Posted on 05/17/2005 6:16:45 AM PDT by marshmallow
The tradition of the Church plainly distinguishes latria (worship) and the lesser dulia or honor which is paid to the saints, and the hyperdulia or special honor which is due to the Blessed Virgin as the theotokos or God-Bearer.
Since the Church treats the Communion of Saints (you know, it's in that thing called the Creed) as present throughout time and eternity, perhaps it would help if you think of Catholics as asking their good and holy friends who stand in the presence of God to remember them in their prayers -- just as you might ask a deacon or elder or righteous man "whose prayers avail much" to pray for you.
Bit of a mix there. The Peace, of course, is new. The Prayers of the People are the newer form, but there's an alternate form in the appendix that is older than the form in the main section, it is also older than 1928. The bulk of the Eucharistic Prayer is older than 1928. Most of the rest of the service (Liturgy of the Word, General Confession, etc.) is straight out of '28, but may not have changed from the older versions. '28 is most familiar to me because I was a cradle Episcopalian born 1955.
I seriously did not know of an Anglican Use parish in California. I only knew of seven in all -- one is in Boston, one is in Columbia SC, one in Las Vegas, and I thought the other four were all in Texas - St. Mary's, Walsingham, Atonement, and St Margaret of Scotland.
I would be curious. You don't ordinarily think of California as a place fraught with tradition . . . of course I haven't been near the place in 30 years . . . it was fairly wacky then, can't imagine what it must be like by now!
The Catholics will first have to try to determine exactly WHO it is they are talking to when they talk to the Anglicans. That's not easy nowadays. The orthodox high-church people? The revisionist "Affirming" Catholics who love the high-church pagentry, but just don't want the theology that usually goes along with it? The low-church, but orthodox, 'evangelicals?' Right now, that whole question is unanswerable.
Came across this ...
California AU Catholic Laity, St. Francis of Assisi Church, La Quinta, CA 92253, c/o Fr. Jack Barker, Box 1503
Also thought this might be of interest to others in the forum.
The purpose of the St. Thomas More Society of St. Clare Church is to establish a Pastoral Provision Personal Parish of the Anglican Use in the Diocese of Scranton and to aid in the establishment of other Roman Catholic Anglican Use Parishes where the need or opportunity may arise.
St. Thomas More Society
There's an AU organization in Atlanta, too, but it appears to be defunct. They have no church, and their mailing address is a residence. The archdiocese was not forthcoming when I asked them (this was when we were still prowling about deciding what to do. I guess I wouldn't reveal a plan to raid another denomination to an anonymous voice on the telephone, either. Might impact those plans for World Domination. < g > )
As a low church Evangelical Conservative Episcopalian, they certainly do not speak for me and mine!
"Could you please cite when the Roman Catholic Church has ever changed its belief structure in 2000 years?"
Meatless Fridays? :)
"You do understand the difference between practices and doctrine, right?"
Yes. It was a joke. ( Sort of! ) :)
Then I apologize for my lack of humor in responding. Sorry for misreading your post. :-)
No problem!
C: Protestants do the same thing, all the time. Study up on the history of premillenial dispensationalism sometime.
Actually, I agree with you on dispensationalism, but it does not make Protestantism in general accretionist, because Protestant churches have not set up mechanisms as the RCC and the Mormons have (the papacy and the president of the council of the twelve, respectively) to provide additional (or revised) dogmas for their respective churches.
But I do agree that Bible-faithful churches must be continually sensitive to the possibility that their mutual efforts at systematic theology (purportedly drawn from the Bible) can nonetheless amount to 'accretions by common consent.' Placing dispensational theories and 5-point Calvinist theology on a par with the Bible itself are good examples of this problem in Protestantism.
On this topic, to name a just a couple of the hundreds or perhaps thousands, 1854 (adding the 'immaculate conception' of Mary) and 1950 (adding the 'bodily assumption of Mary'). The text of the papal documents themselves demonstrate by their terms that the respective popes were adding these rather unusual doctrines to the pantheon of RCC dogmas. Before the respective pronouncements, they were not part of the belief structure of the RCC (although a few individuals may have theretofore held to them personally), but afterward, they became mandatory parts of the belief structure of the RCC on pain of 'legal' punishment. That's what accretionism is.
Nothing wrong with believing that, just like there's nothing wrong with believing kaballah (sp?) or Mormonism either (apart from the fact they may not be true), but none are Biblical Christianity. "You takes your choice" -- and (I believe) you bet your eternal future on the efficacy of that choice. That's the only point.
---It's difficult to see what the RCC offers Anglicans nowadays.---
Ummmmm....the TRUTH of the ONE, HOLY, CATHOLIC and APOSTOLIC Church? That's all. No more, no less.
Frank
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