The Coptic Orthodox Church halts its theological dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church because of Vatican’s publication of “Fiducia supplicans”

The Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria has made the momentous decision to suspend its two-decades-long doctrinal dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church after the Vatican recently approved blessings for same-sex couples, something Coptic officials have called a “heresy”.

The Holy Synod of the ancient, Egypt-based Church announced on March 7 that it had decided “to suspend the theological dialogue with the Catholic Church, re-evaluate the results that the dialogue has achieved since its beginning twenty years ago, and establish new standards and mechanisms for the dialogue to proceed.” The catalyst for the decision, however, was the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith’s publication last December of Fiducia supplicans, the document on blessings for couples “in irregular situations” — including those of the same sex.
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“Your Holiness, we humbly ask you to bless our synodal journey and to accompany us with your prayers, yours personally and those of your Church, that we may know how to put ourselves in the Spirit’s hands!”, it was with this particular request that Cardinal Mario Grech concluded his address of greeting this morning to His Holiness Tawadros II, Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of the See of St. Mark, accompanied by an eminent delegation of the Coptic Orthodox Church.
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Pope Francis has continued his predecessors’ serious commitment to ecumenical dialogue, but he also makes ecumenical gestures that underline that seriousness. Meeting Coptic Orthodox Pope Tawadros II of Alexandria, Egypt, Pope Francis paid tribute to the 21 Coptic martyrs murdered by Islamic State in 2015, noting they were killed for being Christian, not for being Orthodox. And he announced that they would be added to the Roman Martyrology, the book-length calendar of saints and blessed remembered by Catholics at Mass.
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