Roman-to-Melkite Proselytism Acceptable?

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Hi, the RCIA teacher at a local Roman Catholic parish has concealed from the parish that he is Melkite, and appears to be intentionally converting a small number of the catechumens from Roman Catholicism to Melkite Catholicism. Is this acceptable?

Frankly, this seems to dishonor the Roman Catholic Church and its spiritual heritage.
 
CorAdCorLoquitur said:
Is this acceptable?
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IMO, no.

But what do you mean by this? Is he teaching them Melkite traditions are superior to Roman? Or is he just teaching them Melkite spiritual practices and letting them decide?

And is he canonically Melkite? If he is canonically Melkite, why is he teaching Roman RCIA?

I’ve got so many questions…
 
Thank you all for the responses.

Spyridon, if you don’t mind me asking, what is the basis of your opinion? I would like to know where I can find more information about proselytizing in between particular Churches. If you could point me to some documents, that may suffice to answer the question.

Otherwise, I prefer a non-public forum to answer these questions.
 
CCEO 31 - No one can presume in any way to induce the Christian faithful to transfer to another Church sui iuris.
 
Arkansan said:
CCEO 31 - No one can presume in any way to induce the Christian faithful to transfer to another Church sui iuris.
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Thank you Arkansan, this is on point.

Is there anything else to read about this particular phenomenon?
 
CCEO 1465 - One who, belonging to any Church sui iuris, including the Latin Church, and exercising an office, a ministry or another function in the Church, has presumed to induce any member of the Christian faithful whatever to transfer to another Church sui iuris, contrary to can. 31 is to be punished with an appropriate penalty.
 
An indeterminate penalty to be decided on by the judge/bishop imposing it.
 
CorAdCorLoquitur said:
appears to be intentionally converting a small number of the catechumens from Roman Catholicism to Melkite Catholicism. Is this acceptable?
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Doesn’t sound acceptable.

However, it does seem understandable if you live in a western country. In the USA and other western nations, sui juris churches like the Melkites are on shaky ground in the long term. The immigrants that started the parishes often spread out from their initial focal points of entry to pursue economic opportunities and/or love and marriage with non-melkite women. This can really decrease their numbers and threaten their existence here in west
 
Arkansan said:
An indeterminate penalty to be decided on by the judge/bishop imposing it.
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Arkansan, two more questions: (1) when and how does one assert canon law? And, (2) how does one charitably raise a discussion about violations of canon law?

Obviously, the Church is not the place for adversarial litigation.
 
CorAdCorLoquitur said:
Hi, the RCIA teacher at a local Roman Catholic parish has concealed from the parish that he is Melkite, and appears to be intentionally converting a small number of the catechumens from Roman Catholicism to Melkite Catholicism. Is this acceptable?

Frankly, this seems to dishonor the Roman Catholic Church and its spiritual heritage.
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The CEC or bishops must approve or deny any such transfer when it is requested by the Catholic, yet in some cases like a Catholic inter-ritual church marriage, there is a right to transfer by canon law.
 
In a case such as you describe, the best course of action would be to speak to the pastor. I would consider it rather unlikely that some random person (as opposed to e.g. a priest or bishop who was doing something like this) is going to be the subject of a canonical prosecution.
 
Augustinian said:
However, it does seem understandable if you live in a western country. In the USA and other western nations, sui juris churches like the Melkites are on shaky ground in the long term. The immigrants that started the parishes often spread out from their initial focal points of entry to pursue economic opportunities and/or love and marriage with non-melkite women. This can really decrease their numbers and threaten their existence here in west
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I apologize, I realize this has nothing to do with the topics, but…
You’ve said this, or similar on several threads regarding Eastern Catholic Churches. I get it, you’re pessimistic, but not all the Eastern Catholic Churches are falling apart.
I’m done derailing this thread.
I just don’t understand the constant pessimism.
 
CorAdCorLoquitur said:
Hi, the RCIA teacher at a local Roman Catholic parish has concealed from the parish that he is Melkite, and appears to be intentionally converting a small number of the catechumens from Roman Catholicism to Melkite Catholicism. Is this acceptable?

Frankly, this seems to dishonor the Roman Catholic Church and its spiritual heritage.
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This post is very vague. What do you mean by “intentionally converting”? And are you sure he “concealed” his identity? Does the pastor already know this? There is nothing wrong with Eastern Catholics teaching Latins, insomuch as we share one Catholic religion, and vice versa, if they know sufficiently about the patrimony of the host church.

Educating Latins on the Eastern Catholic traditions is perfectly acceptable and indeed desireable; in fact, speaking as a Latin, I would have loved to hear my own Christian formation teachers speak more about the Eastern Catholics - I had to quarrel with my own family about the Maronites being Catholic when I first came to my current city twelve years ago as of July.
 
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Spyridon said:
But what do you mean by this? Is he teaching them Melkite traditions are superior to Roman? Or is he just teaching them Melkite spiritual practices and letting them decide?
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learning about the other lung is good for the faithful!

I’ll also note that when our priest was assigned almost full time to a Roman parish, he was told explicitly that he was welcome to “take” as many parishioners as he could provide spiritual leadership to. Understand that that parish was a bit more than 200 times the size of ours . . . over the last several years, many that have encountered him have come to visit our parish to see, and a sizable fraction have stayed.

hawk
 
No one has brought up the posibility that he might just be ‘converting’ someone of Greek Catholic or other Eastern Catholic heritage. In that case it is their right to be in the right church especially if they seek holy orders later on.

I do not think a priest can keep his ‘duality’ (dual ritual) status a secret. If what you state is true, does his bishop know about this?
 
Arkansan said:
CCEO 1465 - One who, belonging to any Church sui iuris, including the Latin Church, and exercising an office, a ministry or another function in the Church, has presumed to induce any member of the Christian faithful whatever to transfer to another Church sui iuris, contrary to can. 31 is to be punished with an appropriate penalty.
Click to expand...
…
 
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