www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall The Byzantine Forum: truth in labeling?

I have been a member of this forum for nearly 3 years and was a frequent reader of posts here before joining. From the very beginning it was made clear that this is a forum for ALL Eastern Christians, Catholic or Orthodox. It was made clear that "Western" Christians were welcome here as guests, but only so long as they respected our Eastern customs, theology, philosophy, et cetera. At various times during my time on the forum I have seen numerous attempts by "Westerners" (usually traditional RC's) who have tried to tell us that we are all wrong, that if we are truly "Catholics" we will conform to the RCC in everything except our Liturgy, wanting to make us nothing more than Roman Cathlics with a funny Mass. I once went through the directory listing all members of the list, counting the various jurisdictions of the members. For those who listed they religious affiliation, nearly twice as many Roman Catholics were members as there were Byzantine (Ruthenian) Catholics. When you added the number of other Byzantine Catholics (Ukrainians, Russian, Melkite, etc) it came out about even. To the Latin posters I ask you to keep your problems with your Church to yourselves and stop trying to make us over in your image. If you are on this forum it should be to learn about your Eastern brothers and sisters, if you are here for any other reason it would be best for you to leave. To my Eastern brothers and sisters, I ask you not to help keep the focus of our discussions on OUR Churches,theology, customs and traditions. There are plenty of other forums where the Western problems can be dealt with, let those discussions be dealt with there. Don

Where did you hear that Greg Bronson Doxed out? I knew him up until June 2002, and he was thoroughly Catholic. He was a college student and mentioned to my husband that he just didn't have much time to keep Byzantines.net going, what with school and all. He was engaged to a girl from a staunch Tridentine family. I find it highly doubtful that Greg Doxed out. He probably just went away to college and didn't have time for the board anymore. Also his mother told me back then that they were having server problems. Maybe they just gave up on it.

Tammy

Tammy,

If I remember correctly Greg did become Orthodox and then returned to the Catholic Church.

In Christ,
Anthony

Dave,

I am not the administrator. But let me tell you of my experiances. I use my real name as my user name in this forum. Throughout the year I get around and meet differant people throughout the Metropolia of Pittsburgh. I get a lot of comments on my postings and the Pilgrimage photos that appear in this forum. A lot of these comments come from people who I have never seen post in this forum. I have even asked them if they post here.

You would be surprised who is reading these forums !!!

Joe Prokopchak
a sinner in much need of God's mercy

Now, that's what I like to hear

God bless,

Rony

Thanks to all who have posted in this thread.

I would especially like to thank our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters for their posts. If occasionally you have felt unclear about the purpose of this Forum or, at times, unwelcome, I apologize. To me this means that we need to redouble our efforts to be more welcoming and perhaps make a change to some of the text (in the forum rules and at the bottom of the page). I am on travel at the moment (and a 28.8 connection is the best I can get!) but I will make some changes in the future.

Can I raise a point for discussion and ask for your thoughts? It seems that the real issue might be simply that there are so many Roman Catholics and so few of us Eastern Christians in the English-speaking world. As several posters have noted, the vast majority of Roman Catholics are friendly and well meaning. Yet it can become cumbersome to constantly re-introduce ourselves to newcomers. I specifically ask for your suggestions to better present Eastern Christianity to Roman Catholics.

I think the main thing is patience; I know it can get old, having to explain ourselves over and over to Romans, but remember that to each of them who come here curious it is new. If they take their faith seriously they will try to harmonize what they are learning with their own understanding of the Faith. Try not to be offended by this unless they are obviously hostile. And again it should be clearer that this is not a Catholic site. If I had known this the tone of several of my postings would have been quite different. I know it is clearly stated in the guidelines but I think I am not alone in not reading all the fine print before I sign something.
And Lonely Hermit: The scene you sketch, of masses of RCs being thrown out of their Church and finding a home in ECUSA is almost laughably off. First, I have seen no evidence that anyone is being thrown out of the Church. Would that at least a few notorious public sinners were! Secondly, all statistics show that the ECUSA is dwindling in numbers, not growing. I suppose they may pick up a few dissident Catholics but it is statistically insignificant. And the Roman Catholic Church is among the fastest growing religious bodies in the USA....

For an official report on the Catholic Church in the U.S., the USCCB published the following in December 2003:

--82,292 were admitted into full communion (converts); and

--81,013 adults and 1,05,490 infants were baptized.

The full report is here [usccb.org]

AmdG