Moscow-Rome detente

Relations between the Moscow Patriarchate and the Roman Catholic Church continue to warm. Among the signs of the improving relations two stand out. The first (via Rocco Palmo) is that the Russian Orthodox Church is planning a symposium this fall on Pope +Benedict's encyclical letter Deus Caritas Est. The second is that Cardinal Roger Etchegaray the vice dean of the College of Cardinals, has been quoted in the Russian news service Interfax affirming progress towards the long rumored meeting between the Pope and Patriarch +Alexeii of Moscow. While care was taken to make it clear that no meeting is imminent the very fact that there has been talk of a meeting from high level officials of the Roman Church without swift and heated denials from Moscow suggests that things are at least moving.