On the seventh day of the Novemdiales, the solemn nine-day mourning period for Pope Francis, Cardinal Claudio Gugerotti, ex-prefect of the Dicastery for the Eastern Churches, presided over the Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica, dedicating the celebration to the Eastern Catholic Churches. 

Cardinal Gugerotti opened by acknowledging the presence of “some of the Fathers and sons and daughters of the Eastern Catholic Churches, present with us to bear witness to the richness of their experience of faith and the cry of their suffering, offered for the eternal rest of the deceased Pontiff.” 

He expressed gratitude for their willingness “to enrich the catholicity of the Church with the variety of their experiences, their cultures but above all their very rich spirituality.” 

He reminded the congregation that these communities are “children of the beginnings of Christianity,” who, alongside their Orthodox brethren, “have carried in their hearts, together with their Orthodox brothers and sisters, the flavor of the land of the Lord, and some even continue to speak the language that Jesus Christ spoke,” referencing Aramaic, the language used by the Chaldean rite.

Reflecting on the historical journey of the Eastern Catholic Churches, Cardinal Gugerotti noted, “Through the prodigious and painful developments of their history, they reached important dimensions and enriched the treasure of Christian theology with a contribution as original as it is, in large part, unknown to us Westerners.” 

He highlighted their courageous choice to enter into full communion with the successor of Peter, “often with blood or persecution, to their faith.” Despite being “now partly reduced, in number and strength but not in faith, precisely by wars and intolerance,” these communities “remain firmly attached to a sense of catholicity that does not exclude, but rather implies, the recognition of their specificity.”

Cardinal Gugerotti did not shy away from the painful history of misunderstanding: “In the course of history they were sometimes poorly understood by us Westerners, who, in some eras, judged them and decided that what they, descendants of apostles and martyrs, believed was or was not faithful to authentic theology (that is, ours), while their Orthodox brothers ... considered them to have run away from home, lost to their origin and assimilated to a world then considered mutually incompatible.”

He drew attention to the spiritual treasures of the East, especially their liturgy, “all woven with this wonder.” He quoted the Byzantine tradition’s Paschal hymn: “Christ is risen from the dead, trampling death with death, and to the dead in the tombs he has bestowed life.” 

He also cited the Armenian liturgy, invoking Saint Gregory of Narek: “We implore you, Lord, that our sins may be consumed by fire as those of the prophet were consumed by the burning coal offered to him with tongs, so that in all things your mercy may be proclaimed ... Yes, I too am one of them: receive me too like them, as one in need of your great love for humanity, I who live for your graces.”

Cardinal Gugerotti ended by emphasizing that “in the eyes and hearts of our brothers and sisters of the East it has always been dear to preserve the incredible paradox of the Christian event: On the one hand the misery of our being sin, on the other the infinite mercy of God who has placed us next to his throne to share even his being.”