www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall On Eastern Catholicism

Regarding the insertion of the Filioque by the Greek Catholics, this was never mandated by Rome, but rather a self-inflicted injury done in a spate of self-loathing me-tooism by the various Greek Catholic "rites" wanting to be "real Catholics".

I'll say it then: It never had any valid purpose, other than to promote the gradual assimilation of the "Orientals" into the Latin Church ...

The whole purpose of "Uniatism" was first to bring as many "dissident Orientals" under Roman jurisdiction, and then to wean them from their primitive tribal customs. Let's not pretend there was ever any other purpose in mind--at least not on the Latin side.

What is going on? In the opinion of some of our members, our parishes exist only in order to remain precisely as they recall it from their childhood, and then die as the powerful process of cultural assimilation grinds all immigrants into the same homogenized American powder. What is the use of trying to hold on to our parishes when all around us there are larger, better organized, and vastly better financed Roman Catholic parishes that we could belong to? Is it somehow preordained that only the Latin rite should have a permanent home on these western shores (though even our Roman Catholic sisters and brothers are having a difficult go of it in an environment with fewer and fewer priests)?

Although I can scarcely speak from my own experience regarding what happens in Romania, it has occurred to me, too, that many whose families had been Greek-Catholic prior to past and present political attempts to eliminate the Greek-Catholic Church from national life in Romania may have likewise found it too hard to swim against the cultural tide. Perhaps they have simply chosen to remain where history and political repression have put them. It is just easier to be Orthodox where Orthodoxy is big and powerful, and Roman Catholic or Protestant (or Evangelical) where western Christianity commands the privileges of a majority.

(In both these situations, of course, I am referring to those who exercise religious 'preferences' as a path of least resistance in their worlds, not to those who have chosen where they belong out of conviction and an experience of truth. Far be it from me to judge the mystery of another's life. I am sure that some of our people who have found a spiritual home elsewhere have done so in response to a spiritual hunger they have not been able to satisfy in our parishes, for whatever reason. I have often said that there are two reasons that people leave our communities: either because they don't love God or because they do.)