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

[gurneyhalleck1]

I imagine so, jam, no doubt. I just can’t imagine some of the over-the-top antics, though. Stepping on a guy’s head? That sounds like a Republican campaign advisor thing to do! LOL…(reference to Rand Paul’s crony LOL)

Prayer for all bishops, especially cardinals, bishops, and the pope are huge, yes!

I agree. But, I have to imagine that they are under tremendous spiritual attack. We must pray for the Holy Father!

 

[jam070406]

I imagine so, jam, no doubt. I just can’t imagine some of the over-the-top antics, though. Stepping on a guy’s head? That sounds like a Republican campaign advisor thing to do! LOL…(reference to Rand Paul’s crony LOL)

Prayer for all bishops, especially cardinals, bishops, and the pope are huge, yes!

Yeah, I hear ya.

Btw, love the Iron Man pic.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

LOL…my son’s passion for Marvel characters (especially Iron Man!) and my own inner child that won’t die prompted me to put him up. If it’s not him, it’s Spiderman or Hulk or Avengers or the greatest—the X Men. I’m a 36 year old going on 12 LOL!

When the Avengers comes out in 2012 I’ll be in Vallhalla! LOL

My son, Luke, and I are Thor-bound this summer!

Yeah, I hear ya.

Btw, love the Iron Man pic.

 

[jam070406]

LOL…my son’s passion for Marvel characters (especially Iron Man!) and my own inner child that won’t die prompted me to put him up. If it’s not him, it’s Spiderman or Hulk or Avengers or the greatest—the X Men. I’m a 36 year old going on 12 LOL!

When the Avengers comes out in 2012 I’ll be in Vallhalla! LOL

My son, Luke, and I are Thor-bound this summer!

What guy doesn’t like Marvel Super Heroes!?
Yeah, just saw the preview for Thor.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

I know some people who are DC fans. I like Batman, GL is ok, but I grew up a Marvel fan muhself. I think what Marvel is doing moviewise since around 2001 is just spectacular!

GKC, the poster who is frequently on here but awol lately, knows Roy Thomas! The two are best buddies and break bread together all the time. I’m so envious. Thomas was a major Marvel guy for years, running the company and writing tons of stories for Hulk, X Men, Avengers, and many others.

What guy doesn’t like Marvel Super Heroes!?
Yeah, just saw the preview for Thor.

 

[Madaglan]

Originally Posted by gurneyhalleck: I don’t like the whole "popes can blow up the Pentagon

Sounds like a wacko Truther claim.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

I don’t believe that, mind you. I just hear people say stuff like that on other boards and it blows my mind? Of course that’s absurd, but that’s what I’m trying to point out. Truthers, birthers, what’s this world coming to?

Sounds like a wacko Truther claim.

 

[dzheremi]

Yes, I once had a person here on CAF not too long ago actually try to tell me (as a argument meant to somehow illustrate the reasonableness of Papal Infallibility) that the Pope could organize a gay pride parade at the Vatican and it would not damage his infallible teaching.

I…I don’t even know if that’s right or wrong in terms of strict Catholic teaching or apologetics, but I do know that it’s that kind of “faith” in the Pope that makes others (and has made me) look askance at this particular aspect of Roman Catholicism. It certainly doesn’t seem in keeping with the explanation of Papal infallibility I was told in RCIA. Following the Pope or any religious authority should never mean turning off your brain or your conscience. I would hope the Pope wouldn’t have that kind of obedience in mind, whether from the laity or from his brother bishops in the various churches that form the Roman communion.

 

[joe370]

Scott, I agree with every word you said!!! I get confused too. No doubt Satan and his minions have played a major role in this whole church debacle, which has plagued Jesus’ church in every century, and the fact that church and state during the whole investiture controversy, (struggle between the papacy and the secular rulers) - were intermingled for so long, certainly didn’t help matters. Often times, it was simply a case of secular despots deposing bishops, priests and abbots - and as far as those pedophiles masquerading as Jesus’ ministers, well, you know how I feel about that, and all that does is drive people away from Jesus’ church, as it almost did me, but I knew, in the end, if I left, I was leaving Jesus and His church, so I stayed, picked up that cross of confusion and continued to follow Christ. Weeds and the wheat I guess…

Scott, I still can’t find where Lumen Gentium tells us to surrender our minds and intellect to the pope or the magisterial office, outside of faith and morals that is?

But my concern about such things is that we Catholics put so much stock in the popes’ actions. We are told in Lumen Gentium that we are supposed to surrender mind and intellect to the pope even when they are NOT speaking ex cathedra. I don’t like seeing popes behave this way. One wonders why the Holy Spirit guides popes only to intellectual infallibility and not to better behavior. I’m not looking for impeccability but for God’s sake, stepping on people’s heads or necks to humiliate them and having mistresses and all this nonsense? I don’t like the whole “popes can blow up the Pentagon but no matter what they cannot err with theological or moral matters.” It seems that a tree should bear good fruit and that the charism should enter their hearts in a deeper way. If they all behaved like John Paul II morally and with such integrity, history might’ve been kinder to Catholicism. It was the “bad popes” that did so much to take away credibility. Credibility matters and it is key in healing wounds like the schism with the Orthodox. Ecumenism needs a strong element of credibility to make it work. Luckily the last couple of popes have it. But with these pedophilia scandals it does a lot to injur credibility with the public. I’d like to see Benedict start a Credibility 2011 marathon of trying to get clergy worldwide to regain being good examples…

 

[Fone_Bone_2001]

Actually, the history of the church does not show even Saint Peter with the kind of powers the bishop of Rome claims for himself.

There is no evidence that he assigned any of the other apostles their territories or zones of work.

There is no evidence of him declaring dogma ex cathedra, on his own authority. In fact the individuals who did exercise this liberty were heretics.

Good points, but they’re really not in tension with the Catholic Church’s teachings about the papacy. The fact is that the existence in the first century (and early second century?) of the office of “Apostle” means things did work differently in the early church. Recall that Catholic teaching is that revelation did not cease until the death of the last Apostle. The Magisterium’s job of safeguarding and interpreting divine revelation really hadn’t begun yet, because revelation was still ongoing.

Nor does it bother us that Saint Peter never defined anything ex cathedra. We have only two examples of the exercise of papal infallibility anyway (Pius IX in the 1850s and Pius XII in 1950); it is not commonly exercised.

All of the major theological questions were settled in council, as were the disciplinary questions which involved more than one Metropolitan See, sometimes over the objections of the bishops sitting in Rome.

Another good point, but again, one that I do not see as in conflict with Catholic teaching. Many Catholics thought after Vatican I that there would be no more councils because of the formal definition of papal infallibility.

Needless to say, they were wrong. Not only did we get the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, but that ecumenical council even reinforced the notion of episcopal collegiality. While we do believe that the pope is the Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, there never has been any age in Church history when he actually micromanaged everything.

Franchises are not controlled fully by the corporate headquarters. Just as every Archdiocese isn’t controlled hands-on by the Pope. The Pope isn’t a micro-manager.

Precisely.

I merely am pointing out that the “dictatorship” term is goofy and a more accurate one would be a monarchy with Christ our King and the Pope his vizier. We are governed by a Lord and His Chief apostle gives us our marching orders That’s the Catholic view.

I very much like your “King vs. vizier” analogy. In light of how Matt. 16:18-19 is a reference to Isaiah 22:22, I would be even more precise: Christ is our King, and the pope is his “prime minister.”

I agree with you entirely here, in that oftentimes Orthodox oversimplify Catholicism and attack it, which basically qualifies as a strawman. However, I’ve seen the same done the other way around by Catholics to Orthodox, particularly in one of Jimmy Akin’s articles (the title runs something like, "Why I’m not Eastern Orthodox.) It’s a sin that both sides commit; we can be absorbed in our own tradition and simply brush off other methods of expression found in other traditions.

I agree with you as well. That kind of behavior from the Catholic side really makes me cringe.

LOL! I agree. To be honest, as a Catholic-Orthodox fence-sitter, I don’t find the Roman Catholic doctrine of Purgatory odd at all. I may take issue with some of the imagery being used (cleansing fire) but I don’t exactly know what’s gonna happen to me once I get there. I do, however, find it odd how indulgences are practically given a commercialist aspect; Pope Benedict XV basically advertising that devoutly kissing your Brown Scapular gets you 500 days off in Purgatory sounds “gimmicky” to me, but then again, so do the promises of the Brown Scapular in general. Our salvation isn’t guaranteed, and having a prayer rule or a Benedictine rule or anything spiritually-developmental is good, but I just don’t see the need to have promises such as a Sabbatine Privilege attached to anything; bettering ourselves spiritually and moving further along the path to God should be enough motivation, in my book.

I agree completely. Sounds like we tend to think alike.

And you really hit the nail on the head with your division between some particular manifestations of the Latin practice of indulgences and the idea itself of purification after death. I feel for some reason like too many Orthodox act like agreeing with purgatory would mean that they would have to start handing out indulgences, and exactly as the Latin tradition does, and start believing in the brown scapular, etc. Obviously those particular manifestations of the doctrine are in no way necessary, and given how little there is in authoritative Catholic teaching on purgatory, I feel genuinely frustrated that the Orthodox don’t seem to acknowledge that the fact that they pray for the dead in some contexts would be enough for the Catholic Church not to bother them on that matter.

I’ve never seen that take on it before. Very interesting.

Thanks. That’s been my genuine impression of each church’s perspective: that the Orthodox Church presents itself the way the Latin Church presented itself pre-Vatican II.

Ahh, polemics. Makes everyone’s brains go out the window; especially the brains of those launching them!

True at least of me, probably!

 

[Fone_Bone_2001]

I suppose I’m having trouble grasping what you’re getting at. Does it have to do with Peter representing Jesus on earth? If so, that leads me to another question: Why do we need someone to be a “representative” for Christ, when we all have the image of God in us and we are all part of the Body of Christ? I hope you don’t find my questions bothersome; I just want to know exactly for what reasons Catholicism elevates the Pope so. he is the first among equals and he is the head of the See where Peter and Paul were martyred, and he occupies the last See founded by Peter; I understand all that.

No, I wasn’t really trying to get at the concept itself like that. I was trying to express two ideas that have retained their hold on my intellect:

(a) That I find it unproblematic to say both that - as the New Testament clearly teaches - Christ is the Church’s Cornerstone, and that our Lord was referring to Peter (“Petros”/“Cephas”/“Rock”) when He said, “Upon this rock I will build my church.” I feel that the same nuance that makes room for the Incarnation itself and that - rightfully! - justifies the nuances of Orthodox ecclesiology, also makes a juxtaposition of “Christ-as-Cornerstone” with “Peter-as-Rock” truly unproblematic… unless we succumb to rationalism, and I truly do not think that the western intellectual tradition or scholasticism is or must be rationalistic.

(b) That I have always been genuinely confused how Peter could possibly not be “the rock” in Matt. 16:18. When I was younger, I read much Catholic-Protestant dialogue on this one, and I really came away convinced that Peter is “the rock.” I read all about Greek and Aramaic, Petros vs. petra, the Old Testament allusion of “the keys to the kingdom” in Isaiah 22, etc.

I have not looked into Orthodox-Catholic dialogue/debate on the matter, but the thing I personally keep coming back to is that it would be, at best, really counterintuitive if Simon son of Jonah weren’t the rock, since that’s what the new name he receives (“Petros”/“Cephas”) literally means.

But I’m not a theologian, linguist, or historian, so I fully realize and acknowledge that I could be dead wrong. It’s just that last point that has always - at least up to this point - convinced me.

Admittedly, the history of Christianity in general is my weak point. I have much, much much yet to learn.

Me too!

I have never met a Melkite in my LIFE so I’ll have to ask folks on here or somewhere online.

I hope you get a chance to meet some Melkite Catholics soon. The ones I’ve met are wonderful and devout (there’s a Melkite parish in my city whose Liturgy I once attended: Holy Resurrection Melkite Catholic Church).

Yes, I once had a person here on CAF not too long ago actually try to tell me (as a argument meant to somehow illustrate the reasonableness of Papal Infallibility) that the Pope could organize a gay pride parade at the Vatican and it would not damage his infallible teaching.

That person was correct, dzheremi. Recall that papal infallibility ensures that the pope’s teaching is absolutely free from the possibility of error only when he solemnly, formally, and authoritatively pronounces as dogmatic and binding on the universal Church a matter of faith and morals.

While I think it’s beyond safe to say that no pope will ever “organize a gay pride parade” at the Vatican, papal infallibility in no way makes such an occurrence impossible.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

See my PM

Scott, I agree with every word you said!!! I get confused too. No doubt Satan and his minions have played a major role in this whole church debacle, which has plagued Jesus’ church in every century, and the fact that church and state during the whole investiture controversy, (struggle between the papacy and the secular rulers) - were intermingled for so long, certainly didn’t help matters. Often times, it was simply a case of secular despots deposing bishops, priests and abbots - and as far as those pedophiles masquerading as Jesus’ ministers, well, you know how I feel about that, and all that does is drive people away from Jesus’ church, as it almost did me, but I knew, in the end, if I left, I was leaving Jesus and His church, so I stayed, picked up that cross of confusion and continued to follow Christ. Weeds and the wheat I guess…

Scott, I still can’t find where Lumen Gentium tells us to surrender our minds and intellect to the pope or the magisterial office, outside of faith and morals that is?

 

[steve_b]

Amen, you find no disagreement here. All apostolic successors possess the keys to the kingdom of God, can forgive sins, oversee and administer the sacred sacraments or mysteries of God in your case, bind and loose.

The distinction is every Apostolic successor acts and moves as an apostle within his domain. Just as the bishop of Rome, who is just bishop of Rome who is equal to all the apostolic successors world wide.

When and what sets the bishop of Rome apart as being first among equals, when he exercises the Keys from the authority of Peter’s Chair as Pope, when those powers and principalities from both secular and religious come against his brethren the other bishops, or faithful, it is from here Peter’s chair the head of the Church militant united with the body of Christ that the gates of hell cannot and will not prevail the body of Christ, his Catholic Church.

If this point has already been said in response, then disregard my remark.

The pope is NOT 1st among equals.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

Not from a Catholic point of view; that would be the Orthodox or Anglican approach

If this point has already been said in response, then disregard my remark.

The pope is NOT 1st among equals.

 

[dzheremi]

It’s a reasonable idea though, isn’t it? Can you at least see why they would argue that, even if you don’t agree with it yourselves? After all, James delivered the decree at the Council of Jerusalem, the oft-quoted (by Catholics and Orthodox) St. Iranaeus called Peter and Paul “the two most glorious apostles” in his “Against Heresies” (which is often quoted to assert RC claims of Roman supremacy, conveniently forgetting that since Iranaeus was a Latin bishop belonging to the Roman church, it would make sense that he would defer to it especially, as a Maronite to his church, a Melkite to his church, a Chaldean to his church, etc). And, of course, Jesus dealt with squabbles among His apostles a different way (in Luke 9), not by confirming any sort of supremacy but by teaching that the least among them will be the greatest.

I wouldn’t pretend that this settles the issue, but I think that there is more than enough debatable material and historical circumstance to make sure that this debate goes on basically forever. It is, at any rate, not patently obvious that one interpretation should win out above all others.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

To whom is this addressed, Jeremy? The OP or another poster?

It’s a reasonable idea though, isn’t it? Can you at least see why they would argue that, even if you don’t agree with it yourselves? After all, James delivered the decree at the Council of Jerusalem, the oft-quoted (by Catholics and Orthodox) St. Iranaeus called Peter and Paul “the two most glorious apostles” in his “Against Heresies” (which is often quoted to assert RC claims of Roman supremacy, conveniently forgetting that since Iranaeus was a Latin bishop belonging to the Roman church, it would make sense that he would defer to it especially, as a Maronite to his church, a Melkite to his church, a Chaldean to his church, etc). And, of course, Jesus dealt with squabbles among His apostles a different way (in Luke 9), not by confirming any sort of supremacy but by teaching that the least among them will be the greatest.

I wouldn’t pretend that this settles the issue, but I think that there is more than enough debatable material and historical circumstance to make sure that this debate goes on basically forever. It is, at any rate, not patently obvious that one interpretation should win out above all others.

 

[dzheremi]

I’m sorry. That was for Steve B (or I guess anyone else who might argue that the Pope is DEFINITELY not first among equals).

 

[Shiranui117]

If this point has already been said in response, then disregard my remark.

The pope is NOT 1st among equals.

Dzheremi pretty much hit the nail on the head. The Orthodox can argue against this as much as the Catholics can argue for it. You cannot say with certainty which side is right, going solely on history; if such was the case, then, as I’ve oft said before, and as many others before me have said, the schism would have not lasted so long or to such an extent.

 

[jam070406]

Dzheremi pretty much hit the nail on the head. The Orthodox can argue against this as much as the Catholics can argue for it. You cannot say with certainty which side is right, going solely on history; if such was the case, then, as I’ve oft said before, and as many others before me have said, the schism would have not lasted so long or to such an extent.

Call a council and let God sort it out!

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

Nah, just ask the pope to rule on it

Call a council and let God sort it out!