Fr Mark Drew

In December last year, Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople recognised an autocephalous Orthodox Church in Ukraine. In doing so, he risked turning the longstanding rivalry between Constantinople and Moscow into open and enduring schism: he was establishing a new ecclesial body on territory over which Moscow still claims jurisdiction. Almost a year later the split continues to deepen and spread.

In 'finding new ways' to evangelise, the synod risks forgetting the heart of the Gospel For three weeks in October, 185 bishops, missionaries and scholars, mostly from South America and Europe, will meet in Rome at Amazon synod. Pope Francis has asked them “to find new ways for the evangelisation” of the Amazon region and to respond to “the crisis of the Amazonian forest”.

Since he issued his ‘testimony’ last August, Archbishop Viganò has been in hiding. So what does his intervention tell us about the Church? A year ago, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò was a retired diplomat who was little known beyond the limited world of Vaticanologists. He had reached the senior position of apostolic nuncio to the United States in October 2011, but his retirement in 2016 would normally have signalled an end to his influence.