www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West The Ratzinger Proposal: (a clarification by... Ratzinger)

And I don't think I am interested in erecting barriers on the Catholic side of the agenda; rather I am making the point that maintaining the "Orthodox in Communion with Rome" line is a barrier because it contradicts Vatican documents (including those cited in support of the concept such as OE), it contradicts what the head of the Catholic Church says, it makes it appear ECs don't actually hold the Catholic faith (in which case what are they?) and it is totally incompatible with an Orthodox person's understanding of the term Orthodox.

Specifically, it appears to define Orthodoxy as eastern liturgical practice, dated first millenia conditions that do not represent the developments of Orthodoxy as a living faith, and reading eastern theologians. This definition is restrictive, incomplete and by its overly eastern focus seems to suggest ROme has to become more eastern to achieve union. Rome is and always was western, including when it was in communion with modern Orthodox churches. Orthodoxy is thus not synonymous with eastern, and to focus solely on encouraging "Orthodox" characteristics in the eastern churches is a peripheral issue and a distraction from the main work that needs to be accomplished for union to occur, which is to recover the western yet Orthodox nature of the Roman patriarchal church.

You will probably have a rather long wait if that is your criteria. So much has changed since the time of the First Vatican Council that makes the appliciation of the definition given at the time superviously. One major change has been the recognition that the Orthodox churches are true particular churches. You'll often see, for instance, the Pope(s) refer to the Orthodox bishops as shephards in the Church of God. This would be untenable if the still believed and followed the Vatican I definition. This approach is what you are likely to see from Rome - a tactiful backing away from the clear implications of the definition of the primacy given at Vatican I (and the somewhat weaker Vatican II definition), until the definition itself is considered obsolete.

Would it be fair to ask for the official Orthodox condemntation of the definition of the primacy given at Vatican I & II, along with a positive official defintion of what the primacy entails?

Another thing to consider when discussion this issue is the thorny question of what is and what isn't dogma. Stuart brought this up earlier, but it wasn't sufficently dealt with. For instance, Pope Benedict regulated Limbo to the dust-bin of history, which is all well and good, but what about all the Roman dogma's that supported the platform on which it stood? Limbo was simply a logical outcome of all the underlying "dogmas" that lead up to it. So if limbo is wrong (and for those interesed we can find in the history of the Roman Church theologians and Popes who considered it doctrine/dogma not simply a pious opinion to be held by some) what of all the "dogmas" that lead up to it? Are they to be held still, even though their logical outcome has been rejected?
Modern day Rome does not even follow the dogmas of the previous centuries, so why should the EC be held to a higher standard?

Glory to Jesus Christ!

I do not know this history at all nor was I aware of these previous "dogmas" that led up to Limbo. Can you outline with resources these "dogmas" that led up to to Limbo and who at that time stated that those things were then a matter of faith?

Thank you,

Kyrie eleison,

Manuel

I believe these quotes will supply you with the dogmatic presuppostions assumed in the doctrine of Limbo:

Pope Eugene IV, Council of Florence, Session 11, Feb. 4, 1442, ex cathedra: “Regarding children, indeed, because of danger of death, which can often take place, when no help can be brought to them by another remedy than through the sacrament of baptism, through which they are snatched from the domination of the Devil [original sin] and adopted among the sons of God, it advises that holy baptism ought not be deferred for forty or eighty days, or any time according to the observance of certain people…” (Denz. 712)

Pope Martin V, Council of Constance, Session 15, July 6, 1415 - Condemning the articles of John Wyclif - Proposition 6: “Those who claim that the children of the faithful dying without sacramental baptism will not be saved, are stupid and presumptuous in saying this.” - Condemned

Pope Martin V, Council of Constance, Session 15, July 6, 1415: “The books and pamphlets of John Wyclif, of cursed memory, were carefully examined by the doctors and masters of Oxford University… This holy synod, therefore, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, repudiates and condemns, by this perpetual decree, the aforesaid articles and each of them in particular; and it forbids each and every Catholic henceforth, under pain of anathema, to preach, teach, or hold the said articles or any one of them.”

Pope St. Zosimus, The Council of Carthage, Canon on Sin and Grace, 417 A.D.- “It has been decided likewise that if anyone says that for this reason the Lord said: ‘In my Father’s house there are many mansions’ [John 14:2]: that it might be understood that in the kingdom of heaven there will be some middle place or some place anywhere where the blessed infants live who departed from this life without baptism, without which they cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven, which is life eternal, let him be anathema.” (Denz. 102, authentic addition to canon 2.)

Pope Paul III, The Council of Trent, On Original Sin, Session V, ex cathedra: “If anyone says that recently born babies should not be baptized even if they have been born to baptized parents; or says that they are indeed baptized for the remission of sins, but incur no trace of the original sin of Adam needing to be cleansed by the laver of rebirth for them to obtain eternal life, with the necessary consequence that in their case there is being understood a form of baptism for the remission of sins which is not true, but false: let him be anathema.” (Denz. 791)

Pope Gregory X, Council of Lyons II, 1274: “We define also that… the souls of those who depart this life in actual mortal sin, or in original sin alone, go straightaway to hell, but to undergo punishments of different kinds.” (Denz. 464)

Pope Eugene IV, Council of Florence, “Letentur coeli,” Sess. 6, July 6, 1439, ex cathedra: “We define also that… the souls of those who depart this life in actual mortal sin, or in original sin alone, go straightaway to hell, but to undergo punishments of different kinds.” (Denz. 693)

Pope Pius VI, Auctorem fidei, Aug. 28, 1794:
“26. The doctrine which rejects as a Pelagian fable, that place of the lower regions (which the faithful generally designate by the name of the limbo of the children) in which the souls of those departing with the sole guilt of original sin are punished with the punishment of the condemned, exclusive of the punishment of fire, just as if, by this very fact, that these who remove the punishment of fire introduced that middle place and state free of guilt and of punishment between the kingdom of God and eternal damnation, such as that about which the Pelagians idly talk” – Condemned as false, rash, injurious to Catholic schools. (Denz. 1526)

Pope Pius XI, Mit brennender Sorge (# 25), March 14, 1937: “‘Original sin’ is the hereditary but impersonal fault of Adam’s descendants, who have sinned in him (Rom. v. 12). It is the loss of grace, and therefore eternal life, together with a propensity to evil, which everybody must, with the assistance of grace, penance, resistance and moral effort, repress and conquer.”

Pope Paul III, The Council of Trent, On Original Sin, Session V, ex cathedra: “If anyone says that recently born babies should not be baptized even if they have been born to baptized parents; or says that they are indeed baptized for the remission of sins, but incur no trace of the original sin of Adam needing to be cleansed by the laver of rebirth for them to obtain eternal life, with the necessary consequence that in their case there is being understood a form of baptism for the remission of sins which is not true, but false: let him be anathema.” (Denz. 791)

Pope St. Innocent, 414 A.D.: “But that which Your Fraternity asserts the Pelagians preach, that even without the grace of Baptism infants are able to be endowed with the rewards of eternal life, is quite idiotic… But those who defend this for them without rebirth seem to me to want to quash Baptism itself, when they preach that infants already have what is believed to be conferred on them only through Baptism.” (Jurgens, The Faith of the Early Fathers, Vol. 3: 2016.)

St. Augustine, A.D. 415: “Anyone who would say that infants who pass from this life without participation in the Sacrament [of Baptism] shall be made alive in Christ truly goes counter to the preaching of the Apostle and condemns the whole Church, where there is great haste in baptizing infants because it is believed without doubt that there is no other way at all in which they can be made alive in Christ.” (Jurgens, The Faith of the Early Fathers, Vol. 3: 2016.)

If a game of doctrinal I Know You Are But What Am I? isn't pointless enough, isn't this an awfully flimsy line of reasoning?

Benedict hasn't relegated Limbo to anything. He's in no position to. If it was once a pious opinion, and a popular one at that, the worst it has become is an unpopular one.

It's still, as ever, a logical conclusion to known facts. Popular Roman opinion has simply moved to a point of discomfort with the conclusion and has become a little more willing to accept a bit of uncharacteristic mystery on the matter.

My point was, and is, that the Latin church should concern itself with getting its own doctrinal house in order before worrying about what other suri iuris churches are doing.

My point is that to the extent your point is valid, Limbo isn't an example of it.

That said, I'm not sure I see any point in a primacy that isn't concerned with doctrinal matters, at least a little.

I think Limbo is valid given the previous statements concerning it, which I posted above. The popular apologetic for it was that it was never more than a pious opinion, but if you read the statements it is part of the fabric of Latin Theology.

If there is a problem in the east that was unable to be addressed sufficently then the Western Patriarch may asked to be involved, other than that I see no need for him to concern himself with this question at a time when his own house is in disarray and the spread of secular athesim continues.

I'm reading the Ravenna document now here. [vatican.va]

Section 39 states, after explaining the different perspectives East and West on how a Council becomes viewed as ecumenical states:


How is this stating that there are only 7 ecumenical councils?

It is the following sentence that - in connection with the one you highlighted - promotes the idea that there have been only seven ecumenical councils:

"This harmony between the Church and the councils is so profound that, even after the break between East and West which rendered impossible the holding of Ecumenical Councils in the strict sense of the term, both Churches continued to hold councils whenever serious crises arose."

While the sentence you highlighted gives extra weight to this one by using the past tense when describing the Roman position:

"In the Roman Catholic Church, some of these councils held in the West were regarded as ecumenical."

All the councils held by Rome and by Constantinople - although understood differently in the latter case - since the break in communion between East and West are merely local councils.

I see your interpretation but I don't think it's enough for a foundation that the Roman Church (or this document) is agreeing that the latter Councils traditionally viewed as ecumenical are no longer viewed that way by it.

This sort of change would have caught the attention of the Catholic media by now, one would think.

You'll never make a diplomat or a theologian, Dave. You want things to be spelled out in black-and-white, whereas in both realms, everything is expressed through inference, indirection, ambiguity and ambivalence. As they say in Chicago, "Never write what you can say, never say what you can whisper, never whisper what you gesture, never gesture what you can wink".

The Church moves with tectonic speed, but those who know where to look can see the continents coming together.

Never planned to be either a diplomat or theologian.

Someone said the Ravenna document says there is only 7 ecumenical councils. I think the document is much too ambiguous (inferential or ambivalent) to so state.



Continental drift takes a LONG time. If Ravenna is indicative that the West is contemplating ditching the latter Councils that it has held to be ecumenical, then it may take a few millennia to be more transparent.

Perhaps even more to the point was the Joint International Commissions for...Roman Catholic and the Orthodox Church's [eirenikon.wordpress.com] findings when the discussed the role of Bishop of Rome in the First Millennium. Pay careful attention to number 27:


This definition agrees with the notion that the post-schism councils are not truly ecumenical since they do not possess the necessary criteria to be so considered, and this definition was given at the last ecumenical council, so I think it behooves us to pay close attention to it.