Does this article (obviously from an Eastern Orthodox perspective) accurately represent Catholicism?

[gurneyhalleck1]

I wasn’t aware that there was a tension between Melkites and Roman Latin Catholics? I quickly can admit that I have never even known a Melkite Catholic or even seen a Melkite Church anywhere in California in my travels but I always thought they were in communion and friendly to one another?

I can’t speak fo anybody else here, but I would say “Don’t worry about it.”

I personally have never enocuntered “RC prejudice” against us ECs----but then, I don’t attend RC church, either—I prefer the “Orthodox in Communion with Rome” community----maybe if I did, I would eventually (maybe) encounter some of that “prejudice.” Our priest also is an RC priest, if it matters-------so may be that contributes somewhat to our lack of “tension.”

I’ve heard some ECs talk about negative experiences they’ve had within the RC world but personally I’m not too worried about it.

So, again, don’t you worry about it.

I’ve “got your back.”

 

[jblake]

tomarin;:

Whoa, what? What nuances?

CCC gives the five second sound bite. The version that is going to be simple to understand, but misleading.

If the foetus can survive outside of the womb, then it has to delivered, either through a “natural delivery” or a caesarian section. No other option is permissible. If the foetus can not survive outside of the womb, then there are a number of stipulations, requirements and obligations that have to be met, before the Priest can give his approval of the abortion.

I think that under certain conditions, done without the knowledge, authorization, and consent of the woman, and the doctor provides a Catholic justification, the Priest can, but is not obligated to approve it post-op. {This is not unfair to the doctor. If that justification can not be provided, then the doctor is engaged in medical malpractice.}

Anencephaly: not permitted.

jonathon

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

Five second soundbite?

CCC gives the five second sound bite. The version that is going to be simple to understand, but misleading.

If the foetus can survive outside of the womb, then it has to delivered, either through a “natural delivery” or a caesarian section. No other option is permissible. If the foetus can not survive outside of the womb, then there are a number of stipulations, requirements and obligations that have to be met, before the Priest can give his approval of the abortion.

I think that under certain conditions, done without the knowledge, authorization, and consent of the woman, and the doctor provides a Catholic justification, the Priest can, but is not obligated to approve it post-op. {This is not unfair to the doctor. If that justification can not be provided, then the doctor is engaged in medical malpractice.}

Anencephaly: not permitted.

jonathon

 

[Hesychios]

Rites, churches, that’s fine. You can call them what they want but they are not “denominations” as some Eastern Orthodox like to call them.

It isn’t that ‘some’ Orthodox like to call them denominations.

Some Catholic (probably Belloc) tried to get away with calling Orthodox churches denominations to be antagonistic and demeaning [am I the only person here who noticed that?] and an Orthodox (I think Joseph) returned the favor. I think the point was made and we don’t need to belabor it any further. Neither Catholic churches nor Orthodox churches are denominations, the same rules apply.

They are in communion with Rome and share a common theology, morality, and pastoral leadership is ultimately the Pope.

You might be surprised at some of the distinctions that can be and have been made by eastern Catholics on your points.

 

[Hesychios]

Just out of curiosity, what terminology would you like them to use? I think it boils down to perspective. Orthodox are going to think it’s a colonial mindset …

This has nothing at all to do with me or what I would like, or even what Orthodox think (which is why I and at least one other have repeatedly said that it is not really appropriate for Orthodox to be telling Catholics about this - it is a Catholic to Catholic issue that has a lot to do with Vatican II and the CCEO as well as some decrees). You have to discuss that with eastern Catholics.

Why not start a thread in the EC section of CAF and find out?

Or you can go to Byzcath.org.

 

[Augustus24]

I just skimmed the article, as I am not in the least bit interested in debating, or considering joining the Orthodox faith, but there is an error I found:

“The Orthodox faithful receive both the “body” and “blood of Christ” in Holy Communion; Roman Catholics receive only the “bread,” a wafer.”

Every Roman Catholic Church I have ever had the privilege of attending offered faithful the body and blood. The wine is not denied to the faithful. Catholics can choose if they want the body or body and blood. Oh yeah, and we dont like to call it a “wafer”.

“Orthodox clergy wear beards; Papist clergy are generally beardless.”

First, who cares about the facial hair of clergymen, and second, most Catholics find the name “papist” to be derogatory, and offensive, is this priest purposely trying to offend Catholics?

And, I am also a former protestant. I was accepted into the Catholic Faith 3 years ago after checking out Orthodoxy, and Catholicism, and I would love to chat with you about your particular journey.

 

[ConstantineTG]

Then Metropolitan Bartholomew of Chalcedon makes one somewhat cryptic statement about abortion prior to his election as Ecumenical Patriarch and that is somehow proof that the Orthodox Church condones abortion? The bishop of Chalcedon, a diocese with just a handful of Orthodox, does not speak for the Orthodox Church. I would have thought that would go without saying.

The Orthodox Church condemns abortion and always has. One “gotcha” moment from one individual bishop of a largely vacant see doesn’t change that.

As to the statement that the Ecumenical Patriarch is the “head” of the Orthodox Church, it belies an ignorance of Orthodox ecclesiology. It is a very common mistake made by Western Christians.

The EP is not some kind of Orthodox pope. He has jurisdiction over approximately 4,000 Greeks in Istanbul. Outside of his own diocese he has no jurisdiction. He doesn’t even have jurisdiction over the other dioceses of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. The Church of Constantinople is governed by the Holy Synod with the EP sitting as primate. Major decisions are made in a conciliar manner and if asked to mediate in a dispute between other Churches those disputes are heard and decided by the Holy Synod.

This is my thoughts, that either he was misquoted or he didn’t make any statement at all. This reeks of the same stench as the Pope of Rome allowing the use of condoms. I guess people would hear what they want to hear.

 

[ConstantineTG]

I just skimmed the article, as I am not in the least bit interested in debating, or considering joining the Orthodox faith, but there is an error I found:

“The Orthodox faithful receive both the “body” and “blood of Christ” in Holy Communion; Roman Catholics receive only the “bread,” a wafer.”

Every Roman Catholic Church I have ever had the privilege of attending offered faithful the body and blood. The wine is not denied to the faithful. Catholics can choose if they want the body or body and blood. Oh yeah, and we dont like to call it a “wafer”.

“Orthodox clergy wear beards; Papist clergy are generally beardless.”

First, who cares about the facial hair of clergymen, and second, most Catholics find the name “papist” to be derogatory, and offensive, is this priest purposely trying to offend Catholics?

And, I am also a former protestant. I was accepted into the Catholic Faith 3 years ago after checking out Orthodoxy, and Catholicism, and I would love to chat with you about your particular journey.

A great number of RC parishes still do not offer the Precious Blood to the laity. Thats a fact. The beard thing, there is a good reason why one side has it, and the other doesn’t. It just calls for respect of tradition.

 

[dzheremi]

I remember talking to a friend of mine from the Boston area who was shocked when I told her that we received both the body and the blood at Mass in Oregon. “Oh…that would NEVER happen here! No way!” Until her, I was unaware that there were still some places where it was not regularly offered, so I thought she was nuts. I think this is one of those things where there is more variation than a lot of people recognize.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

You’re not the only one who noticed it. But I’m wondering why it was ok for Joseph to “return the favor.” It seems no one is taking the high road. Mudslinging all the way…over a thousand years since the schism and it’s no wonder the two are still cleaved in two…

What would I be surprised about regarding the distinctions I have made?

It isn’t that ‘some’ Orthodox like to call them denominations.

Some Catholic (probably Belloc) tried to get away with calling Orthodox churches denominations to be antagonistic and demeaning [am I the only person here who noticed that?] and an Orthodox (I think Joseph) returned the favor. I think the point was made and we don’t need to belabor it any further. Neither Catholic churches nor Orthodox churches are denominations, the same rules apply.
You might be surprised at some of the distinctions that can be and have been made by eastern Catholics on your points.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

I wouldn’t start a thread on it because honestly I’m just not interested in it. I’m really not interested in the various groups affiliated with Rome either. I don’t say that to imply that they’re second class citizens or unimportant. The reason I say it is in my area for hundreds of square miles there are no such churches. It’s pretty much Roman Latin Rite Catholic Church or Anglican or Lutherans, Protestants, and about an hour’s drive there is a Greek Orthodox and a Serbian Orthodox. If I were to drive an hour to Fresno I’d rather go to St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church where they hold the only Tridentine Latin Mass in the entire Valley. IMO that is more what I’d like to see spiritually than an Orthodox service. Orthodoxy just doesn’t grab me. And since the churches in communion with Rome just aren’t around here, it’s off my radar. I suppose if I lived on the East Coast or in a big city like San Francisco (go Giants!) I might be more inclined to wonder…

But I still don’t think the Church looks down on these churches as something to pinch their nose and “tolerate.” Doesn’t seem that way? But I don’t pretend to be an expert witness on this

This has nothing at all to do with me or what I would like, or even what Orthodox think (which is why I and at least one other have repeatedly said that it is not really appropriate for Orthodox to be telling Catholics about this - it is a Catholic to Catholic issue that has a lot to do with Vatican II and the CCEO as well as some decrees). You have to discuss that with eastern Catholics.

Why not start a thread in the EC section of CAF and find out?

Or you can go to Byzcath.org.

 

[steve_b]

You do realize that what the Patriarch said is roughly in accord with Catholic Canon law on abortion, don’t you. If you didn’t realize that, then you need to learn when the Catholic church does approve of abortion.

name the canon

 

[steve_b]

CCC gives the five second sound bite. The version that is going to be simple to understand, but misleading.

Here are all the entries for abortion in the CCC. What’s misleading?

ccc.scborromeo.org.master.com/texis/master/search/?sufs=0&q=abortion&xsubmit=Search&s=SS
j:

If the foetus can survive outside of the womb, then it has to delivered, either through a “natural delivery” or a caesarian section. No other option is permissible. If the foetus can not survive outside of the womb, then there are a number of stipulations, requirements and obligations that have to be met, before the Priest can give his approval of the abortion.

I think that under certain conditions, done without the knowledge, authorization, and consent of the woman, and the doctor provides a Catholic justification, the Priest can, but is not obligated to approve it post-op. {This is not unfair to the doctor. If that justification can not be provided, then the doctor is engaged in medical malpractice.}

Anencephaly: not permitted.

jonathon

Where’s the source of all this?

Can. 1398 A person who procures a completed abortion incurs a latae sententiae excommunication.

 

[steve_b]

Hello,

I’ve been reading this article as a way to help learn the different perspectives in trying to figure out whether if Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy is the true Church of Christ. While I think the Eastern Orthodox church makes some good points, I felt that I wanted to get a catholic perspective on this article:

Link:
ocf.org/OrthodoxPage/reading/ortho_cath.html

If you’re a catholic who is familiar with this issue, I would love to your help in seeing the catholic perspective on this article, and whether it represents Catholicism fairly.

God Bless

There’s alot to respond to from that article. Way more than just one post. So I’ll just start with the priest’s opening point.

:
1. Faith and Reason Following the Holy Fathers, Orthodoxy uses science and philosophy to defend and explain her Faith. Unlike Roman Catholicism, she does not build on the results of philosophy and science. The Church does not seek to reconcile faith and reason. She makes no effort to prove by logic or science what Christ gave His followers to believe. If physics or biology or chemistry or philosophy lends support to the teachings of the Church, she does not refuse them. However, Orthodoxy is not intimidated by man’s intellectual accomplishments. She does not bow to them and change the Christian Faith to make it consistent with the results of human thought and science.

• Use science and philosophy to defend and explain the faith, but don’t build on those results?
• Don’t seek to reconcile faith and reason? Is faith not reasonable?

Bp Ware wrote in his book “Orthodox Church” an explanation why EO attack scholastics. His explanation is that Islam has played a dominant role in the East, ergo a dominant role in EO ergo scholastics suffered greatly. Since Islam also took over Constantinople 600 years ago, and ecclesiastically it was at the pleasure of the sultan, that the EO patriarch was installed or deposed , this also had collateral damage for the EO.

Bp Ware writes

:

The Turkish occupation had two opposite effects upon the intellectual life of the Church: it
was the cause on the one hand of an immense conservatism and on the other of a certain west-
ernization. Orthodoxy under the Turks felt itself on the defensive. The great aim was survival .
to keep things going in hope of better days to come. The Greeks clung with miraculous tenacity
to the Christian civilization which they had taken over from Byzantium, but they had little oppor-
tunity to develop this civilization creatively. Intelligibly enough, they were usually content to
repeat accepted formulae, to entrench themselves in the positions which they had inherited from
the past. Greek thought underwent an ossification and a hardening which one cannot but regret;
yet conservatism had its advantages. In a dark and difficult period the Greeks did in faces main-
tain the Orthodox tradition substantially unimpaired. The Orthodox under Islam took as their
guide Paul.s words to Timothy: .Guard the deposit: keep safe what has been entrusted to you. (I
Timothy 6:20). Could they in the end have chosen a better motto?
Yet alongside this traditionalism there is another and contrary current in Orthodox theology
of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: the current of western infiltration. It was difficult for
the Orthodox under Ottoman rule to maintain a good standard of scholarship. Greeks who
wished for a higher education were obliged to travel to the non-Orthodox world, to Italy and
Germany, to Paris, and even as far as Oxford. Among the distinguished Greek theologians of the
Turkish period, a few were self-taught, but the overwhelming majority had been trained in the
west under Roman Catholic or Protestant masters.
intratext.com/IXT/ENG0804/__PH.HTM

Inspite of trying to put a good face on the problems the EO have under Islam, he acknowledges the EO shunned scholastics because Islam was in control.

Then Bp Ware also blames EO troubles on the West. Because EO prelates, sought an education they couldn’t get in the East, they came West and were infected with Westernizations. Blame everybody else for everything… Good grief!!!

Well, onto the author’s next point

 

[josephdaniel29]

You’re not the only one who noticed it. But I’m wondering why it was ok for Joseph to “return the favor.” It seems no one is taking the high road. Mudslinging all the way…over a thousand years since the schism and it’s no wonder the two are still cleaved in two…

What would I be surprised about regarding the distinctions I have made?

I was not “mudslinging”, I was using the same language he used to prove a point. Of course I know the various Catholic Churches are not denominations. They are in fact organized in an almost identical fashion to the Orthodox Church with individual primates and self governing synods. The Catholic Church even has areas with overlapping ethnic jurisdictions just like we do. My point is that it is no more appropriate to call the various Orthodox jurisdictions denominations that it is to call the various Catholic jurisdictions denominations.

 

[ConstantineTG]

This is false. Are those churches,for instance, in Mexico separate from Rome? The Catholic Churches in Mexico are not all about Mexico (nationalistic first,the church second) or in Poland and so on. They are not separate entities,they are all part of the one and the same church:Catholic.Different cultures and different nations has nothing to do with it at least with the Catholic Church.

Technically, every Archdiocese is a separate Church.

 

[GaryTaylor]

I remember talking to a friend of mine from the Boston area who was shocked when I told her that we received both the body and the blood at Mass in Oregon. “Oh…that would NEVER happen here! No way!” Until her, I was unaware that there were still some places where it was not regularly offered, so I thought she was nuts. I think this is one of those things where there is more variation than a lot of people recognize.

You know what I believe happens here. Its one of two things, there are many who really don’t care, and there are many who are going through the motions and don’t know.

Actually I was pretty surpized to hear how this works in different areas of the US also, let alone Europe.

I get the feeling with this it really comes down to the individual parishs speaking up and relating the message to the Arch Bishop. So when the majority is heard then it happens.

Personally I would rather remain quite and leave it at is. I prefer not to have the wine at mass. For the simple reason I don’t all these people, I’m trying to stay alive. While I know the Blood of Christ is in the Chalice, I simply don’t know where the mouths been.

Now if they want to let me go first every week? Let the change be plentiful I say.

God Bless, GT

 

[Hesychios]

Bp Ware wrote in his book “Orthodox Church” an explanation why EO attack scholastics.

Just by the text you quoted I can see that you are completely misreading him.

Inspite of trying to put a good face on the problems the EO have under Islam, he acknowledges the EO shunned scholastics because Islam was in control.

No, he doesn’t write that.

What he writes is that a higher education was difficult to get for Christians in that period, and many went west to further their educations. Thus it was a time of *the infiltration of western thought! *So if there was any period when scholasticism would have taken hold, it would have been at that time more than any other - during the Mulsim occupations when so many Greeks were traveling west.

Reread your own typing and see.

This was a cross-current to what would be the norm in eastern Christianity, a firm grasp of Patristics and a resistance to philosophically based innovations in theology. Infact, we do see this as a time of faltering, when some western innovations were borrowed into eastern Orthodoxy and had to be repudiated later. There was no time since the tenth century as that period under the Muslims when Orthodox were so open to western ideas, it even resulted in schism.

Scholasticism was well known in the east long before the Turks arrived. The city was conquered in 1451AD, the mid fifteenth century.

Scholasticism became a dominant factor in western thought (and a prime reason for Patristics to decline in the west) from about the late ninth century into the fourteenth or fifteeth century. So that’s a good 500 year period when scholasticism reigned supreme in the west and there was open and free commerce between the Roman empire and western Europe. There is even clear evidence that such great luminaries as Saint Gregory Palamas read Aquinas. But reading western thought and adopting it for oneself are two different things.

The Scholastic method was rejected as a tool for formulating theology long before the Muslims conquered, and to this day for the same reasons, and not only by Orthodox, but by a significant proportion of Greek Catholics as well … even up to the present day (which one can learn just by following some of the discussions in the EC section of CAF).

So then, when there is a shunning of scholasticism, it is not connected with the Muslims.

 

[Hesychios]

Technically, every Archdiocese is a separate Church.

Yes.

This is the historical reality. In the early church every Metropolitan See was separate - a Particular Church. It is odd that people have forgotten that fact.

Buried under all the canons that is still possible to detect, if one cares to learn about it.

 

[Belloc_Fan]

It isn’t that ‘some’ Orthodox like to call them denominations.

Some Catholic (probably Belloc) tried to get away with calling Orthodox churches denominations to be antagonistic and demeaning [am I the only person here who noticed that?] and an Orthodox (I think Joseph) returned the favor. I think the point was made and we don’t need to belabor it any further. Neither Catholic churches nor Orthodox churches are denominations, the same rules apply.
You might be surprised at some of the distinctions that can be and have been made by eastern Catholics on your points.

I actually hadn’t meant it to be antagonistic or demeaning. I was trying to distinguish between the relationship held by, say, ROCOR and the Russian Orthodox Church, and the relationship between the OCA and the Byzantines. The first one seemed parallel to the relationship between sui juris Churches with Catholicism; the second one seemed parallel to the relationship between, say, Calvinist Presbyterians and Calvinist Baptists (general agreement and mutual respect, but different leadership structures and some doctrinal differences). If that’s inaccurate, I apologize, but it wasn’t put forward in bad faith.

In any case, I admit that I came on too strong initially, and I apologize – my point really wasn’t to provoke or offend Orthodox, but to try and present the other side to the article the OP raised. Despite the differences which genuinely exist (and which I tried, unsuccessfully, to articulate), Orthodoxy is the nearest and dearest thing to Catholicism, so I think it’s nearly impossible to be fully Catholic without loving Orthodoxy.