[The first part of this post can be read here.]
Having cautiously committed itself to further dialogue with Rome, the Pan-Orthodox Council should then make clear that the behavior of certain Popes of recent memory is as much a cause of disunity as what divides the Churches doctrinally. Indeed, full communion is simply impossible until the Eastern Churches clearly see that the Bishop of Rome can be trusted to govern the portion of the Lord’s flock entrusted to his care with diligence, justice, and prudence. To provide the Pope with an opportunity to earn and nourish this trust and to elicit from him the kinds of compromises that full communion will necessarily require, the Pan-Orthodox Council should make the following demands:
Having cautiously committed itself to further dialogue with Rome, the Pan-Orthodox Council should then make clear that the behavior of certain Popes of recent memory is as much a cause of disunity as what divides the Churches doctrinally. Indeed, full communion is simply impossible until the Eastern Churches clearly see that the Bishop of Rome can be trusted to govern the portion of the Lord’s flock entrusted to his care with diligence, justice, and prudence. To provide the Pope with an opportunity to earn and nourish this trust and to elicit from him the kinds of compromises that full communion will necessarily require, the Pan-Orthodox Council should make the following demands:
1. The Western Church should conform to the Eastern date for the celebration of Easter.
2. Rome must respect that right of her Eastern Rites to ordain married men to the priesthood in every place.
3. Rome must desist from any kind of inter-religious dialogue with non-Christians, including Jews and Muslims, that suggests that the Church does not seek the conversion of non-Christians to explicit faith in Jesus Christ, true God, true man, the prophesied Jewish Messiah, and God the Father’s definitive answer to mankind’s problems.
4. Most importantly, the Pope must realize that the liturgy as celebrated in accordance with most of the reforms authorized after the Second Vatican Council is as much a stumbling block to unity as the doctrines that divide us. The Pan-Orthodox Council thus demands that Rome return to the historic liturgical practices that once prevailed in the universal and undivided Church which Rome either centuries ago or more recently has abandoned, namely:
A) The West should rediscover the practice of fasting and abstinence at various times in the liturgical year; that, as in England, the whole Western Church should return to the laudable custom of meatless Fridays; that all those who have the wherewithal to do so should be encouraged to abstain from all animal products every day of Lent and Advent; and that a more intense period of fasting before the reception of Holy Communion be assiduously observed by all.
B) The West should seriously consider admitting married men to the priesthood.
C) The West must restore the Eastward facing (ad orientem) position of the clergy at all liturgical functions.
D) Only one Mass should be celebrated publicly per day in any given church, that the divine office be celebrated publicly and become once again a daily part of the Church’s life.
E) Only ordained ministers should touch the Consecrated Species except under the rarest of circumstances.
F) The Pan-Orthodox Council affirms the newly found Western practice of permitting Communion under both kinds for the laity and of permitting liturgies celebrated in the vernacular.
5. Finally, Rome should seek to maintain unity with those communities who feel they cannot at present accept the “reformed” liturgy and encourage the public celebration of her unreformed rites.
The careful and informed observer of these suggestions will note the following: 1. Nothing in this list constitutes a change in doctrine. Therefore, no one in Rome can refuse out of hand to consider these demands seriously. 2. If Rome were to concede any of these demands, life in the Roman Church would most probably improve; and, 3. Eastern Orthodox bishops opposed to full communion with Rome should be encouraged to vote for such a resolution, because they could reasonably conclude that if such a resolution passed, Rome would never accede to such demands and thus the path to full communion would be rendered impossible. In this way, the Council could achieve the necessary votes to pass such a resolution.
44 comments:
Some very interesting and mostly agreeable suggestions here.
I would add: "that the Western Church should return to the ancient order of the sacraments of initiation, namely 1) Baptism, 2) Confirmation, 3) Eucharist."
' 1. The Western Church should conform to the Eastern date for the celebration of Easter.'
Hell no.
Why?
How uncanny that we came up with very similar lists entirely independent of one another and published on the same day! But yours adds some good things I did not consider, and I'm glad you did. Mine is here: http://www.catholicworldreport.com/Item/2884/roman_rights_and_wrongs.aspx
So to sum it up "The western Church should conform itself to the ways of heretics and schismatics" As someone said earlier, Hell No.
If "Tradition" means whatever the Pope or a group of bishops change without including other bishops in agreement, "Tradition" is meaningless, and this is why Novus Ordinarians are justified that their 40-year-old "Guitar Masses" is "Traditional."
Now, if we concede that the date of Easter, before the calendar reform of Pope Gregory XIII was the original, traditional date the Church celebrated the resurrection of our Lord, then we would be honest than saying Jesus rose from the dead either sooner, later, or twice in that year.
Calling the Easterners heretics is A) erroneous; B) uncharitable; and as a result, C) unacceptable. Any more verbal diarrhea from the likes of you will be censored and deleted.
I believe we are largely in agreement.
Just a warning to some of my readers: Stupid comments, especially those that are completely off topic, will be deleted.
the calendar drifted and was put back into place. the western easter date is the one the julian calendar was supposed to placing easter on before it drifted off because of its inaccuracies
I think you will find they have in mind their rule that Easter should always follow Passover.
It's neither A nor B nor C, are you by any chance eastern Catholic or Orthodox? Is that why instead of replying with arguments you have to result to threats and insults? Is this a traditionalist blog or not? Papal Infallibility is a dogma, the eastern orthodox deny it, the same goes with Papal Primacy in its true sense and not the adulterated sense given to it by the 'Orthodox', there are also more subtle issues with purgatory and the last judgment. Why is this nonsense appearing on a traditionalist catholic blog anyway?
Because doctrine is as important to radical traditionalists as it is to other dissenters.
@lucas clover alcole: What do you mean by "traditionalist"? 1950s Catholicism with sloppy Low Masses on Sundays? 1950s ugly psalm tone propers? Stuffing one's face with doughnuts and fried fish at a parish fish fry to "fast" in Lent?
The point is, we ought to pray and work towards reunion, but getting the East to take seriously the developments in Western theology to which you refer requires meeting them on their own terms and doing some hand-holding. And there's no reason why we shouldn't use this opportunity to get our own house in order liturgically and otherwise.
Maximilion:
One of the things I value at Eponymous Flower is its almost total lack of "snootiness", and its willingness to let people speak without the sword of censorship hanging over their heads. I do hope that sensible policy continues at this fine blog.
You have said some interesting things here, some laudable and some questionable. Many agree with you that this schism should end but no one is so anxious for an end to it that doctrinal/dogmatic issues are swept away (always, it seems, on the Catholic side) or ignored as mere nothings. There have been great mistakes made on both sides of the schism. This we know. But there are indeed dogmatic principles involved as well that will have to be worked out. We cannot go the route of the Vatican 2 Pollyannas who were so anxious to be chummy with certain Protestants that they were willing to ignore things like the Virgin Birth, or those in Rome now who are so anxious to be seen as friends of the Jews that they are practically willing to deny the fact that He is the one, true and only Messiah.
The Orthodox are without question the closest brothers we have and this wound needs to be healed. When I read the anti-Catholic remarks on some of the Orthodox blogs my heart sinks because, in the first place, I would never write an anti-Orthodox comments in the same manner, and in the second place it shows how far away we still are from these good people.
But please let the discussions continue so that TEF doesn't turn into another Rorate Caeli where the supercilious moderators clamped down on anything that didn't meet their standards.
'Calling the Easterners heretics is A) erroneous'
Uh, Pastor Aeternus is kinda important for the Catholic Faith.
And I'm sorry if I was rude to the Orthodox fellow(s) in these threads, but some of the stuff being pushed here is just plain wrong-headed.
I'm not going to dignify you with a response, I don't waste time parleying with arrogant buffoons. Frankly I'm shocked that on a 'traditionalist' blog (don't try and claim you don't know thats the majority of your readership) this kind of insulting childish nonsense is allowed.
It is fascinating to observe that several of you believe that it would be unacceptable for the Western Church to return to the original, traditional date for Pascha (Easter). The change of the date of Pascha by the Western Church was a departure from ancient Tradition (much like the end of the requirement of building churches ad orientem) that developed at around the same time that the ancient canonical tradition of the early ecumenical councils were abandoned in Rome.
Those who reject the departure of Rome from so many traditional practices in the past 50 years cannot be ignorant of the fact that the innovations of the last few decades did not happen in a vacuum, but were the culmination of centuries of liturgical, devotional, and canonical innovation that was developed and supported by a papal fiat was viewed itself as answerable to neither council nor Holy Tradition. Undoubtedly, many of you will consider this form of papal fiat as very traditional and proper. However, if you do, please spare us your hang-ringing about the full baneful expressions of this mentality currently on exhibition in Rome.
How do you know it's more traditional? I'm not a fan of omitting Filioque myself and I grow by the day more and more impatient of the hauteur of Orthodox enthusiasts in Latium.
Please educate yourself. They are not 'ignorant of the fact' because it isn't a fact, the issue is not Papal Supremacy, which has always been a dogma, but the failure to understand that Papal supremacy does not = carte blanche to do anything. St Thomas Aquinas, Suarez and many other theologians, particularly those of the Salamanca School understood this well. This Pro-Orthodox narrative is simply not true and indeed, is propaganda.
Lucas clover alcole,
"Propaganda" is a narrative that is contradicted by the facts and is used to convince people to retain adherence to a particular form of government or philosophy. A more opt example (or appearance) of propaganda is the repeated, traditional rhetoric and affirmations about the importance of Rome, the Papacy, and the Barque of Peter and their necessity in living an integral Christian life that are used against Eastern Orthodox Christians. This rhetoric, while certainly having the benefit of being traditionally Roman Catholic, is contradicted almost completely by the reality of the current ecclesial situation of the Roman Catholic Church.
The purveyors of such rhetoric cannot be ignorant of the fact that "Rome" is the hotbed of non-traditional and innovative Christianity and that at the present moment even the smallest Eastern Orthodox See has more traditional integrity than the Eternal City, the Papacy no longer serves hardly any positive purpose in defending either orthodox life or praxis (rather it serves to keep certain commentators busy in proving that she hasn't taught heresy - this is life support, Lucas – it is not an institution necessary for holding to the ancient, orthodox Faith or an institution by which those out of communion with her suffer any loss), and the Barque of Peter (understood as the parishes of the Roman Catholic Church) is so dangerous that the same messengers of the robust, traditional Catholic rhetoric about the necessity of Rome, the Papacy, and the Barque of Peter, frequently warn people against visiting its parishes that are in full communion with her.
This, my friend, is close to being true propaganda and it should not surprise you or anyone else that more and more people are jettisoning such propaganda and are seriously considering why there is such a disconnect beyond words and reality in the Roman Catholic Church.
To my readers: I want to reiterate that I do not delete comments that are actually interesting and thought provoking; silliness, however, is unacceptable.
Please, please keep in mind that what I have proposed in these posts are Suggestions to the up-coming Council. I am not sure how Rome should respond to such demands. I do NOT think that Rome should necessarily capitulate on every point at the drop of a hat.
The point is: To move things forward, specific demands have to be laid out on the table.
And please refrain as well from trying to discuss complicated theological matters in sound bites. Questions of the inner workings of the life of the holy and life-giving Trinity are best left to saints and scholars, and especially saintly scholars.
Secondly, as Fr. Hunwicke recently pointed out on his blog, ecumenism is often about trying to use another church to change one's own. There is no reason why we should not encourage the Eastern Orthodox to cite the way the Novus Ordo is celebrated in most parishes as an impediment to unity. To be honest, I'm astounded that more Eastern Orthodox don't object on Precisely those grounds. If Rome is to be trusted with full and immediate jurisdiction over all the Eastern Orthodox Churches, then Rome needs to prove that she can responsible govern how the liturgy is celebrated, which at present she certainly does not do.
Finally, both Tancred and I do, of course, believe in the doctrine of the papacy defined at the First Vatican Council.
I like these propositions for the Vatican better.
Something I noticed is that no matter what era, no matter what pronouncement or council, there are always people who say "NO! THAT IS INCORRECT! WRONGHEADED! HERETICAL!" And they usually form groups that quickly die, or are forgotten and rendered irrelevant.
Some "traditionalists" I am afraid, are on the way to that fate. But if God loves the Traditional movement, and He does, He would not allow them to die out and be forgotten until, at least, they have done what The Lord wills them to do. Refute the sedevacantists, confront the disobedient either on the left or on the right, and endure even the severity of the Holy Father, and other members of the Church, but remain faithful to God forever, and be obedient to what the fathers have taught as it remains consistent to what their fathers taught, all the way to what came from the mouth of Our Lord as He taught and trained those first 12 men.
No it is not 'propaganda' it is truth and unfortunately it is not as if the Eastern Orthodox Church has behaved any better. The changes in doctrine and morality that have occured throughout its history are significant as ecumenical patriarchs shameful actions in having the turks slaughter other orthodox who wanted to be independent on multiple occasions over centuries. Indeed the Church is undergoing a great crisis, but it remains the Church.
Enjoy your cool aide?
schmenz, I agree with you as it seems I always to do.
Like those Traditionalists at Vatican I...
Well said Anonymous. The liturgical (and other changes) that so many traditionalists object too were the fruit of a system that was out of control since its separation from the East and without the moderating influence of various Emperors.
I also find that Orthodoxy, despite the appearances of traditionalist intransigence, which is mostly focused on a few monasteries anyway, is quite a haven for various forms of Marxist ideology.
Yes on 2, No on 4 B.
"4 .... the liturgy as celebrated in accordance with most of the reforms authorized after the Second Vatican Council is as much a stumbling block to unity as the doctrines that divide us."
I would change this to, " .... some of the reforms authorized after VC2, but in contradiction to and unmentioned in its documents ...." [E.g., suppression of Latin, altar girls, versus populum ... fill in the blanks]
4.D. "Only one Mass should be celebrated publicly per day in any given church."
Including Sundays? I can see many practical problems -- overcrowding -- with that.
Some of your suggestions are offensive to Roman sensibilities. For example, having one Mass a day. With regard to the Roman custom of daily Mass in public and more than one a day in the same church, St. Augustine in Letter (54) to Januarius ch.2 . 2. gives a good rule: "There are other things, however, which are different in different places and countries: e.g., .... in some places no day passes without the sacrifice being offered; in others it is only on Saturday and the Lord's day, or it may be only on the Lord's day. In regard to these and all other variable observances which may be met anywhere, one is at liberty to comply with them or not as he chooses; and there is no better rule for the wise and serious Christian in this matter, than to conform to the practice which he finds prevailing in the Church to which it may be his lot to come. For such a custom, if it is clearly not contrary to the faith nor to sound morality, is to be held as a thing indifferent, and ought to be observed for the sake of fellowship with those among whom we live."
As much as I wish the Orthodox to be in communion with Rome, I think the problem is often their own intransigence and disdain for things Latin. For example, they even seem to presume that the Latin Fathers must be judged by the Greek Fathers.
I would suggest they look at a lesson of history. Like the mustard seed the Roman Church has blossomed into a great tree and spread to every land and culture. To be Roman has nothing to do with being Italian. Meanwhile, the Orthodox are still often mired in petty nationalistic squabbles and slowly but surely seem to be withering into non-existence. Some practices you recommend are entirely consistent with the Roman Tradition. But a married clergy? I would argue that a married clergy is one institution that prevented the Orthodox Church from spreading or converting Muslims. It was also a cause of their less frequent celebration of the Holy Eucharist.
The Orthodox date of Easter is tied to the obsolete and inaccurate Julian calendar.
The Orthodox view on divorce and re-marriage is lax, heretical, and unbiblical, contrary to the teaching of Christ.
The inability of the many national and ethnic Orthodox Churches to act independently of their secular governments is an ongoing scandal. They lack unity with each other, because they lack unity with Peter. They have little or no history of foreign missionary work, outside of their own ethnic enclaves.
The married clergy in the Orthodox Churches have not served them well, because they are often like part-time clergy, businessmen with a Sunday hobby. Clerical celibacy is of Apostolic origin.
Yes, I think someone already tried to make those points and had his comments deleted. I couldn't agree more.
I would agree with all these "orthodox " suggestions.as for the date of Easter..that was fixed by the council of Nicea.325AD.....the date remains the same for east and west...the problem is the East will not accept the reform of the Calender by Pope Gregory in the 16th cent. (the Julian calendar had gone off by 10 days)
The list in part two continues to be very good, most of what you wrote is realistic to expect and actually has been discussed within the official joint ecumenical dialogues.
The allowance of married men to be ordained for the priesthood seems to me to be the least relevant of the recommendations (though I very much support the idea of its consideration). Unity in that practice would betremendously helpful, but it is not absolutely necessary. Many Orthodox would not object unmarried priests within the Latin Churches. It may be peculiar to them, but they could live with it.
As for fasting, I think the reintegration of Wednesday as a fasting day for the Latin Church is somewhat important, it was not long ago that it was there with Friday, how quickly that has been forgotten in the west. Unity in fasting is not absolutely necessary to be identical, but it also can not be "too" different.
Certainly during Lent and Advent (St. Martins fast, from martinmas forward for the latins.) fasting, alms, abstinence ought to be almost identical between all churches, east and west. Even if the lay people of the west find it to be a huge change, and do not live up to it, they can always try harder the next year and be forgiven for their failures. Having the law on paper as official is what matters, even if practice of it realistically is lax. (As certainly may occur in the Orthodox Church in the present day). Difficulty in following laws is no excuse for abandoning them.
"1. The Western Church should conform to the Eastern date for the celebration of Easter."
This point is simply inconceivable to me. I cannot see why the Latin Church should be forced to conform to a grossly inaccurate method of calculating Pascha, completely divorced from any notion that we as human beings should do our best to measure time accurately, based on what we observe in the sky that God created. The first Council of Nicaea assumed that there would be continual astronomical updating to the Paschal calculus, and entrusted this task to the Church of Alexandria.
"B) The West should seriously consider admitting married men to the priesthood."
I support this: Yes, the West should consider this, and most definitely in an "Orthodox key" rather than in a secularist one. But as to how practical this is, I have serious doubts.
"D) Only one Mass should be celebrated publicly per day in any given church"
This one sounds a bit too caught up in modern, anti-Catholic Orthodox propaganda. I very much doubt that it's truly a church dividing issue.
It seems rather pointless to talk about changes in who is admitted to the priesthood in what rite, unless the Church's doctrine regarding the priesthood is made abundantly clear first. It is hardly self-evident that all priests today believe what the Church used to teach about this matter.
"The careful and informed observer of these suggestions will note the following: 1. Nothing in this list constitutes a change in doctrine. Therefore, no one in Rome can refuse out of hand to consider these demands seriously."
## The first assertion makes sense, if it is true - as this poster has been told - that Paul VI told the "Orthodox" that the 14 Ecumenical Councils after Nicea II in 787, & including V2, were local councils of the Roman Church. There is also JP2's stated suggestion, or acceptance of it, that the CC in the West should ask of the "Orthodox" acceptance only of those dogmas that pre-date the Schism of 1054.
If the first suggestion is true, it is yet another evidence of the character of Paul VI, and of his betrayals of the Faith. It would be entirely in character, which suggests it is all too likely to be true (& totally vapourises the (extremely sucky) notion that he is fit to be beatified - quod Deus avertat !).
If the "Orthodox" schismatics - that is exactly what they are, unless they have suddenly accepted Vatican I and the Ecumenical Councils before it (if only !) - are allowed to reject all those nasty "Frankish", "Old Roman", "Papist" dogmas (the epithets, are theirs, not mine), while we Catholics have to accept them, that would utterly destroy any notion that the NuChurch is not relativist to the core, a traitor to the Faith, heretical, apostate, deceitful, unworthy of trust, and w/o anything resembling conscience or basic morality. It cannot possibly be infallible, or any continuity with its pre-V2 past other than a sociological one.
If the "Orthodox" want us to drop ecumenism, I say we start with them. It may be that Providence does not intend that there should be organisational re-union with them. Separation from them has not crippled the CC before, or them: & a lot of the "Orthodox" can't abide us anyway: something that the clerical bureaucrats on their ecumaniacal junkets seem to want to ignore. There are other kinds of unity between us already, such as communion in many spiritual goods, which are in God's hands, not the grubby mitts of traitor Popes, the Papacy, or the Phanar.
A start could be made by disinterring Paul VI, degrading the corpse from all ecclesiastical & Catholic positions, anathematising his memory, burning his remains, & scattering them to the four winds.
God help you.
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