www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West On Rome and her 3 Major Errors

Thanks for your prayers, xxxx. You are in mine also, as is the Archdiocese of Rome. I hope and pray we will one day be reunited.

However, the "position" of which you are aware, is not simply a position: it is the pronouncement of every ancient canon that concerns the matter. The only "canons" to the contrary are Rome's own, drafted with an authority the earlier ones never grant.

I, too, would be content to bless you and pray for unity, if only you did not feel it necessary to advance the Roman position on this Orthodox discussion
list. You are certainly free to, but it does make it necessary for the Orthodox to point out where that position doesn't "fit."

Rome has gone astray in three areas:

1. Revelation. To Rome, Divine Revelation is a "three legged stool" that consists of Scripture, Tradition and Magisterium. This gives the pronouncements of the Pope the same actual authority as the Revealed
Word of God when made ex-cathedra, and the same effective authority in any case (any current Papal position is "binding upon the conscience of all
religious Catholics"). It also removes Tradition from its--excuse me--traditional role as illuminator of Scripture into a new role as something which, itself, needs to be illuimined. This illuminator is a poisonous
concept called "development of doctrine." One of this concept's principles is that it is unnecessary for the new to proceed from the ancient; that since the Magisterium itself has revelatory power, the ancient now serves only in an advisory capacity and can be actually discarded.

"Development of Doctrine" is not only heterodox, it is anti-Orthodox. It maintains that whatever is newest is most authoritative, whereas Orthodoxy proclaims that the Ancient is what is authoritative, and is that upon which everything coming later depends.

In order to rejoin the Church, Rome will need to overhaul its entire concept of Divine Revelation.

2. Tradition. To the Church, Holy Tradition consists of the writings of the Apostolic, Monastic and Conciliar Fathers through the period of the Seventh Ecumenical Council.

The Conciliar canons are twofold: dogmatic and administrative. The administrative canons are guidelines for local bishops in administering the
affairs of the local Church. The dogmatic canons define what the Content of the Faith is.

The Apostolic and Monastic writings exemplify and lead one into the "Christian mindset," or "Phronema," in light of which one is enabled to read Scripture profitably.

To Rome, Holy Tradition is a set of laws: a sort of "Talmud," accepted as part of the Magesterium and therefore the equal of Scripture. The canons
(Rome capitalizes them: Canons) are also laws. In fact, it is Rome who have sneaked the phrase "canon law," or even "Canon Law" into the recent Orthodox
vocabulary, through the "ecumenical movement."

Roman Tradition consists of all the writings of all her Saints, who are considered infallible in faith. Their lengthy canonization process involves an actual trial, with a prosecutor (the "Devil's advocate") and a defense attorney (the Champion of the Cause). The objeft of the exercise is to unearth and examine every statement ever made in the life of the Beatus
(candidate for Sainthood) to determine whether or not a "heterodox" word ever passed his or her lips or if his or her life (since reforming, if the Beatus was a reformed sinner) was any less than exemplary.

If, in the course of anywhere from a few months to a few hundred years (depending on popular outcry) the Beatus makes it, his or her words are considered the equivalent of Divine Revelation. This means Rome is stuck with a great deal of pubescent hysteria, particularly concerning the Theotokos, that makes them have to tolerate the notion (among others) that "Mary" has the power, on her own, to promise salvation to anyone who dies wearing a brown scapular. It sort of escalates from there.

There are loads of truly grotesque activities up with which Rome is forced to put, because some Saint or other once practiced them, and gathered a cult (their word--and it's acceptable) around him or herself.

The most famous of these are the Penitentes, who annually flagellate themselves almost to death, and even get crucified, in a multi-day blood orgy they report as "rapturous." There are others.

Before Rome could ever rejoin the Church, they would have to repudiate this sort of stuff. But they can't, without denying their stance on Holy Tradition.

3. Primacy. The whole Roman notion of the Papacy is an invention of the late Merovingian/Carolingian Period, with the establishment of its "Holy Roman
Empire." It has everything to do with the civil rule of the period from Clovis I to Charlemagne, and nothing at all to do with the Christian Faith as
given. A "Primacy of honor" was turned into a model of temporal empire, with the Pope as a Caesar-tyrant. The theological justifications are flimsy and
contrived, relying on superlative rhetoric rather than any actual history or doctrine of the Church.

Nevertheless, belief in the temporal authority of the Bishop of Rome as "the" Vicar of Christ, with jurisdictional authority over and within every
diocese and parish in Christendom, is the linchpin of Roman Catholicism.

In a world-wide organization which encompasses Jesuit Hindus, Carmelite Buddhists, Paulist Marxists and Santerian voodooists, where the new-age "Course in Miracles" is standard fare on retreats and whose most recent Beatus hosted a new-age, syncretistic love-fest in a desecrated monastery; where feminist nuns "celebrate Mass" with impunity, "believing in the
Pope" is really the only thing one needs to be a member in good standing.

It is difficult to imagine Rome giving up this central element of its identity, simply to re-join a Church it has been confident of being able to buy, bully and politic into submission, anyway.

So, is Roman Catholicism Christian? Sure, at its core it is. At its core is Orthodoxy. The Byzantine Catholics don't have anything to do with the
weirdnesses of the West, in return for which they get to enjoy Rome's money while being reasonably left alone. Not bad! Except they aren't allowed to
repudiate those weirdnesses, and so have to carry at least some burden of conscience around.

There is an awful lot of distrortion, however, from minor to major, that is fully ingrained in the Roman lifestyle and needs to be dealt with.

I understand that you and Ruel are believing Christians, who look to Jesus for your salvation in a fairly uncomplicated, even orthodox, way. I further understand that this is a trend in Rome, and many of the things I have just enumeratred are being freshly looked at.

All of them are still part of the baggage Rome is lugging around, though, and there is no way they are going to convince the Orthodox to grab a handle.
Compromise isn't going to work. To reunite, Rome is going to have to become Orthodox, again.

Who knows? It might be the first (and last) positive contribution of the "development of doctrine" idea.

Originally posted by antonius:
Of course, this "priest" could very well
have been a product of one of the post-
concilar Roman seminaries that teach
everything BUT Catholicism..

That is the issue. Orthodox not in communion with Rome do not believe in division either. They contend that the one true Church is not divided. Rome is a schismatic group.

Originally posted by Myles:
Laugh for those who are schooled soundly and come across such a document, cry for those who are neophyte's in church doctrine and history and have no clue that this isnt really what the Roman Church teaches.

Originally posted by Orthodox Catholic:
His view that the EC's get Roman money - now that is something that I've not heard before.

Originally posted by RayK:
The Orthodox church recognizes the saintliness of John Paul, it most certainly recognizes the saintliness of St. John of the Cross� and Saint Francis of Assisi - and many more Roman Catholic saints.