Anglicans to Rome?

[Maccabees]

Gee sounds like the Orthodox have changed a lot more on their moral theology than the catholics well unless you believe the abortion mills where Father Ambrose gathers his commentary on the western church fathers.

Look Fr Ambrose come tell the RC about thier morals when your church clears up its own house.
Divorces? Contraception? Abortion? Zenophobia?
THis is hardly a church without problems. Your a monk you can hide from the problems we lay people can’t hide from them. The catholic church isn’t perfect but neither is the Orthodox so stop trying to prented your pristine moral doctrine has never changed. It has but you don’t admit it.
Since no one person speaks for Orthodoxy the morals change from one Orthodox pastor to another who is to speak for the church. In the case of Orthodoxy no one.

 

[nucatholic]

Fr. Ambrose, once again I am disappointed by your posts. I see antagonistic uncharitable comments in many of your posts. Oddly enough, I am friends with two Orthodox Christians here at my University. They are so focused on trying to prove the Catholic Church wrong that they spend more energy on that than any sort of charity or evangelization. Its like they are drowning and struggling to keep their head out of water in our theological conversations in class. It seems as if Orthodox and Catholics have been taught completely different versions of Church History. The Orthodox being taught that the Orthodox CHURCHES hold to the true faith and the Catholics that the Catholic Church holds to the true faith. Is there any way we can determine what is the true faith? Our traditions are very similar. The Bible can help quite a bit though. Was one Apostle given authority over another? Yes and its quite obvious. Which Church still structures its leadership by the perfect example of Christ’s making? Was there ambiguity in the different Church Fathers about Papal infalliblity? Yes but which were determined to be in line with the Holy Scriptures? History this history that, what is truth? Truth is what Jesus revealed and he revealed that we are to have a supreme authoritative position, a rock that is supreme over the Apostles. Who will you follow Father Ambrose? Have a wonderful Lenten Season. Pray for me Father Ambrose I am trying to give up smoking.

 

[Fr_Ambrose]

nucatholic:

Fr. Ambrose, once again I am disappointed by your posts. I see antagonistic uncharitable comments in many of your posts. .

Dear nucatholic,

I am really rattled by what I am reading here. The rock of Rome doesn’t seem as stable as it used to - all these heretical beliefs now being tolerated - it’s not the petrine attitude one would expect.

But mostly I am rattled and scared to death by Michael’s revelation that this method of receiving the Anglicans is a trial run for a similar scheme to get the Orthodox into union with Rome. Rome is gunning for us!

And then we have GAssisi telling us that this is all being accomplished on the basis of *invincible ignorance * - Invincible ignorance?! Surely the weirdest ecumenical weapon ever devised by man to achieve unity. Mind you, the Orthodox are so stubborn that they could continue to be invincibly ignorant until Doomsday

Boethius says that I don’t understand ecumenicism - and he’s right. Invincible igorance is not something I would have imagined in the arsenal of the cunning ecumenicist It’s a mind blower. I’ll have to put the word out on the Orthodox lists that we have to do something about this ignorance or Rome will grab us!

 

[Maccabees]

Nobody is gunning for you. You really don’t understand ecunism do you?
No one is going to drag a church into communion with Rome without them knowing it.
The ORthodox and Catholic talks are very different for one thing becasue the Orthodox are different than the Anglicans heck the Russians are very different than the Assyrians.
There is less we disagree on for one thing and we have worked this out with former Orthodox bodies in the past so we know the points which are non-negotiable. We aren’t going to ask you to include the filoque or accept the doctrine of origianl sin none of the Eastern Catholics are asked to do this. Nor should they be asked it is not in their tadition of theological expression.
No one is trying to fool anyone into agreeing to something they don’t want to do. This is pure foolishness.
If you want to announce to the world Rome is going to dupe you into something go ahead and play the fool but that is not something they are trying to do. THey respect the Orthodox too much to do that and know they are too smart to be duped into anything they don’t want to do. HEck ROme has more respect for the intelligence of your hierarchy than you do. Why do you think they will be fooled into such a thing?

 

[Fr_Ambrose]

Maccabees:

Nobody is gunning for you. You really don’t understand ecunism do you?

I spent six years as the Serbian Orthodox delegate to the Conferences of Churches of Aotearoa-New Zealand (in olden days it was the National Council of Churches.)

I attended monthly meetings for two Units and once a year I traipsed off to participate in the Annual Forum.

Our bishop (Serbian) decided to pull the Diocese out of the Australian Council of Churches. He thought ecumenism was about discussing theology and reaching mutual understanding; they thought it was about empowering all sorts of things and lobbying the Government and supporting liberation movements. At the same time he pulled the Diocese out of the ACC I was instructed to cease attending any meetings in New Zealand.

So, yes, I have had some contact with ecumenism.

 

[Fr_Ambrose]

Maccabees:

No one is trying to fool anyone into agreeing to something they don’t want to do. This is pure foolishness.
If you want to announce to the world Rome is going to dupe you into something go ahead and play the fool but that is not something they are trying to do. THey respect the Orthodox too much to do that

Glad to know that the Catholics have gained a respect for the Orthodox intelligence quotient. That’s great.

We remember (ah, those plaguey memories) days when it was not so.

"To the other afflictions which the Orthodox delegation suffered in Florence was added the death of the Patriarch Joseph of Constantinople. The Patriarch was found dead in his room.

"On the table lay (supposedly) his testament, Extrema Sententia, consisting in all of some lines in which he declared that he accepted everything that the Church of Rome confesses. And then: “In like manner I acknowledge the Holy Father of Fathers, the Supreme Pontiff and Vicar of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Pope of Old Rome. Likewise, I acknowledge purgatory. In affirmation of this, I affix my signature.”

“There is no doubt whatever that Patriarch Joseph did not write this document. The German scholar Frommann, who made a detailed investigation of the “Testament” of Patriarch Joseph, says: “This document is so Latinized and corresponds so little to the opinion expressed by the Patriarch several days before, that its spuriousness is evident.” The ''Testament” appears in the history of the Council of Florence quite late; contemporaries of the Council knew nothing of it."

 

[Contarini]

Fr Ambrose:

Hostility is not a factor if what they present are historical facts.

Prove that the Roman Catholic position on abortion was not as shown by them. Disprove the evidence they have given from the Popes, the theologians (Augustine) and canon law.

Are you telling me that the source raises no suspicion in you mind? When you find information provided by an unreliable source, you confirm it. That is just reasonable.

Actually, the problem as I see it is less with their facts (which may well be accurate) but with the spin they put on it. None of the facts they list amount to the RCC being “pro-abortion.” For instance, they say that abortion didn’t result in excommunication until the late 19th century. That may be true, but even if so, only a very few mortal sins result in excommunication. That abortion before quickening was not automatically punished with excommunication does not mean that it was regarded as other than gravely sinful. Maccabees has done a good job of addressing this point, I think, and you have not refuted him. You seem so determined to trash the RCC that you’ll grab at any straw. And I say this as a non-Catholic who often clashes with the triumphalistic Catholics on this board. But you’re really discrediting yourself here by your uncritical use of a very dubious source.

In Christ,

Edwin

 

[mtr01]

Traditional Ang:

Fr., which felt better, people’s snide remarks, or my request that you pray for me?

Michael

Sorry to Hijack the thread, but this comment came to my mind as I was reading the following:

**Moscow’s Alexy II Praying for Pope’s Health

---

**MOSCOW, FEB. 7, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Orthodox Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow sent a message to John Paul II to assure him of his “fraternal prayer” during his hospitalization in Rome.

The head of the Orthodox Church with the largest number of faithful said in his signed message that he is praying that God will grant the recovery of the Bishop of Rome and give him strength to continue his ministry.

The message was published on the Russian Orthodox Church’s official Web page www.mospat.ru on Feb. 4.

Just thought the thread could use a shot of Christian charity and fraternity.

 

[oat_soda]

This approach will horrify the Orthodox when it becomes widely known. It won’t be seen as an act of charity to propose allowing the tolerance of multiple truths.

the church always believes that she has the fullness of the truth. the orthodox church may have most of it, but only in the catholic church has truth been preserved in its fullness. there is an act of disobedience such as heresy on one hand, and there is ignorance and hardness of heart on the other.

because the orthodox and protestants have been separtated for a long time, the sin of heresy can’t be imputed to them. they didn’t knowingly and willingly break away from the church like luther and henry the 8th did. thus, the church allows communion with separated bretheren when enough of the truth is shared between them. this doesn’t mean that once in the church, they would allow people to continue to teach what is contrary to the catholic church.

basically, the church is saying we welcome separated bretheren who honestly desire union with the see of peter out of charity and share enough of the same faith so that the differences are small enough not to keep us apart. the church will let the truth speak for itself.

why don’t you read ut umam sint vatican.va/edocs/ENG0221/_INDEX.HTM.

 

[Joannes]

Hello Father Ambrose:

Others have well addressed the charges you have made. Just a couple things, however, come to my mind on reading them.

(1) Thanks for your recognition that the “Celtic Church” was indeed Catholic, that is, in union with Rome. On at least one “Western Orthodox” website I have visited I have seen your confreres claiming that these Irish saints were “Orthodox”, and many Anglicans and Protestants also insist that they were not in union with Rome. You however, wisely admit this, so I say “Thank you.”

(2) Your examples bring to mind not only the deficiencies in hagiographical writing, but also the obvious problems with local or national canonization of saints. I suppose that’s why Rome has taken over the process for the whole Church. Otherwise I’'d have every right to give the Bronx cheer to a few of them.

Regards,
Joannes
Fr Ambrose:

I like to take an interest in the Lives of the old Irish Saints and one of the very curious things one encounters is their strange attitude to abortion. Four of the Saints have Lives in which they are responsible for some sort of abortions: Saint Brigid, Saint Kieran of Saigir, Saint Aed of Killarien, and Saint Kenneth of Aghaboe.

The hagiographies of these Saints contain accounts of abortions -details most unlikely to have been inserted by Planned Parenthood in Canada or in Eire to foster their anti-Catholic agenda.

 

[Joannes]

Father Ambrose:

I find your posting very confusing. If all that you imply is true, what’s the good of it, since:

(1) Patriarch Joseph was already dead, so the allegedly forged testament* Extrema Sententia* had not influenced him.

(2) He apparently never voted for reunion, but died before it was effected.

(3) Your account says that because the testament appeared so late in the Council the contemporaries knew nothing about it. Hence it could not have influenced the other Greek bishops, who all, except one, voted for reunion.

(4) But they did vote for reunion, so they must have had other reasons, perhaps good ones.

(5) Since they did vote for reunion, they were either right or wrong. If they were right, then their successors today are wrong. If they were wrong, then your Church hierarchy erred, so there is obviously no locus for infallibility of teaching in the EO churches.

(6) Your cited text is therefore transparently a case of special pleading, i.e., a whitewash of an obvious recession from your party’s allegedly definitive position.

Regards,
Joannes
Fr Ambrose:

Glad to know that the Catholics have gained a respect for the Orthodox intelligence quotient. That’s great.

We remember (ah, those plaguey memories) days when it was not so.

"To the other afflictions which the Orthodox delegation suffered in Florence was added the death of the Patriarch Joseph of Constantinople. The Patriarch was found dead in his room.

"On the table lay (supposedly) his testament, Extrema Sententia, consisting in all of some lines in which he declared that he accepted everything that the Church of Rome confesses. And then: “In like manner I acknowledge the Holy Father of Fathers, the Supreme Pontiff and Vicar of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Pope of Old Rome. Likewise, I acknowledge purgatory. In affirmation of this, I affix my signature.”

“There is no doubt whatever that Patriarch Joseph did not write this document. The German scholar Frommann, who made a detailed investigation of the “Testament” of Patriarch Joseph, says: “This document is so Latinized and corresponds so little to the opinion expressed by the Patriarch several days before, that its spuriousness is evident.” The ''Testament” appears in the history of the Council of Florence quite late; contemporaries of the Council knew nothing of it."

 

[Joannes]

Hello Father Ambrose:

Father, I second the remarks of several on this thread, who have pointed out very well how insufficient your posts have been in demonstrating any change in Roman teaching.

If one prescinds from the specifics and looks just at the tenor of your posts and those of other EO’s on these threads as well, one sees clearly that very very many of you EO’s are so desperate to retain your schism that you distort the past and magnify present differences with Rome. How you resist the very remedy for your predicament!

In your constant Rome-bashing I see little ecumenism and little balance, but lots and lots of panic. Let me say that your general attitude tells much more about your position than the specifics of your posts do.

Let us, however, pray for each other.
Warmest regards,

Joannes

 

[Mickey]

Joannes:

Hello Father Ambrose:

Father, I second the remarks of several on this thread, who have pointed out very well how insufficient your posts have been in demonstrating any change in Roman teaching.

If one prescinds from the specifics and looks just at the tenor of your posts and those of other EO’s on these threads as well, one sees clearly that very very many of you EO’s are so desperate to retain your schism that you distort the past and magnify present differences with Rome. How you resist the very remedy for your predicament!

In your constant Rome-bashing I see little ecumenism and little balance, but lots and lots of panic. Let me say that your general attitude tells much more about your position than the specifics of your posts do.

Let us, however, pray for each other.
Warmest regards,

Joannes

 

[Joannes]

Hello rjs and all:

I had almost the identical experience years ago once when I and another pro-lifer innocently asked a a certain priest, perhaps the most eminent RO theologian in the US, for the EO position on abortion. I was shocked when, ignoring the heinous crime of abortion he intead hastened to contrast the EO position to the Catholic position in this way:

“We would never tell a woman she could not have an abortion. We’ might tell her she would have to do penance afterwards, blah, blah, blah.” He talked like a liberal !

Then he sicced a nasty Greek priest on us, who brought up a case then in the news, in which a Catholic priest had been reported to have refused to marry a certain couple because of the groom’s reportedly perpetual impotence. The Greek priest said he would have married the couple, no problem!

I ascribe the unaccountable positions of these two EO priests to their anti-Roman animus and their desire to distance themselves from Roman teaching in any way possible. Their attitudes were no different from those found among many present-day anti-Catholic fundamentalists or other Protestants.

Indeed, Rome is the center, and those who are not with her must be against her. This accounts for that unique “halo of hatred” that swirls around the Holy See.

Regards,
Joannes

rjs1:

Dear Fr Ambrose,
I must admit I am rather staggered by your comment re the Catholic and Orthodox position regarding abortion.
Some years ago when I was an increasingly disillusioned Anglican considering alternatives, I investigated the Orthodox Church very carefully. I personally consulted a Greek Orthodox priest and asked him many questions. I was shocked by his admission that the Orthodox Church does not absolutely ban abortion. In fact his statement almost matched the “modernist” church position that it’s not a good idea but sometimes may be necessary. Secondly I was shocked by his admission that the Orthodox Church permits divorce and remarriage up to THREE times for a person. He admitted that this was NOT in keeping with Our Lord’s teaching in Scripture but he said, “Human beings are weak so the church had to allow for that.” I also found the Orthodox Church to be riddled with ethnic infighting and almost completely uninterested in evangelisation.
After that I was pleased to find the Catholic Church and come home! For all the human faults of its members at least it is led by the successor of St Peter, whom Our Lord chose and to whom He gave the keys.

 

[GAssisi]

Dear Father,

NOW I see where you are coming from. You really believe that accepting the principle of invincible ignorance is a free ticket for anyone to believe what they want, and that believing that someone is invincibly ignorant is tantamount to letting them remain in that state. Well, as a matter of fact Father – as opposed to sensationalist opinions such as you have proposed - Vatican II specifically and clearly stated that DESPITE the fact of invincible ignorance, the Church is still obligated to preach the Gospel to those who are invincibly ignorant. In any case, you have not responded to even a single one of the points I have made with respect to invincible ignorance. Are snide comments about how “terrified” you are of the issue the only thing you can come up with? Your wittiness seems to be a mask for the gaping hole in your rhetoric?

Once again, Father, I invite you to stick to what you know – Orthodoxy – and stop criticizing things which you have consistently demonstrated to have very little or no knowledge about.

As an aside. Father you mentioned earlier that the Orthodox Church has always believed that animation began at the moment of conception. Can you please provide us with documentation?

Are you aware of the critical comments made by naysayers of Christian pro-lifers on Exodus 21:22-25? Whose side are you really on, Father? You seriously sound like one of those pro-abortion activists who will grab at any straw to be able to pretend that you have accomplished something against the pro-lifers. Others have already amply refuted your contention regarding the apparent patristic support for abortion. I thought I’d just add a biblical consideration into the stew.

BTW, have you not suggested in the past that if it was not for the English invasion of Ireland, Ireland would be Orthodox since so much of the Irish spirituality was more Greek than Latin? Do you admit then that these examples of Irish Saints means that Orthodoxy is not as pure as you propose?

God bless,

Greg

 

[GAssisi]

Just for clarification, impotence is an impediment to marriage, though sterility is not.

 

[Fr_Ambrose]

Contarini:

Are you telling me that the source raises no suspicion in you mind? When you find information provided by an unreliable source, you confirm it. That is just reasonable.

You are making the same mistake as Maccabees -assuming that because you dislike a website its owners must be falsifying history. I’ve always found that it never pays to underestimate the intelligence and the honesty of the enemy and I have pointed out already that the facts are accurate. I was wondering if anybody was going to make the attempt to check them out Apparently not.

So, here are the selfsame facts from a CATHOLIC website.

catholicculture.org/docs/doc_view.cfm?recnum=3361

I want to draw you to your attention that Fr Hardon is incorrect and merely pushing the party line when he says so emphatically that the old theory about the time of ensoulment/animation/quickening still did not make abortion acceptable to the early Church. In this matter he is either ignorant of history or misleading us because he wants to ignore any evidence which is contrary to modern Catholic teaching. So in some ways he is less reliable than the non-Catholic website.

The Irish Saints whose Lives I quoted obviously took the ensoulment-quickening-animation as a biological fact and this is what enabled them to perform early term terminations of pregnancies without any sense of commiting a sin.

People now find this too shocking to even consider but the historical record demonstrates that it was so. Attempts to deny it are wishful thinking and historical revisionism.

The early Western (Catholic) theory made a distinction between a quickened (animated) and unquickened (not yet animated and therefore abortable) foetus.

Please go back and read the extract from the Life of Saint Kieran. It speaks of him **“Not wishing the serpent’s seed to quicken -viperium semen animari nolens.” ** Saint Kieran did not believe he was causing the abortion of a live foetus. It had not yet “quickened” in his eyes and so it was not a sin for the Saint to bring about an abortion.

The East (the Orthodox) never accepted this Western (Catholic) teaching of the ensoulment/animation of a foetus and the permissibility of early term abortions. The Eastern Church taught consistently that abortion was murder from day one. We have for example the Canon of Saint Basil the Great (4th century). His canon was enshrined in an Ecumenical Council and it is still the first canon to be quoted by the Orthodox against abortion

“A woman who deliberately destroys a fetus is answerable for murder. And any fine distinction as to its being completely formed or unformed is not admissible among us.”

St. Basil the Great, *Three Canonical Letters *

 

[Maccabees]

Let’s see Father Hardon is guilty of pusing the party line and we shouldn’t beleive his commentary of the fathers becase he’s catholic.

But hey beleive the Canadian version of Palnned Parenthood?
Surely they are not pushing their party line and agenda and gee they are known experts on patristics they couldn’t have misinterpreted the early church fathers would they? I mean these people only participate in the greatest holoucst mankind has ever known they couldn’t possibly lie?

Who could possibly know more about the western church fathers well respected priest and theologian or an abortion mill?

Next thing we are going to get the abortion mill’s commentary on Matthew 16"18 oh well they abortion mill denies the papacy ergo you should too.

Those are not catholic saints those are Celtic fairytales.

 

[Fr_Ambrose]

) Thanks for your recognition that the “Celtic Church” was indeed Catholic, that is, in union with Rome. On at least one “Western Orthodox” website I have visited I have seen your confreres claiming that these Irish saints were “Orthodox”, and many Anglicans and Protestants also insist that they were not in union with Rome. You however, wisely admit this, so I say “Thank you.”

At the time of the Irish Church the Western world was within the boundaries of the Una Sancta -East and West were united- so it is historically accurate to speak of Ireland at that time as being both Orthodox and Catholic. It was the same thing. The Irish held the same faith and said the same Creed (without the filioque) in the 7th century as the Patriarch of Jerusalem and the Patriarch of Constantinople, and the Pope of Rome held the same faith and professed the same Creed as everybody else.

(2) Your examples bring to mind not only the deficiencies in hagiographical writing, but also the obvious problems with local or national canonization of saints.

I think that you have misunderstood. The examples from the Lives of the Irish Saints are secondary evidence of an attitude to early term abortion which existed across the board in the Western Church and was taught by the Popes and even placed into canon law.

If there are deficencies it is that it is now considered expedient to hush these things up and act as if it were never so.

 

[Fr_Ambrose]

Warning! Warning!

Thread Hijacked!

Shall we let the thread return to the “Anglicans to Rome” discussion.

We could re-animate one of the older threads on abortion?