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March 17, 2024

Pope Francis’ recent scandal regarding blessings of gay marriages has spawned a serious regression in the Western Catholic Church’s decades-long efforts to merge with the Eastern Orthodox Church.

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Already many bishops in America, and far more in Africa, have objected to the presumptuous move of Pope Francis in his December 2023 Vatican press release regarding the permission of ‘blessings’ for gay couples within the Catholic Church.

The ‘split’ between the Eastern and Western branches of the Catholic Church dates back to the 11th Century, with the “Great Schism,” of Christianity:

“On July 16, 1054, Patriarch of Constantinople Michael Cerularius was excommunicated from the Christian church based in Rome, Italy. Cerularius’s excommunication was a breaking point in long-rising tensions between the Roman church based in Rome and the Byzantine church based in Constantinople (now called Istanbul). The resulting split divided the European Christian church into two major branches: the Western Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church. This split is known as the Great Schism, or sometimes the “East-West Schism” or the “Schism of 1054.”

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While many of the differences between these two branches of Catholicism remain, in one form or another — liturgical, theological, and political — the central Christian tenets of both branches are agreed, and much Catholic practical and theological cooperation and practice has been demonstrated by both.

For this enduring communion and other practical and political influences, negotiations aimed at settling (or compromising on within reason) all differences and reuniting entirely. To reunite these two mighty branches of the Catholic faith, both Popes John Paul and Benedict made great diplomatic and practical progress, over their modern papacies, towards the restoration of the two branches to complete comity.

Then, enter Pope Francis in December of 2023 with his statement on same-sex blessings. Following what would seem to be this entirely politically ‘woke’ impulse by the current pope, the talks between Roman and Coptic Orthodox Churches have, as of this past week, publicly and sensationally broken down. It may be two more decades, or never, before progress is restored:

“The Coptic Orthodox Church has confirmed that its decision last week to suspend dialogue with the Catholic Church was due to Rome’s “change of position” on homosexuality.”

“In a video released on Friday, Coptic Orthodox spokesman Father Moussa Ibrahim said “the most notable” of nine decrees emanating from the church’s annual Holy Synod, which took place last week in Wadi El-Natrun in Egypt, was “to suspend theological dialogue with the Catholic Church after its change of position on the issue of homosexuality.”

The video message followed the conclusion of the Holy Synod the day before and an accompanying statement in which Coptic Orthodox leaders had said they were suspending dialogue with Rome.