Talk about "burying the lead"! Sean Roberts must not have realized that a modest detail in his blog entry should really be the headline.
It is a case of bad news and good news. The good news is that Abp. Chaput has permitted the establishment of a Russian Catholic community in Denver sharing the building of an ordinary Roman-rite parish. That'll make a grand total of four Russian Catholic parishes in the US.
The bad news is that this came about because of some dissension in Denver's Ruthenian Byzantine parish, where the admirable Fr. Chrysostom Frank served for some years. Sean has that story too.
(via Amy)
One story leads to another: a CNS news brief (gotta scroll down for it) says that the Vatican has quietly started to tolerate the ordination of married Eastern Catholic men for service in North America.
This is a step in the right direction. IMHO, Rome would do best to officially drop the old policy, as it would be simple justice to let the Eastern Catholic churches live according to their own legitimate tradition. The edict forbidding such ordinations in North America since the 1920s has been an obstacle to ecumenical relations with the Orthodox and also to relations between Rome and the affected Eastern Catholic Churches.
Yes, there would be a downside in dropping the policy: no doubt critics of celibacy for the western Church's priests would make the change an excuse to agitate. But those campaigners are pretty hyped up already, so if Rome does want to drop the rule, this may be as good a time as any to do so.
More info on the Russian Rite at my blog since I had the privilege of attending the liturgy yesterday.
Russian Catholic in Chattanooga. things get curioser and curioser when dealing with ecclesiastical goings on, oh well, makes life interesting. God grant us all many years for His glory