Middle East Synod summary of speeches
VATICAN CITY (CNS) - Specific synod suggestions for a common Catholic-Orthodox celebration of Easter, wider authority for Eastern Catholic patriarchs -- including participation in conclaves to elect a pope -- and the need for local dialogue with Muslims and Jews were repeated in the midterm report of the Synod of Bishops for the Middle East.
Coptic Patriarch Antonios Naguib of Alexandria, Egypt, the synod's recording secretary, presented his summary of synod speeches and suggestions Oct. 18 and gave synod members a list of 23 questions to discuss in their small working groups.
The questions were designed to help synod members draft proposals to be presented to Pope Benedict XVI before the synod formally ends Oct. 24 with a Mass.
The need for a common date for Easter, and also for Christmas, "is a pastoral necessity," especially because of the numbers of marriages between Christians of different churches and because it would be "a powerful witness" of Christian unity in the region, the patriarch said.
The continuing emigration of Christians from the Middle East, especially the emigration of the young and the well-educated, threatens the very survival of Christianity in the region in which it was born, the midterm report said.
War, conflict, economic and political pressures all have combined to urge people to flee the region, the report said. Christian leaders and all people of good will must pressure their political leaders to work for a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and an end to the ongoing violence and instability in Iraq, it said.
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