A meeting is set to begin Tuesday in Lebanon. All the bishops of the synod of the Syriac Catholic Church have been invited to attend, though it is not clear how many will come — or if they will be joined by their patriarch, Ignatius Youssef III Younan.
Indeed, it is not clear if the meeting will take place at all, what it might decide, and if the Holy See will consider it a legitimate meeting, should it go ahead. What is clear is that whatever happens, it will be an historic event, likely to shape or reshape the relationship between Rome and the East for decades, if not centuries to come.
The meeting has been called by the senior bishop of the Syriac Catholic Church to consider and vote upon the removal of the patriarch under the norms of a new papal motu proprio, issued just weeks ago, which allows for the bishops of an Eastern Church’s synod to depose their head for damaging communion.
While the patriarch is afforded the opportunity to defend himself, there is no legal definition for the harm to communion the bishop can be accused of causing, nor standard of proof for anyone to meet or answer. In any event, it is not believed Youssef will attend the synodal meeting.
It’s also unclear how many bishops might stay away, either in deference to or solidarity with their patriarch. And it is even unclear how many bishops’ votes would be needed to remove him.
According to the Code of Canons for the Eastern Churches, a synodal meeting is validly convened if a simple majority are present. Meanwhile, Mutua Concordia, the papal motu proprio allowing for the voting out of a patriarch requires “a secret ballot of at least two-thirds of the members of the Synod enjoying a deliberative vote,” but doesn’t specify if the two-thirds required is of those in attendance and voting, or those eligible to attend regardless of how many come.
As such, it seems inevitable that Pope Leo — whose ratification is required for any vote to remove a patriarch — will be asked to step in and rule either on the validity of the meeting itself, or any result it might produce.
It is, less than a month from the promulgation of Mutua Concordia, a striking misfire for a law that promised to advance “mutual agreement” among the bishops of Eastern Churches, their leaders, and Rome. And as Leo considers when and how he will inevitably be asked to intervene, it seems there are very few scenarios to avoid major ripple effects far beyond the Syriac Catholic Church.
As a first consideration, Leo, either personally or through the curia, will probably have to clarify the intent and scope of his still brand new law, and answer the patriarch’s claim that his prior calling of a synodal meeting pre-empts a special meeting being summoned to effectively put him on trial.
There is no obvious point in the text of Mutua Concordia which answers this question clearly. The wording of article 1 certainly appears like it revises canon 106 of the Eastern Code in such a way that Youssef’s convocation forestalls any other meeting, but clearly at least some of his bishops read it differently.
Stepping in early to clarify the law, and nullify the meeting set to begin today, would seem to be the pope’s best first course of action since it would, at the very least, buy time until November for matters to proceed in a more orderly manner.
But even such a seemingly time-buying move by the pope could have knock-on effects, appearing to support the patriarch’s assertion that he is the target of a coordinated effort to depose him, rather than the subject of a truly organic and internal set of concerns among the synod at large. It would also be read by some as a check on the first use of his own new law, one which — at least according to Yousself — is the brainchild of the Vatican prefect for Eastern Churches, Cardinal Claudio Gugerotti.
Simply put, Leo stepping in to slow things down would be read at least by some as proof of the patriarch’s case — that he’s the victim of an attempted putsch, orchestrated by named malcontents within his own Church and aided by the cardinal. Youssef has also accused the cardinal of speaking openly about wanting to engineer the ouster of other Eastern patriarchs, something which, if true, will have already rung loudly in the ears of his peers.
On the other hand, should Leo choose to allow the meeting to proceed — presumably to a vote to remove the patriarch — he might reasonably claim to be allowing the Syriac Church to govern itself and preferring not to meddle in internal affairs. In a vacuum, that might be a prudent posture for a pope to adopt. But given the particulars of this case, it would mean that the patriarch will undoubtedly claim it is further evidence of Rome clearing the way for his removal by a star chamber process. This would be even more the case if attendance at the session were closer to the minimum 50 percent of synodal members than 100.
And, of course, in any event, Leo would be called up to ratify a vote to remove, likely presenting him with the unpalatable choice of either blessing a result potentially arrived at by a less-than-two-thirds majority of the full synod, and without the patriarch having been there to state his case, or vetoing it and setting up a second round of voting in November without having addressed directly the patriarch’s canonical arguments or his accusations against Gugerotti.
All this could appear to the majority of the world’s Catholics as a fascinating but ultimately internal problem for a relatively small Eastern Church sui iures. In reality, though, the results will be keenly watched and felt far beyond Beirut.
In Rome, for good or ill and fairly or unfairly, the move to remove Youssef has become a kind of proxy referendum on Cardinal Gugerotti’s tenure of prefect of the Dicastery for Eastern Churches — and his reputation for being at odds with many of the patriarchs long predates the current Syriac standoff.
The removal of Youssef could serve to galvanize the heads of the 22 other Eastern Catholic Churches who have, for years, spoken quietly of a lack of respect and understanding emanating from Gugerotti’s office, even if those in the dicastery have no shortage of examples of scandal and dysfunction to point to in some of the larger Eastern Churches.
Conversely, if Youssef were to survive the first attempted use of a new law, widely credited to the cardinal’s initiative, it could fatally compromise Gugerotti’s authority.
In either event, the first attempted use of Mutua Concordia seems to have almost guaranteed a poisoning of relations between the Eastern Churches and the dicastery, at least in the immediate term.
The counter argument to that, the one advanced by those close to the dicastery, is that real change is needed at the top of several Eastern Churches, and a more robust mechanism for bringing it about is equally essential. The short term effects might not be pleasant, they would argue, but the long term will make them worth the pain.
But even assuming that argument has merit — and patriarchs like Youssef would certainly dispute the notion — the wider implications of a spate of patriarchal removals could be real, and deeply damaging to the Church’s ecumenical efforts.
The Eastern Catholic Churches often exist in an awkward space within the framework of Catholic-Orthodox ecumenical dialogue. In some cases, Churches have historically fallen in and out of communion with Rome and various Orthodox authorities, like the Syro-Malankara Church. Others, like the Greek Catholic Churches, as seen by their Orthodox counterparts in near hostile terms.
But, all this notwithstanding, the heads of the Orthodox Churches all attend keenly to how the Bishop of Rome interacts with Eastern Catholic patriarchs for a sense of what Vatican delegates really mean when they talk about recognizing the dignity, prerogatives, and authority of the Orthodox patriarchs.
The impression, merited or otherwise, that the Vatican is in the business of agitating for changes of leadership and blessing palace coups could have disastrous consequences on what has been a period of decades of positive engagement between Rome and Constantinople.
However matters at the top of the Eastern Catholic Church are now resolved, and on whatever timeline, events of the last few weeks have made the Church an unlikely — and now for Rome deeply awkward — focus of attention. Worse for all concerned, there is no obvious face-saving compromise to be reached.