CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy, SEPT. 20, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the address that Benedict XVI gave Saturday upon receiving in audience the Eastern Patriarchs and Major Archbishops.
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Cardinals,
Beatitudes,
Venerable Patriarchs and Major Archbishops!
I cordially greet you and thank you for having accepted the invitation to participate in this meeting: to each I give my fraternal embrace of peace. I greet Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, my secretary of state, and Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, prefect of the Congregation for Oriental Churches, together with the secretary and other officials of the dicastery.
We thank God for this informal gathering that will allow us to listen to the voices of the Churches that you serve with admirable self-sacrifice, and to reinforce the bonds of communion that link them with the Apostolic See.
Today's meeting brings to my mind the one on April 24, 2005 at the tomb of St. Peter. Then, at the beginning of my pontificate I wanted to undertake an ideal pilgrimage in the heart of the Christian East: a pilgrimage that today knows another significant stage and which it is my intention to pursue. In different circumstances you solicited a more frequent contact with the Bishop of Rome to make the communion of your Churches with the Successor of Peter more and more firm and to examine together, on occasion, possible issues of special importance. This proposal was again renewed during the last plenary session of the dicastery for Oriental Churches and the general assemblies of the Synod of Bishops.
For my part, I feel that I have an important duty in promoting that synodality so dear to Eastern ecclesiology and noted with appreciation by the Second Vatican Council. I fully share the esteem that the conciliar assembly reserved for your Churches in the decree "Orientalium Ecclesiarum," and that my venerable predecessor John Paul II reemphasized above all in this apostolic exhortation "Orientale Lumen" and wish to see the Eastern Catholic Churches "flourish" to accomplish "with new apostolic vigor … the task entrusted to them … of promoting the unity of all Christians, especially Eastern Christians, in accordance with the principles of the decree, on ecumenism" ("Orientalium Ecclesiarum," Nos. 1, 24). The ecumenical horizon is often connected with the interreligious one. In these two spheres the whole Church is in need of the experience of coexistence that has ripened in your Churches from the first Christian millennium.
Venerable brothers, in this fraternal meeting, those issues that trouble you that could receive adequate orientations from those with the proper competence are certainly brought to light in your interventions. I would like to assure you that you are constantly in my thoughts and prayers. In particular I do not forget the call for peace that you placed in my hands at the end of the assembly of the Synod of Bishops last October. And, in speaking of peace, our thought turns, in the first place, to the regions of the Middle East. For this reason I will take this occasion to announce the Special Assembly of the Synod of Bishops for the Middle East convoked by me and which will be held October 10-24, 2010, on the theme "The Catholic Church in the Middle East: Communion and Witness: ‘The Multitude of Those Who Became Believers Were of One Heart and One Soul’ (Acts 4:32)."
While I wish that today’s gathering will bear the hoped for fruits, invoking the maternal intercession of Mary Most Holy, from my heart I bless you and all the Eastern Catholic Churches.
[Translation by Joseph G. Trabbic]
ZE09092008 - 2009-09-20
Permalink: http://www.zenit.org/article-26923?l=english
Papal Address to Eastern Patriarchs and Major Archbishops
"The Whole Church Is in Need of the Experience of Coexistence"
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