"Ecumenical Follies" Update

Another Vatican Sellout

by Christopher A. Ferrara

        On August 26, 2004 Zenit.org reported that at a Vatican ceremony John Paul II has "said goodbye" to the Icon of Kazan, which is now going to be "returned" to the Russian Orthodox. This was supposed to be a grand ecumenical gesture that would aid rapprochement with the Russian schismatics, but patriarch Alexy II has already said, in effect, "big deal," because the icon has been determined to be one of several copies of the original, which mysteriously disappeared at the turn of the 20^th Century.

        So, the return of the icon is just another ecumenical sellout that will produce the usual result of "ecumenical activity": nothing. And who did the Vatican assign the task of returning the icon? None other than the most liberal prelate in the Vatican, Cardinal Walter Kasper (whose public heresies have been well-documented here) and the most liberal prelate in America (with the possible exception of "Cardinal" Mahony), Cardinal Theodore McCarrick.

        Perfect, just perfect. Meanwhile, Zenit reports this remark by the Pope during the good-bye ceremony at the Vatican — for an icon that the Russian Orthodox don't even want: "How many times have I prayed to the Mother of God of Kazan, asking her to protect and guide the Russian people and to precipitate the moment in which all the disciples of her Son, recognizing themselves as brothers, will know how to reconstruct in fullness their compromised unity."

        Could the Pope’s remark be any more ironic? As informed Catholics know, of course, the Mother of God has already answered the Pope’s prayer. She has already confided to the Pope, and to the whole Church, precisely how to "precipitate the moment in which all the disciples of her Son, recognizing themselves as brothers, will know how to reconstruct in fullness their compromised [i.e. broken] unity." She revealed this vital information at Fatima back in 1917: consecrate Russia to Her Immaculate Heart in a public ceremony conducted by the Pope in union with all the Catholic bishops of the world. Don't give back icons to the Orthodox; don't turn over Catholic parish churches to them in Rome; don't debase yourself before schismatics, Holy Father, but rather convert them as Our Lady requested, by the power of your office, which God has deigned to make the instrument of Russia's conversion.

        But, instead, the ecumenical follies go on and the Russian people continue to suffer, as two of the Church’s deadliest liberals return a copy of an icon to a schismatic church that has already dismissed the whole gesture. Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.