“So what would be the preferred Eastern Orthodox response to the scandal of a pro infanticide agnostic politician giving a commencement address at an Orthodox university?”
Probably nothing at all.
“At best it is a very grave scandal, giving harm to the souls of those who attend such an event (in that they may think such views are OK).”
Not at all, r. Such a person speaking at a commencement wouldn’t affect the faith of the laity. The idea that a politician’s beliefs would adversely impact on the souls of the faithful, to an Orthodox mind, is laughable. We spent centuries, in some places more than a millennium, under politicians who very nearly destroyed us physically. Its a shame some in the Roman Church are so very afraid of Obama that they are willing to embrace the heresy of the likes of the heresiarch Martino.
“And remember what the early Church Fathers, the Apostolic Constitution, and St. John Crysantamum all had to say about faithless people acting in the Church.”
Indeed. A great Russian hierarch, Metropolitan Philaret of New York, first hierarch of ROCOR, noted:
“The poison of heresy is not too dangerous when it is preached only from outside the Church. Many times more perilous is that poison which is gradually introduced into the organism in larger and larger doses by those who, in virtue of their position, should not be poisoners but spiritual physicians.”
There’s the problem, r! Heretics like Martino and those in communion with him who would drag the faithful into the spiritual shipwreck of the uncanonical practices.
***There’s the problem, r! Heretics like Martino and those in communion with him who would drag the faithful into the spiritual shipwreck of the uncanonical practices.***
Looking at the Canon, one comes up with:
Can. 808 No university, even if it is in fact catholic, may bear the title ‘catholic university’ except by the consent of the competent ecclesiastical authority.
Can. 810 §1 In catholic universities it is the duty of the competent statutory authority to ensure that there be appointed teachers who are not only qualified in scientific and pedagogical expertise, but are also outstanding in their integrity of doctrine and uprightness of life. If these requirements are found to be lacking, it is also that authority’s duty to see to it that these teachers are removed from office, in accordance with the procedure determined in the statutes.
§2 The Episcopal Conference and the diocesan Bishops concerned have the duty and the right of seeing to it that, in these universities, the principles of catholic doctrine are faithfully observed.
These are canons that pertain to this. Who is the ecclesiastical authority? The bishop.
But what does this mean for schools not under diocesan control? Basically we have to put the responsibility upon the school’s order’s superior and not upon the bishop. The bishop can declare the school to be non Catholic, but that is a last resort. He can wrestle with the superior to remove an individual from his diocese but that can be a long wrestle.
Perhaps the Vatican will put the squeeze upon the Jesuits - one day we pray that they will be Catholic again - but I agree that really the bishop’s only bullet is the declaration of the school status, which is really only a statement about where they’ve moved to anyway.