www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Recent interview with Fr. Taft

Interesting.

The same way Modernists in the Roman Rite get away with 'not affirming' Catholic teachings. They passively deny them at least by ignoring them. That's why I don't respect the OicwRs but I like the high-church Greek Catholics.

See, whenever people throw around terms that are semantically null, such as "modernist" (which, in intellectual history, has a real technical definition), I get the impression its real purpose is a placeholder for "people's whose positions I dislike".

So, in effect, you're saying you dislike Patriarch Gregorios III, Patriarch Sviatoslav, Bishop John Michael of Canton, and also the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council who wrote Orientalium Ecclesiarum. And, at the same stroke, you do manage to confirm Pelikan's definition of traditionalism. But, then, he was a "modernist", too, no doubt.

I see what you're saying, but I think there's a lot more differences between Eastern and Western Catholics than just liturgical rubrics. It's the entire Eastern spiritual tradition that Byzantine Catholics are called to that the Orthodox also follow. The same spirituality and ascetical tradition is supposed to be common to both. "OicwR" isn't just about liturgy, but is a way of prayer, fasting, asceticism. It should be a complete way of life and an entire worldview based on the Eastern Patrimony.
I highly recommend checking out Abbot Nicholas' homily in the video recently posted in Church News. He illustrates some of the differences beautifully.

As for doctrine, I doubt if many Eastern Catholics are dissenting outright from doctrines or dogmas of the Catholic Church. There just may be one or two that don't really get brought up very often in their day to day life as an Eastern Catholic.

I think you're confusing apples and oranges, Stuart deliberately, desertman unintentionally.

I really don't believe Patriarch Sviatoslav et al. got promoted as high as they did in the Catholic Church while being dissenters like Stuart. They were and are high-church Greek Catholics, what Rome thinks 'Orthodoxy in communion with Rome' should be, not the OicwR dissent I'm talking about.

I've been saying all along on this thread that part of Greek Catholics' apostolate is not only to be liturgically Orthodox but to explain Catholic theology in Orthodox terms. And of course I agree that Byzantine and Latin theology have different emphases. And sure, lots of doctrines don't come up every day in the lives of Catholics, Roman or Byzantine and others.

Dear Sergei,

Well, it is always good to see the "Old Serge" and it does my heart good to read your balanced, yet clear and concise, writing.

Alex

Dear Sergei,

You've made yourself crystal clear - and I would agree with you.

Alex

The problem is, Stuart, that you couldn't ever really match the charisma of Sergei!

Alex

That's Stuart's charm, that he doesn't try to be charming.

I will venture to say that our Teacher, Stuart, is charming in his own "Rite!"

I do not regard myself as a Modernist but I think there are plenty of sound reasons to doubt that the Immaculate Conception or Assumption--as defined--require dogmatic assent. Chief among these reasons is that the Orthodox Churches don't recognize in those definitions the teaching of the faith that they hold. I do believe that (on its own terms)legitimate papal definitions of the faith will necessarily agree with the teaching of the Church in general. Let me stress that these are not radical or dissident views--they are much closer to Avery Dulles than to Hans Kung.

I wouldn't have lost sleep if they were never defined. I'm Christ-centered and Eucharist-centered, and the Council of Ephesus (hypostatic union; Mary is the Mother of God) arguably said it all. But Catholicism rightly sees those definitions as developments building on Ephesus; dissent from them is wrong.

fogey,

I think maybe you're drawing the line on dissent much more restrictively (or expanisively) than it needs to be drawn.

No sale.

Sergei's problem is his experience of Eastern Catholics is generally limited to tame, latinized, uniate-mineded Ruthenians.