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Peter_J
Guest
I thought he was saying that they *aren’t *all wannabe Latins.
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Phillip_Rolfes
Guest
Oops! My bad. That’s what I meant. Serves me right for trying to type and get my son to take his nap at the same time.I thought he was saying that they *aren’t *all wannabe Latins.
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Phillip_Rolfes
Guest
Eastern Catholics are NOT Roman Catholics.
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Seamus_L
Guest
Phillip
I don't know how you can suggest that Latinized Easterners as you call them, are incapable of authenically bearing witness to the Gospel ? That's a really strong statement there. Think of all the people that would cover and it includes some who may one day be Saints.
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Phillip_Rolfes
Guest
I’m simply repeating what I’ve read elsewhere from some of our bishops.
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Peter_J
Guest
Agreed.
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Peter_J
Guest
As I recently commented on the “I’m Catholic, just not ROMAN Catholic…” thread, many people understand the term “Roman Catholic” to be synonymous with “Latin Catholic”. It follows that he is not “technically Roman Catholic”.
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Hesychios
Guest
Hi Phillip 
Many Latin Catholics also tend to shun the term, as we all know. So they really wouldn’t like it when Eastern Catholics call them that either
So apparently no one is a Roman Catholic, that is unless we use the term for a member of the particular church at Rome (the “sacrosanct Roman church” according to Pope Eugene IV). I can’t see how anyone could object to that!
It’s kind of funny in a way because I can still remember my mother telling me I was a Roman Catholic when I was a kid. I have never been to Rome.
Now cyber-people are saying my Mom was wrong, that it was a term invented by protestants and we shouldn’t be using it. Perhaps they are right, but all those years I did use it, so did my friends and family. One can search the member list and find a lot of people still self-identifying with the term.
Complicating this is the fact that until a few decades ago, the concept of Sui Iuris churches was not very clear, and the EC were always referred to as ‘rites’ of the church, not as churches in themselves. So not only were Christians under the Pope ‘Roman Catholics’ but Eastern Christians under the Pope were thought of as members of the eastern rites of the Roman Catholic church, at least to many people of those days.
That kind of brings us back to the topic of this thread, because many people have the impression that the various eastern rites were ‘allowed’ by the Papacy for pastoral reasons (later protected and encouraged for ecumenical reasons, but still ‘allowed’), and that ideally this would be part of a process to ‘fully Catholicize’ the Orthodox. There may be something to that, since we can see the historical trends, eastern ritual parishes and dioceses were absorbed and transformed into Latin ritual parishes and dioceses in many places across Europe.
This allowance to practice also gave rise to the common but incorrect notion that EC were ‘not really Catholic’ or perhaps ‘not fully Catholic’. Such ignorance was not limited to the laity, or the lower clergy, as we have sadly learned.
Oddly, many Latin Catholics did not see the EC as fully Catholic, but the Orthodox certainly did. The irony is everyone was using the term Roman Catholic and so there it goes: The Orthodox saw the EC as fully Roman Catholic but the people who called themselves Roman Catholics did not.
This is like a two-pronged fork, wounding not only the EC, but also their Orthodox brothers who would likewise consider themselves ‘Catholic’, and don’t understand how further Latinization would necessarily improve them.
Of course, none of this helps Orthodox distinguish Catholic people in communion with Rome as a class, from others not in communion with Rome. Polite conversation requires such a term to be dignified and accepted by all parties. Since Orthodox consider themselves fully Catholic as well, and we are trying to get this courtship started, I had hoped something else would come up.
I had a friend who posted here years ago, who introduced the term ‘Papal Catholic’ as a suggestion, but some people also took exception to that. I had thought of ‘Vatican Catholic’ and other terms like that and they all seem unsuitable, so I don’t like to use them.
I guess this is going to be an ongoing problem. I can’t speak for everyone but Orthodox know we are guests here and do not generally mean to cause offense.
Pax
An interesting thing to ponder.
Many Latin Catholics also tend to shun the term, as we all know. So they really wouldn’t like it when Eastern Catholics call them that either
So apparently no one is a Roman Catholic, that is unless we use the term for a member of the particular church at Rome (the “sacrosanct Roman church” according to Pope Eugene IV). I can’t see how anyone could object to that!
It’s kind of funny in a way because I can still remember my mother telling me I was a Roman Catholic when I was a kid. I have never been to Rome.
Now cyber-people are saying my Mom was wrong, that it was a term invented by protestants and we shouldn’t be using it. Perhaps they are right, but all those years I did use it, so did my friends and family. One can search the member list and find a lot of people still self-identifying with the term.
Complicating this is the fact that until a few decades ago, the concept of Sui Iuris churches was not very clear, and the EC were always referred to as ‘rites’ of the church, not as churches in themselves. So not only were Christians under the Pope ‘Roman Catholics’ but Eastern Christians under the Pope were thought of as members of the eastern rites of the Roman Catholic church, at least to many people of those days.
That kind of brings us back to the topic of this thread, because many people have the impression that the various eastern rites were ‘allowed’ by the Papacy for pastoral reasons (later protected and encouraged for ecumenical reasons, but still ‘allowed’), and that ideally this would be part of a process to ‘fully Catholicize’ the Orthodox. There may be something to that, since we can see the historical trends, eastern ritual parishes and dioceses were absorbed and transformed into Latin ritual parishes and dioceses in many places across Europe.
This allowance to practice also gave rise to the common but incorrect notion that EC were ‘not really Catholic’ or perhaps ‘not fully Catholic’. Such ignorance was not limited to the laity, or the lower clergy, as we have sadly learned.
Oddly, many Latin Catholics did not see the EC as fully Catholic, but the Orthodox certainly did. The irony is everyone was using the term Roman Catholic and so there it goes: The Orthodox saw the EC as fully Roman Catholic but the people who called themselves Roman Catholics did not.
This is like a two-pronged fork, wounding not only the EC, but also their Orthodox brothers who would likewise consider themselves ‘Catholic’, and don’t understand how further Latinization would necessarily improve them.
Of course, none of this helps Orthodox distinguish Catholic people in communion with Rome as a class, from others not in communion with Rome. Polite conversation requires such a term to be dignified and accepted by all parties. Since Orthodox consider themselves fully Catholic as well, and we are trying to get this courtship started, I had hoped something else would come up.
I had a friend who posted here years ago, who introduced the term ‘Papal Catholic’ as a suggestion, but some people also took exception to that. I had thought of ‘Vatican Catholic’ and other terms like that and they all seem unsuitable, so I don’t like to use them.
I guess this is going to be an ongoing problem. I can’t speak for everyone but Orthodox know we are guests here and do not generally mean to cause offense.
Pax
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ByzCathCantor
Guest
Boy, it will be a good time to own a signage business in the U.S. when this memo gets out!
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Fone_Bone_2001
Guest
That is not a good thing, Seamus. De-Latinization is a truly necessary objective for the eastern Catholic churches.
Not a bad point, but let’s not ignore the fact that, if we do use the term for people other than Catholics who live in the Diocese of Rome, it nonetheless makes far more sense to use it to identify Latin Catholics than it does to use it to identify eastern Catholics.Hi Phillip
Many Latin Catholics also tend to shun the term, as we all know. So they really wouldn’t like it when Eastern Catholics call them that either
So apparently no one is a Roman Catholic, that is unless we use the term for a member of the particular church at Rome (the “sacrosanct Roman church” according to Pope Eugene IV).
Latin Catholics like myself may not be Roman (I don’t have a drop of Italian blood in me, as far as I know), but our church predominantly uses the Roman Rite. We celebrate the Mass and the other Sacraments the way the Church of Rome does.
Eastern Catholics - at least theoretically - don’t. In what sense is an eastern Catholic “Roman”? Only in one sense - in that their churches are in communion with the Church of Rome. And that is certainly a flimsy reason to call someone “Roman” anything.
Honestly, I think we’re all going to have to get used to calling each other “Catholic” and “Orthodox”, even though each side thinks the other term applies to it as well.
As long as we all understand that, it should be okay to basically let the other communion be identified with that term for the time being.
All Catholics should understand that the Orthodox consider their church - their communion - to be the Catholic Church.
Likewise, all Orthodox should understand that Catholics believe that ours (too) is the Orthodox Faith.
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babochka
Guest
I always get asked this question! (About how our priest got away with giving infant communion in the 60s and 70s.) I honestly didn’t even know it was unusual until very recently. I assumed it was perfectly normal ( In Byzantine parishes, at least. I discoverd that it wasn’t entirely normal when I started Catholic School and gave Sister Paul a heart attack by approaching to receive Communion.) See, it takes just one generation. We were in California, a long way from the Bishop in Parma
. Maybe that has something to do with it. I have read somewhere (perhaps in this very forum?) that some of the more Eastern leaning priests were exiled out here to the Wild West. That dear priest is still in very good standing with the Eparchy of Parma, by the way.
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ConstantineTG
Guest
Wisely’s sentiments though reflect the view from a number of Orthodox. Eastern Catholics are more Roman Catholic than Eastern Orthodox.
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Phillip_Rolfes
Guest
Perhaps you are correct. But in my experience those who inquire into Eastern Catholicism, whether they be curious Roman Catholics or Orthodox, are more often than not scandalized by the extensive Latinizations that are commonly encountered. The Orthodox see such extensive Latinization as reflective of their future should reunion with Rome ever take place, and they are rightly disgusted by it. Such Latinization then becomes just one more cause to maintain the current separation, and it has been pointed out by numerous people more knowledgeable and much holier than I that this separation is an impediment to the proclamation of the Gospel.
The issue of Latinized saints is also a touchy subject when it comes to Catholic-Orthodox relations. Just look at the uproar that is caused among some Orthodox when you even mention the name “St. Josaphat.”
In this sense Latinization is not only a barrier to (re)union, but also an impediment to evangelization, sentiments that were echoed by Met. Sheptytsky, Kyr Elias Zoghby, Kyr Joseph Raya, Sayedna Joseph Tawil, and the current head of the Eparchy of Newton, Sayedna Nicholas Samra.
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Phillip_Rolfes
Guest
Sadly it also expresses the view of the vast majority of Roman Catholics, as well as a number of Eastern Catholics themselves.
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