HT: Blog reader John L.
is the blog of an Orthodox Christian and is published under the spiritual patronage of St. John of San Francisco. Topics likely to be discussed include matters relating to Orthodoxy as well as other religious confessions, politics, economics, social issues, current events or anything else which interests me. © 2006-2024
Thursday, October 17, 2024
Wishful thinking
Some Catholics keep thinking that if they just fix the Filioque, then everything will be good. That might have been true 1,000 years ago, but Rome has drifted so far from Orthodoxy in its doctrinal additions that we simply do not believe the same things anymore. Our differences with Rome run much deeper than the Filioque and calendars. Papal infallibility and universal jurisdiction, the immaculate conspection, purgatory, indulgences, and so on. At the core, their ecclesiology is so completely alien to us that it's almost impossible to overstate the differences. How could we enter communion with a pope who promotes the blessing of homosexual couples and thinks he has the right to suppress the entire liturgical patrimony of his own church? And then we have the liberal modernism that has been pervasive since at least the Second Vatican Council. Francis' accession to the papacy has dramatically accelerated this alarming trend to the point where the pope himself has openly participated in pagan religious rites. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that half or more Catholic bishops and priests are heretics, even by the teachings of their own communion. Worth noting is that Francis has been going to great lengths to pack the College of Cardinals with these individuals. Today, I'd say Rome is much closer to full communion with Anglicans and Lutherans than us.
I don't often comment on your page but I thought it important to share with you from my experience with Metropolitan Maximos Aghiorgoussis of blessed memory, the former Metropolitan of Pittsburgh, Greek Archdiocese. It was his own mystical belief that if the West condescended to change the Creed back to the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed of Common Christendom (more or less for the first 1000 years) the Holy Spirit Himself would heal the many other additions/errors of our western brothers. The Philoque acts as a disinvitation (my words not his) to the activity of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Church.
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