In his address to a delegation from the Eastern Catholic Church, including Major Archbishop Raphael Thattil, the Pope emphasised the importance of unity over liturgical differences and historical grievances.

The Pope described the dispute over the liturgy as a dangerous temptation to focus on one detail to the detriment of the common good of the Church.

"It is incompatible with the Christian faith to seriously disregard the most holy sacrament, the sacrament of love and unity, by discussing the liturgical details of this Eucharist which is the culmination of His divine presence among us.

"Preserving unity is therefore not a pious exhortation but a duty, especially for priests who have promised obedience and from whom the faithful people expect an example of love and meekness" the Pope continued.

Francis began by reflecting on the ancient faith of the Syro-Malabar Church.

He praised the "vigour" of their faith and piety which is recognised worldwide.

He acknowledged past insensitivity when Western missionaries imposed European traditions on Kerala's Christians.

Francis also highlighted the need to respect the unique heritage of the Syro-Malabar Church.

He honoured the Syro-Malabar Church's historical fidelity, drawing on the legacy of St Thomas, the Apostle of India. He emphasised the value of the Christian East in providing ancient and fresh spiritual sources vital for the Church today.

Unity is a duty

Referring to the ongoing liturgical controversy, the Pope said he had "recently sent letters and a video message to the faithful, warning them of the dangerous temptation to focus on one detail".

This danger, he said, comes from "a self-referentiality, which leads to listening to no other way of thinking but one's own".

And it is here, the Pope warned, that "the devil creeps in", aiming to undermine Jesus' desire that we, his disciples, "be one" (John 17.2).

"For this reason" Pope Francis stressed, "guarding unity is not a pious exhortation but a duty".

Pope Francis remains firm: no concessions for those seeking to divide the Church.

His message is clear—unity and obedience are paramount to maintaining the integrity of the Catholic faith.

"Let us work with determination to protect communion" he urged, "and pray tirelessly that those who refused to accept the Church's rulings on liturgical issues may realise they are part of a larger family that loves them and waits for them".

Sources

Vatican News

Katholisch

CathNews New Zealand

Synodal Way dispute escalates

At the Council of European Bishops' Conference in Malta, Bishop Georg Bätzing of Limburg, Germany and Archbishop Stanislaw Gądecki of Poznan, Poland engaged in a tense encounter.

This followed Bätzing's public accusations against Gądecki for alleged false statements about the Synodal Way.

Bätzing accused his Polish counterpart of "overstepping his authority" and "unbrotherly behaviour" by not raising the issue during the synodal meeting in Rome.

Despite their discussion aiming for Church unity, tensions persisted, highlighting the ongoing discord about the controversial German process.

The Vatican's recent interventions and Pope Francis's stance have added weight to concerns, reflecting deeper divisions within the German Church.

Pope Francis acts against Cardinal Burke

Pope Francis has taken significant action against Cardinal Raymond Burke, revoking his subsidised Vatican apartment and salary, citing Burke's role in fomenting church disunity.

Burke has been a vocal critic of the pope's Church reforms.

According to an anonymous source, Francis was removing Burke's privileges because he used them against the church.

The move follows previous clashes between Burke and Francis over doctrinal questions and Burke's involvement in counter-synodal activities.

Letter to Pope: Synod report will disappoint

Leading reform-minded Catholics, including former Irish president Mary McAleese, penned an open letter expressing concern to Pope Francis and Synod participants.

The signatories anticipate the Synod's report will "disappoint and wound" Catholics worldwide.

They claim the Synod is one "in which prophetic voices won no significant concessions from the powerful and wealthy forces of conservatism".

The group found that the Synthesis Report published following last month's Synod was not "so much a synthesis as the minutes of an apparently unresolved quarrel".

The quarrel was between an "emerging lay church" and "bishops who have yet to find the courage to let go of their privileges" they said.

Disappointment stemmed from the absence of progress on critical issues like women's ordination, LGBTIQ rights, celibacy and clerical abuse.

Bishop Strickland's removal 'internal persecution'

Bishop Athanasius Schneider has decried the dismissal of Bishop Joseph Strickland as an act of unjust authority, signalling an "internal persecution" against faithful Catholics.

"This will go down in history as a great injustice against a bishop who only did his task in a time of confusion" said Bishop Schneider in an interview with the Catholic Herald.

Schneider described Strickland as a defender of Catholic faith and truth, citing his stance against distortions and his commitment to spiritual growth within the Church.

He criticised the trend of punishing faithful bishops while ignoring those undermining the faith, seeing it as an attempt to silence and dismantle communities adhering to tradition.

Potential for schism

Continued pressure on Pope Francis originates from both the conservative right and liberal left, risking a potential schism.

The right's resistance poses a threat as they are unlikely to be asked to depart.

At the same time, the left's dissatisfaction stems from the Church's apparent inability to tap into its democratic core.

Sources

Catholic News Agency

AP News

The Irish Times

The Catholic Herald

Basically, it means you risk losing your faith when you go to the Eternal City.

It's certainly a phrase that was bantered about during the 16th century when Martin Luther (an Augustinian friar from Germany), John Calvin (a theologian from France), and John Knox (a priest from Scotland) - Roman Catholics one and all - became leaders of various movements to reform a Church they saw as corrupt and worldly, one that had drifted far away from the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Of course, the senior hierarchs in the papal court at that time saw things somewhat differently and these "Catholic reformers" ended up breaking with Rome (actually the pope excommunicated them), cementing what has since been known as the Reformation - the Protestant Reformation.

The deep divisions - and religious wars - that followed, fractured Western Christianity to the point that Roman Catholicism and the new Reform Church communities became entrenched in a sectarian mentality over time.

Rome and the "restoration" of Church unity

The pontificate of John XXIII (1959-63), and the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) that he convoked, brought to fruition the efforts that some Church leaders and theologians, both from Catholicism and the Reform tradition, had been working on during the previous decades to promote unity in the one Church of Jesus Christ.

The Vatican, and the rest of Roman Catholicism, suddenly became committed to the ecumenical movement in a way that the Bishop of Rome and those in communion with him had never been before.

Despite Vatican II, which is considered the most monumental event in the Christian Church since the 16th century Reformation, the ecclesial community in Rome has been cautious in how it promotes the "restoration" of the Church's unity, as the Vatican II decree on ecumenism, Unitatis redintegratio, called it.

The unfunny joke often repeated during the pontificate of John Paul II was that the Vatican's form of ecumenism was "you-come-in-ism".

In other words, the other Christian denominations should just "return" to Rome and submit to the leadership of the Roman Pontiff.

Pope Francis has changed that, but - ironically - without undertaking any major ecumenical initiatives, at least at the institutional level.

It is difficult to call to mind any groundbreaking events or projects the Dicastery (formerly Pontifical Council) for Promoting Christian Unity has sponsored to help hasten the "restoration" of Church unity.

Its officials continue to participate in the dialogues with other parts of the fractured Church that were established decades ago, but their Vatican office has not done much else.

A focus on the "peripheries"

Francis, on the other hand, has often met individually with leaders of other parts of the Church not in communion with Rome.

He even went to Sweden in 2016 to mark the 500th anniversary of the Reformation in a gesture of friendship and show of at least partial Church unity with Christians of what can now rightly be called the Reform tradition.

And the Jesuit pope's concerted effort to focus on the Church in the "peripheries" has played a role in helping Catholics (and others) to begin taking a healthy distance from Rome and the unhealthy obsession with all things Vatican.

Another irony, however, is that this has somewhat increased the (also) unhealthy idolisation (or at least idealisation) of the Roman pope!

The Synod

Hopefully, the upcoming two-pronged assembly of the Synod of Bishops will, despite its being held at the Vatican, further help Catholics and Christians of other denominations see that a balance can be struck vis-à-vis the role that Rome and its bishop play within the one, though still divided Church.

The first of the assembly's two sessions (the second is twelve or so months from now) gets underway on October 4th.

It will be prefaced a few days earlier with a large ecumenical prayer vigil in St. Peter's Square, followed by a three-day retreat for the 400-some participants of the month-long Synod gathering.

The aim of this assembly, which was carefully prepared over the past two years through consultations with Catholics all over the world in all walks of life, is to prayerfully discern where the Holy Spirit is calling the Church today.

It is crucial that those who will be at the assembly are aware that there is no future for a divided Christianity.

If the focus is only on the Roman Church (and just those Christian communities in communion with it), this will be another waste of time, because Rome and the Vatican are no longer the center of the Christian or even more narrowly defined "Catholic Church" universe.

It should be clear by now that this is one of the major things that has shifted in the Church during the ten-year pontificate of Pope Francis.

• Robert Mickens is La Croix International's Editor in Chief. He had lived ed, studied and worked in Rome for 30 years.
• First published in La Croix International. Republished with permission.