Communique, Spring 2023

The Way of the Logos

GREETINGS! 

In the pages of this special Communiqué, you will find an account of the remarkable things a number of talented and faithful people with the US non-profit, Urbi et Orbi Communications, are accomplishing to bring the message, the presence and the love of Jesus, the Logos (“Word”) of God, to an increasingly de-humanized and de-humanizing world. 

Our flagship magazine, Inside the Vatican, has been published for 30 years (2023 marks our 30th anniversary!). 

Now we embark on the next 30 years, which, if anything, are crying out for the light of the Gospel as never before. 

The Way of the Logos 

In about the year 60 A.D., St. Paul wrote to the first generation of Christians living in the city of Ephesus: “For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places.” (Ephesians 6:12) 

This understanding of our struggle remains true today, almost 2,000 years later. In our time, the “spirits of wickedness” are the schemes and cold ideologies of powerful men, the theorists of an emerging technocratic elite, the doctrines of a rigid materialism which are taking away the very concept of the “soul” from our understanding of what it means to be human, and in the process depersonalizing our culture. Against all these “spirits” of ideology, we propose a different way: the way of truth, of beauty, of love, of unity in and through Christ. 

Here, you’ll read about how we are doing it: in our many-faceted print and digital efforts, yes, but also in our pilgrimages, which bring individual souls face-to-face with the Logos in many different places: in the beauty of a lush mountainside crowned with white peaks, within a spectacular edifice of stone and glass built by the devout 800 years ago, or by gazing upon the mysterious image not painted by human hands of a bearded man’s loving face. And, of course, the everyday kindnesses of a fellow traveler: these are the human — and humanizing — experiences we share with each pilgrim we travel with, and each pilgrim we encounter on the way. 

You’ll also read about our efforts to bring human relief to currently disaster-crippled places on the globe, like Ukraine and Lebanon, where we partner with people on the ground who live and work in the midst of sometimes terrible conditions. 

And you’ll learn about how we are reaching out to Orthodox Christians, our brothers in faith and sacrament, to join hands with them in round-table meetings and discussions on how to confront, together, a confident regime of secular humanism which sees no place for our 2,000-year-old faith in Jesus Christ. 

Even within our own Catholic Church, there is a sad division and strife which we are working to heal with balance and objectivity, always holding high the Church’s unchanging message of salvation, yet never abandoning dialogue with anyone willing to engage. 

Enjoy this issue of Communiqué! I hope you will be so impressed and moved by our accomplishments and our plans that you, too, will want to join us as we take to heart the words of Christ to St. Francis of Assissi: “Come, Rebuild My Church!” 

Editor, Inside the Vatican magazine
Founder and President, Urbi et Orbi Communications 

Building the Foundations of Unity 

Bringing the love of Christ that overcomes division — Between brothers, and also within each heart

By Christopher Hart-Moynihan

Since the launch of Unitas: Come, Rebuild My Church in 2021, our work has taken us in several directions, but always within the main theme of pursuing greater unity. Our ideal of unity is both personal and ecclesial: unity within the Catholic Church, and unity between Catholics and Orthodox, but also the unity of each soul with God. For this purpose, we have undertaken the following initiatives, which build on our more than 15 years of work as a charitable organization as well as on the 30-year history of Inside the Vatican magazine. 

PRINT AND DIGITAL MEDIA 

Our print and digital media are central to the mission of Urbi et Orbi Communications, and they continue to be the sine qua non of our work. In a media landscape that is constantly changing, we are extremely proud to be celebrating 30 years of Inside the Vatican magazine in 2023. Thanks to our readers and supporters, we have been able to continue publishing Inside the Vatican in a time when many illustrious print publications have gone by the wayside. We believe that it is vital to continue our print presence in an age of Big Tech-driven online censorship. 

At the same time, recognizing the power of the internet to reach audiences both new and old in a different way, we have increased our digital presence. Currently, we operate three websites: UrbiEtOrbiCommunications.com, which covers all the activity of our non-profit; InsideTheVatican.com, which contains material from every issue of our magazine and more; and InsideTheVaticanPilgrimages.com, where anyone can learn about our unforgettable pilgrimages to beautiful and holy places around the world. 

We also have a robust social media presence, two YouTube channels, and a free email bulletin authored by ITV editor Robert Moynihan with 20,000+ subscribers called “The Moynihan Letters.” 

Go to pages 10-11 of Communiqué to learn about all we’re doing in the digital realm. 

Left, on pilgrimage with Inside the Vatican Pilgrimages in Wisconsin, USA, in the fall of 2022. Right, Urbi et Orbi Communications meeting with community leaders in Beirut, Lebanon

PILGRIMAGES 

In 2008, we began bringing pilgrims to some of the most beautiful and holy sites in the Catholic world: to Rome and the Vatican, of course, but also to Assisi, the town of St. Francis and St. Clare; to Manoppello, the site of a miraculous image of a Man of Sorrow; to Catholic Bavaria, in Germany, where Pope Benedict XVI grew up; to the Ireland of saints and scholars; and to the England of St. Thomas More. 

The spirit of pilgrimage has also been fundamental to our work with the Orthodox. In 2000, Dr. Robert Moynihan traveled to Kazan, Russia, on a mission to facilitate the return of the icon of Our Lady of Kazan from Rome to its original home. In 2004, Pope John Paul II presented the icon to the Russian Orthodox Church, ushering in a period of relative goodwill between East and West. Since then, we have also brought pilgrims to traditionally Orthodox countries like Ukraine, Russia and Turkey, where they were able to meet firsthand with Orthodox leaders for discussion and fellowship. The new understandings that result have often been life-changing. 

In 2021, when the Covid-19 pandemic took hold, we adapted by taking pilgrims on a journey of discovery of holy sites within the United States, centered in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, celebrated by Catholic novelist Walker Percy. In 2022, covering new “spiritual territory,” we added a second pilgrimage, to Wisconsin and its “Wisconsin Way” — a constellation of Catholic shrines, crowned by the first and only Church-approved Marian apparition in the U.S. 

We returned to international pilgrimages with a pilgrimage to Lebanon in late September 2022. This pilgrimage was truly an unforgettable, once-in-a-lifetime experience, as our pilgrims had the opportunity to see firsthand this ancient land where Jesus Himself walked, preached, and performed miracles. 

ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSIONS 

As part of our mission to foster unity, we work to provide spaces for dialogue, mutual understanding and reconciliation. Our knowledge, experience, vast international network, agility as laity, and reputation make us uniquely positioned to bring together Catholics — as well as Catholics and Orthodox — to discuss the important issues. 

In 2022, we met with Catholic and Orthodox leaders in Lebanon and Cyprus and began planning a joint Catholic-Orthodox Day of Unity for Lebanon, to be held in late 2023. This event will help raise regional and world-wide awareness about the incredibly rich history of the Christian faith in Lebanon. At the same time, it will offer a chance to mobilize support for Lebanese Christians so that they can “remain and renew” — not through acts of violence, which tore the country apart over previous decades, but rather through rebuilding — so that Lebanon truly becomes the “message of peace” spoken of by Pope John Paul II. 

Also in late 2023, we will hold a conference in Rome, at the Vatican, to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the ratification of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations. One of the authors of the Universal Declaration, Charles Malik, was a Greek Orthodox Christian from Lebanon whose influence ensured that the Universal Declaration recognized the Judeo-Christian values of freedom, pluralism, and — perhaps most significantly — the natural and immutable dignity of all human beings. 

 In order to properly honor Charles Malik’s legacy, and the legacy of his faith, we met with Habib Malik, Charles Malik’s son, in September 2022 in Lebanon to discuss a 75th-anniversary conference. Malik agreed to be an advisor and participant. A former professor of history at the American University of Beirut, and now at the Lebanese American University in Byblos, Habib Malik is an expert on the history of Christianity in Lebanon and the wider Middle East, and a member of the Friends of St. Charbel, dedicated to the beloved Lebanese saint and miracle-worker. 

Also in 2022, we met in Hungary with Cardinal Peter Erdö, the archbishop of Budapest, and with Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev, from the Russian Orthodox Patriarchate, now of Budapest. 

These personal meetings served to reestablish face-to-face contact after the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021, and lay the groundwork for future roundtable events to be held between Catholic and Orthodox leaders. 

Left, September 2022: the Advisory Council of Friends of Lebanon meeting with victims of the August 4, 2020 Beirut Port explosion in Beirut, Lebanon. Urbi et Orbi is also reaching out to the elderly, families with children, and handicapped persons in war-torn Ukraine

RELIEF EFFORTS 

The events of the past several years have left an indelible mark on Churches worldwide. For our part, as we witnessed horrors unfolding in Lebanon and Ukraine, we took to heart Jesus’ words in Matthew 25:40 — “Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brethren of mine, you did for me” — and decided to do whatever we could to help. 

Our personal relationships in these countries, forged over many years of travel and collaboration, have enabled us to effectively bring short-term help and long-term hope in troubled times, when Catholics and Orthodox alike are fleeing violence and misery. Throughout 2023, we will continue these efforts to provide aid through our Friends of Lebanon and Friends of Ukraine and Russia projects. 

Since 2020, the Friends of Lebanon project has provided the following aid to our Christian brothers and sisters who were displaced in the aftermath of the 2020 explosion in the Port of Beirut: 

—Water purifiers for 40 households 

—Monthly food boxes for 52 households 

—Scholarships to 133 students to high school and college 

—Medicine for two families which they could not get in Lebanon (one was monthly medicine for a cancer patient) 

—Bedroom furniture for one family of six who were sleeping on a hard concrete floor 

In addition to our direct support for affected families, Urbi et Orbi Communications has published The Lebanon Report monthly, which sheds light on the issues affecting Christian communities in Lebanon. This report is beginning to be read widely in the Maronite diaspora community, and we have been encouraged by Bishop Gregory Mansour, of the Maronite eparchy of St. Maron in Brooklyn, to continue this publication. 

We have made two visits to Lebanon: first, a fact-finding mission in June 2022, which included a brief meeting with the papal nuncio and the Maronite Patriarch, and an agreement with them to continue this work. Second, a pilgrimage in September 2022 with 10 members of the advisory council of our Friends of Lebanon project. All were greatly moved by what they saw, heard, and experienced, and all continue to strongly support our initiatives in Lebanon. As one of our Friends of Lebanon, Hilda in Ohio, wrote following the pilgrimage: “The journey affected me personally; the people and their country have left deep impressions in my heart and mind. Troubling sights of areas severely impacted by the explosion two years ago lie in contrast to the magnificent beauty of the hills and the blue sea surrounding much of Lebanon. The history of people of faith was almost palpable in monasteries we visited. The pilgrimage may have actively ended, but the journey in prayer and faith with unforgettable people still lives.” 

Our Friends of Ukraine and Russia (FUR) initiative was instituted in 2022 in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. 

In 2022, FUR provided grants to assist families with their most basic necessities — shelter, food, water, and medicine — in the midst of the active conflict in Ukraine. 

All of the aid recipients reside in or near the city of Brovary, a city in central Ukraine to the east of Kiev. In 2022, eight grants were given to the following recipients: 

—A family with 3 small children — the father does not have a stable job due to the war 

—A nursing home for 30 elderly people that had been damaged due to the war 

—A family of an Orthodox priest with 3 small children — the youngest one is autistic 

—A family with 4 children — the father is visually impaired 

—A family with 3 small children 

—An elderly couple who are both very ill 

—A family with 5 children 

—A family with 4 children — the father is in need of a medical operation and further treatment 

One of our “boots on the ground” in Ukraine is Sergii Bortnyk, who works for the Department of External Church Relations of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. 

We have spent time with Sergii over the years on various trips to Ukraine, where he organized itineraries and meetings with members of the Orthodox hierarchy for our Urbi et Orbi pilgrimages. For the past year, Sergii has made heroic efforts to find the members of his community who are most in need and ensure that they receive support. 

EXCHANGE PROGRAMS 

Long-standing connections have given us a unique opportunity over the past several years to partner with the Holy See’s Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, as well as the heads of the Orthodox Churches, to sponsor exchange programs for seminarians and clergy. 

In June 2022, we supported a Vatican-sponsored exchange program with 18 young monks from Egypt, Armenia, Lebanon, Syria, India, Ethiopia, and Eritrea, who visited many holy sites of Rome and met Catholic seminarians, priests, monks, and leaders in the Vatican, including Pope Francis. 

These young monks represented six Orthodox churches: Coptic Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic, Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch, Ethiopian Orthodox, Eritrean Orthodox, and Malankara Orthodox Syrian. 

Unitas: Come, Rebuild My Church will continue to support these exchanges, as we observe with each exchange that the new understandings and relationships that are formed spark a desire for unity.

Urbi et Orbi’s Print and Digital Media

Shining the Light of Christ in Every Medium

PRINT PUBLICATIONS 

Inside the Vatican magazine’s first edition — we call it “Issue Zero” — was published in April 1993. Founder and editor-in-chief Robert Moynihan started the magazine in response to the growing confusion in the world and in the Church. As he recounts: 

The roots of Urbi et Orbi Communications stretch back to 1986, when I was in Rome researching my doctoral dissertation in the Vatican Library — and meeting Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. The great Pope John Paul II was confronting worldwide communism — the Soviet Union still existed — and new winds were blowing through the Church. These winds of change brought renewal, but also division, confusion. Our precious unity was in clear danger. And not only was our Catholic unity threatened: the 1,000-year fracture between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches was crippling Christianity, as each of our Churches struggled, alone, to confront unprecedented secularization, moral chaos, and even persecution. 

Since that first “Issue Zero” thirty years ago, Inside the Vatican’s aim has been, and still is, to bring Catholics and all Christians of good will together through independent, bold, honest and balanced journalism. And as our “Why Print?” informational campaign points up, in this era of digital censorship and “cancel culture,” print publications are “where free thought stays alive.” 

In addition to our regular bi-monthly issues which feature Catholic news and analysis, spiritual reflections, cultural commentary, music, art – even a Roman restaurant page! – we also publish beautiful “special issues.” These high-quality publications contain contributions by some of today’s most thoughtful Catholic writers and spiritual reflections by saints and scholars of the past. And they are lavishly illustrated with the classic sacred art and dramatic photography that Inside the Vatican is known for. 

In 2022 we published a lovely coffee-table-quality volume on the life and significance of the Blessed Virgin Mary, entitled Mary: Behold Your Mother. This year, we published a special March-April 2023 issue of ITV dedicated entirely to the life and legacy of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, who left this world on the last day of 2022. 

SCHOLARSHIPS FOR INDIGENT PRISONERS AND RELIGIOUS 

Part of Urbi et Orbi Communications’ calling is to bring the Light of Christ to even the darkest corners, so, many years ago, we established a ”scholarship” fund for prison inmates and religious who cannot afford a regular subscription to Inside the Vatican magazine. The reaction was, and still is, enthusiastic — and gratifying. We have received countless letters over the years from prisoners for whom ITV magazine is the only “lifeline” to the Faith that is available to them. 

OUR DIGITAL PRESENCE 

Over the past two years, we have expanded our digital media presence in order to reach new audiences and present 

 content in new and engaging ways. Now you can experience our reporting from the heart of the Church every day on our Youtube channels and social media platforms. Urbi et Orbi Communications has three websites: 

UrbiEtOrbiCommunications.com, which contains links to all areas of our outreach, from our relief efforts in Ukraine and Lebanon to our roundtable discussions and conferences both within the Catholic Church and with the Orthodox; 

InsideTheVatican.com, which contains digital versions of our magazines, special articles and photos, subscription information, and links to The Moynihan Letters, written by ITV editor-in-chief Robert Moynihan and received in 100,000 inboxes around the world; 

InsideTheVaticanPilgrimages.com, which is the website dedicated to our one-of-a-kind pilgrimage experiences, led by Robert Moynihan and CEO Deborah Tomlinson, along with local experts in culture and Catholic spiritual leaders. 

Our Youtube channels — the Inside the Vatican Pilgrimages Channel (https://www.youtube.com/@InsideTheVaticanPilgrimages) and the Urbi et Orbi Communications Channel (https://www.youtube.com/@urbietorbicommunications) — are where we connect with any and all who are interested in learning more about our work. These channels have truly become an outlet for news and analysis in their own right, hosting content to go alongside our print media and beyond. 

The Inside the Vatican Pilgrimages Channel showcases the highlights from our past and future pilgrimages. Anybody interested in joining us on one of our 2023 pilgrimages can see memorable moments from previous pilgrimages to Italy, Ireland, Wisconsin, and Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, as well as from our Virtual Pilgrimages held in 2020 and 2021. In addition to the hours of video content, the ITV Pilgrimages Channel has short reels that capture spontaneous moments and encounters from our pilgrimages, such as our visit to St. Anthony’s Monastery in Lebanon’s Qadisha (Holy) Valley. Currently among the most watched videos on the channel are Virtual Pilgrimages to St. Peter’s Basilica, Assisi, and Rome. 

To mark Inside the Vatican’s 30th anniversary this year, the Urbi et Orbi Communications channel is currently hosting a series of videos called 30 Years: The Untold Stories, launched as part of the Unitas: Come, Rebuild My Church initiative. These videos are available at https://www.youtube. com/@urbietorbicommunications and our Rumble channel, https://rumble.com/c/c-1125751. 

Part of the 30 Years video project is a series of videos on the history and aftermath of the Second Vatican Council featuring Dr. Robert Moynihan and Fr. Charles Murr. Their discussions have been an eye-opening and engrossing dive into little-known Church history. In this series, Fr. Murr discusses his work as an aide to Édouard Cardinal Gagnon, who conducted an Apostolic Visitation to the Roman Curia from 1976 to 1979. As a result of this Apostolic Visitation, Cardinal Gagnon wrote a report that was never publicly released — the original copy, kept in a safe in the Vatican, was stolen. 

Dr. Moynihan and Fr. Murr discuss the contents of this report and other related issues in their weekly conversations, which are streamed live online and are all available on the Urbi et Orbi Communications Youtube channel. The discussions have garnered hundreds of views during each live stream, and each one is available in its entirety on the channel. To subscribe, go to www.youtube.com/@urbietorbicommunications and hit the “Subscribe” button on the far right side of the screen. You’ll be notified of all new live streams before they happen. 

The Urbi et Orbi Communications Channel is also home to Inside the Vatican Voices: a series of Dr. Moynihan’s interviews with renowned Catholic thinkers like Robert Royal, Anthony Esolen and Paul Kengor. 

Finally, we are producing Christian Voices, which focuses on uncovering the stories from Christian communities worldwide, with a particular focus on the Eastern Orthodox Churches. We have kicked off Christian Voices with an ongoing series on the unfolding ecclesiastical crisis in Ukraine, talking to experts like longtime reporter on the Orthodox world Peter Anderson and Sergii Bortnyk of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. 

As always, the free Moynihan Letters email bulletins provide 100,000+ readers with timely and insightful analysis of pressing issues in the Church, whether it be the debate over Traditionis Custodes or Dr. Moynihan’s reflections on the theological issues that will shape the next pontificate. 

A recurring series distributed by email is the monthly Unitas: Friends of Lebanon Report, now going into its third year. This report seeks to raise awareness of the plight of Christians in Lebanon, who face incredible challenges simply to remain in a land in which they have a nearly 2,000-year history. The Lebanon Report also chronicles the relief efforts of our Friends of Lebanon project — a concrete effort to build unity between East and West by bringing the attention and the aid of Catholics in Europe and the Americas to the Maronite Catholics and Greek, Syriac and Armenian Orthodox — all ancient Christian communities of Lebanon, and all threatened by the country’s ongoing crisis.

NOW IS THE TIME

You, our dear readers and friends, are essential partners in our work to shine the Light of Christ’s truth into all the disunity and confusion in our world and in our Church.

Join with us to be the hands that reach out to the confused and doubtful… to the suffering victims of war and economic disaster… to souls longing for the beauty and love of God.

Join with us as we join hands with our Orthodox brothers and sisters to oppose an increasingly hostile secular culture.

Join with us so that, together, we can help ensure that the Gospel vision guiding Christians over the centuries continues to light our way in these troubling times.

Thank you for your support over the years.

Urbi Et Orbi Communications is a 501(C)(3) Not-For-Profit Organization; see our Annual Report at https://urbietorbicommunications.com/annual-report-2022/ for more information.

Donate to Unitas and Be the Hands that help build Unity, so sorely needed in these troubled times.

CALL US at +1.202.536.4555, email us at [email protected],
or go to https://urbietorbicommunications.com/donate-now/