from the Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and
Eastern Catholic churches.
The society held its international congress in Rome Sept. 16-20.
Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople opened the meeting,
and Francis spoke to participants Sept. 19.
The Catholic-Orthodox and Catholic-Oriental Orthodox theological
dialogues, the pope said, focus in great part on ecclesiology, the
theological understanding of what the church is and how its structure
reflects its identity.
Francis said that focus means the dialogues "have a canonical
dimension, too, since ecclesiology finds expression in the institutions
and the law of the churches. It is clear, therefore, that canon law is
not only an aid to ecumenical dialogue, but also an essential
dimension."
The formal Catholic-Orthodox dialogue, for example, hopes to discuss
ways that the bishop of Rome -- that is, the pope -- could exercise his
primacy for the benefit of all in a reunited church. The dialogue
members are laying the groundwork for those discussions by looking at
what Francis called "the common canonical heritage of the first
millennium" when East and West were still in full communion.
While the dialogue benefits from the study of canon law, he said,
canon law also can benefit from the ecumenical dialogue by seeing how
other churches operate and strive to have their law reflect their
Christian identity, faith, spirituality and traditions.
As an example, Francis pointed to his efforts to foster a more
"synodal church," one marked by a process of listening to everyone and
involving all members of the church in accordance with their specific
role.
"When translated into established institutions and procedures of the
church," he said, "synodality expresses the ecumenical dimension of
canon law," because the synod structure has been part of church
governance in the Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches for centuries.
Opening the meeting, Bartholomew also focused on Orthodox and Eastern Catholic canon law as field of ecumenism.
While the joint search for Christian unity does not require "the
mutual acceptance of the doctrinal and canonical ideas of the
interlocutor," he said, it does require meeting "in a spirit of love,
mutual respect and understanding, even exploring new and sometimes
unprecedented questions and concerns."
The search for Christian unity is a search for truth, the patriarch
said. But reaching that truth requires real commitment and "resistance
to historic evils such as fanaticism, intolerance and fundamentalism."
In a joint search for truth, Bartholomew said, both sides must set
aside pride and be willing to learn and to accept criticism. In the end,
he said, ecumenical dialogue is destined "to reunite the common
fundamental canonical principles of the Christian faith and spirituality
not for its own benefit but for the world."