www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News Chaldean Church promulgates New Liturgy (so be ready!)

Find their new Liturgy and give it a good look.

Is it a secret?

If so, watch out.

I would like to see the Words of Consecration as the first test.

Jim

Remember Vatican II

dear LogosTeen:

If memory serves, I believe the term "Ecumenical" is part of the title of the Imperial Offices of the Byzantine Roman Empire.

E.g. something like the "Ecumenical" Chamberlain, the "Ecumenical" Accountant, the "Ecumenical" Almsgiver, etc.

So, we should not take it to mean literally universal, but respect the Patriarch as the patriarch of the Byzantine capital of the "inhabited world" (more or less, kinda, as far as they knew back then [conveniently forgetting about the great Parthian empire])


I would think that most EO refer to the Latin Patriarch as "the Holy Father" or the "Pope of Rome".

Herb

Oh yes, the Jesuits are great, and do great work. Their contribution to education was (note the use of past tense) the best anywhere.

Remember, they invented 'uniatism', now rejected by the Church (at Balamand). Should I mention Maronites, and Malabar Christians? These 'mixed' liturgies, with elements east and west, are mostly their invention.

Jesuits have abandoned the mission to Russian Catholicism, and have turned their back on 'uniatism' (after most of the damage has been done).

I believe that the Jesuits are the inventors of the new idea, that all 'new' conversions to Catholicism in Russia, must be pressed into the Latin Rite.

I don't know whether this is to make amends for their failed mission in the past or what!

But.... it is as misguided, as their former zeal for uniatism. The fact that it is against canon law (i.e. in conversions of Eastern Christians to the Catholic Church, they retain their rite, and should convert to the mirror Catholic Oriental Church, not to Latin Church), has probably escaped them.

I respect the Jesuits, but

a. they are not what they were
b. they were not then, and are not now, infallible (as much as they would like to be)
c. their past mistakes are well documented
d. their current mistakes should not go uncriticized either.

Nick

Is the Chaldean Liturgy (old version or new version) online in translation somewhere?

Nick

Invented Uniatism? Go back to the history books. The Maronites were never seperated. The Latinizations they accepted came straight from the Pope and were implemented by their Patriarchs. The Syro-Malabars are probably the worst case but that had more to do with Portuguese colonialism than Jesuits. Most of the Unions happened without a single Jesuit involved. Stop reading propaganda that blames the Jesuits for every woe of the East and accepting it as history.

Fr. Deacon Lance

"I believe that the Jesuits are the inventors of the new idea, that all 'new' conversions to Catholicism in Russia, must be pressed into the Latin Rite."

And are the facts that make you believe this especailly since the Russian Byzantine parishes are quite active.

The Chaldean Liturgy can be found here:
http://www.faswebdesign.com/ECPA/Worship/ChaldeanMass.html

It should be noted that it is already abbreviated somewhat compared to the Assyrian Liturgy and already contains the Words of Institution.

The Assyrian Liturgy is here for comparison:
http://www.cired.org/liturgy/apostles.html

Really? I'm glad to hear this, but I have heard that our Byzantine Catholic faithful in Russia are working in very difficult conditions, without any support from Church, or the Latin bishops sent there by JPII.

Nick

Nicholas,

I keep hearing you say: "I believe", "I have heard" etc. along with simply errroneous statements. Before you make an accusation that libels another person or group research your facts and present them instead of opinion and conjecture.

Fr. Deacon Lance

Dear Nick,

I was amused by this post, since I agree with some of it, but I completely disagree with the rest.

The Jesuits certainly are great, and they do amazing work. I feel, though, that their contribution to education has been and continues to be excellent. But maybe I'm biased on this count.

The Catholic and Orthodox Churches have indeed rejected "uniatism" as a means for furthering unity in the future, but they did agree on the validity and legitimacy of the Eastern Catholic Churches. I don't think any particular group within the Catholic Church can be blamed for inventing "uniatism", though.

I agree that Latinisations are unfortunate, but I was particularly amused by the two examples of "uniatism" that you picked. As Fr. Deacon Lance pointed out, the Maronite Catholic Church is the only Eastern Catholic Church that has no counterpart among the non-Catholic Eastern Churches; of all the Eastern Catholic Churches, the Maronite Catholic Church is the one to which the adjective "uniate" applies the least.

As for the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church (my own Church): I agree that the Latinisations in our Liturgy are horrendous, and I agree that the Jesuits bear a great deal of the blame here. However, the St. Thomas Christians of India steadfastly maintain (despite any evidence to the contrary) that from the arrival of St. Thomas the Apostle in AD 52 until the arrival of the Portuguese, they were in communion with the Bishop of Rome. Between the seventh century and the sixteenth century, the bishops of the St. Thomas Christians were sent from the Assyrian ("Nestorian") Patriarch in Seleucia-Ctesiphon, but the faithful themselves always believed that the bishops sent from Persia were in communion with Rome. (If the St. Thomas Christians had been informed that their bishops were not in communion with Rome, the faithful would never have accepted these bishops!) This is why the Christians in India warmly welcomed the Portuguese (at first) -- seeing them as representatives of the Bishop of Rome, whom they saw as their own leader. Thus, we Syro-Malabar Catholics believe that we have never broken our communion with the Bishop of Rome; as such, we cannot possibly have been "reunited", and thus we cannot possibly be a "uniate" Church.

I know too little about Russian Catholicism to respond, but judging from the earlier posts by others in this thread (and viewing the Russian Byzantine Catholic Church of Our Lady of Fatima in San Francisco ( http://www.byzantinecatholic.org/ ) as an example), it seems to me that the Jesuits are currently supporting the Eastern Catholic Churches assiduously. (Trivia: Did you know that the Very Rev. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, the current General of the Society of Jesus, grew up as a Latin Catholic but consciously chose to be canonically enrolled in the Armenian Catholic Church?)

Actually, this sad idea is not new at all (and I don't really know who came up with it). Though the Jesuits might have been enamoured of the idea during the first half of the twentieth century, I see no indication that the idea still holds sway within the Society of Jesus. Again, however, I am no expert on Catholicism in Russia.

The Jesuits have certainly made many mistakes (some intentional, some unintentional) over the centuries, but I think they are indeed doing a very good job these days at "making amends". As I wrote in a previous post, I feel that, looking at the Jesuits throughout their entire history, their merits far outweigh their failings.

What you say about canon law is correct, but I think the Jesuits these days are by and large aware and respectful of this provision.

Wonderful! So do I!

Thank goodness! The Society of Jesus has changed much since the generalate of Fr. Pedro Arrupe, and I am very glad of most of the changes. The charism of the Society, however, remains praiseworthy and loyal to the spirit of St. Ignatius of Loyola.

Of course they are not infallible. And I think they tend to be much humbler now than they were in previous centuries.

Indeed.

I'm glad we agree on this too.

Yours in the Peace of Christ,
Alex NvV

Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam!
(For the greater glory of God!)

Dear Nicholas,

Certainly, the Jesuits have a checkered history!

Even Rome itself put them down at one point . . .

And at the height of the "political theology" thingy in Latin America, Rome was tempted to do that once more.

I think there should be no doubt that the Byzantine Jesuits have done a magnificent job working with the Eastern Churches.

I've yet to ever hear of an Orthodox hierarch being upset with Byzantine Jesuits (and I'm deliberately separating them from the others).

To this day, of course, there is antipathy in the East Slavic Churches toward the Polish Jesuits, that's just the way things will stand for the next while at least.

Even the word "Jesuit" became a pejorative term for the Orthodox who tended to see all RC religious orders as "Jesuit" (e.g. St Innocent of Alaska's reference to his fixing musical instruments for the "Jesuits" in California - in fact, they were Franciscans).

No, the Byzantine Jesuits' reputation as being totally devoted to the purity of the Eastern spirituality and traditions is affirmed by Orthodoxy today.

Please don't attack Orthodoxy . . .

Alex

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Orthodox Catholic:


To this day, of course, there is antipathy in the East Slavic Churches toward the Polish Jesuits, that's just the way things will stand for the next while at least.


I guess we all know the historical precedents for that antipathy. Poland did, after all, a few centuries ago, gobble up Ukraine and Belarus (with a little help from Lithuania). I can't help but wonder sometimes, if Poland took a page from her German neighbors when it they held that the religion of the prince would be the religion of the people, and that it would be convenient for Poland to have a tighter control over all of her subjects in the area of ecclesiology in order to maintain its grip on these East Slavic peoples. if that be the case, it certainly doesn't help those of us who are Eastern Catholics when we reach out to our Orthodox sisters and brothers. Europeans, unlike too many Americans, have a strong historical sense. History is alive for them, not a mere school subject to be memorized and when barfed up on a test, and then quickly forgotten about. How we can let our Orthodox siblings know that we are acting in good faith, is still a job for us ECs.
Much Love,
Jonn

The Jesuits are favorable to the Eastern Catholics? Well, I can think of a very few individuals - such as Father Taft - of whom this can honestly be said. However, consider these few facts:

a) when access to Russia was virtually impossible, the Jesuits trained dozens, even more than that, of "Russian" Catholic priests at the Pontifical Russian College.

b) as recently as 12 years ago, the Pontifical Russian College had one of the best choirs in the world, and magnificent services.

c) The Jesuits had a strangle-hold on the administration of the Russian Catholic community in the West.

d) There has been no functioning Russian Greek-Catholic Bishop for at least 25 years, and there is no sign of such a bishop being appointed.
e) the Pontifical Russian College, now that Russia is accessible and there is a crying need for priests to go there, has just about shut down.

f) the Jesuits who staffed the Pontifical Russian College have almost all moved to Russia and are now running Latin Rite parishes.

g) Russian Catholic parishes around the world are being shut at a dizzying rate - the few which remain are being kept alive by a combination of miraculous divine intervention and bulldog stubborness on the part of the paris

Dear Incognitus,

Again, no one is saying there isn't any problems with the Jesuit "image" in the East, historically and today - and for good reasons.

However, your Eastern litany of "faults" if that is what they are, appear to blame much on the Jesuits that they simply don't have control over.

As my in-laws saw with their own eyes, the Byzantine Catholicism just isn't "flavour of the year" in Russia - Rome believes it would be offensive to Russian Orthodoxy and Russia in general to promote Russian Byzantine Catholicism - or the "Catholic Orthodox" as they used to call themselves - and so Rome only promotes Latin Catholicism as the "least offensive" of the two. At least the latter can be defended on general human rights grounds.

The Jesuits' foreign ecclesial policy mirrors that of Rome - but this doesn't mean that the Byzantine Jesuits, like Fr. Taft and others are not highly esteemed by even the Orthodox.

Fr. John Meyendorff of blessed memory had a very close scholarly relationship with a Jesuit who also critiqued his writings prior to publication - Fr. Gustave Weigel SJ I believe.

Alex

There are too many orders and groups within the Roman-Catholic Church, a good solution would be the supression of all religious orders and to unite them in one single monastic order, that of St. Benedict or as it is in the Orthodox Church: they are monks and they do not belong to anyone in particular.

The Liturgy of Mar Mari and Addai is not supposed to include the "words of Consecration," as such. I suppose it is a test of sorts - is this a true reversion to the proper form or another tweaked innovation of the latinized form?