By Baghdadhope
Photos by kaldaya.net
Maybe the Holy Church is preparing to welcome among its loving arms a new bishop besides 29 new priests?
This was the rhetorical ending question of a post by Baghdadhope on April 27. The reference was to the presence in the Vatican, among the Chaldean bishops, of Mar Bawai Soro who was a bishop of the Assyrian Church of the East until November 2005 when the Synod, led by Patriarch Mar Dinkha IV, suspended him. The time elapsed since that November has been spent by Mar Bawai in the court-rooms of the Californian court that imposed him to return to the Assyrian Church of the East the full possession of church properties he had managed as a bishop, and in the Holy ceremonies he officiated in various Chaldean churches in America, Canada and Australia. They have been years of intense preparation - sermons, conferences, meetings, statements – to what on April 27 became, by the same presence of Mar Bawai Soro in the Vatican, if not official at least semi-official: the Chaldean church, and therefore the Catholic one, has a new bishop.
To confirm it, the site of the Chaldean Diocese of St. Peter the Apostle based in California, kaldaya.net, published on May 9 an official statement summarizing in a few lines the last stages of the long history of Mar Bawai’s approaching to Catholicism: the request, dated March 17, by some priests and faithful of the Assyrian Church of the East of the "fullness of communion with the Catholic Church and living union with the Chaldean Church by their entrance into the Chaldean Catholic Dioceses” and the public profession of faith made by those priests and those faithful in the Chaldean Catholic Cathedral of St. Peter the Apostle on March 28. In the light of these events, well-known but only now officially announced, and that preceded the journey to Rome of Mar Bawai Soro and Mgr. Sarhad Y. Jammo, the Chaldean bishop of the diocese of St. Peter the Apostle, the place of honour reserved Mar Bawai in St. Peter is easily comprehensible as it is the meeting with Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, since 2007 Prefect of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches, with no doubt informed of the "acquisition" of a bishop, but also of priests and faithful belonging to a Christian but not Catholic church, the Assyrian one, that despite having started a dialogue with the Roman Catholic church - with Mar Bawai as its more active representative – culminating in the Common Christological Declaration signed by Pope John Paul II and Mar Dinkha IV in 1994 to clarify some doctrinal differences dating back to the Council of Ephesus (431 AD) and that continued with the formation of a Joint Commission for Theological Dialogue between the two churches which operated until 2004, in 2005 "unexpectedly decided to suspend the dialogue and did not sign the document that was prepared on sacramental life" as stated by Cardinal Walter Kasper, who presides over the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. It was precisely the Cardinal Kasper, on the occasion of the meeting between Pope Benedict XVI and Mar Dinkha IV on last June, who declared his sadness for the decision of the Assyrian Church of the East “to suspend one of its members, a bishop, who had been among the architects of the dialogue with the Catholic Church and had contributed significantly to its successful progress” because “Nobody is helped by further divisions in a community which already faces so many challenges.. and that .. also cause difficulties for our ecumenical dialogue." The events of last months involving Mar Bawai Soro do not make predictable the resumption of that dialogue, and Cardinal Kasper’s wish of a "third phase of our joint theological dialogue" could be dead even before its birth if the Assyrian Church considered as insurmountable the question of one of his bishops, six priests, thirty deacons and faithful "passed" to the Chaldean Catholic church, and therefore the recognition of the Roman Pontiff’s authority reported by the Assyrian sites as the never declared intent of the Joint Commission for the Theological Dialogue that precisely for this reason was "unexpectedly" stopped by Mar Dinkha. Dialogue is fine, giving up leadership in favour of Pope’s one is different, this is the view of Mar Dinkha’s faithful and of the same Assyrian church. The issue of Mar Bawai could make the appeal of Benedict XVI to Catholic and Assyrian Christians to "reject antagonistic attitudes and polemical statements" fruitless.
The future will tell. By now it is interesting to note how the Internet site of CIRED (Commission on Inter-Church Relations and Educational Development), of which Mar Bawai was Secretary General, and that in the past had published the reports of the meetings between representatives of the two churches has been "obscured" by the words:(appearing only in cache copy) “This site is under construction and the new Editorial Committee headed by H.G Mar Meelis Zaia, Secretary of CIRED will soon re-launch it." Equally interesting is to note that although the official statement published by kaldaya.net clarifies how the celebration of the "grace of full communion" is subsequent to the "consultation with the highest authorities of our Catholic Church, in obedience to their directives and in total adherence with the Canon Law" no mention is made in it of Mar Bawai, nor of the status that he, as a bishop, will have in the future within the "Catholic Diocese of St. Peter the Apostle for the Chaldeans & Assyrians” born and guided since 2002 by Mgr. Sarhad Y. Jammo, an issue that will involve not only the Holy See but also the same synod of the Chaldean Church that will have the task to welcome Mar Bawai.
By now, however, nothing has been reported about the matter by the official website of the Holy See. But it is well-known that, "the path towards unity" how Benedict XVI said, may "seem long and laborious." By now, more than anything else, it appears silent.
The hope is that the words Benedict XVI addressed to Mar Dinkha IV: “..the Lord [asks us] to join our hands and hearts, so that together we can bear clearer witness to him and better serve our brothers and sisters, particularly in the troubled regions of the East, where many of our faithful look to us, their Pastors, with hope and expectation " may be heard by all parties involved.