www.byzcath.org

Point well taken, Administrator. I have a friend who wants to transfer from one Catholic Rite to another, and he wants to list several critiques of his original Church in his transfer letter; I am trying to advise him against doing that, but he seems pretty determined.

Dear Lanceq,

Tell him it's like proposing to a girl by saying how awful one's old girlfriends are.

He shouldn't change rites anyway if he's just mad. He should be in love.

0.02$

Is it possible that Era Might has overlooked the clear evangelical teaching that Christ's first priority was the Greeks? In the Gospel of John, the 12th chapter, we read:



It's amazing what one can find in the Bible if one looks hard enough!

Fr. Serge

I appreciate what was said regarding the reasons that one leaves one church for another.

In my case, I was confronted with the FACTS (something that previous Protestant pastors had not given me) that the method of my worship was not in line with that of the earliest Christians, the Bible supported the apostolic Faith rather than Protestantism (when properly interpretted and not run through a biased interpretive grid), and that my assembly and it's distinctives which set it apart were barely 500 years old.

Intellectual honesty demanded change.

However, all things considered, I really would have loved to have found an Anglican Catholic Church in full communion with Rome. I cut my teeth on the Anglican liturgical rubrics and still think they are beautiful and reverent (more so than many Novus Ordo circuses, but that's another story and another thread).

And I fell in love with the beauty of the East.

So it was love, but it was also necessity.

Brother Ed


BTW -- I can't seem to find the button that activates my email notices of replies to posts. Where did it go? What am I missing?

Thanks

I would say that his first priority was the Jews:

I realize that it can be hard for Eastern Christians to fit in with the Catholic Church, because it is a Western majority. But that brings us back to the question of why we are Catholic. Is it culture or faith? Jews have a hard time fitting in with Christianity in general, East or West, because the dominant Jewish presence of the early Church was replaced by Gentiles and Gentile culture. There is always room for different cultures and expressions of faith in the Church; Jews, Greeks, Romans, and today especially Africans and Asians and Latin Americans. But at the end of the day, I think it's important that we realize that we are Catholic not because we are Eastern or Western, but because we believe in the Catholic Church as the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Just curious; What kind of vow are we talking about? Are we talking about monastic vows? Or are we just equating our conversion to Catholicism with a vow? I don't think that the latter could be a true vow. Or, if it is, then we should be very careful about making vows. My only vows are to serve Christ, to seek the truth, and to be a faithful husband to my wife and father to my children. Unless I were taking priestly or monastic vows, I would not make a vow to any man. Not even the Pope. Hope I'm not derailing things. To keep it on topic here, I will just say that when one joins a Church, one does not make an irrevocable vow. If that were the case, then it would be a sin for anyone to convert to anything. Peace in Christ,

Joe

On Holy Saturday of 2002, I stood before the priests, other catechumens, and witnesses and promised (swore -- took an oath --vowed) that I would be faithful to the teaching and authority of the Holy Father and that of the Ordinary Magisterium.

THAT, my dear sir, is a vow. I take the giving of one's word very seriously.

Brother Ed

If a man were to come to the conclusion -- inspired by divine grace -- that the Orthodox Church was in fact the true Church, no oath made to the Pope, or any other man, could bind him in conscience. Moreover, an oath is ultimately made to God, who is Truth itself; and so, the act of conversion can be seen as an act of fidelity to the Lord, through which a man in reality keeps his original oath properly understood.

God bless,
Todd

Brother Ed, you are right. That is a vow. When I became Melkite, the only thing I had to do was recite the Nicene Creed. Just some food for thought. Suppose someone were to become Mormon and they were required to make a vow to always be loyal and faithful to the teachings of the president and prophet of the Mormon Church. Then suppose one discovered that some of those teachings were false. Would one still be bound by a vow? Peace in Christ,

Joe

Todd, those are my thoughts exactly. I think that this is one reason why Jesus told us not to swear oaths. I don't think that we can ever make any unconditional promise to anyone except God. Even wedding vows are conditioned on certain things. The spouse who is being beaten by her husband and is in danger for her life has no obligation to stay with him "until death do us part." Peace in Christ,

Joe

Lots of good stuff here.

Psuedo- Athanasius- good analogy about the guy who in proposing to his girlfriend, slams all his previous girlfriends. As a man who has dated in midlife, I see it as a red flag if the woman slams her exes too much.

Altar Boy: i like the Anglican tradition, too. I visited my friend's Church, which is in the traditional Anglican Communion, and I think the reverence and dignity of their Eucharist would bring a tear to the eye of many tradtional Roman Catholics.

Era asks about what it means to be Catholic- I am very Eastern, I honestly consider my faith to be not substantially different than a person who is Eastern Orthodox. To be Catholic for me than is about an existential decision to be in communion with Peter. The Church universal has a wonderful diversity of East and West, and especially with the East, of various traditional rites and Churches.

On the priority audience of the Gospel: It is St. Paul who says in Romans that the gospel is "to the Jew first, then the Greek."

S'Bohom,

Lance

I thought that I heard somewhere that "The Greeks" sometimes refers to Hellenized Jews. So when St. Andrew brought some "Greeks" to Our Lord, it was that he brought Hellenized Jews to see Him.

Amen!

Brother Ed,

The Holy Father has told us authoritatively to return to our AUTHENTIC Traditions. He has told us that being true to our roots is being Catholic, if in the face of that advice and authority our own bishops fail to act, and in some cases openly dissent and reject it - are we listening to the Holy Father by remaining in the Catholic jurisdiction? I ask myself that question - would I better follow the Holy Father's call and grow spiritually by remaining in the Catholic version of my Tradition or the Orthodox version? I suppose it depends on where you live, what is available for you, and where you are spiritually. I have been to churches in India which are indistinguishable from the Syriac Orthodox, but I have also been to some which can hardly be called Syriac. I have also been to Syriac Orthodox parishes that are lacking, whereas the Catholic is true to herself.