Posted on 12/09/2008 5:52:09 AM PST by TexConfederate1861
“I am very familiar with this passage and cite it myself often; what makes you think my understanding of what the Mass is, is at odds with it?”
Nothing whatsoever, Alex; absolutely nothing! :)
I beg the differ. The TLM is gaining souls wherever is being offered, and those souls are reproducing, unlike many of their counterparts in the parishes where only the Novus Ordo is offered. I have personal experience of this.
There is also a problem with ordination of post-Vatican II priests celebrating the TLM. Their orders are disputed by traditionalist Catholic sources.
Only sedevacantists and certain people in the SSPX would dispute it.
Kolo: He’s absolutely right, Tex!
The role in protecting the Orthodoxy of the Church was that the popes, with one exception only, flatly rejected heresy and broke communion with schismatic Churches, while giving comfort and support to those eastern bishops who refused to embrace heresy (St. John Chrysostom, St. Maximus the Confessor, St. John of Damascus, etc.)
If they did not resist heresies, Pyro is absolutely correct, but that's not the whole story. Look at the fact that the popes did not actively try to suppress the filioque. It was their tacit allowance of this heresy to spread that resulted in it becoming part of the Creed of the entire Western Christendom to this day.
This is why the power cannot be vested in one person but in the Synod. In the first millennium, the East was just plain "lucky" that the popes resisted eastern heresies. In the meantime, while thinking it was safe to run over to Rome to get "saved," the filioque was growing unopposed.
I am conversant in Greek, as you know. One sea captain told me that no matter what is the ethnic composition of the crew, by the end of the passage everyone curses in the deathless Hellenic Gloss.
I’d rather he looked at bare breasts 24/7. I mean no disrespect.
We will only know in 10-20-30 years form now. No immediate trend can be prediced. I would say the majoirty of people looking for TLM masses are older than Vatican II with some cuious young people seeking something more dignified adding to their ranks.
“Look at the fact that the popes did not actively try to suppress the filioque. It was their tacit allowance of this heresy to spread that resulted in it becoming part of the Creed of the entire Western Christendom to this day.”
Well yes and no. As we all know, multiple popes quite vigorously opposed the filioque but with time and growing Frankish influence, they succumbed and the heresy blossomed.
“The role in protecting the Orthodoxy of the Church was that the popes, with one exception only, flatly rejected heresy and broke communion with schismatic Churches, while giving comfort and support to those eastern bishops who refused to embrace heresy (St. John Chrysostom, St. Maximus the Confessor, St. John of Damascus, etc.)”
I suspect, Kosta, that there heresiarchs in the East took that as the highest form of interference!
"No word shall be impossible with God." - Luke 1: 37
I would say the majoirty of people looking for TLM masses are older than Vatican II with some cuious young people seeking something more dignified adding to their ranks.
I'm one of those "curious young people" and I'm certainly not alone here in the Washington, DC area!
Coming from Estonians who welcomed Hitler? Not much.
I am not aware of "multiple popes quite vigorously" opposing the filioque. I know that one refused to add it and defiantly had the silver plates with the Creed in Greek without filioque mounted on the Vatican walls (never mind the fact that no one spoke Greek any longer in the 9th century).
Even he said he didn't disagree with the theology of it, just with the fact that the Council did not put it there. It was more a legalistic resistance than theological.
St. Stephen the First Martyr, Sacramento, Traditional Latin Mass, attracts a full house, one family per pew, average 8 children per family, young to middle age nearly all.
The same pattern obtains with Novus Ordo Masses. Where the Mass is said reverently, the homily is orthodox and refers to the scripture readings, traditional Catholic pieties like perpetual adoration are encouraged, pro life activities are on a permanent basis, -- the church is full and the parishioners are younger.
The simple rule of thumb is, the younger the priest, the more conservative he is, both liturgically and politically.
Bland, protestantized cafeteria Catohlicism of the 80s is a dying trend.
The point is, a pope allows a bare breasted woman on the church premises, and we should be running around with purifiers, but a bishop in cahoots with murderers gets to be buried in a cathedral?
“The point is, a pope allows a bare breasted woman on the church premises, and we should be running around with purifiers, but a bishop in cahoots with murderers gets to be buried in a cathedral?”
One of the most surprising aspects of Roman Catholic life is, to me, its refusal to look at hierarchs with anything beyond the eye of a worshipful sycophant. This whole “Vicar of Christ on Earth” business has really gone beyond the pale. Being shocked at what any hierarch does, pope, patriarch or otherwise is naive. Its the religious equivalent of something a wise fellow from the East once said to me, “The West has a problem with dealing with evil.”
It was Kosta who was shocked. Shocked.
We had the Borgias. Nya na na nya na.
That never stopped any of the popes and local Latin Churches from changing something. The introduction of the filioque is a perfect example. But, the same thing happened with the Council of Trent. The pope placed a prohibition on any changes ever or any other Mass.
That lasted exactly 34 years before his successors "revised" the unchangeable Trindentine Mass, and then his successor revised it again 30 years later! Pope Pius XII made all sorts of changes for the Easter liturgy replacing the triple candle with a single large candle by fiat.
Pope John XXIII dropped the words "perfidious" in the Good Friday prayers for the Jews, and Pope Paul VI changed the Eucharistic fast from the midnight before communion to one hour before communion, in the same manner in 1963. Liturgical movement in the Latin Church was brewing since the early 1900's, etc.
Bottom line is: the Latin Church is in constant reform. It's constantly changing something. It is intimately tied to the wordily matters and it tends to change with them. Look at the Renaissance art!
They also change their doctrine, which they will deny. But Trent leaves no doubt that there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church (meaning the Church that is in communion with the Pope of Rome). Post Vatican II teaching is the same except they expanded the definition of the Catholic Church to those properly baptized who for no fault of their own are not in communion with the Pope of Rome!
This, of course, includes the Orthodox who are "deficient" and the Protestants who are "gravely deficient." It takes a complete fool to not see that this is not the same doctrine taught 450 years ago.
Yet the Catechism of the Catholic Church says in
I am confused.
Catholic Encyclopedia New Advent from c. 1917 says "hell in the strict sense, or the place of punishment for the damned, be they demons or men"
Yet on July 28, 1999 Pope John Paul II says hell "is the state [not a physical place] of those who definitively reject the Father's mercy, even at the last moment of their life."
The Catholic Church also changed the doctrine of how we end up in hell from God punishing us to we conemndingoursleves by rejecting God.
So, in short, in addition to inappropriate "art" of nudity, the problem with any "guarantees" that could make the Orthodox more agreeable to reunion is lacking considering complete absence of changes in any doctrinal teaching in the East.
Given the track record, there can be no guarantee that nothing will change 30 years after the reunion. In fact, given the track record, we can be almost sure that there will be changes, and then we will begin another millennium of innovations until the next schism.
The Latin mentality is set on the "development of the deposit of faith which is antithetical to Eastern Orthodox mindset. Our think is divergent. That;s why any reunion, no matter how nice it would be, could never work.
You choose to believe Estonian sources that are verified by some Anglican authority which says the document is "genuine." I choose to be neutral because forgeries exist and Estonians have an agenda to smear anything Russian.
The point is Alexy II revived Orthodoxy in Russia. In Soviet era there were 50 churches in Moscow, today there are 750. The thief on the cross was redeemed. Obviously some think there is nor redemption for Alexy II. Maybe. That's up to God. In the meantime he was a Patriarch in good standing with the Synod and he recieved proper burial for his rank.
The bare-breasted woman, by all accounts, may not be aware of modesty Christians have and is innocent. Which is more than can be said of the officials who allowed her to appear that way.
The scrubbing would not be because of her, but because of the desecration that took place of which she was an inncodent instrument by all accounts. It doesn't matter how you get dirt on your clothes, Alex, it's still dirt.
I am not shocked with nudity. I was shocked the Church wasn't ashamed of immodesty she teaches against.
The Russian Church was rife with collaborators. Ypu. it is very easy to believe that — I am from Russia.
As for the African lady, nudity is not dirt.
Ypu. -> Yup,
Nudity is dirt in the eyes of God. God made clothes for our ancestral parents. That's biblical, Alex. When we are pure and holy agian, like Adam was when he was made, then our nudity will not matter. That's why nudity on earth doesn't belong anywhere in the Church or anything Church-related.
I am simply applying your own standard of keeping the Church pure to a more serious problem of a KGB collaborator buried there.
I prayed for the repose of the soul of the Patriarch and admire the work he did for the restoration of the Russian Church. I understand these were complex times that call for charity of heart.
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