“Yes, you live in an Orthodox “ghetto” (there is no negative connotations to that word, I presume you know what I mean by “ghetto”, my friend). I would posit that you do not have the experience I have in this regard.”
Yeah, what would I know with the paternal half of my family being all Irish Catholics, with three theology professors (two at Fordham, one formerly at the Gregorian Institute and now at BC), one a senior Jesuit as cousins, and me having gone to Catholic school and having been an altar boy at both the Orthodox and Latin churhes prior to Vatican II (it was an ecumenical time around here).
“Retaining the same rites without proper catechesis is a “dead” church, a la US Catholicism, 1960.”
But Orthodoxy is thriving with its 1700 year old liturgy. If you get a chance, ask some convert from Protestantism to Orthodoxy, after he has been Orthodox for about 10 years, where and how he learned Orthodoxy. He’ll tell you in the liturgies and devotions of The Church not from books or Sunday School. One learns (and lives) The Faith by praying it!
That's not the experience I am talking about. I didn't say you had no experience as a Catholic. I am and was talking about a mobile society not being conducive to retaining the "religious ghetto" mentality that we both grew up in. When people move around every few years, it becomes difficult to retain that cultural connection to religious background you were raised in. That's the West, a mobile society. Where there are ghettos - where most everyone is "X" - of course OTHER religious groups are not going to infilitrate as easily. It has NOTHING to do with your "rite".
But Orthodoxy is thriving with its 1700 year old liturgy.
"Thriving"? It "thrives" only because it is a way of life where Modernism has not entered yet. Those who live within a community where nearly everyone is the same religion remain the same religion. Religion is part of the cultural norm. Whether people ACTUALLY ARE religious in the Biblical sense is another question entirely.
If you get a chance, ask some convert from Protestantism to Orthodoxy, after he has been Orthodox for about 10 years, where and how he learned Orthodoxy. He’ll tell you in the liturgies and devotions of The Church not from books or Sunday School. One learns (and lives) The Faith by praying it!
There are not a whole lot of such people I can ask those questions. I can't answer WHERE the Orthodox learn their faith from, but I would think it is more encompassing then just the Sunday Mass. I've been to Orthodox liturgy, and as beautiful as it is, it is not necessarily any more "instructing" than other Liturgies. If you follow the words of the NO Mass or Byzantium Rites Mass, one can learn a lot, in most cases, the same thing, so I don't see Orthodox liturgies being any more "instructive", except through particular emphasis on the symbolic awe. A proper NO Mass teaches community in a better manner.
And since the teaching of adults requires more feedback and reflection, it is more likely that the one-way passive "instruction" at the Mass in not the only way we learn about God. Man doesn't pray JUST at Mass.
Regards