Pope, cardinals discuss ties with other Christians

By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict and his cardinals discussed Catholic relations with other Christians on Friday, highlighting efforts to work closely with the Orthodox and to meet the challenge of fast-growing Protestant churches.

The closed-door meeting, held on the eve of a ceremony to install 23 new cardinals, took place amid progress with the Orthodox -- who broke from Rome in 1054 -- but growing fragmentation in the Protestant and Anglican world.

A statement late on Friday said the cardinals also spoke about relations with Jews and Muslims, including what it called the "encouraging sign" sent by 138 Islamic scholars who last month invited Christian leaders to a broad inter-faith dialogue.

The Roman Catholic Church, with 1.1 billion of the world's 2 billion Christians, seeks better ties with other churches partly to strengthen the Christian message in the world.

"We made good progress with the Orthodox in Ravenna," said Cardinal Walter Kasper, head of the department for Christian unity, referring to a Catholic-Orthodox meeting last month that agreed the Pope was the leading prelate of Christianity.

The Russian Orthodox Church, with more than half the world's 220 million Orthodox, quit that meeting in protest against the presence of an Estonian Orthodox Church aligned to the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, today's Istanbul.

"We are working now in Constantinople and Moscow that they find a solution or a compromise. It's a political question, not a theological one," Kasper told journalists.

The Russian Orthodox Church, which has become more active on the ecumenical scene since the fall of communism, chafes under the tradition that gives pride of place to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomos, despite the fact his local church is tiny.