Posted on 06/03/2005 9:22:21 PM PDT by GOPmember
Partly right. You are quite right, the Popes condemned slavery in spite of the fact that many "Catholic" nations allowed it. Rather the same situation with birth control today. Sorry, I had this one wrong, thought it was one of those hard truths I had to accept about the historical church.
Again I ask you to show me any post where I attacked the Pope. Do you condemn St. Paul for upbraiding Peter?
He appears to have been a tremendously charismatic person in individual interactions. His free-ranging intellect led to statements and speculations that others later took to logical conclusions. An entire generation of priests who studied under and were influenced by him had a very interesting view on things. As one priest told me who had studied under Schmemann: "When I left St. Vlads, I was convinced that I was a master liturgist, capable of reforming the liturgy on my own." He no longer feels that way, and reveres Schmemann, but that "product" made Schmemman very controversial.
The interesting thing is that for all of his radical and speculative ideas about the Liturgy (by Orthodox lights), I understand that in practice, S. strictly followed the Typikon and largely didn't do any experimentation himself. His followers often followed his words, and not his actions.
I would recommend to anyone who is interested that they read Fr. Neuhaus' entire article.
Alexander Schmemann: A Man in Full
The context of the article shows that many of Schmemann's frustrations were not with Orthodoxy as a religion, but with the very contentious world of the Russian emigration, and with the world of unreality that is created when one continues to pretend that the Church of Antioch, for instance, is the same thing it was prior to Muslim destruction.
These are also, it should be remembered, his personal journal entries, not his public statement.
I am no fan of Schmemann. The effect of the "Paris School" was at best a very mixed one on Orthodoxy. But I have to admit that after reading Neuhaus' article in its entirety, I have more of an understanding of where he was coming from than I have before.
I take for granted an ethnically mixed parish, liturgies entirely in excellent English, a parish where "ethnic issues" really don't play a role at all, etc. Fr. Schmemann was, in the 1970's, dealing with an entirely different situation.
My mistake, agrarian. I thought I had seen you post he was one of your favorites. I do appreciate the spirit and content of your response.
In the name of the holy and undivided Trinity, Father and Son and holy Spirit. Amen. This holy synod of Constance, which is a general council, for the eradication of the present schism and for bringing unity and reform to God's church in head and members, legitimately assembled in the holy Spirit to the praise of almighty God, ordains, defines, decrees, discerns and declares as follows, in order that this union and reform of God's church may be obtained the more easily, securely, fruitfully and freely.
First it declares that, legitimately assembled in the holy Spirit, constituting a general council and representing the catholic church militant, it has power immediately from Christ; and that everyone of whatever state or dignity, even papal, is bound to obey it in those matters which pertain to the faith, the eradication of the said schism and the general reform of the said church of God in head and members.
Next, it declares that anyone of whatever condition, state or dignity, even papal, who contumaciously refuses to obey the past or future mandates, statutes, ordinances or precepts of this sacred council or of any other legitimately assembled general council, regarding the aforesaid things or matters pertaining to them, shall be subjected to well-deserved penance, unless he repents, and shall be duly punished, even by having recourse, if necessary, to other supports of the law.
Consistory Allocution of 2 June 1944, "The mandate Confided to Peter", Pope Pius XII stated:
Mother Church, Catholic, Roman, which has remained faithful to the constitution received from her divine Founder, which still stands firm today on the solidity of the rock on which His will erected her, possesses in the primacy of Peter and of his legitimate successors, the assurance, guaranteed by the divine promises, of keeping and transmitting inviolate and in all its integrity through the centuries and millennia to the very end of time the entire sum of truth and grace contained in the redemptive mission of Christ.
Pope Pius IX: Quanta Cura
1) "We cannot pass over in silence the audacity of those who, not enduring sound doctrine, contend that 'without sin and without any sacrifice of the Catholic profession assent and obedience may be refused to those judgments and decrees of the Apostolic See, whose object is declared to concern the Church's general good and her rights and discipline, so only it does not touch the dogmata of faith and morals.' But no one can be found not clearly and distinctly to see and understand how grievously this is opposed to the Catholic dogma of the full power given from God by Christ our Lord Himself to the Roman Pontiff of feeding, ruling and guiding the Universal Church."
Proposueramus quidem "To Michael the Emperor" 865 a.d. ...Furthermore if you have not heard us, it remains for you to be with us of necessity, such as our Lord Jesus Christ has commanded those to be considered, who disdained to hear the Church of God, especially since the privileges of the Roman Church, built upon Peter by the word of Christ, deposited in the Church herself, observed in ancient times and celebrated by the sacred universal Synods, and venerated jointly by the entire Church, can by no means be diminished; for the foundation which God has established, no human effort has the power to destroy and what God has determined remains firm and strong...
*Scripture, Tradition, Magisterium declares that no man, even one in league with the devil, can destroy the foundation God established and the modern Popes are not ones rational beings can claim are in league with the devil. Even IF the Pope were in league with the devil you would still be under his authority ...
If a pope is foreknown as damned and is evil, and is therefore a limb of the devil, he does not have authority over the faithful given to him by anyone, except perhaps by the emperor was a proposition of Wyclif which was condemned at the Council of Constance
*Now, you can claim the Pope is a schizophrenic, you can claim he is a heretic, you can claim he is trying to destroy Traditon, you can claim he is trying to reconcile truth and error, you can claim he is trying to reconcile orthodoxy and heresy, and it still doesn't matter. He has authority and you must be obedient.
Brother, give it up. The path you are on leads to perdition. Trust in Jesus. Trust in His promises. Trust Jesus has sent the 2nd Person of the Holy Trinity to guide the Church in all truth.
Trust and obey
No, that definitely would not have been me, but his name is bandied around so much that the mistake is an understandable one. I'm not in the camp of those who believe that everything that Schmemann said is anathema, just because he said it, but I'd never choose to quote him approvingly, just because we in American Orthodoxy are still dealing with the fruits of what is not so affectionately known as "Schmemannology."
Schmemann is often every non-Orthodox's favorite Orthodox writer, in no small part because he was very gifted at making people feel comfortable around him -- often giving the impression that he was more in agreement with them than he really was. I found it interesting to read of Fr. Neuhaus' mild but very real surprise to read Fr. Schmemann's personal journal entries about events in which they were involved together. Neuhaus obviously thought that they were in much greater agreement, based on their personal interactions, than they really were, based on S's private journal.
One of the most controversial and divisive things about Schmemann was that he so overtly longed to bring academic "respectability" to St. Vladimir's -- so much so that he seemed to place more importance on what non-Orthodox academics thought about Orthodoxy than on what effect his words had on Orthodoxy itself. This longing was shared by Fr. John Meyendorff, his erstwhile academic partner. One could contrast to these two highly feted figures two other contemporary minds who were largely consigned to obscurity in the OCA: Fr. Georges Florovsky and Bp. Nikolai Velimirovich (now regarded as a saint.) The academic credentials and intellect of these two was arguably much greater than that of the former, but because they remained within the Orthodox tradition of how to "do theology," there was nothing interesting about them to the outside world. Why? Because they didn't say anything "new." They didn't find "problematics" to "solve" in the Orthodox faith.
The problem with the entire enterprise, of course, was that clerical formation in Orthodoxy has traditionally been an intensely practical affair, and the very idea of an academically oriented seminary is a bit foreign to our ethos. Even in the heyday of "Westernization" in Russia, when theological academies first appeared in Orthodoxy, there was very little concern about what, say, German professors would think of the writings or syllabi.
Mixing the training of priests with speculative and archeological academic inquiry is, in general, something fraught with potential danger.
Etienne Gilson The Spirit of Mediaeval Philosophy
"We are reminded in the first place of all those vehement protests made by the Augustinians of all ages against the paganization of Christianity by Thomism....the mediaeval Augustinians were beforehand with them in denying that Thomism is faithful to the Christian tradition."
Yet, John Paul the Great reminds us Fides et Ratio
It should be clear in the light of these reflections why the Magisterium has repeatedly acclaimed the merits of Saint Thomas' thought and made him the guide and model for theological studies. This has not been in order to take a position on properly philosophical questions nor to demand adherence to particular theses. The Magisterium's intention has always been to show how Saint Thomas is an authentic model for all who seek the truth. In his thinking, the demands of reason and the power of faith found the most elevated synthesis ever attained by human thought, for he could defend the radical newness introduced by Revelation without ever demeaning the venture proper to reason.
*I do appreciate the ares of agreement we have. As to the disagreements or different ways of undertanding the same issues I have to say I have learned a ton from reading you and the celebrated Mr. K
"As an Orthodox Christian, I am free to ignore Paul VI's self-serving justification. He also was speaking without any benefit whatsoever of seeing the fruit of his works. Maybe the guy really believed all of that "infallibility of the ordinary Magisterium" stuff, and truly believed that it all had to turn out alright."
Apart from the fact that Paul VI's allocution here probably would not be viewed as part of the Ordinary & Universal Magisterium, I would agree with your above paragraph. Self-serving justification would seem a very apt way of putting it, although we have the benefit of hindsight, of course.
However, many Cardinals at the time, (notably Cardinal Heenan of Westminster) thought the radical innovations would do great damage, and so they proved to be right.
While I agree with you (and the then Cardinal Ratzinger) that liturgy cannot be fossilised and there is a natural (spiritual) process of gradual development, I would be interested to know how the Orthodox would view the idea of creating new Anaphoras or Eucharistic Prayers. Could you ever imagine an Orthodox Church creating a whole new Anaphora from scratch or would this just not be acceptable to the faithful?
Although the Roman Rite went through incremental changes from the 5th to 20th centuries, the Eucharistic Prayer was extremely stable for that 1,500 years (possibly longer) and it was commonly thought that this could never be changed - until 1969 that is! While Cardinal Ratzinger was probably thinking of the four main Eucharistic prayers we have as being a benefit of the N.O., I am sure he was not praising the situation that exists in France where there are now over 300 E.P.'s in use! Any sense of unity and coherence that might have remained in the N.O. in some countries was totally shattered in France by this ridiculous state of affairs. The variation is so bad that the French cannot even put a Missal together because the book would be too big and too expensive to use - most parishes there seem to work from loose-leaf folders or loose sheets of paper (not that their services are recognizable as Masses to most Englishmen anyway.)
To be honest, the idea is pretty unthinkable. The fundamental development that has taken place in the Anaphoras ended long, long ago. Our most recent anaphora -- that of the Liturgy of St. John Chysostom, is essentially an abbreviation of the Liturgy of St. Basil.
Not only the idea of change is pretty unthinkable, but also so is the idea of having a smorgasbord of choices in our liturgical services unthinkable. Give me a date in the future, any date, and with a little work, I could tell you exactly the prayers and hymns that would be chanted at the full cycle of all 9 services of the liturgical day (at least according to the Sabbaite Typikon followed by the Slavs and on Mt. Athos.)
Keep in mind that in most Orthodox parishes, most of the the anaphoral prayers are read quietly by the priest while the choir/chanters sing hymns of response and glorification. Only the clergy and altar-boys (and those who stand very close to the front, sometimes) can hear the full anaphora. The main exclamations are intoned prominently by the priest.
Some priests, primarily under the influence of the liturgical theology of Fr. Alexander Schmemann, do most of the anaphoral prayers out loud after the choir finishes each hymn.
I would be very happy to discourse at length on modern liturgical variations, and on organic liturgical growth and change in the Orthodox Church. We are anything but fossilized. But frankly, I can't imagine changing the basic text and structure of any of our services.
There is a very strong school of thought within Orthodoxy that it was St. Augustine's speculative theological writings themselves that hellenized Western Christianity, primarily through his use of neo-Platonic dialectical paradigms in an attempt to describe the inner workings of the Holy Trinity.
This school of thought essentially views the dogmatic history of Orthodox Christianity as being the constant struggle to maintain the continuity of Hebrew thought (albeit expressed in Greek vocabulary) against inroads of pagan philosophy of one kind or another.
Christian thought is reasonable, but is fundamentally based on revelation and the language in which the Church received revelation. The Thomistic enterprise is one that inverts the normal patristic order of doing theology, which starts with revelation and moves on to a Church living out that revelation in the Holy Spirit. Through observation and experience in the life in Christ, the implications of that revelation continue to grow. By these lights, the canons of the church, for instance, are not laws which can be broken and which demand punishment -- they are the Church detailing actions that take one farther from God, and that destroy one's soul. They are a road-map, not a rule-book. It is difficult to articulate the Orthodox approach, which is not rationalistic or scholastic -- but which is not one that is unreasonable or irrational, either. I noted that in Fr. Neuhaus' article, he has this quote from Schmemann, who admits that he really isn't formulating it to his satisfaction:
Put simply: the Orthodox man begins with the ‘end,’ with the experience, the breakthrough, the very reality of God, the Kingdom, Life—and only afterwards does he clarify it, but in relation to the experience he has had. The Western man rationally arrives at and evokes the ‘end’ from a series of premises. The Orthodox often expresses that ‘end’ quite poorly in theology. For the Westerner, the end somehow disappears, is diluted in elaborate constructions.
How 'bout that? I quoted Schmemann approvingly! See what a bad influence you are? :-)
I'm sorry to have to inform you , you are way behind in this debate.
40 yrs. the Catholic Church has undergone these "changes"..for the worst!
When the Mass changed,the Faith was almost
extinguished in the Catholic Church!
Answer me this First...have you watched this video???? If not there is no way you could understand or even debate the issue!
I have !
Our Lady of La Salette, who appeared to two simple children in France in 1864..(and this is an approved Catholic Church Apparition just as is Fatima...) said and warned in her message and I quote,"In the Year 1864,Lucifer together with a large number of demons will be unloosed from hell,to put an end to Faith little by little..."and what is the biggest part of the Catholic Faith??? The Mass and the Seven Sacraments!
Fides et Ratio is indispensible for my understanding re. what you are sketching out. Despite our differences (because of them?) I am a big admirer of you and the celebrated Mr. K.
For what it is worth, I'd prefer the Latin Rite Rules to be minimized and simplified; all the rules/regulatons/rubrics concerning Liturgy. Were I Pope, I'd rewrite all Liturgical Rules/Regulations so they could fit on an index card, reform Seminaries to teach authentic Liturgy and let the Bishops have full authority (orthodoxy assumed) to do as they desire in their Jurisdictions.
However, I subordiante my personal preferences to the Magisterium but, not without noting (I can't remember where I found this)...
oops, company arriving. I'll post later
I NEVER made the claim that anything could destrot God's Church.
Now, you can claim the Pope is a schizophrenic, you can claim he is a heretic, you can claim he is trying to destroy Traditon, you can claim he is trying to reconcile truth and error, you can claim he is trying to reconcile orthodoxy and heresy, and it still doesn't matter. He has authority and you must be obedient.
I NEVER said disobedience was appropriate even if I believe we have a bad Pope. Obedience is key, where did you get the notion that I didn't subscribe to that?
Brother, give it up. The path you are on leads to perdition. Trust in Jesus. Trust in His promises. Trust Jesus has sent the 2nd Person of the Holy Trinity to guide the Church in all truth.
I have NO idea what it is that you think I need to give up. I do trust in God. But Christ never promised that the Church would be free of Satanic trials such as heresy. St. Athanasius is a case in point.
Page 594 Acts of the Apostolic See - Official BriefTHE SUPREME SACRED CONGREGATION OF THE HOLY OFFICE
GIVES A DECREE
CONCERNING THE COMMONLY CALLED "SECRET OF LA SALETTE."It has come to the attention of this Supreme Congregation that certain ones are not lacking, even from among the ecclesiastic assemblage who, responses and decisions of this Holy Congregation itself having been disregarded, do proceed to discuss and examine through books, small works and articles edited in periodicals, whether signed or without a name, concerning the so-called Secret of La Salette, its diverse forms and its relevance to present and future times; and, this not only without permission of the Ordinaries, but, also against their ban.
So that these abuses which oppose true piety and greatly wound ecclesiastical authority might be curbed, the same Sacred Congregation orders all the faithful of any region not to discuss or investigate under any pretext, neither through books, or little works or articles, whether signed or unsigned, or in any other way of any kind, about the mentioned subject. Whoever, indeed, violates this precept of the Holy Office, if they are priests, are deprived of all dignity and suspended by the local ordinary from hearing sacramental confessions and from offering Mass: and, if they are lay people, they are not permitted to the sacraments until they repent.
Moreover, let people be subject to the sanctions given both by Pope Leo XIII through the Constitution of the offices and responsibilities against those who publish books dealing with religious things without legitimate permission of superiors and by Urban VIII through the decree "Sanctissimus Dominus Noster" given on 13th March 1625 against those who publish asserted revelations without the permission of ordinaries. However, this decree does not forbid devotion towards the Blessed Virgin under the title of Reconciliatrix commonly of La Salette.
Given at Rome on 21st December, 1915.
Aloisius Castellano, S. R. and U. I. Notary.
The secret of La Salette is sanctioned by the Pope and this is also imprimatured by Bishop of Lecce.
It did happen ,what Mary, the Mother of God, said will come and has come.
You put the same debate those who lived during this argued.This is a proven and old and true revelation. Scary because Mary also says"Rome will lose the Faith ...." also written in the last book of the Holy Bible.
Watch the Video,What We Lost.It is right on the nose.
Do you accept the decree of the Holy Office forbidding all discussion about the alleged "La Salette" secret?
You are certainly quite mistaken about that.
What's wrong with just accepting the approved part of La Salette ("devotion towards the Blessed Virgin under the title of Reconciliatrix commonly called of La Salette") and not receiving a "Secret" condemned by the Church?
Oh well then enlighten me, it wouldn't be the first time I was wrong about something, which ones do you accept? Which ones have you found personally beneficial? Which if any devotions promoted in these apparitions do you practice?
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