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A Roman Catholic apologist in my country has posted this article from the New Advent website: The Eastern Schism [newadvent.org] . I said that this article is inaccurate and one-sided and shows the arrogance of the Latin Church, all I receive are negative replies. I have given them the historical articles of Francis Dvornick and Bishop Kallistos Ware but I believe that they are not interested in reading it. They have even asked why bother reading them. Now, I know why the schism will be hard to heal.

The New Advent website is an arch-conservative publication.

Happily, there are Roman Catholics with a more open-mided view.

Indeed, there seems to be more of a real possibility of healing the Church than in any time during the last 1000 years.

Neverthless, in my opinion, the mutual divorce of Christian East and West will be difficult to heal.

-- John

Dear elexeie,
The article is taken from the 1912 edition of the Catholic Encyclopedia. There are always people like those behind the "Advent" website who are not open to dialogue.

What is vvery hopeful for me, as a member of the eastern Orthodox Church, is that you a Catholic, tried to inform them.
It shows how many Catholics of good will there are.

God Bless you.

Dear Friend,

I was wondering yesterday where your correspondent was from. The Latin Church in your country represents the final outpost of those responsible for the Spanish Inquisition. There are no more rigid, rulebound, and fearbound children of that period than the Latin Catholics where you are. The only worse are the remaining Jansenists.

Mary

Mary,

I don't believe that is a very charitable statement. Their being firmly rooted in their own western identity, traditions, and spirituality does not merit a comparison to Jansenists. There are numerous places around the world where the TLM is the norm, the people have a high degree of pious devotions, there is widespread catechesis, etc.

Elexeie,
You might do better to take a less direct approach. Instead of putting them on the defensive, you might find other ways to broaden their worldviews. For instance, instead of asking them to read something because it is counter to their claim, you might ask them to explain their point of view to you because you had read this other article which said... They probably won't read the article, but by your question they'll hear that there are other points of view. You might also stress that your sources are Catholics who are in communion with Rome (when possible), so to question them is to question Rome. Lastly, you might see if there are any Eastern Catholic churches around you, or if there are enough people to start one. Then you will have a support network.

I am very disappointed that the New Advent site would post such an article. It drips with acrimony.

Thank God the vast majority of Catholics have long since abandoned such attitudes.

My only remaining concern is that some people without the proper background might read it and think it represents Catholic thinking.

Elexeie

Thank you for calling this to our attention. As an Eastern Catholic, I appreciate your sensitivity, as a Western Catholic, in standing up for our Eastern traditions and our Orthodox brothers and sisters.

God bless you.

Lance

Dear Wondering,

I was not speaking of the Traditional Latin Mass people at all. I was making a general comment on the historical heritage of the Latin rite Catholics of that region, and they are the direct decendents, in missionary terms, of the Spanish Jesuits. That is a fact and there are certain tendencies to see the Catholic world only in light of the Latin rite.

I apologize if it seemed to be uncharitable. That was not the intention at all. Only to look the history of a place and know the root may help Ruel to be more forgiving of the people with whom he is corresponding. There are good reasons that they argue as they do.

And Jansenists are not evil as much as they are rigid in their thinking and therein lies the comparison.

There are several good Catholic histories where one can find what I am talking about and the time period is from about 1750 to the time of the Second Vatican Council. The comparisons that I drew are drawn in those histories principally to show how east-west relationship became ever more rigidly fixed during that period.

But thanks for looking after my poor sinful soul. It surely can use a nanny, many days.

Mary

To single out Catholic Philippines as the only direct descendants of the Spanish Inquisitors would make the Mexicans, Central Americans, and South Americans grieve for your inadvertent omission! That's about half of the 1 billion Roman Catholics today!

No, there are no Eastern Catholic Churches (as yet) in the Philippines but when an Eastern Orthodox Church was built in suburban Manila a few years ago, hierarchs of the Archdiocese of Manila gracefully attended its consecration and inauguration by EP Bartholomew.

Admittedly, Filipino Roman Catholics don't know a whit about their Eastern brethren. Not yet! I hope Ruel will spark interest in the Eastern Churches someday. But it's a tall order!

Another thing, Catholic Philippines is not so much worried about the apostolic Eastern Churches coming to the country. She is more concerned with so many Protestant denominations (U.S. based) and homegrown movements like the "Iglesia Ni Cristo" and the "Philippine Independent Church." (About 10% of the population.)

On top of this, the Philippines has a significant Muslim population in the South (about 5%) which has been waging wars of attrition since the Spaniards landed on her shores in 1521. (By the way, not only the Jesuits did come with the conquistadores: also came the Dominicans (who established the University of Santo Tomas, one of the world's oldest universities), the Franciscans, and the Augustinians to name a few.

Migrant Muslim Filipinos (resulting from Muslim insurgency in Southern Philippines) have recently built a large mosque in the center of Manila, just across a revered Catholic Church in Quiapo District, the Church of the Black Nazarene!

An ordinary Filipino Roman Catholic would not concern himself with Eastern Christians where there is no considerable presence at all in the country of about 90 million.

When you read something on the internet that claims to be an authoritative source or is communally accepted as such (wikipedia comes to mind) the best thing is to go to a library or similiar institution and check the facts with research.

Dear Amado,

What you write is indeed true. The Muslims in the Philippines are quite mobile right now. They have reached as far as Baguio City in Northern Philippines. Anyway that is another story.

My concerned is the kind of Catholic Filipino apologist here in the Philippines. They have already formed a group called Defensores Fidei Foundation [defensoresfidei.com]. There are some good and well meaning members there but their main concern was the rise of Evangelicals and the INC.

At present, I was already silenced by the moderators of the board when I presented the Eastern Church's view on purgatory and when I said that the article from the New Advent website is replete with the Latin Church's arrogance.

I would like to share their replies to me in regards to Purgatory and the Eastern Schism:




It seems they want to ignore the resources I gave them: "Byzantium and the Roman Primacy" by Francis Dvornick, excerpts from "The Orthodox Church" by Bishop Kallistos Ware, excerpts from "Orthodox-Catholic Dialogue" by Fr. Chrysostom Frank, and some articles from the Oriental Lumen Conferences.

The Philippines is not ready for a sound Orthodox-Catholic dialogue. The brand of "apologists" here on the rise is ignorant of Eastern Christianity and its theology. Right now, the moderators have banned me from posting in their board just because I contradicted that article.

Ruel

There is already an interest but it is quite small. I experienced once a "dialogue" between Fr. Philemon Castro (the priest in charge of the Annunciation Orthodox parish in Paranaque) with a lay Catholic catechist over the phone in the radio program of Fr. Philemon and the exchange was not that good. It is horrible.

They already slammed the door. They are not interested with anything Eastern. They have questioned me why a Latin Catholic favors Eastern Christianity.

Ruel

I don't think Mary was being uncharitable at all. It is true that Catholicism in colonized countries tends to be very very conservative and less open and suspicious of anything different from what there colonizers taught them. Not because they're naturally inflexible, but because of the colonial experience and mentality. Plus, unlike Latin America or even African nations, The Philippines is the only predominantly Catholic country in Asia and one of the only two predominantly Christian countries in Asia. That kind of isolation is bound to make you pretty defensive and anti anything that goes against established tradition, which tends to be crystallized into the colonial mindset with very little room for growth.
Plus, Protestants are making inroads in many predominantly Catholic countries (particularly the colonized countries) so those that are still holding the fort are going to be even more on their guard. That's natural. Eastern Catholics are virtually unknown by most American Catholics, so I wouldn't expect more from anyone that has no history with Eastern Catholics or Orthodoxy.

Islam was in the Philipines before the Spaniards were, so it's always been a part of their culture.I believe there's an old mosque in Manila.

Indigo,

The historical understanding of the area which could lead to their current status, which you provide, is quite different from: "There are no more rigid, rulebound, and fearbound children of that period than the Latin Catholics where you are."

To paint an entire people in such a negative light, especially considering their devoutness in the face of such isolation, is what I have a problem with.