I am aware that there are differences between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church.
The communion of 14 or 15 regional churches that is the Orthodox Church does not include the at least 22 “rites” that you mentioned. The 23 Eastern-rite Catholic Churches are in full communion with the Church of Rome, and as far as I know are not at odds with each other.
The EO do not submit to the authority of the pope, correct?
They each consider themselves to be the original Catholic church and the other to be in schism.
So who decided that the church at Rome is the One True Catholic church in the first place?
Cause they claim it and were able to muscle all the competition out of the picture?
Of course it sounds good to say that yes, they are different rites, but they are all in communion.
And yet the denomination to denominational differences that exist between various Protestant denominations are not as great as some of the ones that exist within Catholicism.
It’s ironic that when there are differences in Catholicism, it’s lauded and *We’re all in communion* see how great being one church is, and yet when it’s non-Catholic, the differences are used as a point of condemnation to prove the weakness of denominationalism and *every man his own pope*.
It’s a double standard and hypocritical.
So, I did some research about ex cathedra statements, and found that there is uncertainty about how many here are and I could not find the statements themselves anywhere.
Lots of Catholic sites talk about them, but do not provide the actual transcript.
The two that I was able to at least see acknowledged were the immaculate conception and the assumption of Mary.
Now, the questions I also could not find answers to were, are these on par with Scripture as God Breathed, Holy Spirit inspired revelation? Are they determined to be Truth, as in Truth as found in God’s word?
And what are the consequences of NOT believing them? IOW, if someone does not acknowledge them, does it affect their salvation?