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Christ is Baptized! In the Jordan!

J. MIchael said:
"With just a couple minor word changes to your post, Hutsul, one might get the impression you, or the article in question, were referring to Pope Francis"

J Michael,

Well, I kind of figured that someone would comment similar to this- that Pope Francis is also an ideologist, a left leaning one to boot. But, that is not the case at all. The Holy Father is not promoting an ideological agenda. There is a huge difference here. It is the difference between ideology and faith. If you would, please read the following, especially how the writer describes the "truth about ideology" and the "truth about belief" Read it, think about it, and ask yourself which angle is Bishop Strickland coming from, and which the Holy Father? It is one of the best distinctions between the two that I have ever encountered, or considered. 

https://www.1517.org/articles/the-difference-between-belief-and-ideology

In your zeal to bash Bishop Strickland, I think you have missed my point. The Newsweek article you highlight is about, and references the "petition" as the link I included, and that link now has the "bill- board sized smoke screen" (if I understand you correctly). So those folks you invoke as properly discerning "Catholics" who signed the anti-Strickland "petition" will perhaps now through the same website, be thanking Target for LGBTQ Christmas decorations, as requested. That was my point. Perhaps you didn't get it; all the worse if you did.

I suspect that the chief charge against Bishop Strickland is simply that he was not a team-player, as in go team right-or-wrong. The yes-men culture is still very, very strong in the Church. It has given us the pedophilia and homosexual and abuse scandals, and bankrupt diocese all -- allow me to romanticize here a bit -- for lack of one just man.

It took me a the few seconds scanning it before pegging it as just good 'ol "Reformation" Ideology.

It took me a the few seconds scanning it before pegging it as just good 'ol "Reformation" Ideology.[/quote]

Well, of course it did. Not even worth considering.

I used to consider myself somewhat intelligent, but I suppose the years have slowed my thinking down a bit. But, even with the lower gear of age, it is becoming quite apparent to me that nothing Pope Francis says or does is going to be met with approval by " conservative Catholics", if that is the right term. Actully, what was "conservative Catholic", is now........ "reactionary Catholic"........

I leave you with the following: 

"While I fully support a return to tradition and orthodoxy, the problem I see with reactionaries is their desire to make the Church an oasis from modernism while pushing away people who are in desperate need of God’s mercy. I can appreciate the effort to make Church a safe space for people who seek refuge from the world’s corruption. But I feel it needs to be said that the moment the Church becomes an exclusive club for the spiritually well, the Gospel of Christ is lost."

And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” — Mark 2:17 RSV

Quote From: ( worth reading)

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/coffe...ing-the-meaning-of-catholic-reactionary/

I am betting that reactionary Catholics' reactionary positions are not limited to Church doctrine. The majority probably, like Bishop Strickland, support MAGA agendas, distrust Democracy, are anti- vaxers, blame societal woes on immigration and are election deniers. I am also betting that, before long, reactionary Catholics will develop a theory on how Pope Francis stole the election at the Vatican. They might even overpower the Swiss Guards and storm St. Peters in their effort to take the Church back in time, and make it great again.....lol.......

In all seriousness, though, it is too upsetting to see how some are trying to outdo others in the race to heap more fuel at the Pope's burning stake, while congratulating eachother in their new found "evidence" against the him.. And, frankly, it's not fun being all alone in defending him......


And with that, I follow Utroque out the door of this Forum. You can get back to entertaining more crucial ideas like- which nano- second we should celebrate a holiday.
It's been real. 

I do not accept the nominalist understanding of the faith advocated by the website linked above.

That said, is the orthodox Catholic faith a system (συνίστημι) of beliefs?

Yes, it is a system of interrelated truths.

In fact, I would liken the faith of the Church to a piece of fabric in which the various threads come together to create a single piece of cloth (i.e., like the seamless garment worn by our Lord). As a consequence, if one were to pull out a thread, and then another thread, and so on, the person would eventually destroy the piece of cloth, which only exists because of the systematic structure inherent to the fabric.

Now, in Catholic theology this arrangement of the doctrines of the faith is normally referred to as the "hierarchy of truths"; that is, to the structure whereby the various doctrines of the faith come together in order to form a single complexus (i.e., a single complex reality). It is important to remember that the term "hierarchy of truths" does not mean that some truths are more true than other truths; instead, it simply highlights the fact that the various truths of the faith are interconnected, and that some teachings depend upon others within the structure in order to be held fast, and in order to be understood correctly. Taking into account what I have said to this point, if one were to begin to deny elements of the faith, e.g., the dogmas of the Incarnation and the Trinity, or aspects of the moral nature of man in relation to God, etc., the whole structure of the faith would collapse.

Finally, let me give a pertinent example of what I am talking about: if one were to propose a completely novel distinction, i.e., one that never existed before in the history of the Church, between a liturgical blessing of an ordained priest and some type of a spontaneous blessing (whatever that means) of a priest, the one proposing this spurious innovation would be causing a rupture in the Church's life and practice of the faith. In the example given orthodoxy would no longer coordinate with orthopraxy, and this would be like pulling out a thread from a piece of fabric, which would start a process that would damage the ability of the Church to proclaim the Gospel clearly and faithfully, and this corruption of the faith would cause great harm to the Gospel and to the Church. Alas, it should be borne in mind that for the ancient Church Fathers the term innovation was simply another word for heresy.

Ah, "reactionary Catholics," such an interesting term, and so very judgmental. I bet it makes you feel superior to all the lowly "reactionary Catholics" here at the Byzantine Forum, and no doubt elsewhere.


I do not really care about MAGA, or any of the other political things you mentioned; instead, I care about Christ and His Church. That said, I have never heard of this group that you call "reactionary Catholics," do they belong to some sui juris Church that is unknown to me? I mean I have heard of the sui juris Latin Catholic Church, the sui juris Melkite Catholic Church, and the sui juris Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, etc., but I have never heard of a sui juris Church called the "Reactionary Catholic Church."

Alas, I am sure you will be disappointed, but I am not a member of this new "Reactionary Catholic Church."


I am sure it is hard for you to have to listen to the views of people you clearly despise, seeing that you have - with a broad brush - given those you disagree with here at the Byzantine Forum the title of "reactionary Catholics." Such is the way of things at the present time I suppose.

 
Wow! Just....wow!

There's much that could could be said in reply to the above, but at this stage in the conversation it would be pointless, especially as AJK and Apotheoun have already said much that I would, albeit in different words.

I just can't believe, though, the sour grapes and lack of charity expressed in the sentence I've put in bold. Regardless of where, if anywhere, one stands concerning the calendar issue(s), it's rather sad that Holy Pascha should now be reduced to the status of a mere "holiday". Oh well....

Well, for some reason, my post above didn't format properly. Probably something I failed to do. So, just to make it clear, everything above "Wow! Just....wow!" is Hutsul's post quoted. Apologies for any confusion I may have sown!

Because you have not accurately described "communion"
much less Catholicism.

I like to say, do the experiment: observe the evidence, believe your own eyes. See what is going on in this forum and throughout the Church as evidence of the Catholic faith and "being in communion." Words readily associated with Pope Francis are "possibility" and "innovation" and "Synodality." Observe in the reaction to Fiducia supplicans the true "Synodality," eminently existential rather than the artificial, programmed caricature of a Synod, "on Synodality." Pope Francis is getting a good and healthy dose of real synodality, aka sensus fidelium. He's getting what he wanted, just not what he expected.

Christ is Born!!

J Michael,

Forgive me. I fixed your copied quote above.

Bob

What's to forgive?? Thank you for fixing it!

Christ is in our midst!!

There is an article in The National Catholic Register. I have copied the title and the first sentence. It seems to me to give some idea of the background out of which this controversial document comes.


My intention is not to add fuel to the fire already blazing here.

Bob

Cardinal Fernández Responds to U... Certainly Would Not Write [That] Now’ [ncregister.com] So he wrote it as a young-presbyter (!;from presbuteros=elder) and now he's grown' up. It's still his and he has to own it and distance himself from it if that's the case. Great saints have changed their opinions. The concern I have is that this being so sensational will obscure the real issue, the very problematic theology of Fiducia supplicans and the clarification:

1. it bifurcates the nature of blessings
2. it does that by bifurcating liturgy
3. it bifurcates the minister of the blessing
4. it raises the subjective feeling of the Pope to doctrine
5. it ignores Church as communio and the sensus fidelium
6. it is an insult to the apostolic character shared by all bishops

To expand on two related points, 3 and 6. Catholic theology is especially developed regarding the sacramental character or sphragis, seal. We are imprinted through Baptism, Chrismation and Holy Orders with an indelible and irrevocable mark, seal, character; it is as much who we are as our intrinsic human nature, it is who we are as a Person. It is there however we are clothed, wherever we are, whatever we are doing. We sometimes signify this: the sticharion/alb is the "robe of glory," the baptismal garment, proper to all who have "put on Christ" in baptism and are anointed in the common priesthood. The deacon, presbyter, bishop wear the stole proper to their order.

So while the eyes of the world and the theology of Fiducia supplicans would have us see a functional difference in the confused concept of the non-liturgical priest, unvested (all the worse if wearing his stole) giving some kind of nuanced (diminished???) blessing, the eyes of faith and God see, always, the one signed in the sacramental/mystical character of who he really (ontologically) IS.

Blessings | A Teaching from Bishop Robert Pipta [parma.org].



And an interpretation, Byzantine Catholic Statement on Fiducia Supplicans [youtube.com]:

from the youtube transcript
@11:30 in other words there cannot be a blessing for the relationship of two people who are in a same sex union and
that's one once again confirmed by paragraph five and paragraph 11 of fiducia supplicans as well as others those are the
most prominent though so he's [Bishop Robert] just completely reiterating what fiducia supplicans says.




Is this what Bishop Robert wrote?