Our Other Lung?

[_Christopher]

Can someone please explain to me how this teaching did not change?

–

Boniface VIII’s Papal Bull ‘Unam Sanctam’

November 18, 1302

Urged by faith, we are obliged to believe and to maintain that the Church is one, holy, catholic, and also apostolic. We believe in her firmly and we confess with simplicity that outside of her there is neither salvation nor the remission of sins, as the Spouse in the Canticles (Sgs 6:8) proclaims: “One is my dove, my perfect one. She is the only one, the chosen of her who bore her”, and she represents one sole mystical body whose Head is Christ and the head of Christ is God (1 Cor 11:3). In her then is one Lord, one faith, one baptism (Eph 4:5). There had been at the time of the deluge only one ark of Noah, prefiguring the one Church, which ark, having been finished to a single cubit, had only one pilot and guide, i.e., Noah, and we read that, outside of this ark, all that subsisted on the earth was destroyed.

Therefore, if the Greeks or others should say that they are not confided to Peter and to his successors, they must confess not being the sheep of Christ, since Our Lord says in John “there is one sheepfold and one shepherd”.

Furthermore, we declare, we proclaim, we define that it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff.

–

The Greeks (Eastern Orthodox) are now called our “Other Lung” by the Pope and are not condemned for not being subject to the Pope.

How is this not a complete reversal?

Do we teach that they are our “Other Lung” if and only if they don’t know any better, ie, invincible ignorance? If so, how can our “Other Lung” only be our lung if they mistakingly think they are our “Other Lung”?

 

[quasimodo]

Its hard to get the sheep back into the sheepfold if the shepard is throwing stones at the sheep.

Nice cut 'n paste

 

[_Christopher]

quasimodo:

Its hard to get the sheep back into the sheepfold if the shepard is throwing stones at the sheep.

Nice cut 'n paste

Your meaning?

 

[quasimodo]

your question?

 

[_Christopher]

quasimodo:

your question?

I don’t have time for games. My question is in the opening post. Are you threatened by it so you want to make snide remarks or something?

 

[quasimodo]

no snide remarks in my post. I was just wondering what you meant by:

“your meaning?”

perhaps you were responding to my:

“nice cut 'n paste”

I was just pointing out that you are making the rounds of a few Catholic boards posting the same post as though there were a possible agenda.

As for your original question, I commented on it. Our Holy Father is interested in Christian reunification: It is easier to get the sheep back into the sheepfold if the shepard is not throwing stones at them.

 

[_Christopher]

quasimodo:

no snide remarks in my post. I was just wondering what you meant by:

“your meaning?”

perhaps you were responding to my:

“nice cut 'n paste”

I was just pointing out that you are making the rounds of a few Catholic boards posting the same post as though there were a possible agenda.

As for your original question, I commented on it. Our Holy Father is interested in Christian reunification: It is easier to get the sheep back into the sheepfold if the shepard is not throwing stones at them.

I posted several places because it is an important question to me and I want to get a lot of responses. Is something wrong with that?

Anyway, either it is necessary to be a Roman Catholic loyal to the Pope, or it isn’t. So the teaching changed or what?

 

[BobCatholic]

The Greeks (Eastern Orthodox) are now called our “Other Lung” by the Pope and are not condemned for not being subject to the Pope.

This does not sound correct.

How do you know this is about the Eastern ORTHODOX when it is way more likely he is talking about the Eastern CATHOLIC Churches?

Hey, we’re not just Roman, you know!

ewtn.com/expert/answers/catholic_rites_and_churches.htm

The Catholic Church should breathe with both lungs: eastern (Catholic) and western (Catholic) instead of just trying to force the Eastern Catholic Churches to be more latin.

 

[_Christopher]

No, JP2 calls the Eastern Orthodox the other lung, not the Eastern Catholics.

–

Here is a reference to the Other Lung and it applies to the Orthodox, not Eastern Catholics.

–

“A second reason for the pope’s reluctance to declare infallibly the teaching in Ordinatio sacerdotalis is his passion for the restoration of Church unity. The Holy Father has his ecumenical eye focused very keenly on the Orthodox, the other “lung” of the Church which she needs to breathe fully. With the coming of the third millennium, John Paul misses no opportunity to make pressing appeals for restoring full communion with the churches of the East. Since one of the principal obstacles to reunion is the authority to teach ex cathedra, which Catholics attribute to the Petrine ministry, it is not surprising that he decided against teaching infallibly on a matter about which the Catholic Church and her Orthodox sisters concur.”

catholic.net/RCC/Periodicals/Crisis-0995/eden1.html

–

Your link doesn’t mention the term “other lung” at all.

 

[a_pilgrim]

_Christopher_:

The Greeks (Eastern Orthodox) are now called our “Other Lung” by the Pope and are not condemned for not being subject to the Pope.

Christopher,

The “Other Lung” of our Catholic Church that our Holy Father refers to are the Eastern Catholic Churches, not the Eastern Orthodox. While the Roman Catholic faithful far and away comprise the largest portion of the Catholic Church, there are 22 other Churches who also recognize JPII as the successor of Peter and accept him as the Pastor of the Universal Catholic Church. These Churches are collectively referred to as the Eastern Catholic Churches, each one having its own church heierarchy, Code of Canon Law, its own method of worship (or “rite”), etc., but each one still fully Catholic… just as Catholic as the Roman Catholic Church.

Many of these Churches follow traditions of theology and worship that are virtually identical to those of our Orthodox brethren. In fact, except for the fact that the Eastern *Catholics *have accepted the Pope as their Universal pastor and the Eastern Orthodox have not, one would be hard pressed to distinguish between the two! So close are they that many actually refer to the Eastern Catholics as *Orthodox in communion with Rome. *

In 1995 JPII issued an encyclical entitled Orientale Lumen (“Light of the East”) in which he recognizes the riches that the Eastern Catholic Churches bring to Holy Mother Church. In this encyclical he also mandats that all Catholic faithful educate themselves with regard to this “Other Lung” of our Catholic Church.

I’m not familiar with the Holy Father ever using the “Other Lung” terminology in reference to our Orthodox brethren. In fact, he’s been known to use the term “separated brethren” in these instances. As Eastern Catholics, the “lung” that he refers to is, in fact, part of the “body” of our Catholic Church and, as such, is a fitting and appropriate analogy.

a pilgrim

 

[_Christopher]

pilgrim-

Thanks for the response.

I have seen “other lung” refer to the Orthodox, as I listed a couple of posts back…but perhaps it is in error.

Regardless, the Eastern Orthodox are seen as having valid Holy Orders and Sacraments, etc, and are generally not regarded as being damned, no?

PS

I can’t find “lung” anywhere in this document you mentioned:

vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_02051995_orientale-lumen_en.html

 

[BobCatholic]

Christopher[/I]]-

“A second reason for the pope’s reluctance to declare infallibly the teaching in Ordinatio sacerdotalis is his passion for the restoration of Church unity. The Holy Father has his ecumenical eye focused very keenly on the Orthodox, the other “lung” of the Church which she needs to breathe fully. With the coming of the third millennium, John Paul misses no opportunity to make pressing appeals for restoring full communion with the churches of the East. Since one of the principal obstacles to reunion is the authority to teach ex cathedra, which Catholics attribute to the Petrine ministry, it is not surprising that he decided against teaching infallibly on a matter about which the Catholic Church and her Orthodox sisters concur.”

catholic.net/RCC/Periodicals/Crisis-0995/eden1.html

–

Your link doesn’t mention the term “other lung” at all.

This appears to be the writer’s INTERPRETATION of the Pope’s words, not the Pope’s actual words. Not everyone knows the difference between Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches (many think the Catholic Church is just Roman rite only!)

 

[_Christopher]

BobCatholic:

This appears to be the writer’s INTERPRETATION of the Pope’s words, not the Pope’s actual words. Not everyone knows the difference between Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches (many think the Catholic Church is just Roman rite only!)

Ok, I will go find some actual quotes.

But in the meantime, would you agree that the attitude towards the Orthodox has changed?

 

[_Christopher]

Here you go Bob…

From Pope John Paul II’s Apostolic Letter of 2001, “Novo millenio ineunte” (“At the beginning of the new millennium”):

Ecumenical commitment

1. And what should we say of the urgent task of fostering communion in the delicate area of ecumenism? Unhappily, as we cross the threshold of the new millennium, we take with us the sad heritage of the past. The Jubilee has offered some truly moving and prophetic signs, but there is still a long way to go.

By fixing our gaze on Christ, the Great Jubilee has given us a more vivid sense of the Church as a mystery of unity. “I believe in the one Church”: what we profess in the Creed has its ultimate foundation in Christ, in whom the Church is undivided (cf. 1 Cor 1:11-13). As his Body, in the unity which is the gift of the Spirit, she is indivisible. The reality of division among the Church’s children appears at the level of history, as the result of human weakness in the way we accept the gift which flows endlessly from Christ the Head to his Mystical Body. The prayer of Jesus in the Upper Room — “as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be one in us” (Jn 17:21) — is both revelation and invocation. It reveals to us the unity of Christ with the Father as the wellspring of the Church’s unity and as the gift which in him she will constantly receive until its mysterious fulfilment at the end of time. This unity is concretely embodied in the Catholic Church, despite the human limitations of her members, and it is at work in varying degrees in all the elements of holiness and truth to be found in the other Churches and Ecclesial Communities. As gifts properly belonging to the Church of Christ, these elements lead them continuously towards full unity.34

Christ’s prayer reminds us that this gift needs to be received and developed ever more profoundly. The invocation “ut unum sint” is, at one and the same time, a binding imperative, the strength that sustains us, and a salutary rebuke for our slowness and closed-heartedness. It is on Jesus’s prayer and not on our own strength that we base the hope that even within history we shall be able to reach full and visible communion with all Christians.

In the perspective of our renewed post-Jubilee pilgrimage, I look with great hope to the Eastern Churches, and I pray for a full return to that exchange of gifts which enriched the Church of the first millennium. May the memory of the time when the Church breathed with “both lungs” spur Christians of East and West to walk together in unity of faith and with respect for legitimate diversity, accepting and sustaining each other as members of the one Body of Christ.

A similar commitment should lead to the fostering of ecumenical dialogue with our brothers and sisters belonging to the Anglican Communion and the Ecclesial Communities born of the Reformation. Theological discussion on essential points of faith and Christian morality, cooperation in works of charity, and above all the great ecumenism of holiness will not fail, with God’s help, to bring results. In the meantime we confidently continue our pilgrimage, longing for the time when, together with each and every one of Christ’s followers, we shall be able to join wholeheartedly in singing: “How good and how pleasant it is, when brothers live in unity!” (Ps 133:1).

 

[rfk]

Our Holy Father is referring primarily to the Eastern Orthodox Churches when he spoke of the “other lung”, although he is speaking in the context of trying to regain unity, so the Eastern Catholic Churches are obviously included as well.

But instead of being so worried about “and are generally not regarded as being damned, no?”, instead, I would shift focus to what he is trying to address.

From ORIENTALE LUMEN, he first spends time addressing those gifts to our faith that have a unique expression within Eastern tradition. For example:

Since, in fact, we believe that the venerable and ancient tradition of the Eastern Churches is an integral part of the heritage of Christ’s Church, the first need for Catholics is to be familiar with that tradition, so as to be nourished by it and to encourage the process of unity in the best way possible for each.

Our Eastern Catholic brothers and sisters are very conscious of being the living bearers of this tradition, together with our Orthodox brothers and sisters. The members of the Catholic Church of the Latin tradition must also be fully acquainted with this treasure and thus feel, with the Pope, a passionate longing that the full manifestation of the Church’s catholicity be restored to the Church and to the world, expressed not by a single tradition, and still less by one community in opposition to the other; and that we too may be granted a full taste of the divinely revealed and undivided heritage of the universal Church(2) which is preserved and grows in the life of the Churches of the East as in those of the West. (emphasis added)

He references Vatican II’s call for evangelization, and you can almost literally hear the hunger in his voice to become reunited with our Eastern brothers:

These considerations now need to be broadened so as to embrace all the Eastern Churches, in the variety of their different traditions. My thoughts turn to our brothers and sisters of the Eastern Churches, in the wish that together we may seek the strength of an answer to the questions man is asking today in every part of the world. I intend to address their heritage of faith and life, aware that there can be no second thoughts about pursuing the path of unity, which is irreversible as the Lord’s appeal for unity is irreversible. “Dearly beloved, we have this common task: we must say together from East and West: Ne evacuetur Crux! (cf. 1 Cor 1:17). The cross of Christ must not be emptied of its power because if the cross of Christ is emptied of its power, man no longer has roots, he no longer has prospects: he is destroyed! This is the cry of the end of the 20th century. It is the cry of Rome, of Moscow, of Constantinople. It is the cry of all Christendom: of the Americas, of Africa, of Asia, of everyone. It is the cry of the new evangelization.”(7)

He is absolutely concerned with unity:

I am thinking of the Eastern Churches, as did many other Popes in the past, aware that the mandate to preserve the Church’s unity and to seek Christian unity tirelessly wherever it was wounded was addressed to them. A particularly close link already binds us. We have almost everything in common;(8) and above all, we have in common the true longing for unity.

 

[rfk]

After the important steps taken by Pope Paul VI, I have wished the path of mutual knowledge in charity to be continued. I can testify to the deep love that the fraternal meeting with so many heads and representatives of churches and ecclesial communities has given me in recent years. Together we have shared our concerns and expectations, together we have called for union between our churches and peace for the world. Together we have felt more responsible for the common good, not only as individuals, but in the name of the Christians whose pastors the Lord has made us. …

Although in the first centuries of the Christian era conflicts were already slowly starting to emerge within the body of the Church, we cannot forget that unity between Rome and Constantinople endured for the whole of the first millennium, despite difficulties. **We have increasingly learned that it was not so much an historical episode or a mere question of pre - eminence that tore the fabric of unity, as it was a progressive estrangement, so that the other’s diversity was no longer perceived as a common treasure, but as incompatibility. ** Even when the second millennium experienced a hardening of the polemics and the separation, with mutual ignorance and prejudice increasing all the more, nonetheless constructive meetings between church leaders desirous of intensifying relations and fostering exchanges did not cease, nor did the holy efforts of men and women who, recognizing the setting of one group against the other as a grave sin, and being in love with unity and charity, attempted in many ways to promote the search for communion by prayer, study and reflection, and by open and cordial interaction.(43) All this praiseworthy work was to converge in the reflections of the Second Vatican Council and to be symbolized in the abrogation of the reciprocal excommunications of 1054 by Pope Paul VI and the Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras I.(44) (emphasis added)

He continues with the recognition that we are still two Churches apart – see he is not a heretical Pope – but with an earnest prayer that this wound be healed:

We are painfully aware that we cannot yet share in the same Eucharist. Now that the millennium is drawing to a close and our gaze turns to the rising Sun, with gratitude we find these men and women before our eyes and in our heart.

The echo of the Gospel - the words that do not disappoint - continues to resound with force, weakened only by our separation: Christ cries out but man finds it hard to hear his voice because we fail to speak with one accord. We listen together to the cry of those who want to hear God’s entire Word. The words of the West need the words of the East, so that God’s word may ever more clearly reveal its unfathomable riches. Our words will meet for ever in the heavenly Jerusalem, but we ask and wish that this meeting be anticipated in the holy Church which is still on her way towards the fullness of the Kingdom.

 

[hlgomez]

Chritopher,

I think you are trying to test us catholics if the teachings of the Church changes or not, and if we say something about reunification of the Churches of the East and West, you will say that it changed.

First of all, you should have asked the question; "What is the purpose of the Pope’s gesture towards our Eastern brothers? Is calling them “the other lung” of the Catholic Church flatly contradicts Catholic teaching? Our Eastern brothers (Orthodox) *were once united with Rome. *Calling them the other lung only states that the Body of Christ should be reunited. Is there a Body that has only one lung? The Catholic Church recognizes in her (Orthodox) the 7 sacraments–they are all valid, since they maintained that tradition from long ago practiced by the Church.

Therefore, by calling them the other lung doesn’t mean that the Church teachings changed. The pope wants ONE church, with our separated brothers reunited with him.

Would you think by just accussing the Catholic Church actions for unity makes Christ happy? I guess you are, but not the Lord.

Pio

 

[_Christopher]

Would you think by just accussing the Catholic Church actions for unity makes Christ happy? I guess you are, but not the Lord.

What are you talking about? I am trying to resolve a contradiction that I see in our Church. I am Catholic too.

 

[hlgomez]

What are you talking about? I am trying to resolve a contradiction that I see in our Church. I am Catholic too.

Really? Then why question the Church?

 

[hlgomez]

It’s not a contradiction. it’s just that you contradict.