Vatican cardinal calls on Melkites to be bridge between East and West

Buenos Aires, Argentina, Sep 2, 2010 (CNA)

The prefect of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches, Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, called on Melkite Catholics in Argentina to be a bridge of communion between the East and the West. Catholic Melkites, he said, "are very rooted in the Eastern world but they are also ‘traditionally’ united to the Petrine See."

Cardinal Sandri made his comments during a Mass in the city of Cordoba, at which he was joined by the Greco-Melkite Patriarch of Antioch, His Beatitude Gregory III Laham; the Apostolic Exarch Abdo Arbach of the Melkites of Argentina; and Archbishop Carlos Jose Nunez of Cordoba. Cardinal Sandri said unity always begins with Christ, but "it demands our personal conversion to unity. Conversion to communion is a daily cross that we must bear so that the Church will be the unifying leaven of the whole human race."

Likewise, he called on Melkite Catholics to remember their spiritual roots. "I think of the spiritual effort needed to help the second and third Melkite generation in America maintain their authentic Eastern identity, especially in the area of the liturgy, without failing to adopt a necessary openness at the same time to the new ecclesial and social context. For this reason the renewal of family, youth and vocational ministries, even at the heart of the Church, is urgent," he said.

Cardinal Sandri called on the Melkite faithful and all Eastern Catholics to continue defending the family and traditional marriage.