Respect the Needs of Catholics!

Global Catholic News - Russian Orthodox Urged to Respect Catholics' Spiritual Needs

The Vatican appealed to the Russian Orthodox Church to recognize the spiritual needs of the country's 500,000 Catholics, who numerically pose no threat to Orthodoxy.

Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, Vatican secretary for relations with states, made this appeal public in an interview Sunday with the Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera. He was commenting on the charges of "proselytism" leveled against Rome by the Moscow Orthodox Patriarchate.

...Archbishop Tauran believes, in part, that the present situation is due to the fact that Russian Orthodox Church leaders regard the Catholic Church as a "church of foreigners."

...Catholics in Russia "are Russian citizens -- not foreigners -- and, therefore, have a right to pastoral care, like all Catholics spread throughout the world and like all Orthodox Christians in Russia and in any other place," he explained.

"This would also help to overcome that psychological attitude of 'besieged fortress' that impedes the Orthodox Church, which suffered so much during the years of Communism, to offer Europe and the world the contribution of its great spiritual riches," Archbishop Tauran concluded.