Posted on 02/09/2016 7:11:45 AM PST by marshmallow
What is sad is that many Catholics miss the obvious. Yes, I am ultramontane in my views, but each bishop is supposed to control his diocese as his particular Church. The Church was made to be somewhat decentralized. Those Catholics who have the (appropriate) knee jerk reaction that this would lead to disaster are just admitting what we all know is true:
1) We have many heretics to deal with today and sadly many wear miters and Roman collars.
2) The real reason the Church cannot decentralize is not because there is something inherently wrong or unChristian or anti-traditional about decentralization but because we all know the heretics would have a field day without the centralized power of the Vatican to barely hold a lid on the cesspool of heresy from overflowing in many dioceses.
3) The real reason this is a problem is that the laity themselves have - in far too great numbers - embraced modernism and liberalism and no longer uphold the sensus fidei as they once did. If they did so, orthodox clergy would be bolstered to clean house in rapid fashion.
4) You don’t need a very centralized Church, if everybody in the Church is a) orthodox, b) humble before Church authority, and c) always open to sanctification and the need for charity. We have a centralized Church because far-too-often that is NOT what we have had.
5) The Eastern Orthodox have all sorts of issues, but heresy isn’t that much of an issue (yes, I am discounting any issue that separates Catholics and EOs in this instance). How can their Churches be so apparently decentralized and yet heresy is not such a big issue? Now, I think they are not as decentralized as they seem, but they are far more decentralized than the Catholic Church.
6) As the Church has become more centralized (to combat heresy) we have become less able on the ground level to combat heresy. That’s a natural consequence.
The usual numbnuts who hear only what THEY want to hear will start mis-spouting. Same ole, same ole.
What else is new?
That is the dictionary description of Protestantism.
uh....that was pretty much my point....
The tools that we have used are fully available to western Christians because they stem mostly from pre-schism canons:
1) Each “local church” (national church) is governed by a synod of bishops headed by a primate who is “first among equals”. This is why a patriarch is not equivalent to the pope.
2) According to ancient canons, the synod cannot act without the primate BUT the primate cannot act without the synod, either. This institutionalizes collegiality.
3) The voice of the laity can override the hierarchy. Rather than the centralized hierarchy keeping the laity in line, the laity (including monastics) rebels if the bishops are heretical or uncanonical.
In my own jurisdiction (OCA - Orthodox Church in America) there was a corruption scandal in the past decade. Laymen started a web site which documented the ongoing scandal in detail which forced the synod to deal with it.
In the Greek Archdiocese, intense lay pressure forced Constantinople to remove a “bad” Archbishop and appoint a new leader.
The real problem, my Roman Catholic friends, is how to get there from here. Please know that with all our differences, some of us are rooting for you out here.
Newberger
“Please know that with all our differences, some of us are rooting for you out here.”
And I root for the OCA to get the recognition so far denied it by the Byzantines:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_response_to_Orthodox_Church_in_America_autocephaly
One day. One day.
I am still working on your question
this is all I have right now
this priest was a Traditionalist ... one man’s opinion
http://www.catholicapologetics.info/modernproblems/vatican2/conciliar.htm
In practice, it is fair to say the US Bishops are deciding themselves who their new bishops will be.
http://www.usccb.org/about/leadership/appointing-bishops.cfm
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