What would need to be compromised for a Catholic - Orthodox reconciliation?

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Reunification would mean all of the council’s since the schism would need to be erased. And that includes their Synod of Jerusalem.

A new Council would need to be arranged to clear up everything . The biblical Canon possibly. Orthodox are much more fluid. I could see a compromise where the Catholic Church would allow say 3 Maccabees and the Prayer of Mannaseh into the Canon.

Many things that have happened since the schism would need to be addressed.
Remember it’s a two way street and we can’t expect them to just adhere to everything without a huge Council. Bigger than even the Council of Trent, to reaffirm everything between the two rites back into communion with each other.
Both sides would need to make certain concessions. But in the end it would be the great Church again and would have 1.7 billion adherents.
Roman Catholic-1.2 billion adherents
Eastern Orthodox - 500 million adherents
 
Who knows.

For the good of the faith both sides should stop being so stubborn and make concessions.
If the Pope is the first among equals again I am fine with that. Personally I think that’s how it shoild be anyways.
 
AlNg said:
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phil19034:
my feeling is that average Catholic would be far more open & welcoming to reunification tomorrow than the Eastern Orthodox.
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It depends on what you mean by open and welcoming. Yes, Catholics are willing to shake the hands of their Orthodox brothers and sisters and are willing to work with them on pro-life marches. But are they willing to compromise on papal infallibility, universal papal jurisdiction and the teachings of Vatican I ?
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No, we cannot compromise on dogma. But we are more than willing to compromise on discipline.
 
AlNg said:
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jas84173:
Both sides would need to make certain concessions.
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What concessions are Catholics willing to make?
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Catholics would be willing to make many concessions on discipline. But we cannot make compromising on dogma. That’s simply not possible.

And many of the comprises have already been made by Catholics. For example: the filioque doesn’t exist in the Roman Rite when mass is in Greek.

But, there are many things that the Eastern Orthodox are not willing to compromise on that are totally disciplinary and which have NOTHING to do with the Byzantine Liturgy.
For example:
  • Many Eastern Orthodox think that Latin Church should remove the priestly celibacy discipline we have in place, even though it only affects the Latin Church.
  • Many Eastern Orthodox think that the Latin Church should abandon scholastic thought and adapt monastic thought
  • Many Eastern Orthodox think we should abandon the Gregorian Calendar and readopt the Julian calendar, even though the Julian calendar is scientifically proven to be incorrect.
The point is, we Catholics are given a bad rap for be too Pharisaical, and insisting on our way. But the only way to make common ground with the Eastern Orthodox is for the West to agree to all of their demands, without any compromise on their end.

So I’m sorry… you say “what concessions are Catholics willing to make?” … the real question is what concessions are Orthodox willing to make, because as far as I see, it’s only the Catholics who are willing to make any concessions at all.

NOTE: I am not trying to be disrespectful to our Eastern Orthodox brothers. I’m simply replying to the accusation that any and all issues are 100% Rome’s fault, which is not true, there is plenty of blame to go around.

God Bless
 
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Yah um many CATHOLICS think the priestly celibacy thing should go out the door including myself…
It’s really ridiculous actually. Our first Pope was married and actually if you believe the extra canonical texts had a daughter. Who cares if a priest has sexual relations? I don’t . Actually I feel like they could relate to lay people more.
 
jas84173 said:
Yah um many CATHOLICS think the priestly celibacy thing should go out the door including myself…
It’s really ridiculous actually. Our first Pope was married and actually if you believe the extra canonical texts had a daughter. Who cares if a priest has sexual relations? I don’t . Actually I feel like they could relate to lay people more.
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The issue regarding priestly celibacy is a bone of contention for a few reasons
  1. It follows the example of Jesus and St. Paul
  2. priests must fast from sex 1 day before praying Mass (which is why the Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholics typically do not have daily mass).
  3. It should not matter to priests and bishops of the Byzantine Rite if the Roman Rite practice the discipline of priestly celibacy for diocesan priests.
    • After all, the Eastern Orthodox have celibate bishops are require celibate monastic priests (only secular priests – aka diocesan priests are allowed to be married, but they must marry before being ordained … as no priest in the East as allowed to marry
continued …
 
continued …
  1. Finally, the biggest issue for allowing married men to become priests in the Latin Church is logistical regarding pay, housing, Catholic schooling for kids, and seminary.
    • Latin Catholic parishes are very large when compared to Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic parishes, which mean the number of priests to parishioner is quite big. A priest is basically always “working” when he’s awake
      • this is why the majority of married Roman Catholic priests are totally against a married priesthood
    • Are Roman Catholics going to start to donate more money to their parishes in order to pay their pastor a bigger salary so he can support a family?
    • What about the parish rectories? Unlike Eastern Churches and protestants ones that offer housing, many parishes, esp larger ones have more than one priest. Are we going to sell the rectory and instead pay our priests even more money so they can buy their own homes?
    • Funerals - Catholic priests (esp in suburban and urban areas) have funerals almost every week, because a Catholic priest is responsible for all people in his parish, even the ones who don’t come to Church. So when a Catholic in his parish dies the priest need to do the funeral, even if that Roman Catholic hasn’t been to church in 50 years. Protestant Ministers really don’t have that problem, and because Eastern Parishes are smaller, they don’t have the same numbers as Roman Catholics.
    • because priests can’t marry in order to have a married priest, he would need to be married while in the seminary. Which means, his wife would have to follow him to whichever seminary he was sent to. The seminary years (on average 6-8 years) could be pretty brutal for a wife and kids.
      • this is why most (not all, but most) people who go straight though graduate school don’t marry until after they finish grad school. And even if they do marry, most graduate programs are only 2 years each. But with the priesthood, you would be telling them - you need to marry before you start college period – unless you let undergraduate seminaries date, which would open a ton of other problems the seminaries are not prepared for.
      • and we would never allow men to marry after being ordained because (1) tradition says once a man becomes a priest he cannot marry, but a married man can become a priest; (2) if we did allow priests to marry, the Orthodox would consider that heresy anyway - so no union possible there
The point is, the Latin Church is pretty far down the road with priestly celibacy, it would be hard to totally reverse course without a ton of disruption to the laity.

God Bless
 
jas84173 said:
Yah um many CATHOLICS think the priestly celibacy thing should go out the door including myself…
It’s really ridiculous actually. Our first Pope was married and actually if you believe the extra canonical texts had a daughter. Who cares if a priest has sexual relations? I don’t . Actually I feel like they could relate to lay people more.
Click to expand...
jas84173 said:
Yah um many CATHOLICS think the priestly celibacy thing should go out the door including myself…
It’s really ridiculous actually. Our first Pope was married and actually if you believe the extra canonical texts had a daughter. Who cares if a priest has sexual relations? I don’t . Actually I feel like they could relate to lay people more.
Click to expand...
BTW - I don’t care if a priest is married. But, I understand that it would be a logistical nightmare at this time in history. We all want our priests to be there for the parish, and often we want to see our priests more than we have them. The way Roman Rite Catholic parishes are, we demand a lot of time from our priests (far more than most people realize). If they have a family, we will have access to our priests even less.

We already complain that Father doesn’t …
  • have enough scheduled confessions
  • have enough devotions at the parish
  • doesn’t do enough spiritual counseling & direction
  • doesn’t lead enough Bible Studies
  • doesn’t do enough home visits & home blessings
  • doesn’t do enough hospital visits
  • doesn’t visit enough sick people
  • doesn’t visit the nursing homes enough
  • doesn’t visit with the catholic school kids enough
  • doesn’t spend enough time with the youth group
  • doesn’t attend enough CYO sporting events
  • doesn’t have enough pilgrimages and processions
  • doesn’t go to homeless shelters enough
  • doesn’t visit the soup kitchens enough
    and on and on…
If we have married priests, they will be available less because they will have responsibilities to their families. And the idea that a married priesthood would increase vocations is bogus, because the number the diaconate hasn’t increased clergy numbers dramatically, and many deacons have a very hard time balancing home life with Church responsibilities.

The only married priests I would be ok seeing is allowing select perm deacons to be ordained to the priesthood to serve as volunteer assistants (similar to perm deacons today).
 
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jas84173 said:
For the good of the faith both sides should stop being so stubborn and make concessions.

If the Pope is the first among equals again I am fine with that. Personally I think that’s how it shoild be anyways.
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I agree. thank you.
 
Not a single one. The King does not compromise with His inferiors.
 
phil19034 said:
my feeling is that average Catholic would be far more open & welcoming to reunification tomorrow than the Eastern Orthodox.
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phil19034 said:
No, we cannot compromise on dogma.
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So, as I suspected. Catholics are really not all that open to reunification after all. Is it true that Catholics have closed their minds to accepting the Orthodox teaching on the papacy and will never budge on this?
 
in a word – humility – on both sides, well common sense, too
 
ChunkMonk said:
Not a single one. The King does not compromise with His inferiors.
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Right. That is an attitude held by some Catholics. The Catholic Pope is the King and the Orthodox are his inferiors. The inferior Orthodox must compromise, while the King should not budge one bit. Doesn’t sound too welcoming and open minded to me.
phil19034 said:
my feeling is that average Catholic would be far more open & welcoming to reunification tomorrow than the Eastern Orthodox.
Click to expand...
 
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jas84173 said:
Who knows.

For the good of the faith both sides should stop being so stubborn and make concessions.
If the Pope is the first among equals again I am fine with that. Personally I think that’s how it shoild be anyways.
Click to expand...
One… the Pope was never “first amount equals.” The patriarchates always deferred to the See of Peter when they had issues. You can see that with the Church Fathers. St. Ignatius of Antioch is good example… where he appeals to Rome.

The Pope always had a similar relationship to the patriarchates like he has to the Eastern Catholics today. It would not be the same has he is with the Latin Bishops.

The issues started happening when Constantinople (for a secular standpoint) became more powerful than Rome.

The Greeks felt that the since the Emperor was now in Constantinople, that meant that Constantinople should have more power. And then, they felt that Constantinople should take precedence over Antioch and Alexandria. Rome disagreed because Constantinople was always too close to the Byzantine Emperor.

This is still a problem with Eastern Orthodoxy today (esp the Russians today), they are too intertwined with the secular governments. The Bishop of Rome was never suburbanite to Kings or Emperors - later taking it too far by becoming the actual ruler of the Papal States… but point is the Orthodox have always been nationalist, while the Catholics have always truly been universal.
 
Not the Pope. He is the Vicar. Christ is the King. We have no authority to compromise with you. We are interiors ourselves. Christ won’t compromise with you. We can’t compromise with you. You’re out of luck.

I’m in the minority of Catholics with my attitude and you know it.
 
AlNg said:
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phil19034:
my feeling is that average Catholic would be far more open & welcoming to reunification tomorrow than the Eastern Orthodox.
Click to expand...
phil19034 said:
No, we cannot compromise on dogma.
Click to expand...
So, as I suspected. Catholics are really not all that open to reunification after all. Is it true that Catholics have closed their minds to accepting the Orthodox teaching on the papacy and will never budge on this?
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No, you are missing the point. Dogma can’t be changed – only Jesus Christ coming to Earth for the Second Coming can change Dogma. No pope, council, bishop, etc has the authority to change defined Dogma.

The Orthodox would never budge on anything they felt was considered Dogma either - though they haven’t defined anything as dogmatic since the schism because they haven’t been able to have a Council since the schism because they don’t have a Pope to ratify one.
 
Ironically Peter spent more time in Antioch than he did in Rome. What just because he died in Rome makes it the place? The only reason Rome was chosen was to make conversion of Gentiles easier. That’s the fact.
 
Was not an Ecumenical Council.

The Eastern Orthodox only have the first 7 Ecumenical Councils. They have had synods, and local/regional councils, etc. But they have never had an Ecumenical Council since the Second Council of Nicaea.

Ecumenical council - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
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