Bulgarian Orthodox want speedy reunion with Rome!

Da Mihi ^ | October 23, 2009 | Fr. Steve Leake

[kosta50]

So far, the only change I've heard articulated is the response to the Priest's blessing. We now say "And also with you."

So, you think it would take them years and God only a one-sentence change? You are goooood, really gooooood (remember "Analyze this?"). This is what I mean by pray-pay-and-obey crowd.

Funny thing, when I was a new convert we used to say "Et cum spiritu tuo". I don't know Latin, but I think that that means "And with your spirit."

So, you used to repeat something without knowing what you were saying? Congratulations! Did you bother to ask anyone

As a matter of fact it does mean "and with your spirit," because that's how the oldest liturgical records indicate the early Christians did. As to how could anyone come up with a translation such as "and also with you" says volumes about the post Vatican-II Church in America.

Of course, none of my children remember the old form. They were just babies. *sigh*

That was the point I was making. If every generation present in the church remembers a different "tradition," how are they to know if someone is simply innovating things and making his own "tradition?"

Another thing that I have noticed, having lived through Vatican II -- the people who are the most incensed with changes in the Catholic Church often are people who never were Catholics

How do you know they were never Catholics? And what exactly is a "Catholic" in your book? Perhaps they are incensed about changes because they know something you don't? Did you ever consider that as a possibility?

They get all in a snit about habits for nuns, or dropping Latin, or the priest facing the people, etc., etc., etc. It's as if they resent the church changing liturgical forms so that they no longer match their Hollywood interpretaion.

Everything in the Church has a theological reason. Introducing personal preferences and taste, changing according to the lastets trends, etc. does not. It concentrates on ego, materialism, and things the Church never taught. The Church is not a worldly or social movement.

[Petrosius]

How does this get resolved, especially in light of the “Dictatus Papae” mentality so prevalent among large segments of the Latin laity and hierarchy, even here as we have all noted over the years?

Here is an example of the exaggerated fears that we must rid of. The popes have not really worked in the isolated monarchical style that the Orthodox fear. Even when they have made pronouncements in their own name you will find that there has been a wide consultation with the bishops beforehand. This was true, for instance, in both the modern papal declarations concerning the Immaculate Conception and Assumption of Mary. So while the form of these decrees may have been papal, the substance was synodal. The primacy must operate in communion with the synod, but given the modern means of communication, must this always be through a formal agency?

[Kolokotronis]

“The primacy must operate in communion with the synod,”

Indeed.

” but given the modern means of communication, must this always be through a formal agency?”

Yes, but precisely because of modern means of communication, that formal agency might meet in a virtual chamber. A synod meeting is a synod meeting, wheter in a real or virtual room...but a synod, no matter where it meets, has no authority at all to proclaim dogma. That’s what ecumenical councils are for (maybe meeting in cyberspace).