From Catholic News Service

Bishops favor 'good-faith' solution in Kosovo

By Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- A group of Catholic and Orthodox bishops asked Serbian and Kosovar leaders to negotiate in "good faith" over the political future of Kosovo, a breakaway Serbian province currently under U.N. administration.

The bishops also called for the safe return of 200,000 Serbs and other minorities who left after major fighting broke out in Kosovo in the early 1990s.

"Only through a real dialogue of mutual respect and good-faith negotiations can justice become a reality in Kosovo," said a statement issued by the Joint Commission of Orthodox and Catholic Bishops meeting in Washington June 21-23.

The commission is composed of U.S. Catholic bishops and Orthodox bishops from Canada and the United States and deals with ways in which the two churches can cooperate on practical issues. The U.S. bishops' Department of Communications issued a June 28 news release about the meeting.

Political leaders of the majority ethnic Albanian population of Kosovo favor independence while Serbian leaders want it to remain part of Serbia. Complicating the issue is that most Albanians are Muslim while Serbs are Orthodox.

The United Nations has been in charge of Kosovo since 1999 after NATO launched air attacks against Serbian forces accused of "ethnic cleansing" in efforts to suppress rebel fighters wanting independence. The NATO attacks drove out Serbian forces but did not ease the ethnic and religious tensions.

In February, U.N.-brokered talks got under way between Serbian and Kosovar leaders to determine the region's future political status.

The joint committee of bishops supported the call of the Holy Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church that the political rights of Serbs and other minorities be guaranteed in any accord.

The committee said it was also concerned about the destruction of churches, monasteries, cemeteries and other religious sites in Kosovo. It asked that these sites be restored and called for the protection of all religious sites in Kosovo.

The committee asked the six-nation leadership group -- consisting of the United States and five European countries -- to foster negotiations.

This was the 22nd meeting of the joint commission, chaired by Orthodox Bishop Seraphim of Ottawa and Canada and Archbishop Oscar H. Lipscomb of Mobile, Ala. The next meeting was scheduled for Oct. 3-5, 2007, at the Orthodox Christian Mission Center in St. Augustine, Fla.

At a separate ecumenical dialogue earlier in June, Catholic and Orthodox theologians continued their series of discussions on the Catholic and Orthodox understandings of primacy and how bishops exercise authority in the church.

The dialogue was conducted by the North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation June 5-7 in Brookline, Mass.

The consultation is sponsored by the Standing Conference of the Canonical Orthodox Bishops in the Americas, the U.S. bishops' Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs and the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The next meeting is scheduled for Oct. 26-28 in Washington.

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