You said that the Eastern Churches accepted the Popes “leadership”. If you look at the history of Vatican I, the Melkite Bishops refused to sign-off on Pastor Aeternus as it was (and is) written.
Didn’t they sign off on it with the addendum, “excepting the rights and privileges of eastern patriarchs”?
To me, that counts as signing off on it, since I don’t think
Pastor Aeternus limits their rights and privileges - not when the document explicitly says that papal supremacy exists to build up, support, and defend the authority of the Roman bishop’s episcopal brothers throughout the world. It’s that section that quotes St. Leo the Great, who said something like (and I paraphrase from memory), “My honor is the honor of my brethren.”
Like I say, Patriarchs are elected by a synod of bishops who are under them. If the Pope is the “Patriarchs of Patriarch”, if the entire Church is “under” him, then all Churches must have representation. That is the way the Church has always done it from the beginning. Even as the ecclesiology developed over the centuries, every bishop under another’s authority would have a say about that bishop. I can understand why not all Roman bishops vote, given the sheer number of Roman bishops. But Eastern Churches are separate Churches, thus representation is just and right.
You and this thread’s other Oriental Catholics are raising very strong points, I think. My attitude used to be that cardinals are simply those bishops whose job it is to elect the pope, and thus I didn’t understand why it’s problematic for a patriarch to be a cardinal (as long as it’s not understood as an “elevation”).
But now I see the problems: cardinals are, at least symbolically/nominally, the clergy of Rome, and thus they swear obedience to the Church of Rome. That does indeed seem inappropriate for a patriarch or “major archbishop” of an eastern Catholic church.
And I think you also raise a very logical point in saying that because the bishop of Rome has jurisdiction over all the churches of the Catholic Church, each church’s leadership ought to be represented to some degree in a papal conclave. Tossing a red hat at a few patriarchs, the above problems notwithstanding, is not the answer.
I think we should pray that one day malphono’s solution will be reinstated in general throughout the Catholic Church:
A church’s clergy elect its bishop, confirmed by the metropolitan.
A province’s bishops elect its metropolitan, conformed by the primate.
A nation’s/region’s metropolitan bishops elect its primate, confirmed by the Holy See.
The Catholic Church’s autonomous churches’ head bishops participate in papal conclaves.
Perhaps we’re slowly getting off on the right foot, since at least the patriarchal eastern Catholic churches’ synods elect their own patriarchs?
You are correct, they are not considered as meeting the definition of Church.