And yet the Roman Catholic Church allows its members to come to an Orthodox priest for confession and absolution. If no forgiveness of sins takes place why is this allowed?Err, I mean “there is neither salvation nor forgiveness of sins.” Sorry for the typo.
Oh come now, Fr. Ambrose, you cannot be serious in asking this question. The Catholic Church allows Catholics to make their confessions to Orthodox priests in certain rare circumstances, mostly in extremis, and of course it has long been understood that the ordinary obstacles of illicit administration of the sacraments do not apply in extremis, as Nicea I (canon 13) makes clear. It is precisely because forgiveness cannot be granted by schismatic priests that the Catholic Church forbids Her children to confess to Orthodox priests in ordinary circumstances (canon 844).
I knew that I could hope to see this answer from you, Grz!
Hey, no skin off my nose. If the bishop thinks that she cannot approach a Catholic priest, who am I to say otherwise? I hope, however, that you will grant that it is not beside the point that canon law only allows a Catholic to confess to an Orthodox priest if it is impossible for him or her to confess to a Catholic priest. This is hardly a new idea that came in with Vatican II. Bellarmine would have said as much. None of this, however, comes anywhere near to disproving my more central thesis, viz. that outside the Catholic Church there is no salvation.
Yes, there was within the framework of the now discarded teachings of Roman Catholicism in pre-Vatican II times a consistency which some still find compelling.
Wasn’t it an early contention in the Church that sinful and heretical priests and bishops could not perform valid sacraments? (I think the Monatists made this claim.) The Church decided that even sinful and schismatic priests could perform valid sacraments so long as they were validly ordained. Their personal holiness or lack thereof made no difference.
It was the Donatists. Interestingly the Orthodox do not believe that Catholic priests can validly perform a Sacrament and they do not believe the Catholic Eucharist is valid in any way.
Precisely. The power of the sacrament functions ex opere operato, as the saying goes. The personal holiness of the sacrament’s minister is irrelevant. This is just as true in the post-Vatican II Church as it was in the pre-Vatican II Church.
I thought the excommunication was only for disobedience not heresy, where can I read this thesis?
I was thinking of Stepinac.
I thinjk that the offical name of the Armenian Chruch is the “Armenian Apostolic Church”.
Ah, that makes more sense. Yes, John Paul II is working studiously on the canonization of Bl. Alojzije.
You are right, the excommunication was for disobedience, not heresy. That said, the Holy Office did censure the Feeneyite thesis in the now famous Letter to the Archbishop of Boston.
To be very fair, I think it would be more accurate to say that some Orthodox do not believe that Catholic priests can validly confect the sacraments. For that matter, in the more rigorist jurisdictions there is even a certain skepticism as to whether other Orthodox priests in the less strict jurisdictions can confect the sacraments.
Honestly, this is one area where I am pretty certain that the Orthodox would universally, or pretty close to it deny that Eucharist that is received outside of the Orthodox church is no Eucharist at all.
I think I have asked Fr Ambrose about this or a similar question. He said there is no consensus in the Orthodox church about it.
You know what I meant, right? “…they deny any Eucharist, other than an Orthodox Eucharist is valid.” I meant to say something like that.
I have yet to meet and Orthodox priest or layman that is practicing that would say that Catholics have valid Sacraments. And I know many. That goes for the Theoligians I have read too.