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LM,

"I have no objections to the faculty listening to these theological discussions. It does seem rather odd that Karras should be invited in, however, to speak presumably to future priests."

Well then you are operating under a misunderstanding. The St. Cyril and Methodius Lecture Series is not specifically for the seminarians, nor is it held at the seminary. It is in the auditoium of the Latin seminary and is consider an ecumenical and academic gathering. It is open to all and the audience is usually a mix of a laity and clergy both Catholic and Orthodox.

Fr. Deacon Lance

Alas, my heart is heavy and my conscience is wounded. It was impossible for me to particpate in the Divine Liturgy on Sunday because of my sadness. I quietly said the Jesus Prayer. I feel it is now time for me to investigate different OCA parishes. My wife and young daughter will accompany me.

I wonder if the revisionists will ever know the depths of sadness and pain they have caused so many.

I will pray for the Ruthenian Catholic Church---and all MANKIND!

Dear Recluse,

I'm sorrowed to hear that your conscience takes you that way. Please do us who remain the favor of letting our bishops know what you are doing.

I shall. Thank you P-A.

If the bishops cared about us even a little bit, we would not be in this position of having to decide about remaining in this Church.

Nick

Dear Nick,

I wouldn't go that far. I don't think the bishops are evil, which is what it would mean if they did not care for us. Knowing my own bishop as I do, I am sure that he loves his flock. It comes down to execution--how does one love one's flock? The challenge is to convince them that what they think is the best path isn't really the best path.


Karl

I think Fr. Valerian is pastor of St. George's on California Ave.

Thanks U-C! Problem is that I meant -- I need a Church on the Southeast SUBURBS of Pittsburgh. Monroeville/Irwin even West Mifflin would be good. Any suggestions?

Blessed is our GOD!
jody

Can anyone explain to me how to cut and paste from the post you want to reply to and get those little boxes inside your own reply? I have tried two different things, both haven't worked. Thanks in advance.

Dear Karl,

I know you're right, the bishops are not evil. I am only speaking from my hurt and sadness.

It's just that I've supported my Church, and put up with a lot over the years, and overlooked a lot of stupidity. (I'm not asking for a medal, it is the right thing to do). It was always our prayers and our songs that carried me through the rough times.

I've strong opinions about inclusive language and the changes, and maybe I'm wrong. But always before when I've been discouraged, I've had our songs and prayers to carry me through rough times.

Last Sunday, I heard somebody who tried to talk to our priest about this, and all Father said was "I don't agree with it, and I don't want to talk about it".

And now, I don't have our songs and prayers to comfort me. The bishops could have done so much better than this. If they have to pull the rug out from under us, then they could have thrown us a cushion.

When the Liturgy always carried me through hard times, I wonder what will keep me now?


Nick

Two ways.

1. Have the computer do it for you. When responding to a post, hit Quote or Quick Quote. The text will be quoted for you and you can put your own text above or below it. As long as you don't delete the quote tags, you can delete inside the quote tags (as I did here) to only highlight or respond to part of the quoted message. If you are not quoting someone in the thread but an outside source, you can highlight the text in the composition box and choose the button to wrap the text with quote tags as long as you do Reply and not Quick Reply. Quick Reply (the box at the bottom of the thread) doesn't have the options, but does allow you to enter them yourself if you know them.

2. Do it yourself. This might be useful in several circumstances. The first is if you forgot to hit quote or quick quote. The second is if you are not responding to someone but quoting an outside source. The third is if you are the first poster in the thread. The fourth is if you wish to quote several posters in one reply. To do this, you place [quote] at the beginning of the text. Or you can make it say [quote=CNN News] or whomever you are quoting for the name to show. At the end of the quoted text, you type [ /quote] (without the space in it, otherwise it would turn this into a quote and you wouldn't see it!) Then you can put your own text. You can keep doing this down the message if you wish to have several quotes.

As a linguist (and a Greek), "anthropoi" refers to us humans as opposed to other ape-family mammals with opposable thumbs. At the same time, the word is also used in Greek to refer to the male of the species as opposed to 'gynaika', the female. Unfortunately, the biological dichotamous key, that allows us to subdivide species, is not the same in Greek as it is in English. The Latin 'homo' refers to 'humans' - as opposed to the chimps and their friends, but also to the male of the species, while 'femina' refers solely to the female of the species. Hebrew gives us "ha adam' for 'humans' but it also refers to the male of the species. The same obtains in German with "Mensch" ='human' but also 'guy', with 'Mann' = male and 'Frau' = female. The same in French with 'homme' being both 'person' as well as 'male'. 'Femme' is for the females. Same in Italian with 'uomo' being both 'human' and 'male' and 'donne' = females.

So, translations become difficult because the frameworks are different in refering to "humans" in general, and 'males' and 'females' in particular. Citing one or another Greek/Latin/Hebrew/Slavonic/German/French/etc. text as the fundamentum of our liturgical language is theological thin ice.

Perhaps I'm wrong, but no reputable theologian has ever postulated that the souls of males and females are ontologically different, or that the Lord's sacrifice was efficacious in different ways for men and for women.


It's clear that some folks have gone on a Crusade over gender (Greeks are especially sensitive to this Crusade concept), the fact is that we need to ensure that both men and women are fully incorporated into the 'ekklesia', the community of the baptized.

So, the burden on us humans is to ensure that in our language(s), all human beings are recognized as being part of the Salvific Action that our Lord accomplished on the Cross. It's not 'feminism' or 'inclusivity' (in the bad sense of the word), but the reality that our parish churches and communities incorporate everybody into the Hebrew concept of 'qahal Adonai', the 'believer group'. It is precisely this concept that allows us to baptize infants - they are not yet 'ready' to make the personal confession of belief, but we want - nay: NEED - them to be part of the baptized cohort of Christ's followers because they are part of "us".

Clearly, He accepted everyone who came to Him. How can we, as followers of His teaching, make distinctions based upon gender, skin color, age, mental ability, and other 'accidentales' of personality? (I'm old enough to remember in seminary very elderly priests who questioned the baptism of black people. 'Mark of Satan' stuff. Scandalized me then, scandalizes me now.)

So, what do we do about 'inclusive language'? It seems clear to me from the Gospels, that we are to move in a way that ensures that every human being who is eligible for baptism, is ensured a place at the table. And that despite our cultural backgrounds, we do the "Christian thing" of ensuring that everyone who comes in the door is truly welcomed and embraced as a baptized and saved soul, and is encouraged to give of his or her talents to the building up of the community of believers. And we need to ensure that our liturgical texts make sure that we validate this commitment.

The Lord is coming back - and we should never be in the situation of excluding anyone based on anatomy (or skin color, or mental ability, or age, or ......whatever....) And we should never allow our words to tell people to go away. We can't be His followers if we do that.

I beg your prayers.

"Lord, in Your mercy...."

JB

I am in full agreement. That's why we should say "for us men and for our salvation...he became man." That is after all what is in the Greek, and "men" is a perfectly respectable English word which means "human beings without respect to sex or age." Moreover, the Son of God, the Son of Man, became man for men. Not only that, Rome likes that word, "man" too.

Forgive the very off topic but

welcome back Dr John - long time no see

I think that Crusade over "gender inclusive language" began about 30 years ago. Bad idea. I too thought we had gotten over those Crusade things.

Dear Dr John:

I am a little confused with your post. Maybe I'm just dense!

Can you please clarify for me what you think of the so called (by some) "sexist" terms. Do you want to remove them because that "ensures that every human being who is eligible for baptism, is ensured a place at the table." In your opinion, the "Christian THING" is to say "for us men and our salvation" or "for us and our salvation." Which is a more Christian "thing" to you?

You said, "It seems clear to me from the Gospels...." I wanted to reference the Gospels in this regard, so I want to be clear as to your assertion before I do so.

Thank you in advance for clearing up my confusion/misunderstanding.

Blessed is our GOD!
jody

Yes. And Christ has always been the "Lover of Mankind".