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Belgrade - Serbian Patriarch Irinej has invited Pope Benedict XVI to Serbia, for the pontiff's first-ever visit,Belgrade daily Novosti reported on Sunday. The pope, if he accepts, will travel to Serbia in 2013 for a celebration of the anniversary of the Edict of Milan. "Representatives of all churches will be invited to the celebration of 1,700 years of the Edict of Milan in Nis in 2013 and there is no reason to pass the Church of Rome," Irinej said. In 313 Roman Emperor Constantine and Emperor Licinius, who ruled the eastern parts of the empire, signed the Edict of Milan...

What catches the attention of a columnist for The Washington Post? A recent column by Kathleen Parker indicates that theology has become a focus of national attention. Kathleen Parker used her column in The Washington Post to take on Franklin Graham and his belief that belief in Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation. Parker began her column with the fact that Franklin Graham prayed outside the Pentagon last week, rather than inside, having been disinvited by the Pentagon as the speaker for its scheduled National Day of Prayer service. Graham, you will remember, was disinvited because of statements...

Says Interreligious Dialogue Can Deepen FaithGRANADA, Spain, FEB. 18, 2010 (Zenit.org).- The president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue is affirming that Catholics should not fear Islam, but rather welcome the chance for deepening their faith through interchange with Muslims. Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran affirmed this in Granada during his Feb. 10 opening address for a two-day congress sponsored by the Faculty of Theology of Granada. The congress was titled "Christianity, Islam and Modernity." "We must not fear Islam," the prelate affirmed, "but I would say more: Christians and Muslims, when they profess their own faith with integrity and credibility,...

Two Ignatius Press authors have an engaging conversation in the pages of The Catholic Herald about that question; the conversation has been going on with an exchange of letters going back to last summer (see links below).  The two authors are Moyra Doorly, who wrote No Place For God: The Denial of the Transcendent in Modern Church Architecture (Ignatius Press, 2007), and prolific author and theologian Aidan Nichols, O.P., whose books include Looking at the Liturgy (1996), Hopkins: Theologian's Poet (2006), Lovely Like Jerusalem: The Fulfillment of the Old Testament in Christ and the Church (2007), and Rome and the...

New York, NY, January 19, 2010 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said that the visit to the Rome Synagogue by Pope Benedict XVI "acknowledged the validity of Judaism and affirmed the Catholic-Jewish relationship." Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, issued the following statement: Pope Benedict acknowledged the validity of Judaism and affirmed the Catholic-Jewish relationship by his visit to Rome's main synagogue. Like his predecessor Pope John Paul II, whose 1986 visit to the same Rome Synagogue was a message to the Christian world that Judaism was not superseded by Christianity and is a living dynamic religion with its own...

THE MANHATTAN DECLARATION and EVANGELICAL CO-BELLIGERENCE ...the ineffectual intersection of politics and faith     “The goal of both the church and the state is to advance the public good.” -Francis Beckwith     The ultimate goal of the church biblically is not the public good, but the glory of God in the proclamation and advancement of His gospel of sola fide. God, not the audience, is sovereign. The “public good” is political speak for tolerance. The gospel, however, does divide; it is a stumbling block, offensive and foolishness for those who are perishing.     Here we go...

On November 20, 2009, a document called the Manhattan Declaration was presented to the public by a coalition of co-belligerents. The document is concerned primarily with three very important biblical and cultural issues: the sanctity of life, the meaning of marriage, and the nature of religious liberty. Without question, these issues are up for grabs in our nation. As anyone familiar with my ministry will know, I share the document’s concern for defending the unborn, defining heterosexual marriage biblically, and preserving a proper relationship between church and state. However, when the document was sent to me and my signature was...

Prior to the opening of formal conversations between officials of the Holy See and leaders of the Lefebvrist Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), which began on Oct. 26, the mainstream media frequently misrepresented these discussions as a negotiation aimed at achieving a compromise that both sides can live with. That was to be expected from reporters and commentators for whom everything is politics and everything is thus negotiable. Alas, similar misrepresentations came from “Vatican insiders” who suggested that the teaching of the Second Vatican Council was under joint review by the Holy See and the SSPX, which only made...

APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTION ANGLICANORUM COETIBUSPROVIDING FOR PERSONAL ORDINARIATES FOR ANGLICANS ENTERING INTO FULL COMMUNION WITH THE CATHOLIC CHURCH In recent times the Holy Spirit has moved groups of Anglicans to petition repeatedly and insistently to be received into full Catholic communion individually as well as corporately. The Apostolic See has responded favorably to such petitions. Indeed, the successor of Peter, mandated by the Lord Jesus to guarantee the unity of the episcopate and to preside over and safeguard the universal communion of all the Churches,[1] could not fail to make available the means necessary to bring this holy desire to realization....

Pope Benedict has sure gotten the ball rolling and it seems others want to get into the ecumenical action! Thanks to A Catholic Knight on this one: A Bulgarian Orthodox prelate told Benedict XVI of his desire for unity, and his commitment to accelerate communion with the Catholic Church. At the end of Wednesday's general audience, Bishop Tichon, head of the diocese for Central and Western Europe of the Patriarchate of Bulgaria, stated to the Pope, "We must find unity as soon as possible and finally celebrate together," L'Osservatore Romano reported. "People don't understand our divisions and our discussions," the...

Pope Benedict XVI has offered to establish “Personal Ordinariates” within which to care for Anglicans while enabling them to maintain the liturgical and spiritual unique distinctives of their tradition. That is correct, the Roman Catholic Church by way of an “Apostolic Constitution” will provide the process which will allow for Anglican Christians to enter into the full communion of the Catholic Church. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the faith said this in a statement just released: “In this Apostolic Constitution the Holy Father has introduced a canonical structure that provides for such corporate reunion by establishing Personal Ordinariates which...

Thursday, September 10, 2009 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- HOMELAND INSECURITY WorldNetDaily Exclusive Synagogue holding services with Muslims Interaction comes after canceling seminar on dangers of radical Islam -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: September 10, 2009 8:53 pm Eastern -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WorldNetDaily Beth El Synagogue in New London A group that presents seminars on the threat of radical Islam is raising alarm that a synagogue that previously canceled one of its programs, Congregation Beth El in New London, Conn., now plans to celebrate Ramadan with local Islamic leaders tied to extremist groups. "In 2008, I found it appalling that Jewish organizations including the [Jewish Federal of Eastern Connecticut]...

Thousands of representatives of the world’s religions will convene in Australia for the 2009 Parliament of the World’s Religions. An estimated 8,000-12,000 people will meet in Melbourne, Australia, Dec. 3-9, 2009, to dialogue, build interfaith relationships, and discuss critical issues facing the global community. Adherents of a wide range of religious traditions will be present including: Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh, Baha’i Jain, and Zoroastrian. “The Parliament event is a place where people come together to encounter ‘the other,’” organizers state in the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions (CPWR) website. “This encounter can lead to a...

On October 31, 1999, the Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation signed a historic document known as the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (JD). This document, the fruit of almost thirty years of ecumenical dialogue, without a doubt will be widely misinterpreted in the secular and religious press. This article is intended to help the reader understand the most important things that the document does and does not say, so that he may better sift through the inevitable misrepresentations. How We Got Where We Are For many years after the Reformation, Protestants and Catholics frequently portrayed the...

Do Vatican II’s teachings on ecumenism and religous liberty really conflict with Traditional Catholic teaching? In his first Envoy article on traditionalist apologetics [see “All Tradition Leads to Rome,” Volume 4.6], canon lawyer Pete Vere identified seven common arguments offered by the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) in defense of their schism, and how he overcame these objections during his journey back to the Catholic Church. Some readers responded that this schism, initiated by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in 1988, isn’t merely about the Latin Mass. The SSPX also takes issue with the Second Vatican Council, particularly on the...

I remember listening to a conversation among several “traditional” Catholics (you know, the anti-Vatican II/anti-John Paul II/anti-Novus Ordo Missae/Latin Mass only crowd!) when I heard one individual exclaim: “Ecumenism is a bad word!” The others quickly nodded in agreement. (Not exactly a surprising statement and response, considering the source.) But seriously, ecumenism is a vital mission of the Church that needs to be understood more fully and correctly, especially as we enter this ostensibly pivotal third millennium. Is ecumenism really a bad word? Or, more to the point, does ecumenism require Catholics to compromise their faith? The answer lies in...

Speaking on Wednesday morning to the ACNA Assembly, His Beatitude, Jonah, Metropolitan of All America and Canada and leader of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA), called for a "full... intercommunion" with the Anglican Church in North America. "What will it take," he asked, "for a true ecumenical reconciliation? That is what I am seeking by being with you today." This marks the potential resumption of an Orthodox/Anglican dialogue that began a hundred years ago between two missionary bishops, St. Tikhon of Moscow and Bishop Grafton of Fond du Lac, only to be broken off in the 1970s with the...

Pope Benedict XVI's outreach tour of the Middle East this week failed to placate critics still smarting from his riot-inciting comments in a 2006 speech at Germany's Regensburg University. The pontiff at that time quoted 15th-century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologus who said: "Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." The pope said he regrets any hurt feelings, but some Muslims want more contrition. Sheik Yusef Abu Hussein, mufti of Karak in Jordan, said, "We...

JERUSALEM (JTA) -- Pope Benedict XVI .... calling for more understanding between Christians and Muslims. He encouraged Christians and Muslims to oppose terrorism. "Muslims and Christians, precisely because of the burden of our common history, so often marked by misunderstanding, must today strive to be known and recognized as worshippers of God, faithful to prayer, eager to uphold and lift by the almighty decrees,"... ...At the mosque, in a meeting with Muslim leaders, he called for a "trilateral dialogue" including the Church to help bring Jews and Muslims together to discuss peace

Francis Collins, former head of the National Human Genome Research Institute and seminal player in sequencing the human genome, has launched a foundation that seeks to reconcile Christian faith with science. The Washington-based foundation, BioLogos, is funded by the John Templeton Foundation and aims to promote "the search for truth in both the natural and spiritual realms, and seeks to harmonize these different perspectives," according to its website. The BioLogos website also lists several questions (eg. "How does the harshness of evolution align with the idea of a loving God?" and "Can scientific and scriptural truth be reconciled?" and "What...