www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News Benedict XVI speaks on Primacy

I hope you are not suggesting that now Pope Benedict XVI was indicating that the dogmatic teaching on papal primacy and infallibility will be withdrawn are you?

Eli

Dear Andrew you said:
I say:

I personally believe that many of the main stream Protestants have now fallen into heresy, (or are coming quite close to it), although we Orthodox are still in (or so I believe), the National Council of Churches, and the World Council of Churches. Therefore we cannot consider them heretics. Correct me if I'm wrong, because my opinions were formed at the time we entered into those organizations, and what was said and believed at that time.

As for my personal opinion of the Evangelicals, (the ones that are not elitists), I believe that they do not have the fullness of faith...yet, we will find many in our churches that lack the attainment of that fullness, while many in the Protestant Churches with their less fullness, acquiring a fullness way above what we have. [/QUOTE]

You said: I say:

Actually, it is not the moral theology that I'm referring to, but rather the confidence of authority that enables them to make decisions. That must come from somewhere.

You said:

I say:

That's not the point I'm making.

You said:

I say:

Again I state that it is not my point. My point is the assurance they have within them towards a certain authority, and that we follow that authority...yet refuse to accept it.

You said:
I say:

Orthodox spirituality is the highest form of spirituality one could have in order to attain theosis; and as many saints in our Church have said, "Christianity is not a set of ethics", but this has nothing to do with the church's wordly authority in making decisions.

You said:

I say:

I think we have to differentiate between the different sects.

Zenovia

Dearest Eli,

You are both articulate and feisty - we haven't had someone like you here for a while!

With respect to the UGCC, the issue is similar to the one you raise. But in this case, the ROC took an active hand in eliminating the UGCC and, to this day, it is unrepentant of any complicity with the Soviet forces in this act, the pseudo-sobor of 1946. In fact, it seems to have "celebrated" this act of ecclesiacide in the recent proclamation of the UOC-MP on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the pseudo-sobor.

I'm not surprised by any of that. I am surprised by Rome's historic ost-political stance on the matter, on the issue of the UGCC patriarchate and on its perennial bungling of the situation with Russian EC's in Russia - which is both offensive to all EC's as it is compromising.

I lived through the "struggle" between Rome and our Patriarch, the Holy Josef Hieroconfessor.

What Rome did with him and how it treated him was simply disgusting. Members of the UGCC faithful even petitioned the Patriarch to lead a movement out from under Rome's jurisdiction - but he wouldn't and decided instead to press the issue of the rights of his Church in the face of the Rome-Moscow political situation.

I deny categorically that I am doing what you affirm I am doing with respect to somehow whitewashing the ROC and critiquing the Vatican.

In fact, I critique both in this situation in defending the UGCC, the Church of Met. Andrew Sheptytsky and Patriarch Josef the Confessor.

There was I time when I actually criticized the stance Patriarch Josef was taking.

My grandparents, newly arrived from the Soviet Union in 1966, were shocked and scolded me for that. I came to realize how naive I had been with respect to Vatican political machinations and its Ost-politik.

It has nothing to do with the Catholic faith. In fact, the Vatican's ost-politik deserves condemnation by all Catholics.

Have a nice day!

Alex

Dear Eli,

Before you go, the point on the papal doctrines you raised above - certainly even John Henry Cardinal Newman allowed for their modification (as he indicated in letters to his Anglican friends who felt they were harshly ultramontanist).

As we've discussed on this board before, papal jurisdiction over the East should only be exercised when: a) an Eastern Church asks Rome to step in to settle a stalemate or b) when canons accepted by the universal Church pertaining to faith, morals etc. are clearly broken.

As for papal infallibility, this could be placed within a context connecting it to Ecumenical Councils i.e. the Pope proclaiming the definitions of faith as set out by an Ecumenical Council would make them infallible dogmas.

The Popes who proclaimed the Marian dogmas did indeed ask the advice and views of the world's Catholic bishops - that was, in effect, like consulting with a world-wide ecumenical council, in my view anyway.

Alex

The "Ost-Politik" really stinks to high heaven. Aside from the betrayal of the UGCC, look at what they did to "one of their own", i.e. Josef Cardinal Mindszenty!

When I lived in NJ, I had close ties to the Basilian (Hungarian) Monastery in Matawan, N.J. I remember those Hungarian-born Greek Catholic monks reacting very negatively to the betrayal of Mindszenty, and the Ost-Politik machinations of Cardinal Casaroli, who, in their minds, was more than willing to throw the Hungarian church under the bus for the "greater good" of dialogue with the Bolshevik government.

Dn. Robert

Well, the whole problem with the Infallibility dogma was that it proclaimed that the Pope who himself has this charism above and outside of an Ecumenical Council and in Orthodoxy, no one HIerarch in the Church has this power over the entire CHurch.

Still, infallibility contains a great amount of truth in it as a doctrine if viewed properly. Infallibility doesn't (or shouldn't) suggest that in forming new doctrines the Pope will always form new True ones. The Pope is the head of the Church, so the doctrines he holds true and orthodox are bound to be since Jesus prayed that Peter's faith will not fail. So Infallibility is not heretic if pronounced and viewed in a proper way.

Dear Father Deacon Robert,

Yes indeed . . . I remember the sadness of my Hungarian friends at all of what you stated . . .

Pope John Paul II, of course, exempted Poland and her Church from the Vatican's ost-politik (good for him!).

I hope our next Pope is Ukrainian-Hungarian or one of those "Magyarons."

Eli has been quiet so far . . . he must be really thinking up a good, devastating response here . . .

Alex

Dear Brian,

Well, happily, the RC view on "development of doctrine" can certainly allow "amendments" to all that to place papal power within a framework of conciliar accountability . . .

Historically, it has been to the benefit of the Church that the Pope could act on his own power, especially when large portions of the universal Church was in trouble from those pesky emperors and heretics . . .

As one Anglo-Catholic once put it, "If the Holy Spirit tells us that the unity of the Church is to be found in a (reformed) Papacy, who are we to accuse the Spirit of bad theology?"

But I think that you are right and the Papacy of the first millennium can be the model once more.

In fact, the Papacy at that time DID sometimes exercise a primacy of jurisdiction and an authoritative one at that - beginning with St Clement.

And when the East was persecuted re: iconography, it was the Popes who scolded the iconoclastic emperors and defended the rights of the Church.

Happily, they could do that without having to ask for anyone's permission!

Alex

Dear Armando,

Shouldn't you be getting ready for your next date with that wonderful someone?

I hope you aren't going to spend the evening with her talking about papal privileges!

Take it from me, Armando, that such a topic might be a real turn-off!

Alex

Uh.....
(thread drift coming up)

Archbishop-designate Donald Wuerl is not yet the Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Washington, DC.

His farewell Mass in Pittsburgh is this Sunday, June 11, at St. Paul Cathedral in Oakland at noon. The se�ora and I plan to go - as well as to His Eminince's first Mass in Washington on June 25 at St. Matthew's in DC at 10AM.

The Pittsburgh Catholic had a special section today about Archbishop-designate Wuerl. Pope +John Paul II+ of eternal memory often affectionately referred to Wuerl as "Peetzburg".

Soory about the thread drift. There are far too many Pittsburghers who live in and around DC. I used to be one of them.

AMEN! Long live Patriarch Lubomyr Husar!!! (You may make a Ukrainian out of me yet, Alex, despite my French Hugeounot family lineage!)

Gordo

Dear Gordo,

Good for you!

Would it be wrong of me to display the Hugenot Cross?

Alex

Dear Father Deacon Robert,

I am most unworthy of your confidence, sir!

Thanks, just the same . . .

Alex