Vatican publishes papal primacy document aimed at ‘a reunited Church’

Statue of St. Peter in front of St. Peter's Basilica. / Credit: Vatican Media Rome Newsroom, Jun 13, 2024 / 09:42 am (CNA). The Vatican published a 130-page study on papal primacy on Thursday containing suggestions from Orthodox and Protestant Christian communities for how the role of the bishop of Rome might look in a future “reunited Church.”The study document, titled “The Bishop of Rome: Primacy and Synodality in Ecumenical Dialogue and Responses to the Encyclical Ut Unum Sint,” is the first Vatican text since the Second Vatican Council to outline the entire ecumenical debate on papal primacy.In addition to identifying the theological questions surrounding papal primacy in ecumenical dialogue, the document goes a step further to provide suggestions “for a ministry of unity in a reunited Church,” including “a differentiated exercise of the primacy of the bishop of Rome.”The end of the text published on June 13 includes a section of proposals from the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity on “the exercise of primacy in the 21st century,” including recommendations for “a synodal exercise” of papal primacy.SynodalityThe dicastery concludes that “growing synodality is required within the Catholic Church” and that “many synodal institutions and practices of the Eastern Catholic Churches could inspire the Latin Church.”It adds that “a synodality ad extra” could include regular meetings among Christian representatives at the worldwide level in a “conciliar fellowship” to deepen communion.This builds off of dialogue with some Orthodox representatives who have asserted that “any restoration of full communion between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches will require, on both sides, a strengthening of synodal structures and a renewed understanding of a universal primacy — both serving communion among the churches.”At a Vatican press conference on June 13, Cardinal Mario Grech, the secretary-general of the General Secretariat of the Synod, said that this study document is being released at a very “convenient time” as the Church prepares for the second session of the Synod on Synodality in the fall. A representative of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Archbishop Khajag Barsamian, who joined the press conference via video link, underlined that “the synodality of the Catholic Church is an important criterion for the Oriental Orthodox churches on our way to full communion.”Defining responsibilities of the popeThe Catholic Church holds that Jesus made Peter the “rock” of his Church, giving him the keys to the kingdom and instituting him as the shepherd of the whole flock. The pope as Peter’s successor is the “perpetual and visible source and foundation of the unity both of the bishops and of the whole company of the faithful,” as described in one of the principal documents of the Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium.The new study document proposes “a clearer distinction be made between the different responsibilities of the pope, especially between his ministry as head of the Catholic Church and his ministry of unity among all Christians, or more specifically between his patriarchal ministry in the Latin Church and his primatial ministry in the communion of Churches.”It notes the possibility of “extending this idea to consider how other Western Churches might relate to the bishop of Rome as primate while having a certain autonomy themselves.”The text notes that Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Churches emphasized the importance of regional leadership in the Church and advocated “a balance between primacy and primacies.” It adds that some ecumenical dialogues with Western Christian communities also applied this to the Catholic Church by calling for “a strengthening of Catholic episcopal conferences, including at the continental level, and for a continuing ‘decentralization’ inspired by the model of the ancient patriarchal Churches.”Invoking the principle of subsidiarity, which means that no matter that can properly be dealt with at a lower level should be taken to a higher one, the text describes how some ecumenical dialogues argued that “the power of the bishop of Rome should not exceed that required for the exercise of his ministry of unity at the universal level and suggest a voluntary limitation in the exercise of his power.”“In a reconciled Christianity, such communion presupposes that the bishop of Rome’s relationship to the Eastern Churches and their bishops … would have to be substantially different from the relationship now accepted in the Latin Church,” it says.‘Rewording’ of teachings of Vatican IAnother concrete proposal put forward by the dicastery is “a Catholic ‘re-reception,’ ‘re-interpretation,’ ‘official interpretation,’ ‘updated commentary,’ or even ‘rewording’ of the teachings of Vatican I,” particularly with regard to definitions on primacy of jurisdiction and papal infallibility.The First Vatican Council, which took place between 1869 and 1870 under Pope Pius IX, dogmatically defined papal infallib