Maronite Might! - Vortex episode on Maronite Catholics

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#1 - he doesn’t know the difference between Rite and Church and used them interchangably. He said there are about 2 dozen Rites where in fact there are only 6. There are nearly 2 dozen Churches in the Catholic Church.

He’s simply not using Vatican II ecclesiology, but sticking with pre-Conciliar ecclesiology. Many people do this because Vatican II ecclesiology is confusing.

#2 - the Maronites did have a Liturgical reform

He didn’t say they didn’t.

#3 - he keeps railing against loss of Catholic identity in the Latin Rite, as if the Eastern Catholic Churches are not suffering a loss of their own identity through Latinizations. He speaks as if the Maronite Church were unchanged from their founding. Not true, even other Churches following other Rites among Eastern Catholics, there have been a lot of changes, mostly Latinizaitions. He says the Maronites have been spared from the abuses that have swept the Latin Rite Church. While in a sense this is true when you think about specific abuses, again every Eastern Rite has their own “abuses” that has resulted in a loss of our own identity.

Nothing but a bunch of assumptions on your part. What did Michael Voris say? He said that the huge loss of identity because of rampant liturgical abuses is not present in the Maronite churches. You are attacking your own mis-representation of what he meant.

#4 - he speaks as if Eastern parishes aren’t suffering a loss of membership of its members through secularization.

Again, an assumption on your part. This is entirely irrelevant. He is talking about Australia, where the amount of Maronites is increasing along with Mass attendance.

#5 - his play on numbers are misleading. Eastern parishes are generally small and therefore numbers can jump up significantly when talking about percentages.

Again, this has nothing to do with him being ‘wrong’. You’re simply making a generalization.

#6 - hasty generalizations. His sample size is the one parish he visited and he speaks as if it applies to the entire Maronite Church. It can be misleading. If he went to the Ukrainian Church and saw St Elias, he would think it is a young, vibrant and very traditional Church. But there are many parishes out there where it is heavily Latinized, not many young people, and only a handful of regular people are there every Sunday.

**The irony. Do you have any proof to back that accusation up? He doesn’t list his source on the video. You yourself have simply made another accusation against him based on an assumption. **

By the way, I watched the video again. It seems they fixed the >14% :D:D:D
Get off your prideful high-horse and be a little bit more humble.
 
And as far as you know isn’t far enough it seems. Yes, their Liturgy has been ripped apart in the last 50 years. They are one of the hardest hit of Latinizations of all the Eastern Churches.

stgeorgesa.org/explanation_of_the_maronite_divi.htm
I’ve been to Maronite Liturgy late Saturday afternoon a few times in the past four months. I must say that I found the experience to be underwhelming–it was too reminiscent of the Novus Ordo Mass when celebrated in a lukewarm parish. The Melkite Liturgies I’ve been to in the past couple months were far more impressive, and the Ukrainian ones I’ve attended in the same span of time were awe-inspiring.

May we pray for an end to latinization in Eastern Catholicism and a return of the magnificence in worship to Latin Catholicism: what God deserves in every church.
 
With all due respect, perhaps you should email RealCatholicTV to find out where they got their information, rather than just presume they’re wrong. I wouldn’t be surprised if many non-Lebanese Australians attend Maronite churches. Their liturgies, as far as I know, haven’t been ripped apart, changed and modernized like what the Latin Church has experienced in the past 50 years.
I shall endeavour to send Real Catholic TV an inquiry on this matter. That’s a good idea–you may be right that a lot of Latins have migrated to the Maronite parishes despite thee obscurity of the Eastern rites and the ethno-cultural specificity of the Maronite Lebanese.
 
I shall endeavour to send Real Catholic TV an inquiry on this matter. That’s a good idea–you may be right that a lot of Latins have migrated to the Maronite parishes despite thee obscurity of the Eastern rites and the ethno-cultural specificity of the Maronite Lebanese.
Be sure to keep us posted!
 
What do you mean by this cryptic comment?
It was in response to ImmaculataFides’ comment directly above it: “Their liturgies, as far as I know, haven’t been ripped apart, changed and modernized like what the Latin Church has experienced in the past 50 years.”
 
He’s simply not using Vatican II ecclesiology, but sticking with pre-Conciliar ecclesiology. Many people do this because Vatican II ecclesiology is confusing.
That is still wrong. He promotes his show as something that “uncovers the lies,” yet he teaches the wrong things. Rites and Churches are two different things. If he is endeavoring to better catechize Catholics, then he should do it the right way.
He didn’t say they didn’t.
Yes he did. Around 5:20 of the video here: youtube.com/watch?v=H1zTifPvFIY&feature=results_main&playnext=1&list=PL10B247C2380C29A3 he said that there are abuses in the West which results in the falling away of Catholics. Then he said, “this is NOT happening in the Maronite Church”. He continues to say that the Liturgy is unaffected by the abuses that have swept the Latin Rite.
Nothing but a bunch of assumptions on your part. What did Michael Voris say? He said that the huge loss of identity because of rampant liturgical abuses is not present in the Maronite churches. You are attacking your own mis-representation of what he meant.
But there are abuses in the Eastern Liturgy as well which results in our own loss of identity. That is my point and that is what Voris is misrepresenting.
Again, an assumption on your part. This is entirely irrelevant. He is talking about Australia, where the amount of Maronites is increasing along with Mass attendance.
Which is the misleading part in itself. Eastern Catholic parishes are few and far in between in the diaspora. For example, the Eparchy I belong to has 4 parishes in the same area where the RC Archdiocese is. The RC Arcdiocese has over 60 parishes in the same area and over 30 times the parishioners. If 20 more people attend our Liturgy on Sunday, it would constitute a big jump in our numbers. 20 people in an RC parish is a drop in the bucket.
Again, this has nothing to do with him being ‘wrong’. You’re simply making a generalization.
You’re right, it has nothing to do with being wrong. It has everything to do with being intentionally misleading.
The irony. Do you have any proof to back that accusation up? He doesn’t list his source on the video. You yourself have simply made another accusation against him based on an assumption.
Do you have proof to prove I am wrong? Thought so.
 
It was in response to ImmaculataFides’ comment directly above it: “Their liturgies, as far as I know, haven’t been ripped apart, changed and modernized like what the Latin Church has experienced in the past 50 years.”
Got it. 👍 Peace be with you.
 
That is still wrong. He promotes his show as something that “uncovers the lies,” yet he teaches the wrong things. Rites and Churches are two different things. If he is endeavoring to better catechize Catholics, then he should do it the right way.
Pre-Vatican II ecclesiology is not ‘wrong’. It’s simply different.
Yes he did. Around 5:20 of the video here: youtube.com/watch?v=H1zTifPvFIY&feature=results_main&playnext=1&list=PL10B247C2380C29A3 he said that there are abuses in the West which results in the falling away of Catholics. Then he said, “this is NOT happening in the Maronite Church”. He continues to say that the Liturgy is unaffected by the abuses that have swept the Latin Rite.
No, you claimed that he said that the Maronites didn’t have a “liturgical reform”. He’s talking about abuses. Two different things.
But there are abuses in the Eastern Liturgy as well which results in our own loss of identity. That is my point and that is what Voris is misrepresenting.
He didn’t say that there aren’t/weren’t abuses in the Eastern Liturgy. He said that the amount of abuses is far less in occurrence in comparison to the Latin Rite.
Which is the misleading part in itself. Eastern Catholic parishes are few and far in between in the diaspora. For example, the Eparchy I belong to has 4 parishes in the same area where the RC Archdiocese is. The RC Arcdiocese has over 60 parishes in the same area and over 30 times the parishioners. If 20 more people attend our Liturgy on Sunday, it would constitute a big jump in our numbers. 20 people in an RC parish is a drop in the bucket.
He said that it was a change in 10 years, in Australia. It has nothing to do with American dioceses.
You’re right, it has nothing to do with being wrong. It has everything to do with being intentionally misleading.
Another slander, accusing him of being ‘intentionally’ misleading. How would you know that? He is misleading in your opinion, which is based on your own generalization.
Do you have proof to prove I am wrong? Thought so.
It doesn’t work like that. Your argument is entirely based off of your own heated opinion of him and assumptions. You accuse his statistical data of being wrong, yet you don’t bring any evidence to back your opinions up; and we don’t even have his sources to analyse. You accuse him of being wrong because of his use of pre-conciliar terminology, and you accuse him further of being intentionally misleading. You’re simply trying to discredit him as much as possible out of antipathy.
 
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He’s simply not using Vatican II ecclesiology, but sticking with pre-Conciliar ecclesiology. Many people do this because Vatican II ecclesiology is confusing.
Pre-Vatican II ecclesiology is not ‘wrong’. It’s simply different.
Do you mean post-Vatican II ecclesiology is wrong and confusing then?

Maronites got reformed since their submision to Rome during the crusades, because they were monothelite heretics and schismatics:

Patriarch St. Germanus I of Constantinople (r. 715-730; †733) *PG 98:82 (Moosa 208 n. 55): “There are some heretics who, rejecting the Fifth and Sixth Councils, nevertheless contend against the Jacobites. The latter treat them as men without sense, because, while accepting the Fourth Council, they try to reject the next two. Such are the Maronites, whose monastery is situated in the very mountains of Syria.”

St. John of Damascus On the Trisagion Hymn 5: “We shall be following Maro, if we join the Crucifixion to our Trisagion.”

William of Tyre, On Holy War 20:8: “After they [the nation that had been converted, in the vicinity of Byblos] had for five hundred years adhered to the false teaching of an heresiarch named Maro, so that they took from him the name of Maronites, and, being separated from the true Church had been following their own peculiar liturgy [ab ecclesia fidelium sequestrati seorsim sacramenta conficerent sua], they came to the Patriarch of Antioch, Aymery, the third of the Latin patriarchs, and, having abjured their error, were, with their patriarch and some bishops, reunited to the true Church. They declared themselves ready to accept and observe the prescriptions of the Roman Church. There were more than 40,000 of them, occupying the whole region of the Lebanon, and they were of great use to the Latins in the war against the Saracens. The error of Maro and his adherents is and was, as may be read in the Sixth Council, that in Jesus Christ there was, and had been since the beginning only one will and one energy. And after their separation they had embraced still other pernicious doctrines.”

In 1059 Metropolitan Dawud did an Arabic translation of the Syriac Book of Direction, of which the 1402 Vatican manuscript 133 is the oldest copy.This Maronite book says, “Now if we hold this belief of Him, then, we do not anymore maintain that He is two persons, two Christs, two wills, or two actions (operations). Never! We believe that He is one Jesus Christ, the Son of God Who for us became man, one person with two rational essences, one will, and one operation.”

Pope Gregory XIII of Rome (1572-1585) in Anaissi, Bullarium Maronitarum 70-72 (Moosa 243 nn. 43-44) orders the Maronites to cease chanting, in the Trisagion, “phrases far from the truth and the faith held by the Church of Rome.”

Patriarch Dionysius Tal Mahri of Antioch (817-845) in Jacobite Patriarch Michael the Great’s(1166-1199) Chronicle 11:22, p. 476 (p. 511 in the French translation) (qtd. in Moosa 114 n. 11):

And the Maronites remained as they are today, consecrating for themselves a patriarch and bishops from their monastery. They are distinguished from the followers of Maximus for their belief in one will in Christ and for reciting the Trisagion with the phrase “Thou Who was crucified for us.” But they accept the Council of Chalcedon.

“John Marun” in Exposition of the Faith in Vatican MS 146, p. 31 (Moosa 165 n. 90): “When we say Father, Son, and Holy Ghost we proclaim three persons and confess them to be one essence. Likewise when we say divinity and humanity we in fact confess one person, one Son, one will, and one authority.”

“John Marun” calls “Severus of Antioch … a saint” in Vatican MS 146, p. 73 (Moosa 166 n. 96).

thebananarepublican.blogspot.fr/2010/08/maronites-were-not-always-catholic.html
thebananarepublican.blogspot.fr/2009/12/maronites-were-not-always-orthodox.html
The Maronites in History by Matti Moosa books.google.fr/books?id=8Ogp94y8CJgC&printsec=frontcover&hl=fr&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

So reform is simply maronite history.
 
Be sure to keep us posted!
Well, I sent RealCatholicTV an e-mail which read in part,

“We would… like to inquire about the ethnic background of those regularly attending Maronite liturgy. This information will clarify the real impact of the rise, noted by Michael Vorus, in the number of Australians that are making this Catholic rite a central part of their Christian journey.”

The response which arrived swiftly had the party who wrote the e-mail stating that RealCatholicTV lacked the statistics I sought, and giving me the contact information of the two Australian Maronite parishes in question so I could ask if they had the ethnic data themselves.

:confused:
 
St. John of Damascus On the Trisagion Hymn 5: “We shall be following Maro, if we join the Crucifixion to our Trisagion.”
As we do in the OO churches, following Peter the Fuller’s addition which is in line with our understanding of where the Trisagion comes from (Nicodemus said it while taking the body of Christ down from the cross). An example in English and Greek: Coptic Trisagion
“John Marun” calls “Severus of Antioch … a saint” in Vatican MS 146, p. 73 (Moosa 166 n. 96).
Hey, how about that! I knew there was a reason I always had a soft spot for the Maronites! 👍

I have read some EO sources that I remain skeptical about that placed their origin as some sort of subsection of the Syrian “Jacobites” (meaning OO, not Melkite, though that particular term seems to be more restricted these days to only the Indians, who of course aren’t Maronite). Things like the above snippets would seem to lend credence to that idea.
 
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