I don’t want to derail this thread any further, but a few comments are worth responding to if only to lovingly highlight some of the beautiful commonalities in the Apostolic East and West, and address some possible sources of difficulty.
Jimmy wrote:
I think the concept of ‘the fools for Christ’ is a sign of a different understanding. Was it St. Sophronius who supposedly paraded through town naked so that people would think he was a drunk?
I strongly,
strongly recommend reading about the life of St. Francis of Assisi. Forget the hagiographies, start with G.K. Chesterton’s biography of St. Francis. The West not only has a concept of “fools for Christ”, it actually founded a
religious order on the very idea. There have been changes and variations throughout history, especially in the Franciscan Order, but the origins are entirely “fools for Christ”.
That said, I first started studying theology from a Latin perspective of a rather traditionalist leaning.
Depending on what you mean by “traditionalist”, this might be the source of your problem!
Much of what passes as “traditionalism” in the U.S. , in my opinion, is actually a survival (or at least a surviving influence) of a strain of heretical Calvinistic Catholicism known as Jansenism. In the U.S. it is especially associated with the Irish, who inherited the Jansenist heresy in French seminaries (they weren’t allowed to be trained in Ireland, under English rule), and brought it to the U.S. and other Irish-immigrant hotspots. Such “traditionalism” is often marked by a harsh and highly critical understanding of human nature and failing, and an emphasis on sin over Grace.
A healthy antitodote to such an understanding is reading the ACTUAL traditional Latin theologians, especially the Medieval and post-Medieval Doctors of the Church, such as St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Theresa of Avila. St. Thomas might be difficult to understand without proper training in Thomistic terminology (which is often VERY different from our modern English use of terms), but St. Theresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross (and the poetry of St. Francis) are easy to understand even when translated to modern English.
Having read these types on their own, before being exposed to “traditionalist Latins”, I could barely comprehend the latter in most cases. As I’m sure Mardukm can relate, I found very little inconsitancy in fundamental Latin tradition, from the time of the Fathers (East and West) up through the modern age, though I’ve certainly seen eras where errors were particularily popular.
Peace and God bless!
We were at odds at the time. I seem to be agreeing with him these days on a lot of things though.
It’s really hard to go to confession and confess when your priest makes excuses to YOU about why sometimes birth control is ok. He says he isn’t telling me to use it or that it’s ok because it technically isn’t…BUT… sometimes it’s the lesser of two evils kind of situation.
Is there a doubly red-cheeked version?