...are Orthodox theologians incapable of entertaining an authentic primacy within the episcopal college for the bishop of Rome?
With very few exceptions, no.
Both communions struggle to assert the hierarchical authority of bishops, while at the same time grounding this authority not in power but in eucharistic love and qualifying this authority by the coming Kingdom
In the Latin community, this is of a recent origin (less than half a century). Most of Latin authority has been asserted in the past scripturally and by fiat.
...it is not at all clear to me that the Catholic Church authoritatively teaches the *forensic* imputation of Adam's guilt to humanity.
Oh?
I know that some (many?) Catholic theologians have sometimes taught something like this over the centuries, but the Catholic Church has strained [sic] over recent decades to clarify the meaning of Original Sin not as the forensic transfer of Adam's guilt but as the inheritance of the Adamic condition of real alienation from God--i.e., the absence of sanctifying grace. Consider the catechetical teaching of John Paul II:
"In this context it is evident that original sin in Adam's descendants does not have the character of personal guilt. It is the privation of sanctifying grace in a nature which has been diverted from its supernatural end through the fault of the first parents.
This flies in the face of the need for the Immaculate Conception, Fr. Kimel!
I would suggest that hyper-Augustinianism is not only impossible in Orthodoxy, but it is also impossible in contemporary Catholicism.
Well, you said it: contemporary Catholicism. Obviously, the good father believes contemporary Catholicism is not the past Catholicism. Why don't we just settle this right here and right now: did the Catholic Church change her doctrines or not? Apparently this former Anglican priest believes she has. Is this the latest consensus in the Catholic community?
It is certainly true that the Divine Liturgy is decisive for Orthodox faith and life and "is the true locus of Orthodox unity"; but does this represent a critical difference between Orthodoxy and Catholicism? The last time I checked going to Mass was still pretty important for Catholics
There is no comparison. It would be too long to try to even enumerate why.
The Catholic understanding of grace, sanctification, and glorification is inadequately presented in this statement. While perhaps it might have been true at some point in the past that Catholic theologians tended to reduce grace to a created power, this cannot be asserted today
Here we go again! This priest really believes that the Catholic Church as we know her today is a recent phenomenon! The East-West rift on the nature of grace has been a constant since the 13th century, with the Latin side choosing Aristotelian scholasticism and the East monastic hesichasm as a means of approaching God. There is no issue more crucial to the East-West disagreement than the nature of grace.
Catholic theologians do have a problem with some of the Palamite construals of grace and the popular Orthodox rejection of any notion of created grace--they do not see how the Palamite position does not lead to the annihilation of human nature
Orthodox rejection of created grace is not "popular' but theological. It's not an opinion. Palamite theology is the official theology of the Orthodox Church since the 14th century (note: this simply means that it was recognized as such; it has been the way for the East from the 3rd century Desert Fathers, Cappadocian Fathers, and all the way into the 13th century monasticism).
But I do acknowledge a difference of homiletical and ascetical emphasis between Catholics and Orthodox on theosis, sanctifying suffering, and the life of the resurrection.
Oh, well, at least there is "some" difference, then, hey?
I’ve never much been impressed with Kimel’s theological musings, either before or since he “swam the Tiber”. Frankly, this article, with its numerous allusions to “contemporary” Catholicism, demonstrates the danger of ordaining Western protestant clergymen into the priesthood of The Church. In Orthodoxy here in America we have seen similar talk from convert clergy, especially in the Antiochian Church.
Let me add re this:
“What, after all, does the dogma positively assert? Nothing more nor less than the full and perfect indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the soul of the Theotokos from the moment of her conception. At no point in her existence was she ever separated from God. Do Orthodox theologians really want to assert otherwise?”
Assuming there is no concern with heresy and some pressing need, or fixation on dogmatizing exactly when Panagia attained perfect theosis, I doubt that Orthodox theologians would “want to assert otherwise”, but the fact of the matter is there is no such compelling need. Why imagine one and why mess with heresy?? Why theosis at conception, which frankly seems absurd, destroys Panagia as any sort of example to the rest of us and presents us as surely as +Pius IX’s dogmatic declaration does with a Christological heresy?
There is no such "need". It is simply a fact. Arguments from necessity for the I.C. are weak; the more persuasive argument is one from fittingness.
Obviously, the good father believes contemporary Catholicism is not the past Catholicism.
No, he's talking about development of doctrine, but moreso simply about recovering a more balanced view based on a more balanced reading of the patristic tradition.
This doesn't mean that the Church "changed her doctrines" anymore than your subsequent statement about Palamitism being "the official theology of the Orthodox church since the 14th Century" means that Orthodoxy changed her doctrines.
(Incidentally, by what authority does the Orthodox church promulgate any "official theology" in the 14th Century? There were -- according to you -- no ecumenical councils in the 14th Century.)
Y'all seem to hold Catholic clerics and Catholic doctrines to a different set of standards than you hold your own.
When I was Eastern Orthodox no one really complained about me practicing apologetics in favor of Orthodoxy, but I am sure I was the object of suspicion for doing so. I suppose to that these had their suspicions validated a few years afterwards when I recrossed the Tiber. (But this story remains to be told and although I'm talking a little bit more about it, the apologia pro vita mea is far from completion, but again, I digress)
Let me tell you a bit about my own experience. When I worship the Lord, at Liturgy (at Mass, or when praying the Hours) I am not reading lessons from Aristotle or St. Thomas. When I worship, I am not absorbed in the contemplation of syllogisms. I am certain that I am in dialogue with Someone and this Someone is True God and True Man; and this dialogue is enabled by Someone who is Personal Spirit that empowers me to say to God, "Abba, Father."
Orthodox apologists often accuse Catholics of holding to a cold kind of faith, riddled with this pagan Aristotelian philosophy and weakened to the point of gracelessness by the cryptomodalism contained in the "filioquist" heresy of the West. It is strange though that I never experienced God as Orthodox apologists say I experience Him solely on the basis of my flawed Catholic understandings.
That did open a crack, small at first, in the claims of Orthodox exclusivity, which then became a chasm.
I like to think that my faith has deepened quite a bit ever since I started to pattern it on monastic practice. Praying the Liturgy of the Hours regularly was the first step; making oblation as a lay Benedictine - an Orthodox father of East and West - was another step in that direction.
We both, then harken to our monastic heritage in the way we understand and express the faith, and this is as much true in the West as it is in the East, whether or not most Catholics share that appreciation is another matter.
My point, and also one of my goals in having written the 12 Questions, more than likely unconsciously held: I just thought that the time that we should go beyond the caricatures we hold of each other is finally here. That it took a Catholic revert - and an Orthodox deserter at that, who in the eyes of many, may have never really "converted" - to open the gates and energize a grass-roots dialogue, well, I think that says something.
One thing I can say in defense of the "modern" Catholic Church is this: there is more willingness to right ancient wrongs and to reopen old dialogues anew in the Vatican than in the Phanar, Athos, and all other Orthodox centers. Now more than ever there is an inclination to listen to what the Orthodox Church has to about herself, in her terms. Alas, there is no reciprocation from the Orthodox, at least from the traditional custodians - the bishops, the monks - of Orthodox Tradition, and that also tells us something.
There's a lot of recognition and purification of our historical memories that need to occur before reconcilation even begins to occur. Perhaps the way to proceed - and this would only work between the Catholic and the Orthodox Church, and no one else - is to accept at faith value the claims we make about our respective faiths, and then reflect what such a self-understanding would mean to the other. The more traditional approach - let me first define you and then let me tell you why I don't like you - has ran is course, it is sterile, graceless, unable to grant life.
I have despaired as a Catholic - as I once despaired as an Orthodox - of this traditional way of "dialogue." I have posed to myself the question what the Orthodox viewpoint brings to my self-understanding as a Christian and so far, I haven't felt the least violated by the insights gained and I am also surprised that my identity as a Catholic remains intact. I can't be a good Protestant and a good Catholic but somehow, I can be a good "Orthodox" - yet not in good standing with the Orthodox Church, I admit that - and a good Catholic.
It's true in a sense to say that I have achieved that because deep down I perceive that I am lacking something. Well, yes. Not all deprivations are morally onerous. Catholic teaching tells me that I am OK being "only" a Latin-rite Catholic and I accept that and yet, I feel more complete, more "Catholic" when I integrate the Eastern Christian insights into my outlook and deep prayer life, absent any desire to "return" to an Orthodoxy that is already my inheritance.
I wonder if Orthodox Christians, in those moments when they can suppress their historical animus against the West, don't feel the same and if the bluster with which they affirm Orthodox exceptionalism is an old defense mechanism to hide that feeling. Are the Orthodox Christians "out there" pining to pray the rosary the same way I pray the Jesus Prayer with my tchotky? I bet there are and the fact that is easier for me to pray the Jesus Prayer than an Orthodox to pray a the Rosary also says something.
Finally, while our bishops, theologians and academics work out through the high-level issues, we at the grassroots level should be engaging in a different kind of cooperation. Secularism has become quite militant lately and perhaps a common front of Orthodox and Catholic Christians, joined together to face it down is in order. I think this the Spirit is now pushing the Churches toward this cooperation: a joint engagement in the spiritual and corporal works of mercy. Joint prayer may or may not be practicable, but mercy can't wait. In this we have to work together.
I've rambled enough. Thank you all for your comments. May the Lord bless us richly.
-Theo
With very few exceptions, no.
There was a breakthrough in 2007, when ...
The 46-paragraph document approved at the Ravenna meeting-- which is due for release on November 15-- refers to the Bishop of Rome as the "first among the patriarchs," La Repubblica reported. The document recognizes the historical patriarchates of the united Church, in Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. Among these, the Ravenna participants agreed, Rome has primacy.
Ecumenical talks reach partial accord on papal primacy
Some progress has been gained and that is always a positive for both sides of the discussion.