"True Particular Churches"?

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Jaypeeto3

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I’m having a difficult time with something, maybe one of you could shed some light.

In DOMINUS IESUS, issued by the Holy See in 2000, section 17 states that the (schismatic and heretical) Eastern Churches are “true particular churches” and that the true “Church of Christ is present and operative in” them even though they do not have communion with Rome.

How can this be?
It is my understanding that the Ordinary (and infallible) magisterium of the Catholic church has always taught that a true particular church is simply a Local Church which is in full communion with the Bishop of Rome. Yes, the EOs have apostolic succession (validly ordained bishops) but so does the Society of Saint Pius the Tenth have validly ordained (although ilicitly ordained) Bishops. That does not make THEM true particular churches, so why should the schismatic & heretical EOs be so described? I’m in a whirl…
God bless,
Jaypeeto3
 
CCC 833 The phrase “particular Church,” which is first of all the diocese (or eparchy), refers to a community of the Christian faithful in communion of faith and sacraments with their bishop ordained in apostolic succession. …The bishop with valid apostolic succession may or may not be in communion with Rome.
 
Thanks Matt16_18.
I still don’t understand how the true “Church of Christ” can be “present and operative” in schismatical and heretical churches. The Church of Christ and the Roman Catholic Church are one and the same thing. How can schismatic/heretical bodies have the Church of Christ, which is the Catholic church, present and operative in them, when heretics are by divine law cut off from the Catholic Church?
God bless,
Jaypeeto3
 
They are schismatic, i.e. cut off from communion with the Catholic Church, but they are not heretics.
 
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Petergee:
They are schismatic, i.e. cut off from communion with the Catholic Church, but they are not heretics.
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They’re not FORMAL heretics, they’re MATERIAL heretics…
 
They are schismatic, i.e. cut off from communion with the Catholic Church, but they are not heretics.
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Well, I think denying the Immaculate Conception and Filioque qualify pretty heavily as heresy.

They do have true particular churches, because they have bishops leading diocese.

The Church of Christ and the Catholic Church are IDEALLY the same thing…and the Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church…but it is possible for someone to be a member the one but not the other, though it is not natural and is a wounding of the Church.

It’s like this picture of lenses. The two circles are intended to line up exactly and form one basic circle. But one has shrunk a bit, while the other remains. In the Area of both circles lined up, the ideal perfect vision of the lenses still work…but it is still possible to be in the outer lense even if you are not in perfect focus with both lenses.

http://www.geocities.com/mistereanonymous/Church.bmp

The Mystical Body of Christ and Society of Grace are supposed to correspond exactly to the institutional Catholic Church…but some people remain in one but not the other, though only in the latter does the perfect, intended, natural correspondance remain.
 
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batteddy:
Well, I think denying the Immaculate Conception and Filioque qualify pretty heavily as heresy.
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Then you’re calling the late great Pope John Paul II a heretic, because on at least one occasion he publicly recited the Creed WITHOUT the “filioque”. And I do not believe the Eastern Orthodox churches “deny” the Immaculate Conception - they prefer a different form of words to express the same truth ( as with the Filioque). They certainly do not believe that the Virgin Mary ever sinned. Schism and heresy are two different things.
 
They are very much non-heretical, especially on the filioque issue. Many Eastern Catholics do not recite nor affirm the filioque; it is a Latin theological expression and understanding. The Immaculate Conception is also a bit of a matter of “East and West”, as there are different traditions on how to express the same Divine truths, and they are present within the Catholic Communion as well.

The only thing they could really be nailed for “heresy” with is the issue of Papal Infallibility, and that was determined long after the split, so they can’t really be held to it the same way a Catholic splitting now.

Eastern and Oriental bishops are* real* bishops, and they follow the real Apostalic faith, albeit in an incomplete ecclesiastical sense according to the Catholic Church. They’re about as far from Protestants as you can get.

Peace and God bless!
 
John Paul II merely reciting the Creed without the Filioque is not at all the same thing as John Paul II DENYING the Filioque, which he NEVER did, and which Eastern Orthodox DO DENY.
Also, it was understood from earliest times that the Bishop of Rome was the head of the church and that once Rome had spoken on any issue, the case was CLOSED. The Popes made no secret of their authority and it’s implications. Read Damasus or Gregory the Great. The Orthodox also deny the doctrine of Purgatory, and they DO deny the Immaculate Conception of Mary, emphatically so. They believe she contracted Sin at conception and was cleansed from it completely AT THE ANNUNCIATION. They believe, however, that she never committed a personal ACT of sin due to her heroic virtue.
For the Orthodox view of Mary see the book MARY THE BIRTH-GIVER OF GOD by John Maximovitch.

The Orthodox bishops are, of course, validly ordained.
But they (just like the bishops of the SSPX) lost their LICITNESS when they broke with the Pope of Rome.

I appreciate everyone’s comments, but the Magisterium of the Catholic Church (infallible, Ordinary magisterium) and dogmatic councils of the Catholic church, have always continuously taught that those not in communion with the Bishop of Rome are NOT PART, in any way, of the Catholic Church or of the Church of Christ, which are one and the same thing. The new ecclesiology which claims that the EOs have the Church of Christ present and operative in them, is just that: NEW. And it contradicts the historic magisterium directly, and this is why it has my head spinning trying to reconcile the two.
God bless,
Jaypeeto3
 
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Jaypeeto3:
Also, it was understood from earliest times that the Bishop of Rome was the head of the church and that once Rome had spoken on any issue, the case was CLOSED.
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From earliest times? Could you cite a source for this claim?
 
Do a google search for Pope Damasus, or Pope Gregory the Great. St. Augustine also said the same thing.
The East was in full communion with Popes who were direct and explicit about their authority as Successors of Saint Peter for the first thousand years of Christianity. There is no way they didn’t know the historic teaching on this matter when they broke away.
Love,
Jaypeeto3
 
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Jaypeeto3:
They believe she contracted Sin at conception…

I appreciate everyone’s comments, but the Magisterium of the Catholic Church (infallible, Ordinary magisterium) and dogmatic councils of the Catholic church, have always continuously taught that those not in communion with the Bishop of Rome are NOT PART, in any way, of the Catholic Church or of the Church of Christ.
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Some Orthodox Christians may want to weigh in on this issue, but from what I understand, they do not believe that Mary contracted sin at her conception. The Orthodox do not adhere to an Augustinian construction of Original Sin, in which everyone is “stained” with inherited sin from the moment of their conception. Rather, they believe (again, correct me if I’m wrong) that everyone is born free of sin, but one is prone to sin because of what Latin Christians would call concupiscence. Thus, the Immaculate Conception makes no sense in Orthodox theology. Mary is immaculate simply because she never chose to sin.

In regards to your second statement, consider the following from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
**838 **"The Church knows that she is joined in many ways to the baptized who are honored by the name of Christian, but do not profess the Catholic faith in its entirety or have not preserved unity or communion under the successor of Peter."322 Those "who believe in Christ and have been properly baptized are put in a certain, although imperfect, communion with the Catholic Church."323 With the Orthodox Churches, this communion is so profound "that it lacks little to attain the fullness that would permit a common celebration of the Lord’s Eucharist."324

I also have some of the questions that you have expressed. I’m not sure how to link to it, but search for a thread entitled “Dominus Iesus and the Orthodox Churches”. It may help clear a few things up.

God bless,

Chris
 
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