www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Seeking an End to the ‘Scandalous Disunity’ Between East and West

Dear Marduk,

I've never considered you as a convert either!

Cheers, Alex

+1.

Alex:

It's not necessary to bow out. I was suggesting a step back to take a second look before pushing "submit."

Bob

As you say, Mr. Moderator, I submit in more ways than one.

Alex

I apologize, it was me that brought up the name of the person. It is disheartening to me to hear such things occur so often. It's as if all this talk of "authentic Tradition" and such is merely window dressing. Which brings us back to the original topic.

Perhaps some disunity is not as much scandal as "unity" like that.

I don't want to get much involved with that topic, but I think I should say a word because my comment about "my experience [with] quite a lot of Catholic bloggers" seems to have brought it on. (My personal experience is more with "neo-conservative" Catholic bloggers, but I'm guessing some have more experience with trad-types. You perhaps, Alex?)

Also, calling the Catholic Church "the Roman Communion" to object to the intractability of our true-church claim (vs. Orthodoxy's?) is unfair because our claim is more inclusive than Orthodoxy's. As part of our doctrine, we partially recognize the other side: they have bishops and the Mass. Not so of the Orthodox. The ecumenical ones are allowed to recognize our sacraments, but the anti-ecumenical ones are allowed not to.

Actually I don't think the Catholic Church makes that claim any longer--at least as exclusively as in th epast--since Vatican II called us to expand our vision of what the "One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church mentioned in the Nicene Creed means. In fact, I believe that the ecumenical approach taht we are called to asks us to look at our brethren as somehow part of us already and to look at Truth as Christ and not our own parochial vision.

We must take a more global view and get outside the strictures of history--or as St. John Paul II said, we must purify our historical memories, which I take to mean that we must see the good in our brothers and sisters and put aside the negative that we have carried for so long. No one in the history of the Church is without fault. On the other hand, it does no one--least of all us--any good to carry the weight of our predecsssors' negativity with us into the future.

Bob

I think we still make the one-true-church claim ... but we recognize that it isn't necessary to repeat it a thousand times at every step of the dialogue.

Likewise, I think we are less rigid than we use to be vis a vis the idea of having, if you will, a copyright on names like "Catholic" or "Orthodox". (And thank goodness! I find it utterly ridiculous to hear names like "Eastern Schismatics", "the Vatican Religious Organization", etc being used, or to listen to the endless back and forth "We're the Catholic Church ... No we're the Catholic Church ... No we're the Catholic Church ... No we're the Catholic Church" etc.)

All of the ancient apostolic churches (except the modern Nestorians, probably because of Anglican influence) claim this. The classic conservative Anglicans sort of do too, saying they're the best for being both "Catholic," claiming to have bishops and having a sort of liturgy and vesture, and "reformed." As do confessional Lutherans, holding that both we and other Protestants are in grave error. Again I think Catholicism's claim both makes the most sense and is the most generous (we don't claim that the non-Catholic Eastern churches are graceless).