Posted on 10/13/2006 4:59:56 PM PDT by NYer
I agree with you, sitetest.
I had to check the whole thread to see whether I'd offered any comments other than "Bless his heart," and "Neil Cavuto's a good broadcaster," but it looks like most of my discussion has been on other threads.
However, I'll say the same here: I think the rumpus is not about the Orthodox Church, but about Mr. Dreher and the attitude toward others that is conveyed in his writing. It seems that many readers, myself included, really find authorial persona very, very unlikeable. (Usual disclaimer, may be a wonderful guy in Real Life, don't know him personally, etc., etc.)
After reading his Opus, I truly felt pity for him. Obviously he and his family were experiencing dreadful unhappiness, and I am sorry for them, although I don't share their feelings in any way. I hope they will find peace.
Cheers, y'all,
Tax-chick
That was "his authorial persona." I went and took the capitals out, and zapped the pronoun, too.
Let's pray for this new-father and always-brother. And I'm gonna see if I can get me one of them "contexts" for myself :o)
Context is a wonderful thing. In the Big Picture, it's probably better to have a Roseate Context than to be an unbiased reviewer of journalistic output.
And it's good to be reminded that there's a real person behind the words.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
Ii is comforting that you do not consider SSPX to be in schism :)
Willful formal heretics are not "brothers", no matter how nice a person they might be. Formal heretics are not members of the Church in anyway. And since they are against us by their formal opposition to the Holy Faith, they cannot be with us either. Mark 9.39.
By all means pray, but don't lose sight of the seriousness of what Rod has done.
At least some Calvinists on this board are fair enough to Catholics not to engage in egregious misrepresentations by pretending that Catholics don't consider Christ to be the head of the church.
Some evidently are not.
Who is the head of the church on Earth with final authority while in the seat of Peter?
Christ? or the Pope?
The Orthodox don't put all that power in one guy. They have councils.
I think it's an error to take Mr. Dreher's fit of hysteria (or bout of depression, depending on how one looks at it) too seriously. What a person does when he's in a disturbed condition is not my idea of "formal heresy."
It's rather as if my son fell head-over-heels for a Pentecostal girl and started attending the Assembly of God. I'd be disappointed, and hope it didn't turn out dreadfully, but it's not exactly a deeply reasoned theological decision.
And I like having a large family, even including people who wouldn't include me :-).
Dear Andrew Byler,
When I was in college, an old priest told me that it can be difficult to be a formal heretic. Material heretic? Piece o' cake. Probably most of us misapprehend some part of Catholic teaching sufficiently to qualify. For me, every day is a process to be more conformed to the Gospel as taught by Christ's Church. But formal heretic? Not quite as easy.
Like Tax-chick, I'm not anxious to apply that label to Mr. Dreher. I'm not sure he has all his beans about him in this thing. His apologia for leaving the Church seemed shallow and confused. I know he says he's agonized about all this, but I wonder whether Mr. Dreher's fears and other emotions have clouded his judgment.
Then again, maybe he IS a formal heretic.
However, that determination I'll leave to folks above my own paygrade.
"By all means pray, but don't lose sight of the seriousness of what Rod has done."
With this, I agree entirely. Whether or not Mr. Dreher is truly a heretic, he has done a thing that isn't good.
sitetest
There are types and degrees of brotherhood; there are different senses in which a man can be a brother.
Anyone who wilfully departs from the Catholic Church is in grave error and grave danger. For this reason, our attitude, I think, should be one of endeavoring to win him back into full communion with the successor of Peter and with all Catholics.
What good does it do any sinner if, when he's still in the "far country," the prodigal's father makes a point of publishing that, "He's not my son," or if the Good Shepherd insists, "He's not my sheep," or if you make a point of saying, "He's not my brother"?
I don't think you'd do that to a natural brother, a blood brother who was estranged, in danger and in error. You'd emphasize the bonds you still have. You'd try to get him back.
Good post.
Excellent.
Christ? or the Pope?
???? Why would Christ take a demotion to sit in the seat of Peter???
Look up the meaning of the word "vicar," why doncha.
"Seperated Brethren" is the term for those who were baptized into and raised in other Christian communities. This is not a term for Catholics who publicly deny an article of the faith (the Papacy in this case) and make a public spectacle of the break with the Church over what are frankly BS reasons.
Rod has left the communion of the Catholic Church and is publicly denying the historical basis of the dogmas of the Papacy. A Catholic who denies one article of the faith does not have any divine faith at all - just an overinflated opinion of his own making. And in denying the faith, one is no longer a Catholic.
What good does it do any sinner if, when he's still in the "far country," the prodigal's father makes a point of publishing that, "He's not my son," or if the Good Shepherd insists, "He's not my sheep," or if you make a point of saying, "He's not my brother"?
No one is saying that. Rather Rod is publicly inveighing against the Catholic faith, clergy, and faithful. If Rod were coming back on his knees begging for mercy, and we were to kick him in the face and say "begone with you heretic!" that would be comparable to the treatment of the Prodigal by his brother. Additionally, the issue with the Prodigal was loose living, not denial of the faith and fighting against the Jewish people and Priesthood. Rod's doing nothing of the sort in either begging forgiveness or cavorting in public personal sin, so lets not confuse the issue. He is attacking the Church and the Pope, the heirarchy, and his former co-religionists.
Quite the contrary: he hasn't been seething, he's been bleeding.
OK, he shouldn't have abandoned his post; his story so far is not the perfect fortitude of the saints. But scroll about a third of the way down this Beliefnet blog until you get to October 24, "Belief in the Ruins."
I'm afraid for him and his little family; I can see him getting disillusioned when he runs into scandals in Orthodoxy (they're there aplenty), and then declining into (at best) some kind of quietist pietism, or, worst case, post-everything alcohol funk.
(Not that I know of him drinking; it's just I've seen that happen to some, when their hope seeps away.)
My brother, and yours too. Please pray hard.
Poor Mr. Dreher seems to be serving as a Rorshach blot for the public. (By his own choice, of course.)
One person's "heretic" is another person's "overwrought guy who needs a long vacation, followed by a new career as a landscape architect."
Aren't we all projecting? :-).
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