Actually, I do. Man was created in the image of God so the children of God can be compared to dumb sheep?
The term 'sheep' is used in both the OT and the NT to refer to the People of God
Very "complimentary." This is like introducing your children to someone as "behold my little idiots."
I am not liking where you are heading with this conversation,
I don't like it either. It's just one of those things that are glaringly obvious, like a mole on someone's face, but never talked about.
My original comments were to point out that the East should get to know the Western theology better, rather than thinking about the wrongs they feel compelled to remember from 800 years ago (which has nothing to do with Catholicism...)
Lex ordandi, lex credendi, jo. You have to practice what you preach. You can't claim "tradition" and Patristics and do something that is not Patristic or traditional. I see the churches and the way people worship and then I hear their theology and it's a disconnect. It's like speaking with both sides of the mouth. Try straightalk.
If there is a true desire for reunification, it cannot happen while the typical laity in the East have your attitude that we are just "dumb sheep".
We laity in the West are largely indifferent towards the East. There is not an Orthodox Church 150 miles from where I live. In large cities, there may only be one or two Orthodox churches. Orthodoxy is largely unknown here.
I was in Lynchburg ,Virginia, last year and there were but two Catholic churches and one Orthodox. Some 200 Baptist, 94 Methodist, 63 Presbyterian and what not. Does that mean the Catholic Church "ceases" to exist to the point that one becomes "indifferent?"
Orthodoxy (including schismatic Nestorians) is the Second largest Church Communion in the world, and the only one that , besides yours, whose clergy and sacraments are valid, who share the same Apostolic authority through unbroken succession.
To say that you are indifferent to Orthodoxy says a lot. Just because your brother doesn't live in the vicinity is no reason for indifference.
It appears, however, that the Eastern laity universally hates Catholics, based on the same polemic tracts put out centuries ago.
Maybe if your side were not indifferent, as you admit, those events from 800 years ago would not have happened.
Reunification must come from both sides, Kosta
No doubt. One thing is certain: unlike the Latin Church at the time of Florence, we never asked you sign away your Catholicism. We simply believe that when, and if, the Catholic Church returns to her Latin Patristic roots, the reunion will occur from both sides by default.
Perhaps the lesson of the post-Vatican II experiment was meant for just that to happen. Otherwise, we will spend another millennium at "glaciers' speed" as you say, in polite co-existence. Apparently Pope Benedict XVI thinks otherwise, judging from his letters of not so long ago. Maybe he knows something we ordinary sheep don't.
Ah, but you ARE asking us to "sign away our Catholicism". Unless we terminate all infallible doctrines that the Spirit has led the Church to declare over the last 1000 years are made null and void, there cannot be a reunion, according to the EAST. We must "return to our Patristic roots", which means, we must go back to 900 AD... Basically, it is extortion. For the East, either the West becomes East and changes everything to mimic the East, to include the type of bread we use at the Eucharist, or there cannot be a reunion. At least that is what I am hearing from the East laity here...
Sorry, I am frustrated in what I perceive as an implicit disdain for anything from the West, a continued invention of excuses to keep things the way they are. I don't see any Eastern effort to learn what the West teaches, they appear to prefer strawmen so they can continue to pound Catholicism and feel righteous about it.
Regards