Posted on 10/22/2009 10:53:54 AM PDT by sitetest
Liberals are beginning to twit.
They are just warming up, but soon it will be a grand mal twit.
They are panicking about Pope Benedict and his provisions for Anglicans who, after their long nightmare with liberal on their side of the Tiber, may want unity in the Catholic Church.
Be alert.
The liberal Catholics will try to pull a sleight of hand. They will attempt to get you to believe that what Pope Benedict is doing is not true ecumenism.
They will claim to be the sole arbiters of true ecumenism.
They will claim that conservative Catholics, traditional Catholics are not interested in true ecumenism.
Do not accept their definition or their premises.
I want to invite all you readers into a project.
My idea is that we should start to refer to Pope Benedict XVI as …
... the Pope of Christian Unity.
It becomes clearer each year that Benedict goes beyond his immediate predecessors, but always in continuity with them, in promoting Christian unity.
His efforts in this direction can be seen on several fronts:
1) with the Orthodox in general, and the Russian Orthodox in particular; 2) with the SSPX; 3) with the Anglicans.
I can hear it now.
"But Father! But Father!", my liberal readers will say, squirming. "Pope Benedict’s efforts with the SSPX and with the Anglican trads are not really about ‘Christian unity’! They aren’t even endorsed by many high-ranking Catholic prelates or conspicuous newspaper theologians!"
Exactly.
That is precisely why Pope Benedict is preeminently the Pope of Christian Unity.
Pope Benedict has been struggling against forces within his own fold to achieve Christian unity.
His is decidedly not the unity that liberals (Richard McBrien, Gerald O’Collins) have in mind when they think of Christian unity, with its watered-down version of Roman primacy, liturgy, catechesis, sexual ethics and church discipline. In other words, a Christian unity without a Christian identity (christian with a small ‘c’).
No, Benedict’s unity is real unity, true unity that costs something, that stretches people, but that does not compromise what is essential to the Church.
This is not Rahner’s "world church" where anything and anyone goes. It is the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church founded by Christ Jesus.
Benedict’s true ecumenism is consonant with everything we are as a Church.
People are going to be stretched, but absolutely nothing essential will be given away.
You see where I am going with this.
Liberals want ecumenism only with those whom they want in their sort of church.
They want ecumenical dialogue with those who agree with the manifestos of, for example, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.
But true ecumenism is not about compromise on essentials, giving away fundamental elements of our Catholic identity.
True ecumenism requires that we be stretched, to be sure, but that we submit. We stretch, but we give nothing essential away.
The liberal model of ecumenism gives nearly anything for the sake of bringing in their sort of compromised Christian.
Pope Benedict is the true ecumenist.
He is the Pope of Christian Unity.
If this has been posted previously, my apologies.
Ping.
Pope Benedict XVI - Pope of Christian Unity.
Correction in authorship:
Zuhsldorm = Zuhlsdorf
Rogue finger typo.
I like it. I pray for all those sheep left wandering by the liberals in the Anglican and Episcopalian churches. May they find a home in the Barque of Peter.
“His is decidedly not the unity that liberals (Richard McBrien, Gerald O’Collins) have in mind when they think of Christian unity, with its watered-down version of Roman primacy,...”
If there is ever to be unity with Orthodoxy, unity beyond working together to bolster the Christian identity of Europe, I can assure you that whatever “version of Roman primacy” remains will be substantially watered down from what the “conservative” Latins seem to want and far more like the “watered down” version of the “liberal” Latins. I’ll go further and say that anyone who pushes for Roman primacy as it is practiced now is plainly opposed to any unity with Orthodoxy which we might reasonably hope for...or they have absolutely no understanding of Orthodoxy.
Liberal Catholics, ultra conservative Catholics, the Orthodox, Protestants of all manner of stripes and nonbelievers, too.
That's a very diverse group of people but they have something unusual in common.
Hmmmmmmmmmm.............*.........stroking chin*..........
Don’t include the orthodox in that bunch. We love and respect +BXVI. We just don’t love or accept the Latin ecclesiology.
"Why does everyone have it in for the papacy?" might have been more accurate.
Less wiggle room.
As for the theological differences, the East and West had at one point agreed to Ex Filio. I sure God will give us all an exhaustive examination on the Filioque at the moment of death. I will enjoy hearing the Baptist reply for that one. As for the Marion Doctrines, many would declare that Catholicism wholly lifted its doctrine from Greek Piety . it is viewed as a ecclesical and not doctrinal issue.
The Orthodox have a right to protest the potential watering down of their orthodox faith by the liberal elements of the RCC and would rightly demand a renunciation of what passes for contemporary Catholic liturgy and practice.
Hey , I would enjoy the support of the Orthodox in the elimination of the "Happy clappy liturgical abusing crowd " and send them packing. It appears the some accommodation will be formulated in the present time but any steps to unity would take many generations and much suffering. Only if God wills it can it occur.
**The liberal Catholics will try to pull a sleight of hand.**
I’ve seen this happen on threads already.
“I sure God will give us all an exhaustive examination on the Filioque at the moment of death.”
I’m saddened to hear that theology and dogam mean so little to you.
“As for the Marion Doctrines, many would declare that Catholicism wholly lifted its doctrine from Greek Piety . it is viewed as a ecclesical and not doctrinal issue.”
Not wholly. The IC nonsense is a direct result of the Augustinians notion of the Sin of Adam pushed by the West. It also, arguably, is a Christological heresy. The dogma of the Assumption is plainly Greek in origin. Why did that ancient theologumennon have to be made dogma? What heresy was being addressed? Why did +Pius XII feel he had to infallibly declare dogmatic a belief we all shared, and make it a belief uponm which salvation itself hinges?
“The Orthodox have a right to protest the potential watering down of their orthodox faith by the liberal elements of the RCC and would rightly demand a renunciation of what passes for contemporary Catholic liturgy and practice.”
Liberal or Conservative isn’t the issue. It’s the theology and phronema and ecclesiology of the Latin Church which are the primary problems; your modern liturgies are way down the list and frankly are only a symptom of the broader problems.
“Hey , I would enjoy the support of the Orthodox in the elimination of the “Happy clappy liturgical abusing crowd “ and send them packing.”
Its not our place to clean up your liturgical practices, much less send any Latin’s packing. You folks need to do that.
“Why does everyone have it in for the papacy?” might have been more accurate.”
Ah, well that’s different isn’t it?! Its also easy. From an Orthodox pov, there is no “Vicar of Christ on Earth”, no man is infallible and there is no monarch of The Church save Christ.
Which was exactly the point of my original post.
The Orthodox share this belief with an interesting assortment of theological bedfellows (post #9).
“The Orthodox share this belief with an interesting assortment of theological bedfellows (post #9).”
Yes, one wouldn’t expect Protestants to have preserved even a little piece of the ecclesiology of the One Church, especially since they are the children of the very Rome which rejected that proper canonical order, and yet they have! Remarkable, isn’t it!
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