www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Greek Catholic Unity in North America

I was listening to Metropolitan JONAH discussing Orthodox unity in America and wondered what the prospects are for Greek Catholic unity in North America? With some jurisdictions withering, wouldn't we make more of an impact here as Eastern Christians in the West as a unified body of Greek Catholics?

Have a listen...
http://www.myocn.net/images/stories/podcast/crtl021409.mp3

I think that is a good idea. A unified Greek Catholic jurisdiction will actually be bigger than most Orthodox jurisdictions in the USA.

Asian Pilgrim

Can't see it happening - simply because of the rest of the world - sorry.

And what do you mean by

?

The various juristictions Catholic and Orthodx have similar reasons to stay just the way they are. It's more important that they all work together than they merge as one.

I believe we need to do more than cooperate in North America.

Christ is in our midst!! He is and always will be!!

And I think this cooperation must reach out to all who profess faith in Jesus Christ. Real believers--those beyond lip service--are really few and far between. If we are to influence the culture and leaven it, we need to be doing it with a unified voice and a unified front.

Problem is, as the Orhtodox bishop of Vienna, Austria has said, liberal strains of Christianity are so far from traditional positions on morality and such matters that a unified voice is no longer possible with them as part. So that leaves us with a dilemna. We have two competing "Christian" positions on almost any question that arises.

In Christ,

BOB

In addition to the impossibility of maintaining a unified voice with liberal "Christians", I might add that, outside USA and Canada it is nearly impossible to maintain a unified voice with Evangelicals / "Born Again Christians". For one thing, Evangelicals often tend to think of Catholics and Orthodox as THE enemy.

Given that cooperation is something new amongst the various Catholic juristictions not only in the USA but elsewhere, it's an area to be developed first. Lets see some crawling before we walk and then move on to running. One can't unit people who dont see the link with other groups. The USA was where a separate juristiction had to be set up for one group that had had grown in different ways through no fault of their own, into needing their 'own' bishops. How do you put that together again in a hurry.

This is an interesting topic and one which has been discussed from time to time on this forum, e.g. here.

At the moment there is already "Greek Catholic Unity in North America" in the sense that all the Greek Catholic Churches are in fact part of the Catholic Communion. As I understand it, the Eastern Catholic Churches of the Byzantine tradition in the Western Hemisphere are still very young and they may still benefit from formal links and close association with the mother churches in Eastern Europe and the Near East.

However, I would suggest (as a non-Eastern Catholic, admittedly) that a long-term goal might be to create a Catholic Church sui iuris encompassing all the faithful of the Byzantine tradition in the Americas. This would be a signal that the Byzantine Christian tradition is open to all and not just to certain ethnic groups from the "Old World."

Given the problems that combining parishes involves--combining small groups of people with the same background--I'd say that this task is something that would really need a strong push by the Holy Spirit. People, when they form groups, tend to develop an "us vs. them" mentality. It's part and parcel of the human tendency to form groups. It's then difficult to have the group open itself and its members to another group or groups for even a commonly perceived need or threat.

BOB

Very true, unfortunately

I didn't mean my statement as a criticism. It's just part of group theory, derived from people who study the way groups form, why they form, how they sustain themselves, etc.

We, as Christians, aren't immune to that sad fact of our humanity--in fact, our brokenness. It is something more basic than even doctrine or some of the other issues that we discuss here.

I was reminded of this aobut a month ago when I stopped at another Catholic parish in my area because I was running late and my own parish was a bit farther away. On the way in two of the ushers asked if I were in the wrong church. I know they were giving me a ribbing because I know them, but there is still an undercurrent of competition among the five parishes that are within a 2 1/2 mile radius of my home. Maybe it stems from the fact that some years ago I left that parish because they had a strong attitude that if your great-grandparents weren't part of the group that laid the cornerstone you were a "carpetbagger," as we were called.

And people wonder why young people stay away in droves.

BOB

Maybe we're all really scalawagsl!

Fr. Serge

There's nothing wrong with a good ol' "us vs. them" mentality. Such attitudes are a basis of community. It's just that we need to realize, as Christians, that the "them" is Satan and his minions, not our fellow Christians.