Do you support union of Catholic and Orthodox Churches?

[sidbrown]

The pope said use of condoms when there was no contraception taking place ex: males prostitutes.

I don;t think this is true since Father Lombardi says it also refers to female prostitutes.

 

[ddarko]

I am simply amused by your immediate assumption that he was Orthodox, plus your apparent inability to admit your error, instead trying to shift the onus back to me.
Your attitude reminds me of Bishop John Ireland, who was instrumental in converting thousands of Catholics to Orthodoxy, all the while remaining a staunch Roman Catholic himself. Who knows how many you have already set on the path to Holy Orthodoxy.

May God bless your ministry as much as He blessed that of Bishop Ireland.

lol… you are quiet the amusing character I must say.

So there is no defense offered by you in the favor of your erroneous position as an Orthodox. You fail to see that the orthodox position goes against Christ’s word. People go after half baked truths all the time. The Protestant church is a prime example of it. So I really don’t see how this conversion business shows anything

Then you are stuck on ‘my inability to admit my error on’ thinking someone was Orthodox. Do you even know the topic of debate here?

The debate that we are having here is not whether the person X is Orthodox or not. It is about the Orthodox position on marriage, divorce and remarriage. Your insistence to make it about such an irrelevant topic and divert attention speaks volumes of your ability to defend your position. If any Catholic who sees this debate converts to Orthodoxy as a result, well… can’t really say much about his intelligence level then .

In short, please present something ON TOPIC of what we are discussing here. Whether the person is Orthodox, Protestant is irrelevant to me and all I care about is the position they stand for. I can change my religion on my profile to Orthodox but that really doesn’t mean much does it? So yes, if you quit worrying about these irrelevant issues, maybe you might see how incorrect your Orthodox position on this issue is.

God Bless

 

[ddarko]

This is not true, really, because Joseph Patrick Kennedy got a marriage annulment from his wife even though he was married to her and there was a Sacramental marriage to begin with.

?? How do you know that he had a sacramental marriage? Did you look up his annulment file? If you did, all it shows is that someone in the Roman Court did not follow the Church’s teaching. Dissident Catholics are not much of a new news.

So in short, I really fail to see your point. The Catholic Teaching on Marriage is VERY clear and logically consistent with Jesus’s teachings. On the other hand, the Orthodox are trying to change the nature of marriage to accommodate their “Human condition”. That is the problem.

God Bless

 

[ddarko]

I don;t think this is true since Father Lombardi says it also refers to female prostitutes.

Yes it does. So why does this bother you?

If you are thinking it’s something new, the answer is no. This has always been the Catholic position.

In summary:-

1. Contraception inside of marriage is MORALLY WRONG.
2. Pre-marital and extra-marital sex is MORALLY WRONG regardless of whether you wear a condom or not.

As I too came to realize, (2) makes using a Condom or not using one irrelevant. The reason why people seem to think that (2) in some way creates a loop hole is because they’ve gotten so used to sex outside of marriage. It just doesn’t feel that grave anymore.

So in short, if you wear a Condom while prostituting (if there is such a word), it does not make it any less moral. But anyways, this is not the topic of this thread. There are two dedicated threads for this topic that I know of and I ask you to check them out.

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=514325

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=514226

I will not discuss this topic on Condoms any further on this thread since this will be totally irrelevant to what I am discussing here as of now. But if you are interested to talk more about that, post on the above two threads.

As an aside, though it says you are “Catholic” you seem to be have an incorrect understanding of Catholic Teachings when it comes to Annulments. You seem to also think that what majority of Catholics DO is the what the Church tells them is RIGHT. That is obviously false in case you did not know. The Catholic church is not a democracy.

God Bless

 

[sidbrown]

?? How do you know that he had a sacramental marriage?

Because the Vatican said so.

 

[Ghosty]

Because the Vatican said so.

A better description of the events:

The Boston Archdiocese granted the annulment, but Kennedy’s ex-wife appealed to the Roman Rota which overturned the annulment. The annulment was not granted AFTER the Roman ruling, obviously, and annulments are not infallible actions at any rate.

Peace and God bless!

 

[ddarko]

A better description of the events:

The Boston Archdiocese granted the annulment, but Kennedy’s ex-wife appealed to the Roman Rota which overturned the annulment. The annulment was not granted AFTER the Roman ruling, obviously, and annulments are not infallible actions at any rate.

Peace and God bless!

Thanks Ghosty. Hope that clears your question up Sid.

God Bless

 

[butch3510]

I believe that vatican has the last word if a union would took place between the Catholic and the Orthodox Church. Seriously i have yet to see an Orthodox Church in my country.

 

[pipper]

It just depends on where you live. In my small (9,000) town there is an Orthodox church.

 

[ddarko]

It just depends on where you live. In my small (9,000) town there is an Orthodox church.

People, lets not get side tracked here. Butch was probably saying, for him, it really didn’t matter if they united or not since he never comes across Orthodox in his daily lives. This is quiet understandable. If you never came across Protestant or Atheist friends everyday, it really doesn’t become much of an issue that they exist.

So considering the fact that the Orthodox church is almost non-existent in some parts of the world (definitely in the part of the world I originally come from), it should come as no surprise that people don’t care as much. Let’s face it, the amount of Orthodox followers are not that much.

In fact, at this point someone could make the very valid argument that the Catholic church will be better off trying re-evangelize it’s own followers than try to unite with another relatively small church. The amount of dissident Roman Catholics are probably much larger than the number of true Orthodox followers.

But this problem aside, I am awaiting a solid defence as to how the Orthodox church can allow Divorce and Remarriage, contrary to the words of Christ. If the Orthodox are to ever unite with the Catholic Church, that defect has to be fixed. Oh and also the stance on Birth Control should be fixed.

God Bless

 

[Triciacat]

But this problem aside, I am awaiting a solid defence as to how the Orthodox church can allow Divorce and Remarriage, contrary to the words of Christ.

Try to get the log out of your eye first, or you will understand nothing. Here is a comparison:

1. Orthodox church shows compassion and grants divorce, rather than allow a person to forfeit his eternal life, because it realizes that man sometimes cannot attain Christ-like perfection concerning His request (not command) to stay married. Catholic church grants divorce in the form of an annulment by denying the marriage even exists–the problem will go away because we have arranged it so that there isn’t a problem in the first place.
2. Orthodox church limits number of subsequent marriages, which, by the way, are penitent in nature rather than celebratory. Catholic chuch, by denying a marriage even exists, allows unlimited marriages and divorces/annulments (whatever you want to call it) --no sins committed.

In short, the annulment process is, and I quote another Catholic on this forum, a glorified “escape hatch.” It skirts the issue of divorce by insisting there never was a marriage in the first place–no marriage, no divorce needed. Brilliant, actually! So, to sum up, both our churches allow divorce and remarriage, whether you want to admit it or not, with the Orthodox church at least admitting the dissolution of a marriage is a sin, making no excuses as to reasons why the marriage doesn’t actually exist, and limiting subsequent marriages. Not so with the Catholic church. So, on this matter, we are somewhat united already. If anything, the Catholic church could benefit by adopting more godly marriage/divorce doctrines.

 

[Ghosty]

the Orthodox church at least admitting the dissolution of a marriage is a sin and limiting subsequent marriages.

But divorce isn’t the sin. Remarriage is specifically stated as the sin.

What you seem to be saying is that there is no need to even justify this activity, despite it being explicitely forbidden in Scripture.

The Roman tradition is based off the fact that marriages can be improperly contracted; that is the real foundation of annulments. The process is indeed abused today, but the fundamentals are quite sound. I see no justification whatsoever for the notion that one can go against the explicit directions of Christ Himself.

Peace and God bless!

 

[ddarko]

Try to get the log out of your eye first, or you will understand nothing.

Such emotional use of Christ’s word but you can’t seem to agree with him completely

Here is a comparison:

1. Orthodox church shows compassion and grants divorce, rather than allow a person to forfeit his eternal life, because it realizes that man sometimes cannot attain Christ-like perfection concerning His request (not command) to stay married. Catholic church grants divorce in the form of an annulment by denying the marriage even exists–the problem will go away because we have arranged it so that there isn’t a problem in the first place.

For your information, the Catholic church can’t GRANT an annulment to any marriage. It has to have been NULL in the first place. That is your first mistake.

Second, in the Orthodox case, any marriage can be given a Divorce because its some compassion based deal. Well I got news for you, CHRIST objected to dissolving a marriage bond. You can’t simply say it is an exception because people can’t attain perfection. What else are you willing to tolerate? How about same sex marriage? Some people just can’t attain Christ like perfection. So are you going to allow that?

So if you want to say ANY SINGLE thing as NOT ALLOWABLE in Orthodox practice, then you can’t be logically consistent and hold that “since they can’t attain Christ like perfection we grant divorce and remarriage”. Because if you say you grant one thing on that basis, then you have to grant EVERYTHING because they can’t attain Christ like perfection.

Therefore, your position of saying "people can’t attain Christ like perfection so lets grant … " is bogus. It’s a joke!!!

Even the early church fathers were against Divorce and remarriage. What is your Church thinking? More so, what are you thinking? You give me Christ’s words and then you end up defying his very commands.

1. Orthodox church limits number of subsequent marriages, which, by the way, are penitent in nature rather than celebratory. Catholic chuch, by denying a marriage even exists, allows unlimited marriages and divorces/annulments (whatever you want to call it) --no sins committed.

So how does this limitation work? How did they come up with the magic number ?

Once again, you do not understand the Catholic position. Annulments are granted if a marriage did not happen in the first place. They can’t be granted to any marriage in general.

In the Orthodox case, it is actually granting Divorce. So every person has the chance for 3 “Do overs”

In other simple terms, Catholic Theology is consistent with Christ. If a marriage never happened, then obviously there is no dissolving of a bond by an annulment.

In the Orthodox case, you do dissolve a bond. That is MORALLY WRONG because you are going against Christ’s words. How hard is it for you to comprehend?

In short, the annulment process is, and I quote another Catholic on this forum, a glorified “escape hatch.” It skirts the issue of divorce by insisting there never was a marriage in the first place–no marriage, no divorce needed. Brilliant, actually!

Hey, there are dissident Catholics and Orthodox. People abuse annulments. The church is trying its best. When a church like yours promotes that Divorce is tolerable, that doesn’t really help the dissident Catholics either. It just makes them feel justified in fooling the Roman court in to granting annulments. So good job on your church’s part to lead faithful astray

So, to sum up, both our churches allow divorce and remarriage, whether you want to admit it or not, with the Orthodox church at least admitting the dissolution of a marriage is a sin and limiting subsequent marriages. Not so with the Catholic church. So, on this matter, we are somewhat united already. If anything, the Catholic church could benefit by adopting more godly marriage/divorce doctrines.

NO, both our church’s do not.

If someone gets a divorce in our church and remarries, they get excommunicated. That is how much we respect the words of Christ.

Your church on the other hand… well it can’t even stay TRULY ORTHODOX by adhering to church fathers and Tradition on this matter.

So no, we are not in communion with each other on this matter AT ALL.

God Bless

 

[Triciacat]

But divorce isn’t the sin. Remarriage is specifically stated as the sin.

The Roman tradition is based off the fact that marriages can be improperly contracted; that is the real foundation of annulments. The process is indeed abused today, but the fundamentals are quite sound. I see no justification whatsoever for the notion that one can go against the explicit directions of Christ Himself.

Peace and God bless!

I fully understand that the Catholic church tries to find reasons why the marriage shouldn’t have occurred and so grants an annulment, and that is the basis of my position. As if Orthodox couples don’t have the same reasons or issues??? Nevertheless, the Orthodox church admits there is a marriage, that there is inherent risk to the individuals to stay in the union, then deals with the fallout in as compassionate a manner as possible. I’m sure many Orthodox marriages could be construed as improperly contracted as well, but the Orthodox church doesn’t deny they exist! And Catholics are allowed to remarry, too–far more times than Orthodox Christians!

 

[ddarko]

I fully understand that the Catholic church tries to find reasons why the marriage shouldn’t have occurred and so grants an annulment, and that is the basis of my position. As if Orthodox couples don’t have the same reasons or issues??? Nevertheless, the Orthodox church admits there is a marriage, that there is inherent risk to the individuals to stay in the union, then deals with the fallout in as compassionate a manner as possible. I’m sure many Orthodox marriages could be construed as improperly contracted as well, but the Orthodox church doesn’t deny they exist! And Catholics are allowed to remarry, too–far more times than Orthodox Christians!

Catholics grant annulments when the marriage was Null. That is the ONLY ISSUE. If the marriage has issues BUT the marriage was true, the Roman Catholic Church DOES not grant annulments.

I wish I could say the same about the Orthodox :dts:

So get your facts right

God Bless

 

[Ghosty]

As if Orthodox couples don’t have the same reasons or issues??? Nevertheless, the Orthodox church admits there is a marriage, that there is inherent risk to the individuals to stay in the union, then deals with the fallout in as compassionate a manner as possible.

Again, this is not about divorce, this is about remarriage. Nobody is suggesting that people should remain in a dangerous marriage. The Catholic Church allows divorce without annulment, in fact, but one can’t marry without an annulment. A divorce and an annulment are two completely different and seperate things.

If the Orthodox Church a) recognizes that there is indeed a marriage, and b) allows a second marriage, then how can you say that the people are not committing adultery?

Judaism, for example, allowed for divorce and remarriage, but both Christ and Paul called such remarriage adultery. If divorce and remarriage was perfectly ok, why did Christ speak so adamantly against it to the Jewish audience of his time, especially when it was perfectly legitimate under Jewish law?

There is a lot of talk about being compassionate, but where was Christ’s compassion when He said these people were adulterers? We could take this further and apply it to other sins as well. Do we permit things that we explicitely called sins by Christ Himself to continue, as if we are being compassionate by allowing them?

It just seems very absurd and backwards, and I say this as an Eastern person myself. This is perhaps the one area where I think the Eastern practice is unfounded and against God.

Peace and God bless!

 

[Triciacat]

Such emotional use of Christ’s word but you can’t seem to agree with him completely

For your information, the Catholic church can’t GRANT an annulment to any marriage. It has to have been NULL in the first place. That is your first mistake.

Semantics. The church does the paperwork to say a marriage didn’t exist. The marriage did indeed happen. Maybe it shouldn’t have, but it did.

Second, in the Orthodox case, any marriage can be given a Divorce because its some compassion based deal. Well I got news for you, CHRIST objected to dissolving a marriage bond. You can’t simply say it is an exception because people can’t attain perfection. What else are you willing to tolerate? How about same sex marriage? Some people just can’t attain Christ like perfection. So are you going to allow that?

So if you want to say ANY SINGLE thing as NOT ALLOWABLE in Orthodox practice, then you can’t be logically consistent and hold that “since they can’t attain Christ like perfection we grant divorce and remarriage”. Because if you say you grant one thing on that basis, then you have to grant EVERYTHING because they can’t attain Christ like perfection.

No so. This is the doctrine concerning marriage and divorce, not murder!

Therefore, your position of saying "people can’t attain Christ like perfection so lets grant … " is bogus. It’s a joke!!!

The loss of one’s eternal life is most definitely not a joke. The church recognizes the danger inherent in staying in an unhealthy union.

Even the early church fathers were against Divorce and remarriage. What is your Church thinking? More so, what are you thinking? You give me Christ’s words and then you end up defying his very commands.

So how does this limitation work? How did they come up with the magic number ?

Honestly, I’m not sure. I will have to research that.

Once again, you do not understand the Catholic position. Annulments are granted if a marriage did not happen in the first place. They can’t be granted to any marriage in general.

And that is ridiculous. The marriage did, indeed, happen.

In the Orthodox case, it is actually granting Divorce. So every person has the chance for 3 “Do overs”

In other simple terms, Catholic Theology is consistent with Christ. If a marriage never happened, then obviously there is no dissolving of a bond by an annulment.

The Catholic church says it didn’t happen so they don’t have to deal with the divorce issue.

In the Orthodox case, you do dissolve a bond. That is MORALLY WRONG because you are going against Christ’s words. How hard is it for you to comprehend?

The church recognizes it as a sin, yes.

Hey, there are dissident Catholics and Orthodox. People abuse annulments. The church is trying its best.

When a church like yours promotes that Divorce is tolerable, that doesn’t really help the dissident Catholics either. It just makes them feel justified in fooling the Roman court in to granting annulments. So good job on your church’s part to lead faithful astray

Haha! I really don’t think that a Catholic trying to get an annulment gets one because the Catholic church was “fooled.” And I also don’t think a Catholic trying to get an annulment is secretly thinking it’s all because the Orthodox church doesn’t make pretenses about the lack of existence of a marriage.

NO, both our church’s do not.

If someone gets a divorce in our church and remarries, they get excommunicated. That is how much we respect the words of Christ.

Wow. How compassionate. And did Christ punt you out of eternal life because** you **sinned?

Your church on the other hand… well it can’t even stay TRULY ORTHODOX by adhering to church fathers and Tradition on this matter.

So no, we are not in communion with each other on this matter AT ALL.

God Bless

 

[ddarko]

Triciacat:
Woah, TriciaCat can you fix your post please? I would love to reply but it’s gonna take a lot more work the way you’ve posted it

God Bless

 

[ddarko]

Alright Triciacat lets start fresh.

First, lets get this annulment business out of the way. Annulment and divorce are two different things. When you say “marriage did indeed happen”, well if it did, then no annulment can be granted. So an annulment is granted in situations similar to as an example where the other spouse might have been below the age of consent, or the other spouse was a non-Catholic. In those cases, there is no sacramental marriage and it is simply recognized. This process of recognition is the annulment.

Now I will agree with you wholeheartedly that people do abuse this process. But neither me nor you or the Church can stop that from happening just as much as we can’t stop people from abusing the sacrament of penance. Some people just sin thinking they are going to be forgiven. So just as in that case, it is the responsibility of the participants to respect the truth. The church’s duty is to make the theological position clear. In the case of the Catholic Church, it has done that and there is no incompatibility with Christ’s teachings, Church father’s teachings or that of the theology of marriage.

So thats that issue.

Secondly, I understand your Orthodox view as something of a concession because the person can’t attain Christ like perfection.

Now I can only see this as valid only in Confession. In the case of a marriage, to get a divorce is the SIN. That is something the person should confess his sin and then go back and try to work it out with his spouse. Not just forget her and go for another.

The problem with allowing a SIN as a concession is that then the whole system of morality collapses. Because what prevents someone from asking the right to same sex marriage as a concession? If you can apply this concept to marriage, divorce and remarriage, why can’t you do it for same sex marriages?

Now the answer from the Orthodox or any Catholics is to say, same sex marriage is contrary to the nature of marriage. Now this word “nature” here is the key point. As Christ has revealed to us, marriage is un-dissolvable by it’s nature. So to dissolve it is also to go agains the “Nature” of marriage.

It is one thing to forgive someone who has divorced. If that person has truly repented, he must abstain from marriage after that or try to get back with his former spouse if possible. Anything less shows a lack of repentance.

But to say that we should allow him to change the nature of marriage brings in to question anything else that you would call immoral using that basis that it is contrary to the nature of things.

So the risk in saying we can make a concession in the case of divorce and remarriage, while it looks noble and compassionate at first, is logically inconsistent with the position of the Orthodox church with rest of it’s teaching.

That is what I am trying to tell you.

Now I understand that you must be a firm Orthodox believer as I am Roman Catholic. So naturally you would love your church as much as I do mine and would want to defend it. But I humbly ask you, if you could, to look at just this issue in an unbiased manner.

I do respect the Orthodox Church apart from this issue on Marriage and birth control. I must say that in this case, the evidence does stack up against the Orthodox position of marriage.

God Bless

 

[sidbrown]

For your information, the Catholic church can’t GRANT an annulment to any marriage. It has to have been NULL in the first place.

I think that the counterexample to this is the Kennedy - Rauch case, where the Catholic tribunal granted a marriage annulment, but the marriage was Sacramentally valid in the first place.