Russia to the Vatican: Stay Home

by Christopher A. Ferrara

       After some forty years of "ecumenical dialogue" with the recalcitrant Russian Orthodox schismatics, what do the Vatican’s career ecumenists have to show for their efforts? In common parlance: zip.

       Now that the Vatican has had the effrontery to set up something resembling dioceses in Russia - the Archdiocese of the Mother of God at Moscow is about as close as we will get - the Orthodox heirs of Stalin’s thievery from the Catholic Church are infuriated. On February 15, 2002 Fides news agency reported that "the Holy See representative to the Russian Federation Archbishop Giorgio Zur confirms that, following the Pope’s decision to normalize the canonical structure of the Catholic Church in Russia, the Orthodox Patriarchate of Moscow has officially cancelled the visit to Moscow of Cardinal Walter Kasper, Prefect of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Unity among Christians, planned for late February."

       This is the same Cardinal Kasper who declared that the return of the Protestants and the Orthodox to Rome was "abandoned" at Vatican II. But even this capitulation was not enough to placate the Russian Orthodox. Fides reports that "Orthodox Metropolitan Kyrill of Smolensk, who was to lead the Russian Orthodox delegation in talks with the Catholic officials, said in a letter to Cardinal Kasper that the decision has made talks impossible because, ‘we have nothing to say to each other.’"

       According to Fides, Kyrill claims he has met "the Pope of Rome many times" and received "many promises never kept." What promises would those be, exactly?

       Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz, who apparently will head "the Archdiocese of the Mother of God at Moscow," complains that "the (Moscow) Patriarchate speaks of ‘numerous and repeated episodes of Catholic proselytism in Russia’ but without mentioning one concrete case. And there are none, since our Catholic priests do not proselytize."

              Here we go again. The Vatican’s key man in Russia swears up, down and sideways that the Catholic Church is not "proselytizing" in Russia. Seek converts among the Russians? Bring about the conversion of Russia called for by Our Lady of Fatima? No way! What does the Mother of God know about these delicate matters of ecumenical diplomacy? The Church’s standing in Russia is a matter for those wizards of Vatican diplomacy who have helped (along with the rest of the Vatican bureaucracy) to give us the vibrant "springtime of Vatican II" that we see all around us.

               So, as the Russian Orthodox freeze-out of Cardinal Kasper reminds us that nothing has been gained from the Vatican’s "new" approach to schismatics, we remember Our Lady’s call for a simpler and older approach - as old as the Church itself: "In the end My Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, which will be converted."