Epoch Making: Patriarch of Constantinople WIll Come to Popes Inaugural Mass

For the first time since the Great Schism, ecumenical patriarch to attend pope's inaugural Mass

The metropolitans of Argentina and Italy will accompany Bartholomew. Moscow Patriarchate hopes in closer cooperation with Rome but excludes for now a meeting between Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill.

Istanbul (AsiaNews) - The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew I will attend Pope Francis's inaugural Mass. The Ecumenical Patriarchate Press Office informed AsiaNews about the decision, noting that this is the first time such an event occurs since the Catholic-Orthodox split in 1054, an important sign for Christian unity.

The ecumenical patriarch will be accompanied by Ioannis Zizioulas, metropolitan of Pergamon and co-president of the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox Church, as well as Tarassios, Orthodox Metropolitan of Argentina, and Gennadios, Orthodox Metropolitan of Italy.

Relations between Catholics and Orthodox have been improving since the Second Vatican Council through mutual visits, acts of friendship and theological dialogue.

Under Benedict XVI, the dialogue picked up in earnest after a lull. In trying to promote it, the pope suggested ways to express the primacy of Peter's successor that could be acceptable to the Orthodox, finding his inspiration from the undivided Church of the first millennium.

Catholic ecumenism has met however with great resistance from the Russian Orthodox Church and the Moscow Patriarchate, seat of the 'Third Rome'.

The head of the Russian Orthodox Church's Department for External Relations, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, said on Thursday that a meeting between the pope and Patriarch Kirill of Moscow was "possible but the place and timing will depend on how quickly we will overcome the consequences of the conflicts from the turn of 1980s and 1990s".

The issue of the Ukrainian Catholic Church is at the core of the "conflicts" to which Hilarion was referring. Although it was unbanned following the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was left without its original churches, which had been seized by the Communists under Soviet rule and later transferred to the Orthodox Church.

Still, "on several occasions, Pope Francis has shown spiritual sympathy towards the Orthodox Church and a desire for closer contacts," Hilarion said.

It is his hope that under the new pontificate "relations of alliance will develop and that our ties will be strengthened."

H/t: Badger Catholic

Diocesan Conference Hosts SSPX Italian Superior to Talk on Vatican II

Edit: Don Secci Alberto is a Diocesan Priest in Novara, Italy invites a surprise guest who held everyone enraptured by the clarity of his discourse and the Apostolic fire of his zeal.  Here's a brief stab at some google translate with some editing for the ever dependable Messa in Latino blog.  The following is an account of the Third Conference of Tradition in Verbania in the region of Piedmont, Italy:

We have received and published in the common perspective of "thinking with the Church". We thank the author for sending to us the article. AC 

"To deny the very serious crisis in which we find the Church is to deny the evidence ... as a result, those who say things as they really are, is considered an enemy of the Church."

With these sorrowful words  Don Secci Alberto opened the Third Conference of the tradition that took place, as planned, at the hotel "The Cloister" of Verbania. The conference room was packed with an audience and so the same Don Albert celebrated Holy Mass in the chapel at 17.30.

"While we deny the evidence" - continued the courageous priest of Ossola - "it often leads us to be astonished at the face we see in the mirror.

Coming to Verbania they listened to, for example, a radio interview with a Roman prelate. He went so far as to declare that ... this crisis has enabled the Church to provide, as always, the right medicine."

This medicine is called the Second Vatican Council. ... How do you get to this point?"

Shortly after he was presented, then the keynote speaker of the event was announced. A surprise came to the table and it was Don Pierpaolo Petrucci, the top guy of the Italian District of the SSPX: "We invited the Society of St. Pius X" - said Don Alberto - "because no one has in more than forty years of study and sacrifice, has been able to further investigate the reasons and meaning of this frightful crisis. The same Roman authorities, agreeing to discuss formally with the SSPX, have implicitly admitted that their positions are important and worthy of attention." [WOW!]

Don Pierpaolo Petrucci's summary then, in his clear speech about the historical reasons that led to the current situation: "The cause of all the troubles of the Church, throughout its history, is obviously Satan.

He, to act, however, needs of employees and always human, unfortunately, has found in the course of the centuries. "

He then summed up the history of heresies, and especially those that have plagued Christianity humanism forward.

"Luther, in practice, said: Christ yes, the Church no.

Then came the French Revolution and Liberalism have gone a step further: God yes, Christ no.

Finally, the atheistic Marxism: God is dead. "

Until the mid-nineteenth century all these heresies were rife in the world but the Church opposed it vigorously.

Then began a slow penetration, subtle and creeping into the Bride of Christ. St. Pius X was able to vanquish the modernism, the synthesis of all heresies, but after his death, the process continued slowly, until it explodes during and after the Second Vatican Council.

"Archbishop Lefebvre" - said Don Pierpaolo - "he told us, as indeed also stated, in the opposite perspective Card. Suenens, that the Council had been in 1789 the Church. In it imposed the three revolutionary motto: Liberté ( religious freedom), Fraternity, with ecumenism, Equality with the principle of collegiality. "

At the end of his speech, the Italian Superior of the SSPX has answered many questions presented by the most numerous and attentive audience.

Finally Don Alberto Secci concluded its work inviting everyone to "pray and respond."

"Of course, we pray that every grace comes to us from Heaven, but we also have to respond with clarity: many priests, usually in private, admit many of the considerations that we have done, but then, perhaps for understandable reasons of respect for the authorities, they were not the courage to expose themselves in the first person.

But we have to pray and respond with the proper methods but react! "

-Marco Bongi