“Do the Orthodox think for one second that the reason why heresy has not slipped into the Roman Church is based upon the Pope’s own abilities???”
The Orthodox don’t believe for a minute that the Roman Church isn’t riddled with heresy.
“One enables the other to take place, doesn’t it?”
No, indeed one is quite the opposite of the other.
“...the REAL cause of mistrust is NOT the “theological lay experts of the East who misunderstand the Western infallible doctrines”, but the mistrust caused by poor liturgical movements in the West.”
I think you are right. While the laity are certainly concerned about what they see as unOrthodox dogmas, innovations, I believe there is sufficient knowledge, among the laity who care, to understand and assess whatever explanations of those innovations might be presented to them. The only one, in all honesty, that I wonder about the resolvability of are the Vatican I proclamations. I sincerely believe those will be difficult to resolve. The real problem, Jo, is our inability to trust that Rome can be consistent in much of anything and since with Orthodoxy, what you see (and hear and smell) is exactly what you get, when we see what you have done in the West and when we understand why you did it, well, its “Katie bar the door!” That’s why I say that it will take at least 100 years of liturgical “orthodoxy” in the West before we are ready to even consider taking a chance with trusting you in a reunion. I do not believe, and I may be alone here among the Orthodox on this thread, is that we need 100 years before we have intercommunion under economia de jure. We don’t need to trust you for that and because under economia intercommunion will not be common, in the West, except perhaps in rural areas, there’s no need to be concerned that a bunch of rainbow sash types might try to move in on one of our little parishes and take it over.
I think if they look at the relatio, the underlying desire of the Council can be ascertained and there would be room to clarify the doctrine of infallibility. I think the East's thinking has changed somewhat from the 1800's on this issue!
The real problem, Jo, is our inability to trust that Rome can be consistent in much of anything and since with Orthodoxy, what you see (and hear and smell) is exactly what you get, when we see what you have done in the West and when we understand why you did it, well, its “Katie bar the door!”
Understood. Thanks for taking the time to explain things. The consistency problem deals with the Liturgy, not infallible doctrine, so it is fixable.
Regards