The question, as you phrase it, presupposes that you are not bound by Magisterial authority to accept bindingly defined dogmas, that you may (or must) reject any element of such a dogma that does not fit your own theological tradition. This is the real problem.
There is no problem. The Church says there is no problem. The pope says there is no problem. Why are you insisting that there is a problem? I don’t get it? Why don’t you subject yourself to the teaching of the Church that there is no problem here? By saying there is a problem, you yourself do not accept the Magisterium who says there is no problem with the Eastern traditions.
What Magisterial teaching do you have exempting Eastern Catholics from the binding statements of the Extraordinary Magisterium after the seventh ecumenical council?
Aelred Minor, what is your purpose here?
My purpose is just to defend the authority of the Magisterium as a whole over the Church as a whole. If you want you can reread post #33, in which I wrote something about how I would see the implications of denying the universal teaching authority of the Popes and Ecumenical Councils.
Then you might consider posting in a forum other than this one, populated as it is by heretics and schismatics, as you seem to believe us to be.
As I said, you are enforcing and defending your own personal beliefs here. The Church herself have no problem with what we believe. Why are you making a fuss out of it? Do you think the Pope doesn’t know what we believe? No one is trying to play tricks on anyone here. You’re establishing your own personal crusade on a misguided notion. May Christ grant you peace of mind.
I suggest you Google the words "Immaculate Conception"Ukrainian Catholic", "Immaculate Conception"Maronite", "Immaculate Conception"Chaldean", etc. You may find that things are not quite the way you're hearing they are.I don’t know how you can make this statement in the context of what brother ConstantineTG has been saying.
This minutae, as you call it, is the whole point of the discussion.
I know exactly what he means, and it does not amount to a denial of the central Truth of the dogma of the IC.
Where did he say this, without qualification?
I think that would be a correct interpretation, but what is wrong with it?
I think that was a matter of miscommunication. I don’t think brother Constantine is denying the Truths proclaimed by the extraordinary Magisterium, and he has said as much elsewhere. I think all he is saying is that he is not bound to the theology/theological language of the Western Catholic Church in which those dogmas have been expressed. Do you find anything wrong with that?
I don’t find anything wrong with that, provided it is interpreted in the context of fidelity to the Magisterium itself. I think I’ve made it quite clear that my problem is not with the theology or theological language of the East, including the idea that Eastern belief is/already was substantially the same as what was infallibly defined by Pius IX. My problem is with the rejection of the authority of the Extraordinary Magisterium.
What is wrong with it is that Pope Pius IX explicitly bound “all the faithful” to the dogma, not only Western Catholics. Eastern Catholics may still frame it in different words, reflect on it from their own viewpoints, etc., but are not free to withold their assent from the dogma itself. I think in light of your other comments we are in agreement on this point.
It is theoretically possible that the last several Popes and those around them have been factually mistaken about what Eastern Catholics believe, but I don’t have any reason to suspect that is the case; indeed I’d find it extremely strange if it were. We do need to remember that, as this conversation itself has made clear, there is considerable diversity of opinion within the Eastern Catholic Churches, and so an acceptance of Eastern Christianity in general shouldn’t imply an endorsement of every sub-school of thought within it. It would also be realistic to remember the delicate nature of the ecumenical dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church right now, and how this can effect people’s words and actions.
NONE of the Catholic dogmas are absent from Sacred Tradition.
What you are missing here is that these dogmatic definitions are just outlines of beliefs that are already there. For example the Dogma of the Assumption wasn’t until 1950. It doesn’t mean that we never believed in the Assumption before that. The Dormition has been part of the Eastern tradition from the early days of the Church. So why do we need to be bound to something we already believe in? And indeed the Churches East and West has agreed that our beliefs do not contradict each other. So bound or not, our belief is already there. We refuse to have our beliefs redefined because its part of the Eastern praxis to put more weight on how the Church Fathers taught. But again its not like we do not already believe what is dogmatically defined. We just do not follow the definition word for word. There are differences in how we understand our faith with how the West understands her faith and we cannot accept a dogmatization of the West because it is based on Western theology. To accept that as is means to redefine our whole theology into Western theology. Then that would have systematically killed the entire Eastern tradition.
Again, I’m not denying that the Immaculate Conception is a revealed truth and a part of Sacred Tradition, nor that Eastern Christians have retained this Tradition. The Pope didn’t teach a new dogma, but an Apostolic one. On the other hand, this dogma had not been bindingly proclaimed before Ineffabilis Deus; thus in earlier centuries you had Catholics who honestly strived to be and believed themselves to be faithful, including Doctors of the Church, who explicitly denied the Immaculate Conception, some with regret and others with vehemence. Yet again, I’m not denying that the substance of this dogma has always been present in both the Eastern Church and the Western Church, but rather insisting on the universally binding nature of the proclamation of the doctrine by Pope Pius IX. The core issue here is not the Immaculate Conception itself, but Papal authority, and the authority of the Extraordinary Magisterium in general.
Concerning the fact that the Magisterium has only bindingly defined beliefs which were already present in the Church, we are agreed. The Magisterium is the authentic teacher and interpreter of Apostolic Tradition, not its inventor. Nevertheless, it’s role is very important as each new generation has the potential to misinterpret or misrepresent that Deposit of Faith, hence the need for a living interpreter with the authority even to bind the faithful to a belief which may have become controversial, as was the case with the Immaculate Conception. It is, for the umpteenth time, this authority I’m insisting on, not any supposed absence of the substance of a particular dogma in Eastern beliefs.