Catholic World News News Feature

Restore rights of Eastern patriarchs, Melkite bishop urges Vatican November 19, 2004

The Church has not fully implemented the vision of Vatican II regarding the Eastern Catholic communities, according to an influential Melkite bishop.

At a Vatican symposium on the Eastern churches, marking the 40th anniversary of the Vatican II decree Orientalum Ecclesiarum , Bishop Ignace Dick of Aleppo, Syria, said that while there have been "certainly some happy results" from the post-conciliar approach to the Eastern rites, "the application of the decree has been only partial." The Melkite bishop went on to say that "there is still a great force of inertia to overcome" in changing Roman attitudes toward the Eastern churches.

The Eastern Catholic churches still need "fully to revive their tradition," Bishop Dick said. At the same time, the universal Church must "become accustomed to breathing again with both lungs," and the Roman Curia must recognize the ecclesial rights of the Eastern patriarchs. He explained that the Eastern patriarchs should be given all of the rights and responsibilities that they enjoyed during the first Christian millennium.

The new Code of Canon Law for the Eastern Catholic Churches does not give adequate recognition of the Eastern churches' identity, the bishop argued. He added that the Code was "not an Eastern codification, but a Roman codification for the Eastern" churches.

In opening the symposium on the Eastern churches, Cardinal Ignace I Moussa Daoud-- the prefect of the Congregation for the Eastern Churches, who formerly served as patriarch of the Syrian Catholic Church-- remarked that the Vatican II decree was "a point of departure" in strengthening the communion between the Holy See and the Eastern patriarchates. The Vatican, he said, had "listened to the patriarchs and Eastern bishops with respect and gratitude."