Why not Orthodox?

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Highly offensive to Eastern Christians, Orthodox and Catholic. The Orthodox are not outside the Church. Every Maronite priest I know says so, so it’s either Roman Catholics and Maronite Catholics teach two completely different things or you are woefully mistaken. And Pope Francis also said that it’s a sin to proselytize the Orthodox. Unless your royal highness counts himself above the Pope?
 
The Eastern Churches have other doctors of the faith, and are not obliged to fawn over Saint Thomas Aquinas like the Latins do.
 
Bobby87 said:
“Heretics have the power to pass it [i.e., ordination] on…’but they do not possess, and cannot pass on, its legitimate exercise.’
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We ought to not pretend there is another legitimate Church of Christ than Catholic Church- or that there ever has been. I am willing to admit they are in schism but as Papacy has stated it now, if they do accept Pope and Latin dogmas to be true (not necessarily doctrines, mind that), they can be Catholic while not making any formal switch and contribute to real union between Churches. Therefore it would be wrong to call them being all in schism- schism is refusal to obey Roman Pontiff and therefore if Orthodox person obeys Pope on accepting him and his teachings in his heart, he is not refusing obedience therefore he is not in schism.
 
Salibi said:
The Eastern Churches have other doctors of the faith, and are not obliged to fawn over Saint Thomas Aquinas like the Latins do.
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Latins don’t reject St. John Chrysostom, why would Eastern Catholics reject Thomas Aquinas? In the end, in early centuries of first millennium we accepted each other’s Doctrines, Dogmas, Church Fathers, and Councils. Why are we divided on this matter now?
Salibi said:
The Orthodox are not outside the Church.
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Some are not, but to imply that, for example, Russian Patriarch is inside the Church while preaching against Latin Catholics and Pope of Rome, is straight up nonsense. Most Orthodox are actually in schism therefore not FULLY part of the Church, and belong to it similar way all baptized do.
 
Where did I say we rejected Thomas Aquinas? I merely meant he’s not that important to us in the East as he is in the West.
And the sins of the Russian patriarch are his own, not Orthodoxy’s. The Orthodox, don’t forget, have valid Apostolic Succession, making them in imperfect union with the Catholic Church.
 
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ziapueblo said:
Unfortunately, for a number of centuries, the Church of Rome thought of itself in exclusionary terms as the ONLY true Church
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I think that was the case though. After all, Eastern Orthodoxy was in schism. It would be same as to say “unfortunately, Nicene Church has thought of itself as ONLY true Church after Council of Nicea, discarding Arianism”. Maronites and some other Eastern Catholics were also part of the Church but they generally accepted Latin doctrines. Heck, before Great Schism started to escalate, Latins would accept Greek doctrines and Greeks would accept Latin doctrines. I don’t understand why are we splitting theology on geographical lines when we could just enrich everyone with both theological approaches, while keeping them separated to their own dignity. There is ONE truth, ONE faith, maybe with different approach but it is either true there is original sin or not, it is either true Pope is infallible or not. You do not have to approach Original Sin same way, of course, but East should not just be silent about it.

As for Papal Infallibility being tricky one, Melkite Catholics did sign documents (with added clause from Council of Florence, which was apparently too Latin) approving of Papal Infallibility. The added clause does not disturb the dogma, just reminds Rome to respect dignity of Eastern Patriarchs. To not accept Papal Infallibility would be to deny Latin doctrine. As pointed above, respectful silence is not desirable to the Church as it is heresy of Jansenism. To deny Papal Authority in turn, is Gallicanism. Those two heresies were both condemned by Melkite Church too.
Salibi said:
that does not mean the Eastern Churches are “ second class Catholics”.
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Therefore as full Catholics who I love dearly, Eastern Catholics can not go around being Jansenist or Gallican.
StAugustine said:
It’s simply a dogmatic fact that the Latin formulations of particular dogmas in Ecumenical councils are irreformable.
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Ecumenical Councils are guided by Holy Spirit, as we all know and agree.
 
Salibi said:
Where did I say we rejected Thomas Aquinas? I merely meant he’s not that important to us in the East as he is in the West.
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My apologies, I guess I misunderstood. I’m just saying that there is nothing wrong- and I’ll even go as far as to say it’s good- about looking into Thomas Aquinas while being Eastern Catholic.
Salibi said:
The Orthodox, don’t forget, have valid Apostolic Succession, making them in imperfect union with the Catholic Church.
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All baptized have imperfect union with Catholic Church. With Orthodox, thanks to Apostolic Succession, this union is less imperfect than union with Protestants.
 
That does not impact valid apostolic succession, it impacts not validity but being licit. That’s all.
 
Jansenist or Gallican? I have already explained that the dogma defined by the Church of Rome is Catholic dogma, not merely Latin. It applies to the whole Church, and belongs to it as well. I cannot speak for the Melkites, but we Maronites have never questioned the authority nor the primacy of the Pope. In fact, the first time I’ve ever seen these issues raised is here on the Forums. Same with the Filioque. The first time I read a thread about the Filioque here, I thought, ‘ I have never heard that this was a problem in my entire life.’ As you correctly said above, Greeks and Latins used to accept each others’ doctrines, and it’s a shame that some no longer do so today. But I’m afraid that as a Maronite, I’m neither Latin nor Greek, but Syriac. I was merely responding to what I percieved as this strange tendency of some Catholics here to throw shade on the Catholicity of the Eastern Churches.
And please, with all due respect, the fact that the Latin Church is the largest Catholic particular church does not make the whole Church Latin by default. Let me change your perspective a little: Here in Lebanon, the majority of Catholics are Eastern Catholic Maronites, and the next largest group of Catholics is the Greek Catholic Melkites. There are only like seven Roman Catholic churches in the country. In fact, I’ve never seen one myself. Some Catholics here have never heard of Saint Thomas Aquinas, much less read his works. I agree that of course it’s beneficial to read the works of a great saint, but what I meant is that in majority Eastern Catholic Lebanon, it’s not that common, and he’s not that essential for our theology.
 
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Kindly quit this childish battle about whose saint is stronger than whose saint. It is highly improper for us to be arguing about this. Prince of theologians? Is that a Church title? And I also think that you should educate yourself on Roman Catholicism before making ignorant remarks about the Orthodox. Check your catechism please.
 
The Maronite Church is a Syriac Church. We were formed by a community of monks centered around Saint Maron, hence the name Maronite. We were not formed by the Latin Church. Unless you meant something else, and I misunderstood?
And we Maronites are the ones who imported Latin traditions. It’s a form of voluntary Latinization, so to speak. This is due to the historic tendency of Lebanese people to gravitate towards and see Roman Catholic France as “superior”, leading naturally to Lebanese Christians giving up their own traditions and adopting Roman customs in order to seem less Arab and more French. That era of history is over (kinda) although France and French culture are still held in high esteem in Lebanon.
Of course Maronite priests and theologians are going to know Thomas Aquinas. They’re students of Catholic theology, after all. But the average Maronite may not even know who he is.
I’d also like to take this opportunity to apologize if any of my remarks seemed incendiary or have offended you. We are all Catholics, after all, regardless of these petty disputes.
 
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Hmm. Perhaps I am uneducated on this matter; I have never heard of all this. I shall refer to my priest for answers. And I am not insulting Saint Thomas Aquinas.
I’ve only never heard of the Church elevating a saint to the level you claim the Church has elevated Saint Thomas to. I’ll look into the matter.
 
I’m referring to ZP’s claims that Papal Infallibility is “tricky one”.
Salibi said:
the fact that the Latin Church is the largest Catholic particular church does not make the whole Church Latin by default
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I wholeheartedly agree. In-fact, I am proud that the Church is also Eastern and I have deep respect for Eastern Churches, I frequently attend Divine Liturgies and I want to someday see Maronite Liturgy too. I did not mean to offend Eastern Catholics or claim they are “not really Catholic” - on the contrary, I claim that Eastern Catholics are Catholic, not just “orthodox in union with Rome”.
 
Perhaps word “valid priesthood” would be better for you? Thing is, Augustine referred to heretics, you refer to schismatics. There is certainly a difference.
 
Are you looking for something like this? Saint Basil the Great wrote, “The energies are various, and the essence simple, but we say that we know our God from His energies, but do not undertake to approach near to His essence. His energies come down to us, but His essence remains beyond our reach” ( Letter 234).

Other Fathers of the early Church say similar things, such as Gregory of Nyssa ( Homily on the Beatitudes VI), Cyril of Alexandria ( Thesaurus 18) and Maximus the Confessor ( Ad Thalassium 22).

ZP
 
Wow, so you do not acknowledge the Second Vatican Councils DECREE ON ECUMENISM UNITATIS REDINTEGRATIO? It clearly states that the Eastern Churches not in communion with Rome do have Apostolic succession and therefore a valid Eucharist.

What’s interesting is that Monsignor G. Van Noort, S.T.D. book you quote from was published in 1961. Saint Pope Paul VI promulgated Unitatis Redintegratio on 21 November 1964. I’ll go with what the Council has to say over Monsignor Van Noort.

ZP
 
I think there is confusion in terminology. What is meant by council as “apostolic succession” is valid priesthood, what is meant by Monsignor Van Noort seems to me being part of true Church and having true, licit Holy Orders. Latin Church never re-consecrated bishops nor did we do such things with priests or deacons comming from Eastern Orthodoxy, hence we do acknowledge just precisely what St. Augustine said- that they transmit sacrament of Holy Orders. Orthodox do not have valid jurisdiction, though for matters like marriage we consider their belief of jurisdiction to be enough to confer marriage validly- unlike SSPX who did not even understand themselves to have jurisdiction, so their marriage was never even valid.
 
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I love how our Lord will leave the 99 to go after the 1. Then He doesn’t put the 1 on a leash. He doesn’t scold the 1. He doesn’t make the 1 “conform” to the 99.

He puts the 1 on His shoulders & brings him back to the flock.
 
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