Konig initiative

CARDINAL Franz Konig, former Archbishop of Vienna, has said he could envisage a new structure of the College of Cardinals made up of the Eastern and Western churches, who could elect a "common supreme head of the universal Church".
In constituting such a compromise the conciliar structures must be respected, Cardinal Konig told the fifth meeting of the Ecumenical Foundation "Pro Oriente" in Vienna.
The meeting, of theologians
from both the Catholic and the Eastern Churches, heard the cardinal emphasise that unity and diversity could be compatible. It was so in the Catholic Church of today, he said, and similar diversity existed between east and west.
In his address the cardinal also drew attention to the peculiarities of the hierarchical structure of the old Eastern Churches in which the sacraments are the focal point. But he also recalled that in the ancient tradition of the unified Church, all bishops were equal in their office.