Vatican Bowing to Greek Orthodox Pressure?

VATICAN, Apr. 27, 01 (CWNews.com) - A leading Vatican official will probably not accompany Pope John Paul II on his visit to Greece in May, to avoid inflaming opposition among Greek Orthodox critics of the papal trip, Vatican sources have indicated.

Patriarch Ignace Moussa I Daoud, the prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for the Eastern Churches, was originally scheduled to travel with the Holy Father to Greece. However, some hard-line Greek Orthodox leaders threatened to organize public protests against the prelate's presence. Their hostility was roused by the fact that the Vatican official, in addition to being a member of the College of Cardinals, is also a Patriarch of the Syrian Catholic Church: an Eastern Catholic Church. Orthodox critics of Rome insist that such a "Uniate" group is an affront to the Orthodox world.

According to the I Media news agency, the Vatican has decided to avoid a confrontation by dropping Patriarch Ignace from the list of Vatican dignitaries accompanying the Pope to Greece. The Syrian prelate would rejoin the Pope on the next leg of his trip, when he travels to Syria.

Such a move to placate Orthodox extremists would cause unhappiness among some Vatican officials-including the Patriarch himself, according to the I Media report. Father Michel Van Parys, a consultor to the Congregation for Eastern Churches, told I Media that "the cardinal is very unhappy" with the decision to exclude him from the Pope's traveling party in Greece.

Catholic World News Service - Vatican Update
27. april 2001