Why are Eastern Catholics allowed to have extra scripture and named angels but Western Catholics aren't?

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WonderAndAwe

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That always struck me as something that can lead to scandal. Why isn’t it?
 
Wat’s your definition of scandal?
This is not scandal.
 
It’s immoral for Westerners to think Uriel exists or Enoch has any truth in it but not for Easterners. Isn’t that a double standard that flies in the face of the universal nature of the church?
 
If I’m not mistaken, it’s only the Ethiopian Church that considers Enoch to be holy scripture.
 
The Church’s teaching (including regarding the canon and the danger of assigning names to angels other than the three archangels) is universal. East and West differ only regarding things which are not demanded by doctrine.
 
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WonderAndAwe said:
It’s immoral for Westerners to think Uriel exists or Enoch has any truth in it but not for Easterners. Isn’t that a double standard that flies in the face of the universal nature of the church?
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Universality is not the same thing as uniformity. The Church in the west came to discourage the naming of angels because of the particular circumstances demanded at the time.

The Church does not say that books not in the official canon of scripture have no truth in them. Far from it.

And I’m not sure where you get the idea that westerners believing in the existence of an angel that tradition has named Uriel or to accept the book of Enoch as true would be immoral. These matters do not contradict the faith. Many traditions of the Church, including thenames for the parents of the Theotokos, come from non-canonical sources.
 
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If something is not okay in the west it shouldn’t be in the east. Uriel is a false angel that doesn’t exist according to the west, therefore the east shouldn’t acknowledge it. Yet they do. How is that not scandalous?
 
The Church has never said Uriel is a fake angel, at least not to my knowledge. You may think he’s real or not, based on what you consider to be the best evidence from tradition, until the Church says something official. Easterners have the option of disbelieving in Uriel; Westerners have the option of believing in him; and vice-versa.
 
But that’s immoral, it’s a sin to name angels and named angels that are not Michael, Raphael and Gabriel are fallen and wicked. That’s why the Church forbids naming your guardian angel. Guardian angels cannot and do not and will never have names.
 
Clarification please? Are you suggesting that all the various Eastern Rites Catholics should be forced into the Latin Rite?
 
So you would consider the Eastern Orthodox heretics? I ask because the Church does NOT consider them heretics but merely schismatics.
 
WonderAndAwe said:
But that’s immoral, it’s a sin to name angels and named angels that are not Michael, Raphael and Gabriel are fallen and wicked.
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Where did the Church state that?? The Church suppressed the public Cultus of Uriel, but did not suppress private cultus.

And as far as giving names to one’s guardian angels, do you have a Church reference for that.

The only one that I am aware of us the Directory of Piety, which stated

“The practice of assigning names to the Holy Angels should be discouraged, except in the cases of Gabriel, Raphael and Michael whose names are contained in Holy Scripture.”

Something being ‘discouraged’ is different from being immoral. Immoral is forbidden, not simply discouraged.
 
WonderAndAwe said:
If something is not okay in the west it shouldn’t be in the east. Uriel is a false angel that doesn’t exist according to the west, therefore the east shouldn’t acknowledge it. Yet they do. How is that not scandalous?
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The reason is that the tradition of naming Uriel among the archangels is nearly 2,000 years old (actually it’s even pre-Christian).

The prohibition in the West is against individual persons (or even groups) giving new names to Angels.

Laws affect the future, not the past.

A law (against giving new angel names) written more than 1,500 years AFTER the Eastern custom is well-established does not retroactively prohibit the Eastern Churches from keeping their own tradition.

And please tone down the rhetoric. There’s no need to use terms like “false angel” That’s insulting to Eastern Christian tradition.
 
WonderAndAwe said:
They probably should if they teach error like Uriel, Esdras, 3 Maccabees etc.
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You really do need to get some education on the nature of the Catholic Church.

The Eastern Churches are fully Catholic, and just as much Catholic as the Latin/Roman rite.

First, you need to learn that the Catholic Church respects and fosters the Eastern traditions. That cannot be explained in the limited format we have here on CAF. A good start though would be the Vatican II decree on the Eastern Churches and Ut unum sint by St John Paul II. Just for starters.

Then you need to learn the history of these practices. It’s much more complex than what you’re implying. There is a long and very complicated, as well as diverse, history behind determining which books are canonical.

And finally, you’re not in any position to decide that Catholic Churches actually “teach error.” So please, ask questions if you like, but refrain from setting yourself up as some kind of judge over the Catholic Churches.
 
You need to learn more about the Eastern Churches my friend. Read Saint Pope John Paul II’s apostolic exhortation, Orientale Lumen.

ZP
 
Actually, in the Eastern Catholic Churches, at least those of the Byzantine tradition, we commemorate Uriel.
 
But he’s a demon. There are only 3 holy Angels with names and any angel with a name outside them is a demon.
 
We commemorate him as one of the angels, on the Synaxis of the Archangel Michael and the Other Bodiless Powers. We certainly don’t commemorate demons.
 
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