Christ is Risen!!
I agree; excellent article.
From where I sit the problem is that the Christian East sees the preservation and living out of Tradition as a sacred duty; something to be diligently done. Tradition is the living out of the Faith guided by the Holy Spirit--the actual life of the Church. The West IMHO is currently divided into two camps: those who think they are in the same mindset--but see it as the either the Council or Trent or 19th century up to 1958--and those who think that Tradition before 1965 ought to be jettisoned and a new one formed since that date with people making it up as they go along (or even more radical in that everything should have no further reference point than the current date with even the Vatican Council being too dated). Neither is anything close to what the Christian East understands or lives IMHO. I think of liturgical committee members who think they need to make up how parishes do the great feasts each year as if they'd never been done before and who think things like rubrics and instructions from higher authorities are things to be ignored.
If I'm not mistaken, the thrust of Vatican I was to centralize the Catholic Church so that it would not spin off into national churches at odds with each other and having no point of common focus or unity.
I don't really know how to rectify this situation. Current catechesis is abysmal, to be charitable. It seems that once a person is confirmed each thinks he now has license to make it up as he goes along and all sorts of "faiths" seem to pass as Catholic, from those that would pass as fundamentalist and those that would pass as SSPX.
Bob
Real points to consider, brother Bob, and thanks!
