www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Intercommunion taken to an extreme?

I don't agree with calling this statement "trash" (and I'm not just being polite; in fact in the last month I've complained 3 or 4 times about Catholics posting "garbage" on the internet); but I think it's a little silly.

Maybe it's been too long since you had a vacation from the internet. (Not that I'm one to talk. [Linked Image])

"Trash" is the polite term for what he's putting out in this thread.

Here, you're hypocrisy is exposed. You accuse those who think like Stuart, Fr. Robert Taft, me, and others of placing ourselves above the Church and being worthy of excommunication for our dissent. Yet you place yourself in a position above the Church by taking it upon yourself to judge us as deserving of excommunication, given the fact that the Church herself chooses to take no action against us.

'Here, you're (sic) hypocrisy is exposed. You accuse those who think like Vice President Biden, Secretary Sebelius, Congresswoman Pelosi, me, and others of placing ourselves above the Church and being worthy of excommunication for our dissent. Yet you place yourself in a position above the Church by taking it upon yourself to judge us as deserving of excommunication, given the fact that the Church herself chooses to take no action against us.'

Got it. You've betrayed the faith to sit at the cool kids' table, only you dress it up in Orthodox trappings.

It's simple. If you arrogate to yourself the teaching job of a pastor or professor, you take on the responsibility and consequences of the same. If you don't accept the teaching of the Catholic Church, go somewhere else.

Thank you for pointing out my grammatical error. As for the rest of it, thank you for making abundantly clear to everyone the absurdity of the comparison you're drawing. As for telling me to go somewhere else, you can do that when you become my bishop. Until then, my Church affiliation is none of your business.

No, it is not. Read your Codex Canones Ecclesiarum Orientalis.

Btw, today I just read a rather bizarre "history" of the Church in Ukraine by his predecessor at the time of the Millenium of the Baptism of Rus'. He labeled himself a patriarch and a cardinal (the latter which he was).

Thank God that, for all their foibles, rank-and-file Greek Catholics, most of the ethnics born into it, aren't like the dissenters online.

Well, a very weak comparison can be made between the typical blogger and "a ranking churchman, professor, or politician". But even supposing that a strong comparison could be made ... well, you just can't get around the lack-of-excommunication-issuance ... unless you want to resort to the rather weaselly tactic of Fr. J. Steele, namely making it their responsibility to excommunicate the pope, rather than the other way around.

Thank God that most rank-and-file Catholics, Roman or Greek, aren't like the scribes and Pharisees online.

There are bloggers and then there are public fora such as this where Catholics and inquirers look for Catholic answers. I don't take on that responsibility as a blogger and a Catholic layman; it's not a 'Catholic blog'. That said, if somebody is preaching dissent on a blog and has a big following – if Mark Shea, for example, changed his mind and started preaching Mr. Koehl's line – then yes, he ought to be held responsible.

And this is not a Catholic forum.

So the disclaimer in tiny point-size text at the bottom of this page says. Gotcha.

Moderators have pointed out to participants numerous times that this is not a Catholic forum.

I believe that I accept the teaching of the Catholic Church and I believe that you have sometimes miscontrued it.

Whenever I have tried to engage you in a conversation about it, however, you have simply dismissed me, declaring (snidely and uncharitably) that the truth of Catholic doctrine is good enough for you and that you are happy to be too dull for dissent and heresy. This does not vindicate your point of view in the matter of disagreement, whatever it happens to be.

More importantly, brother, it does not in any way at all serve the truth. For if I am erring, then you don't help me, and if you are, you should care. I fear it can also serve to build up a kind of self-righteousness, which can extinguish charity. The Lord commanded us to love one another, and this really can't be smirked aside as some low flying point. If we are to seek(together) the One Who is the Truth, then we won't get there so long as we substitute sneering for mercy. I assure you that I desire to get there (to Him) more than I desire to be right. There is a pride that apes humility. Surely we should all want to avoid it.

The Catholic faith: believing all the doctrines Rome has defined since the schism, but Greek Catholics' calling is to express them in Orthodox terms, which of course the Orthodox don't think is possible.

Pseudo-Orthodox dissent by some Catholics: Catholic doctrine since the split is optional; Catholic councils since the split are only general councils of the West I don't have to obey; neither Catholicism nor Orthodoxy is by itself the true church.

So which one will it be? So far nobody can prove the first is not what the church teaches. Trying to bait me doesn't answer the question.