Clarity on Ecumenism

Those of my readers who are Orthodox have probably at times heard the usual line from many of our Roman Catholic interlocutors about how so many Orthodox tend to be rude or worse in their attitudes towards Rome. And in fairness I have run into some of that on our side of the fence (though certainly not routinely). I am not a fan of the kumbaya approach to ecumenism. But yes, I have at times been embarrassed by some of the more strident commentary one occasionally runs into. I guess my main complaint is that far too often Catholics act like we Orthodox have a monopoly on polemical commentary. That of course is nonsense.

But even in snarky commentary I often find redeeming elements. In the case below the redemption comes in the form of clarity. The tone is obviously polemical and intentionally insulting. But if you can move past that the message is important. However sneering the language, the points made are fundamentally an accurate reflection of Roman Catholicism's historic attitude towards us. And that is something we should never forget.

Rome is not interested in restoration of communion as equal parts of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. Rome wants submission. To restore communion with Rome is to concede that Innocent III was within his rights to appoint the Patriarch of Constantinople. It is to concede each and every addition to the Deposit of the Faith by the Latin Church including those promulgated by Lyons, Florence, Trent and yes... Vatican I without reservation or equivocation. It is to concede that we are and have been for a thousand years, schismatics and yes, heretics.

Every Orthodox Christian should read this essay.

L’Osservatore Romano recently published Pope Benedict’s birthday greetings to the schismatic Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I. The successor of Peter prays in his letter that the Lord will sustain the Patriarch with his strength and grace as he carries out his exalted ministry of Pastor, Preacher of the Gospel and Teacher of spiritual life.
The Pope’s words presuppose that the sacrament of Order has perdured in Constantinople. Through his sacramental consecration as a bishop, Bartholomew has received the high priestly character whereby a bishop is rendered an apt subject to receive a canonical mission in teaching, ruling and sanctifying the Church. Not only that, the Pope also addresses him as Archbishop of Constantinople and Patriarch, just as Pope Eugene IV in the fifteenth century treated the holder of the See as Patriarch when he invited him and all the schismatic bishops to sit at the Council of Ferrara-Florence, where the Greeks would come to agreement with the Latins and co-define the Filioque and papal primacy. In other words, even though the de facto Greek Patriarchs of Constantinople since Cerularius’s schism have not been in communion with the successor of Peter, the successors of Peter have generally been willing to accept their elections, even as they hoped for their return to the unity of the Church. Thus the schismatic Patriarchs accepted to a certain extent by the Pope can be considered as having a “colored” but true title to the See of Constantinople.
However Leo XIII taught in the Encyclical Satis Cognitum, “[b]ishops are deprived of the right and power of ruling, if they deliberately secede from Peter and his successors; because, by this secession, they are separated from the foundation on which the whole edifice must rest. They are therefore outside the edifice itself; and for this very reason they are separated from the fold, whose leader is the Chief Pastor; they are exiled from the Kingdom, the keys of which were given by Christ to Peter alone.” Bartholomew is no different from his Greek predecessors since the Middle Ages in rejecting the authority of the successor of Peter over the whole Church. That is to say, he adheres to the schism of his predecessors and has been known over the years to come out with particularly strong statements of his positions against Catholic doctrine...

Read he rest here.

How not to run a Parish Council meeting

It's Lent and I don't want to be talking about scandals. But sometimes things happen that need to be addressed in a timely manner. Such is the case with the recent Parish Council meeting at the much troubled St. George Antiochian Orthodox Church. I am not going to post the details of that shocking affair. Follow the link and you will get a detailed report from Owen the Ochlophobist.

I will instead confine myself to asking how anyone can in conscience serve on such a body? I am a member of my parish's PC and it is so beyond my ability to imagine something like that happening, that had such a report come from almost any other source I would be strongly disposed to question its veracity. The only thing I might ever consider donating to that parish is a copy of Roberts Rules of Order as I walked out the door.

Please leave comments at Owen's site.

ANAXIOS!

Why are some liberals backing the NRA on gun rights?

When the constitutional accountability Center launched in 2008, it looked like just another liberal legal-advocacy group, dedicated to "fulfilling the progressive promise of our Constitution's text and history." The causes it has backed run the standard liberal gamut: among other things, the group supports California's efforts to regulate carbon emissions and pushes for "robust due-process protections for immigrant criminal defendants." So if you were told that the CAC had filed an amicus brief in McDonald v. Chicago, a case about gun control to be argued before the Supreme Court this week, you might think it was siding with Chicago, whose restrictions on gun ownership are being challenged.

You would be wrong. For decades, liberals have opposed gun rights on the grounds that the Second Amendment is limited to the establishment of state militias. But some liberal dissenters from this view now say that is too narrow a reading of the Constitution. They contend that it fails to take into account the historical record and contradicts liberals' own reading of the Constitution's protection of individual rights.

The CAC has joined forces with staunch conservatives, including Steven G. Calabresi, cofounder of the Federalist Society, to support expanding individual rights, including gun rights, in the states—inviting the possibility that Chicago's virtual ban on handguns might be overturned. "There is a deeply progressive historical basis for some individual right to bear arms," says Douglas Kendall, the CAC's founder.

Read the rest here.

Follow up: There is more than slightly shocking op-ed piece in the NY Times which lends a lot of weight to the above article. When the Times is endorsing gun rights it makes me question if just maybe I could be wrong on this subject.

Catholic Charities in DC cuts benefits

Employees at Catholic Charities were told Monday that the social services organization is changing its health coverage to avoid offering benefits to same-sex partners of its employees -- the latest fallout from a bitter debate between District officials trying to legalize same-sex marriage and the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington.

A letter describing the change in benefits was e-mailed to employees Monday, two days before same-sex marriage will become legal in the District. Starting Tuesday, Catholic Charities will not offer health benefits to spouses of new employees or to spouses of current employees who are not already enrolled in the plan.

"We looked at all the options and implications," said the charity's president, Edward J. Orzechowski. "This allows us to continue providing services, comply with the city's new requirements and remain faithful to the church's teaching."

Read the rest here.

Brief road trip

I will be out of town on Tuesday and most of Wednesday in order to take a civil service exam. While I will be gone, for a change I expect to still have access to the web since my new computer (YAY!) is portable.

And the Orchestra Played On

The other day, I found myself rummaging through a closet, searching for my old viola. This wasn’t how I’d planned to spend the afternoon. I hadn’t given a thought to the instrument in years. I barely remembered where it was, much less how to play it. But I had just gotten word that my childhood music teacher, Jerry Kupchynsky — “Mr. K.” to his students — had died.

In East Brunswick, N.J., where I grew up, nobody was feared more than Mr. K. He ran the town’s music department with a ferocity never before seen in our quiet corner of suburbia. In his impenetrably thick Ukrainian accent, he would berate us for being out of tune, our elbows in the wrong position, our counting out of sync.

“Cellos sound like hippopotamus rising from bottom of river,” he would yell during orchestra rehearsals. Wayward violinists played “like mahnyiak,” while hapless gum chewers “look like cow chewing cud.” He would rehearse us until our fingers were callused, then interrupt us with “Stop that cheekin plocking!”

Mr. K. pushed us harder than our parents, harder than our other teachers, and through sheer force of will made us better than we had any right to be. He scared the daylight out of us.

I doubt any of us realized how much we loved him for it.

Read the rest here.

"Armageddon was yesterday. Today we have a serious problem."

The gods must be crazy. How could tiny Greece, better known for turpentine wine and sheep cheese than for high finance, threaten the global banking system over the past two months?

And more importantly, what does the sudden blowup of debt worries on the southern tier of Europe mean for the United States, not long after we thought developed-world governments had successfully attacked this problem with the central-banking equivalent of carpet-bombing?

For answers to these questions, I turned to international-finance expert Satyajit Das, who has been our Homer over the past few years (and I don't mean Simpson) -- a guide to the epic myths told by bankers to politicians that prosperity was achievable by distilling money from math.

Das, who is based in Australia, observes first that the entire world has indulged in an economic experiment over the past decade, in which rising levels of debt have been used to promote high growth. The policy, a change from the old-fashioned capitalist virtue of earning the money used to expand, had the unintended consequence of vastly increasing risk in ways that were not fully understood by bankers, companies or regulators until it was too late.

Europe's Sovereign Debt Threat

We are now witnessing this experiment come to an end, Das says, slowly, erratically and painfully -- in Greece now and in many other countries, among them Portugal, Japan and the United States, later.

Read the rest here.

Disaster in Chile

The news is just coming over the wire that there has been a massive earthquake in Chile. Early reports put the quake at just under 9 magnitude. That is enough to bring down buildings that are built to rigorous earthquake codes. An urgent Tsunami warning has also been issued. It is far too early for any reliable damage and casualty estimates. However it is bound to be terrible.

Please pray for the people of Chile.

British education bill to require Catholic schools provide information on accessing contraception and abortion services

Via Damian Thompson:

Catholic schools were the subject of an astonishingly ignorant and sneering exchange between Ed Balls and John Humphrys on the Today programme this morning, which you can listen to here. In it, Balls confirmed that the sex education Bill – to be debated in Parliament today – will require Catholic schools to provide information on how to “access” contraception and abortion.

Read the rest here.

Walter Russell Mead on the Episcopal Church

Via Alice Linsley over at Ethics Forum

There’s nothing like Lent for reflecting on the sins of other people; I thought I’d start at the top — with the bishops of my own church. As the Episcopal church along with the other mainline Protestant denominations diminishes, we don’t have to look far to see bishops and leaders who are largely failing in their core assignments: to tend to the health and promote the growth of the congregations in their area. Yet even as we have fewer and fewer effective and successful leaders, we have no shortage of political, ‘prophetic’ bishops. When they can, they meet with world leaders and jet off to exotic locales to bring peace and fight for justice. When they can’t do that, they sign statements of concern, issue reports and otherwise tug on the skirts of an indifferent public seeking attention for their political views.

In the mainline churches, which is what I know best, the political views leaders express are generally those of what could be called the ‘foundation left’ — emotionally grounded in concern for the poor and development, historically linked to the ‘new left’ mix of economic and social concerns as developed in the 1960’s, shaped by an atmosphere of privilege and entitlement that reflects the upper middle class background of the educated professionals who run these institutions. The social sins they deplore are those of the right: excessive focus on capitalism, too robust and unheeding a promotion of the American national and security interest abroad, insufficient care for the environment, failure to help the poor through government welfare programs, failure to support affirmative action, failure to celebrate and protect the unrestricted right of women to abort. I am of course speaking very generally here and there are lots of individual exceptions, but many of these folks are generally tolerant of theological differences and rigidly intolerant when it comes to political differences: they care nothing at all about doctrines like predestination but get very angry with people who disagree with them about issues like global warming or immigration reform. Theological heresy is a matter for courtesy and silence, but political heretics fill them with bile.

Read the rest here. (This guy is not pulling any punches.)

WOW! USA Beats Canada at Hockey

A game to remember. GO USA!!!

CPAC Presidential Straw Pole: And the winner is...

RON PAUL(!?)

Calling this a surprising development would be putting it mildly. The annual convention of the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) held its straw pole for presidential candidates today. In a major upset the decisive winner was libertarian leaning congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) who has occasionally infuriated social conservatives and neo-cons with his unsparing criticism of George Bush's colonial adventurism in Iraq and the appalling lack of fiscal responsibility during his presidency.

Rep. Paul is an advocate of among other things...

• A mind our own business foreign policy (translation: he is an old fashioned isolationist).
• Sound money (ending the fiat paper currency and returning to the gold standard).
• Balanced budgets. Yea they all say that. But unlike most Washington pols; he really means it.
• A policy of governmental neutrality when it comes to the culture wars. He believes that it's not the government's job to legislate religious or moral beliefs.

I have no idea if this is a fluke or not. But I find it rather encouraging. For the record I think Ron Paul is a man who desperately wants to turn the clock back to the 18th century. And no, I am not really comfortable with everything he advocates for. But I do respect him greatly. He is (for a politician) relatively honest and you always know where he stands.

Read the story here.

Update: More encouraging signs... the ultra rightwing birther- militia- secessionist- the Bible is the US Constitution crowd over at Free Republic are having a collective stroke over this.

The Patriarchal Encyclical On the Sunday of Orthodoxy defends ecumenism

Patriarchal and Synodal Encyclical

On the Sunday of Orthodoxy

(February 21, 2010)

+ BARTHOLOMEW

By God’s Grace

Archbishop of Constantinople-New Rome

and Ecumenical Patriarch

To the Fullness of the Church, Grace and Peace

From our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ

Our most holy Orthodox Church today commemorates its own feast day, and – from this historical and martyric See of the Ecumenical Patriarchate – the Mother Church of Constantinople directs its blessing, love and concern to all of its faithful and dedicated spiritual children throughout the world, inviting them to concelebrate in prayer.

Blessed be the name of the Lord! Those who endeavored over the ages to suppress the Church through various visible and invisible persecutions; those who sought to falsify the Church with their heretical teachings; those who wanted to silence the Church, depriving it of its voice and witness; they all proved unsuccessful. The clouds of Martyrs, the tears of the Ascetics, and the prayers of the Saints protect the Church spiritually, while the Comforter and Spirit of Truth leads it to the fullness of truth.

With a sense of duty and responsibility, despite its hurdles and problems, as the First-Throne Church of Orthodoxy, the Ecumenical Patriarchate cares about protecting and establishing the unity of the Orthodox Church, in order that with one voice and in one heart we may confess the Orthodox faith of our Fathers in every age and even in our times. For, Orthodoxy is not a museum treasure that must be preserved; it is a breath of life that must be transmitted and invigorate all people. Orthodoxy is always contemporary, so long as we promote it with humility and interpret it in light of the existential quests and needs of humanity in each historical period and cultural circumstance.

To this purpose, Orthodoxy must be in constant dialogue with the world. The Orthodox Church does not fear dialogue because truth is not afraid of dialogue. On the contrary, if Orthodoxy is enclosed within itself and not in dialogue with those outside, it will both fail in its mission and no longer be the “catholic” and “ecumenical” Church. Instead, it will become an introverted and self-contained group, a “ghetto” on the margins of history. This is why the great Fathers of the Church never feared dialogue with the spiritual culture of their age – indeed even with the pagan idolaters and philosophers of their world – thereby influencing and transforming the civilization of their time and offering us a truly ecumenical Church.

Today, Orthodoxy is called to continue this dialogue with the outside world in order to provide a witness and the life-giving breath of its faith. However, this dialogue cannot reach the outside world unless it first passes through all those that bear the Christian name. Thus, we must first converse as Christians among ourselves in order to resolve our differences, in order that our witness to the outside world may be credible. Our endeavors for the union of all Christians is the will and command of our Lord, who before His Passion prayed to His Father “that all [namely, His disciples] may be one, so that the world may believe that You sent me.” (John 17.21) It is not possible for the Lord to agonize over the unity of His disciples and for us to remain indifferent about the unity of all Christians. This would constitute criminal betrayal and transgression of His divine commandment.

It is precisely for these reasons that, with the mutual agreement and participation of all local Orthodox Churches, the Ecumenical Patriarchate has for many decades conducted official Panorthodox theological dialogues with the larger Christian Churches and Confessions. The aim of these dialogues is, in a spirit of love, to discuss whatever divides Christians both in terms of faith as well as in terms of the organization and life of the Church.

These dialogues, together with every effort for peaceful and fraternal relations of the Orthodox Church with other Christians, are unfortunately challenged today in an unacceptably fanatical way – at least by the standards of a genuinely Orthodox ethos – by certain circles that exclusively claim for themselves the title of zealot and defender of Orthodoxy. As if all the Patriarchs and Sacred Synods of the Orthodox Churches throughout the world, who unanimously decided on and continue to support these dialogues, were not Orthodox. Yet, these opponents of every effort for the restoration of unity among Christians raise themselves above Episcopal Synods of the Church to the dangerous point of creating schisms within the Church.

In their polemical argumentation, these critics of the restoration of unity among Christians do not even hesitate to distort reality in order to deceive and arouse the faithful. Thus, they are silent about the fact that theological dialogues are conducted by unanimous decision of all Orthodox Churches, instead attacking the Ecumenical Patriarchate alone. They disseminate false rumors that union between the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches is imminent, while they know well that the differences discussed in these theological dialogues remain numerous and require lengthy debate; moreover, union is not decided by theological commissions but by Church Synods. They assert that the Pope will supposedly subjugate the Orthodox, because they latter submit to dialogue with the Roman Catholics! They condemn those who conduct these dialogues as allegedly “heretics” and “traitors” of Orthodoxy, purely and simply because they converse with non-Orthodox, with whom they share the treasure and truth of our Orthodox faith. They speak condescendingly of every effort for reconciliation among divided Christians and restoration of their unity as purportedly being “the pan-heresy of ecumenism” without providing the slightest evidence that, in its contacts with non-Orthodox, the Orthodox Church has abandoned or denied the doctrines of the Ecumenical Councils and of the Church Fathers.

Beloved children in the Lord, Orthodoxy has no need of either fanaticism or bigotry to protect itself. Whoever believes that Orthodoxy has the truth does not fear dialogue, because truth has never been endangered by dialogue. By contrast, when in our day all people strive to resolve their differences through dialogue, Orthodoxy cannot proceed with intolerance and extremism. You should have utmost confidence in your Mother Church. For the Mother Church has over the ages preserved and transmitted Orthodoxy even to other nations. And today, the Mother Church is struggling amid difficult circumstances to maintain Orthodoxy vibrant and venerable throughout the world.

From the Ecumenical Patriarchate, this sacred Center of Orthodoxy, we embrace all of you lovingly and bless you paternally, praying that you may journey in health through the holy period of contrition and asceticism known as Holy and Great Lent in order that you may become worthy of celebrating the pure Passion and glorious Resurrection of our Savior Lord with all faithful Orthodox Christians throughout the world.

Sunday of Orthodoxy 2010

+ Bartholomew of Constantinople

Fervent supplicant to God for all



+ Constantine of Derkon

+Evangelos of Perge

+ Kallinikos of Lystra

+ Michael of Austria

+ Alexios of Atlanta

+ Joseph of Proikonnisos

+ Demetrios of Sevasteia

+ Irenaios of Myriophyton and Peristasis

+ Chrysostom of Myra

+ Emmanuel of France

+ Makarios of Gortyna and Arkadia

+ Amphilochios of New Zealand

source

From the you can't make this up file

Agents and officers of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security reported that 289 of their handguns, shotguns or automatic rifles had been lost or stolen between 2005 and 2008, with weapons left in places ranging from fast-food restaurant restrooms to bowling alleys to clothing stores, the agency's inspector general said in a report released Thursday.

Most of the losses could have been prevented, DHS Inspector General Richard L. Skinner reported. In one case, his office stated, a border officer left a weapon in his idling vehicle at a convenience store. Both the weapon and the vehicle were stolen. In another case, a shotgun and semiautomatic rifle were stolen from an officer's closet at home. Other agents left firearms in truck beds or on vehicle bumpers, where weapons fell off as they drove away.

Read the rest here.

In the good old days in Japan, a samurai who lost his sword was expected to commit ritual suicide. Not suggesting anything here... but yea.

Dad Pleads Not Guilty on Violating Court Order For Taking Daughter to Church

A Chicago man who defied a court order and took his toddler to a Catholic Church service was arraigned today on a charge of indirect criminal contempt in a custody battle that is threatening to put him in jail and draw new boundaries in divorce cases.

Joseph Reyes pleaded not guilty for allegedly violating a court order issued by Chicago family law Judge Edward R. Jordan who had barred Reyes from taking his 3-year-old daughter to church following a dispute over religion with his estranged wife. Reyes' wife, Rebecca Reyes, is Jewish.

Reyes, a veteran of the Afghan war, made a motion to have his contempt charges heard by a different judge, a motion that was granted. He was arraigned before Judge Elizabeth Loredo-Rivera.

If found guilty of indirect criminal contempt, Reyes could be sentenced to up to six months in jail.

The next court date is on March 3, when Reyes is expected to file a motion to dismiss all charges against him.

In a statement issued after the hearing, Reyes said, "There's a strong possibility I could end up in jail. It's really sad it's come to this."

Reyes and his wife are in abitter divorce battle, and the question of what faith their child should be raised in is pushing the boundaries of child custody arrangements.

Reyes' decision to baptize his daughter without his wife's permission resulted in what some are calling an extraordinary court order: Jordan in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Ill., imposed a 30-day restraining order forbidding Joseph Reyes from, according to the document, "exposing his daughter to any other religion than the Jewish religion. &"

The couple married in 2004. Joseph Reyes was Catholic, but he converted to Judaism to please his in-laws. He has said the decision wasn't "voluntary."

Despite his conversion, Reyes, 35, said he never stopped practicing Catholicism.

Read the rest here.

She has legal custody of the child. That's all that needed to be said. How can you baptize a child you do not have custody of? On a side note this is an excellent case for why people should avoid religiously mixed marriages.

Party Gridlock in Washington Feeds New Fear of a Debt Crisis

WASHINGTON — Senator Evan Bayh’s comments this week about a dysfunctional Congress reflected a complaint being directed at Washington with increasing frequency, and there is broad agreement among critics about Exhibit A: The unwillingness of the two parties to compromise to control a national debt that is rising to dangerous heights.

After decades of warnings that budgetary profligacy, escalating health care costs and an aging population would lead to a day of fiscal reckoning, economists and the nation’s foreign creditors say that moment is approaching faster than expected, hastened by a deep recession that cost trillions of dollars in lost tax revenues and higher spending for safety-net programs.

Yet rarely has the political system seemed more polarized and less able to solve big problems that involve trust, tough choices and little short-term gain. The main urgency for both parties seems to be about pinning blame on the other, before November’s elections, for deficits now averaging $1 trillion a year, the largest since World War II relative to the size of the economy.

Mr. Bayh, the centrist Democrat from Indiana, lodged his complaint about excessive partisanship and Congressional gridlock on Monday by way of explaining his decision not to seek re-election. But he is hardly alone in sounding an alarm about the long-term budgetary outlook, which has Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security costs growing at unsustainable rates and an inefficient tax system that cannot keep up.

“I used to think it would take a global financial crisis to get both parties to the table, but we just had one,” said G. William Hoagland, who was a fiscal policy adviser to Senate Republican leaders and a witness to past bipartisan budget summits. “These days I wonder if this country is even governable.”

Read the rest here.

Georgia Seeks Return of Luger's Body

TBILISI, Georgia–Georgian officials said Monday they were working to return the body of luger Nodar Kumaritashvili to his mountain hometown for burial in a cemetery beside its small Georgian Orthodox church.

Mr. Kumaritashvili died in a training accident hours before the opening of the Winter Olympics on Friday when he lost control of his luge on the final turn of the track at the Whistler Sliding Centre and hit a steel support at 90 miles per hour.

"The funeral could be in two or three days but nothing is clear yet," said David Kumaritashvili, the luger's father.

The athlete will be buried in Bakuriani, the quiet ski resort where he lived all of his 21 years and became a local hero. The town of about 3,000 inhabitants, set high in the Caucasus Mountains about 110 miles kilometers west of Tbilisi and surrounded by fir-covered peaks, is a close-knit community and expects a deluge of mourners.

Read the rest here.

Rod Dreher on the Great Pew Controversy

...Yesterday I mentioned to Julie that I didn't like pews, because they made me feel as if I were part of an audience watching a performance on the altar. Without pews, I felt more like someone gathered around a bonfire. The author of this essay puts it more harshly than I would, but the insight is essentially the same. You wouldn't have convinced me several years ago when I first walked into an Orthodox church that the experience of worshiping without pews would make me feel more integrated into the liturgy (as opposed to merely tired from standing), but having worshiped this way for almost four years, I've experienced the difference, and love it! It makes one feel personally more integrated into the liturgy, I find.

Roman Catholics used to go to mass like this too, but it appears that the Reformation also brought pews into Catholic churches as well (Byzantine Rite Catholics generally still observe the older tradition of standing during mass, though I've attended two Byzantine Rite churches in the US that have pews). It surely must strike most American Christians as interesting, at the very least, to think that pews in Christian churches are a relatively recent innovation in the history of Christianity. For three-quarters of our history, most Christians stood at corporate worship.

Let me ask my Orthodox readers for their thoughts on having pews inside our churches. I'd also like to hear from Catholic and other non-orthodox readers on the topic.

Read the rest (and the comments) here.

For the record I agree with Rod. Pews are OK but given a choice I prefer the more traditional practice.

The Fast Begins

I sometimes get questions from inquirers and others who are not Orthodox asking what our fasting rules entail. Here in brief are the rules for the Lenten Fast.

Starting on the first day of Lent (we begin on Monday not Ash Wednesday) Orthodox Christians are to abstain from all meat, fish, wine, oil and dairy/animal products during weekdays. Also normally only one meal is taken each day. On weekends this is relaxed somewhat with two meals permitted and wine and oil are allowed. The first week of the Fast (called Clean Week) as also Holy Week are observed very strictly. Those able to do so keep a strict fast on Clean Monday (no food) and eat as little as possible thereafter until the weekend. The monastic discipline (which is the standard towards which we should strive) calls for only two meals between Monday and Friday. Holy Week also gets rough starting on Great and Holy Wednesday until the Fast is broken by taking Communion on Pascha (Easter). Great and Holy Friday is a strict fast day (no food) and Holy Saturday is very nearly a strict fast with only a little fruit and nuts normally allowed.

Now that I have probably frightened off any inquirers let me throw out some mitigating words. First the Church calendar contains a number of days during lent where wine and oil are permitted. Also there are two days (the Feast of the Annunciation and Palm Sunday) where fish wine and oil are allowed. Secondly (and very importantly) we are not insane and we do understand human limits. In practical terms and for obvious reasons few laymen can keep the fast this strictly. But for everyone the Fast during Clean Week should be kept as strictly as individual circumstances permit as also the last several days of Holy Week.

Food and drink taken for reasons of health are always permitted. Most priests routinely relax some aspects of the fast for their spiritual children especially for reasons of age or health. The rules outlined above were written in a day and age when people generally ate much less and had far more limited diets all year. Also the influence of diet on health was not understood as it is today.

The object in the fast is not to satisfy some legalistic requirements dating to late antiquity or to see who can inflict the most damage on their health. Rather it is to stretch ourselves spiritually by denying the flesh one of its favorite comforts. The Fast is first and foremost a form of spiritual medicine intended to help with the process of decluttering our lives for the 40+ days of Lent and get us refocused on God.

Now a few closing thoughts on fasting. The above rules are the guidelines in the book. The real rules are the ones your spiritual father/confessor prescribes for you. One of the most frequent mistakes committed by those new to the Faith is to dive into the Fast and try to do it all the first time around. That is in almost every case a recipe for failure and frustration. I have been Orthodox for four years now. I have yet to keep Lent strictly and probably never will for various reasons. Few people outside of monasteries do. But we need to try as best we can. If you fall down (we all do) then pick yourself up and try again.

Finally, avoid discussing the fast with others. Your fast is your business. The only one you should be talking with about it in detail is your spiritual father. Remember you may be keeping a stricter fast than others and discussing it could cause them to feel bad or make them attempt something they are not ready for. Or you may be doing less than someone and that too can cause issues. The Fast should be kept discretely. Efforts should be made to avoid those circumstances where you may be tempted to break the fast or show off to others who are not fasting. This last part is quite challenging in our culturally Western country in which fasting as a religious discipline has been more or less abandoned. My own spiritual father has gone so far as to say that it is better to break the fast than cause scandal or show off. If you are a guest and someone puts food in front of you, you eat it. With that view in mind keep your social engagements to a minimum.

A Deep Bow

On this the eve of the Great Fast and bowing low, I wish to ask forgiveness from anyone who I may have injured through any word, action or negligence, and most especially by anything which I may have written or allowed to be posted on this blog. Please forgive me.

During Lent

In keeping with my custom of some years, there will generally be no posting on Wednesdays and Fridays during Great Lent. Additionally there will be very little posting during "Clean Week" and none after Great and Holy Tuesday until at least Bright Monday. (I do plan to post sometime this week on my experiences serving as a juror in a First Degree Murder trial.) I wish each and everyone a blessed fast.

A Modest Proposal

Via the Midwest Conservative Journal...

A guest editorial by Katharine Jefferts Schori

First of all, I would like to thank Christopher Johnson for giving me the opportunity to communicate with you in this space. It is encouraging to know that every now and then, we can overcome our differences, as vast as those differences all too often are.

The humorous cartoon posted below was actually quite funny. Nobody likes a good joke more than I do. Actually, I’ve been told that just about everyone likes a good joke more than I do but that’s beside the point.

What, you may ask, is the point? The point is that Mr. Johnson’s cartoon gets at something we must not ignore and cannot allow ourselves to evade any longer.

The Episcopal Church is in a serious financial crisis, the most serious in its history.

Why? One could point to a variety of reasons. The bad economy. The fact that consecrating an openly-gay bishop didn’t turn to be as monetarily-profitable a move of the spirit as we were led to believe that it would be. The fact that too many of you are stupid, reactionary, hypocritical, homophobic bigots. One could go on and on.

But the point is not to assess blame but to find solutions. And a solution has recently been suggested that seems to show a way forward that will not only lift the Episcopal Church out of its financial valley of the shadow of death but lead it into a future where we can finally begin to realize God’s dream of shalom.

Selling indulgences.

Read the rest here.
Hat tip to Bill (aka The Godfather)

Vatican to hold Days of Russian Spiritual Culture

Via Interfax:

“Today the Moscow Patriarchate and the Roman Catholic Church prepare a number of joint projects in the field of culture as, for example, the Days of Russian Spiritual Culture in Vatican in spring 2010,” Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia writes in his article published in the Expert magazine.

According to the Russian Church Primate, Christians need to find “new language and new creative ways to preach Christian values in modern-day conditions of the constantly changing world so that this sermon can be heard and properly taken,” the article further reads.

The Patriarch noted that first of all, he meant cooperation between the Roman-Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church “as they have shared views on actual problems of social and economic ethics, bioethics, family, personal morality and others.”

“As we understand that Europe is facing serious challenge of losing its personal civilizational and cultural identity, it becomes very important to mutually search for new opportunities to make Christian values attractive for a modern-day European,” Patriarch Kirill stresses.

Source

Peter Schiff on why the jobs bill won't work

How Christian Were the Founders?

LAST MONTH, A WEEK before the Senate seat of the liberal icon Edward M. Kennedy fell into Republican hands, his legacy suffered another blow that was perhaps just as damaging, if less noticed. It happened during what has become an annual spectacle in the culture wars.

Over two days, more than a hundred people — Christians, Jews, housewives, naval officers, professors; people outfitted in everything from business suits to military fatigues to turbans to baseball caps — streamed through the halls of the William B. Travis Building in Austin, Tex., waiting for a chance to stand before the semicircle of 15 high-backed chairs whose occupants made up the Texas State Board of Education. Each petitioner had three minutes to say his or her piece.

“Please keep César Chávez” was the message of an elderly Hispanic man with a floppy gray mustache.

“Sikhism is the fifth-largest religion in the world and should be included in the curriculum,” a woman declared.

Following the appeals from the public, the members of what is the most influential state board of education in the country, and one of the most politically conservative, submitted their own proposed changes to the new social-studies curriculum guidelines, whose adoption was the subject of all the attention — guidelines that will affect students around the country, from kindergarten to 12th grade, for the next 10 years. Gail Lowe — who publishes a twice-a-week newspaper when she is not grappling with divisive education issues — is the official chairwoman, but the meeting was dominated by another member. Don McLeroy, a small, vigorous man with a shiny pate and bristling mustache, proposed amendment after amendment on social issues to the document that teams of professional educators had drawn up over 12 months, in what would have to be described as a single-handed display of archconservative political strong-arming.

McLeroy moved that Margaret Sanger, the birth-control pioneer, be included because she “and her followers promoted eugenics,” that language be inserted about Ronald Reagan’s “leadership in restoring national confidence” following Jimmy Carter’s presidency and that students be instructed to “describe the causes and key organizations and individuals of the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s, including Phyllis Schlafly, the Contract With America, the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority and the National Rifle Association.” The injection of partisan politics into education went so far that at one point another Republican board member burst out in seemingly embarrassed exasperation, “Guys, you’re rewriting history now!” Nevertheless, most of McLeroy’s proposed amendments passed by a show of hands.

Finally, the board considered an amendment to require students to evaluate the contributions of significant Americans. The names proposed included Thurgood Marshall, Billy Graham, Newt Gingrich, William F. Buckley Jr., Hillary Rodham Clinton and Edward Kennedy. All passed muster except Kennedy, who was voted down.

This is how history is made — or rather, how the hue and cry of the present and near past gets lodged into the long-term cultural memory or else is allowed to quietly fade into an inaudible whisper. Public education has always been a battleground between cultural forces; one reason that Texas’ school-board members find themselves at the very center of the battlefield is, not surprisingly, money. The state’s $22 billion education fund is among the largest educational endowments in the country. Texas uses some of that money to buy or distribute a staggering 48 million textbooks annually — which rather strongly inclines educational publishers to tailor their products to fit the standards dictated by the Lone Star State. California is the largest textbook market, but besides being bankrupt, it tends to be so specific about what kinds of information its students should learn that few other states follow its lead. Texas, on the other hand, was one of the first states to adopt statewide curriculum guidelines, back in 1998, and the guidelines it came up with (which are referred to as TEKS — pronounced “teaks” — for Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills) were clear, broad and inclusive enough that many other states used them as a model in devising their own. And while technology is changing things, textbooks — printed or online —are still the backbone of education.

Read the rest of this rather long but interesting article here.

The Church of England will ordain women bishops. Get over it – or leave

From Damian Thompson...

I don’t belong to a Church which makes decisions about something as fundamental as the ordination of women priests by voting in a quasi-parliamentary General Synod. But, if I did, and if that Church then prepared to take the logical step of ordaining women bishops, I’d ask myself a simple question. Will these ordinations be valid? Then I stay. Invalid? Then I go.

Read the rest here.

I'm Back

I am back online and expect to be posting again shortly. Also I am happy to report that the trial I was a juror on has now ended. It has been a remarkable and frankly challenging experience. Sometime in the next few days I will likely be posting on my experiences as a juror in The People vs Jose Zavala.

More articles on the case can be found here, here and here.

Positive signs

The trial on which I am a juror has progressed much faster than anticipated. Originally scheduled to run through Feb 19; we now expect to hear closing arguments tomorrow. I ask for your prayers as the matter I and my eleven co-jurors are sitting in judgment on is quite serious.

More good news... after a lot of delays I am hopeful that my computer problems will be resolved by the end of the week.

Extremely thin posting ahead

OK. It's official. California is nuts. They put me on jury duty. The judge asked that we (jurors) refrain from blogging and similar online discussion activities for the duration of the trial. With some luck this will be over by late February. On a side note I have placed comments on moderation due to some issues with SPAM and the fact that I was already having trouble keeping a close watch on the comboxes. I apologize for the inconvenience.

The Supreme Court says corporations and unions may contribute to political campaigns

This is simply the latest chapter of bad jurisprudence resulting from the absurd ruling in Santa Clara County v Southern Pacific Railroad (1886) that said corporations were people under the 14th amendment. My position is very simple. No person or entity that is not eligible for the franchise should be allowed to spend a dime on political campaigns or propaganda.

Speaking of rain...

It's pretty damp here on the left coast (5th day of rain). I have completed my move and am reporting back on Monday to find out if I am needed for jury duty. I failed to get out of it but still think the odds of my actually landing on the jury for what I have been told is a major criminal trial are slim. I am slowly working on the computer problem. Being limited to the library is, to put it politely, a pain in the...

Sadly posting will remain thin for a little while longer.

It never rains...

It pours. Moving week + jury duty= no posting likely this week.

Memory Eternal

Fellow Orthodox blogger the RightWingProf (Clay Bond) reposed in the Lord early this morning after a battle with lung cancer. His often pointed commentary will be greatly missed. Please keep him and his family in your prayers.

May his memory be eternal.

Christ is born!

Merry Christmas and many happy wishes to those celebrating the Feast of the Nativity on the traditional calendar!

Turkey hints at calling for repatriation of the relics of St. Nicholas

The Turkish Minister of Culture has strong suggested he will call for the "return" of the relics of St. Nicholas to Myra (modern day Demre) in Turkey. The relics are currently kept in Bari (Italy) where they have been since the 11th century AD. The minister suggested the body of "Father Christmas" should be displayed in a Turkish museum that is being proposed for construction.

As I noted in a comment at Rorate Caeli; there is no national government in existence which has any legal or moral claim to the relics of St. Nicholas. Once the Emperor reclaims his throne in Constantinople and the cross is again raised over Hagia Sophia this topic can be revisited. Given the precarious position of the Ecumenical Patriarch in a country with a well established track record of persecuting religious minorities (especially the Greek Orthodox Church) I believe it better that the relics remain where they are as long as they are accessible to all for veneration.

Hat tip to Carlos Antonio Palad of Rorate Caeli.

Prayers for an Orthodox blogger

I have mentioned before Orthodox blogger RightWingProf who is battling advanced lung cancer. He has not posted since the day after the Feast of the Nativity. Recent comments on that post report that he is extremely weak and has not been eating much. The Prof has essentially been in hospice care for a while now. With the caveat that I am not familiar with his immediate condition, comments posted on his blog by friends seem to suggest that his condition is deteriorating.

Please lift him (and those who love him) in your prayers as he prepares to enter the next room and stand before the judgment seat.

A quick update

There is a lot gong on in my life right now. I am preparing for a move and am still dealing with computer issues. The employment situation remains grim although I have some hopes for a state job south of where I am, but the paperwork for that is moving at a snail's pace. Posting is likely to remain a bit thin for a while.

May the new year be better than the last.

In ICXC
John

Happy New Year!

A blessed and joyous new year to all. Holiday recess until Monday.

Back to the health care bill

Congress will be returning from its Christmas recess shortly and pundits are predicting a protracted battle to reconcile the House and Senate versions of Health Care reform. I think this is unlikely. It seems much more likely to me that the real hard part is now over. Here for the record are a few predictions...

1. The final bill will (not surprisingly) more closely resemble the Senate bill than the House. This is because the Senate has no wiggle room in its vote count. With unanimous Republican opposition the Democrats can not afford to loose a single vote. The House will have to swallow hard and accept most of the Senate bill as written. Which means...

2. There will be no public option or anything resembling one or anything that could trigger one.

3. Most of the Senate's plans for financing this monstrosity will survive intact.

4. The House language on abortion (it is much more restrictive than the Senate's) is likely to win for the same reason the public option will loose. The House has a significant number of staunchly pro-life Democrats who are unlikely to vote for the Senate's fudged language. They are large enough in numbers that they could in combination with Republicans kill the bill if they don't get their way. Liberals will swallow hard and pass it anyway.

5. Some of the more controversial provisions are likely to be stripped out of the bill. I would be more than slightly surprised if Nebraska's exemption from Medicaid costs survives the conference committee.

6. This is going to happen sooner rather than later. Pundits are predicting a protracted battle. But Democrats are exhausted. They are (pardon the pun) sick of health care. They also see this (correctly) as a rallying point for the GOP's base. There is no upside and a great deal of downside to dragging this out. If the whole health care thing has dragged on much longer than expected I believe it is about to end much more rapidly than many think likely. There is a better than even chance that this will be passed and signed before the President's State of the Union speech. Democrats want to move on to more politically advantageous issues like spending insane amounts of money (that we don't have) in an effort to create jobs.

There is one other reason why Democrats are going to pass this quickly. Once it's been passed it will be all but impossible to undo. They realize that what they are about to do is create a "right" to health care for every US citizen. Politically this will not be reversible. Congress can tinker with the system (and you can bet they will) but the underlying premise will be carved in stone. This is the main reason the GOP has been fighting tooth and nail to kill the bill. They grasp that once it's passed they will never be able to return to the status quo ante. And Democrats believe that as the memory of exactly how this thing got done starts to fade; Americans will focus on the promise of (near) universal health coverage. And of course the Democrats also know that this is the camel's nose under the proverbial tent flap. More than a few of the very disappointed liberals are going to vote for this pig because they see it as the first and most difficult step towards a single payer system of national government run health insurance.

A peek at the calendar... some good news and some not

Christ is born! Merry Christmas to all.

2010 is almost here. First the good news; the month of January is looking to be a (comparatively) light month for fasting. The Nativity fast free period runs through the 4th of January. The last week in January will also be fast free. Those on the Traditional (Old) Church Calendar will have pretty much the whole month fast free (but they will pay for it later). Which brings us to the not so good news (unless you really enjoy fasting). The rest of the year has an awful lot of red on the calendar even by Orthodox standards.

Lent comes earlier this year than I can remember. It begins in early February with Pascha (Easter) falling on April 4th. Which in turn means the Apostle's Fast starts much earlier. You can just wipe out the entire month of June. Those on the Old Calendar can add two more weeks to that already longer than normal fast.

Oh well. The joys of being Orthodox and all that.

Merry Christmas

I sincerely wish the joy of the feast to all. May you and yours have a blessed Feast of the Nativity and a very merry Christmas.

(Holiday break... No posting before Monday. As I will not be online this weekend I am putting comments on moderation until I return. Sorry about that but I have had several SPAM comments left on the blog lately.)

Tis the season... a brief remembrance for a Christmas long ago

My luggage has been recovered and I am slowly recovering from a nasty flue/cold that I picked up back east while home for my step-mother's funeral. Computer issues continue though I do have some hope for some sort of resolution in the not too distant future. On the upside I have been catching up on some reading.

I just finished reading David McCullough's "1776" which I found a very good chronicle of what was arguably the most fateful year in the history of our republic. It is difficult for many of us to realize just how close things were in that terrible winter. By December of 1776 the Continental Army had been soundly defeated at the battle of Brooklyn Heights (Long Island) and driven from York Island (Manhattan). At every collision between British forces and ours we were whipped so badly that it is hard to understand how we survived at all.

George Washington had only narrowly avoided encirclement and the total annihilation of his army by the thinnest of margins on no less than five occasions. As late December arrived our army had been driven across New Jersey and forced to retire to the opposite side of the Delaware River. It was outnumbered by no less than 5 to 1 by the combined forces of the British Army and the Hessian mercenaries hired by King George III. Most of the soldiers had not been paid in months. Many could not remember their last hot meal. All were poorly clothed with frightening numbers lacking even shoes. Desertions were high and moral was at rock bottom. In the days immediately before Christmas, General Lee (no relation to the later Confederate) was captured by the British.

It was clear that the army was at the end of its rope and Philadelphia was likely to be occupied at any time. Faced with the real possibility of a final crushing defeat Washington resolved upon a do or die attack. His crossing of the Delaware to attack the Hessian garrison at Trenton (then a relatively small town) on Christmas night in the teeth of a ferocious blizzard was a desperate gamble. When he arrived on the other side he could not have known that half his troops sent to cross farther down the river had been blocked by ice flows. Adding a final blow to his plan he was informed that a large contingent of what was left of his forces had wet gunpowder and their muskets would not fire.

Washington stood silent for a moment and then ordered his troops to attack with the bayonet.

And the rest as they say is history.

There are times when I am truly humbled by those who have gone before us.

Memory Eternal

Archbishop Job of Chicago and the Midwest has died unexpectedly. A figure of great importance in the OCA who helped bring an end to the period of scandal he will be sorely missed. May his memory be eternal!

My version of a popular Christams song

OK only the first 5 lines... I will have to work on the rest.

Five airports
Four jet planes
Three brutal layovers
Two different airlines
And ONE lost suitcase (last seen in Chicago)!

The twelve will be the number of hours I was in transit (actually it was more than that but this is close enough).

Progress on rules governing autocephaly and autonomy

Orrologian has posted a recent communique of the Russian Orthodox Church on progress towards establishing rules for the declaration of autocephaly and autonomy on the part of local Orthodox churches. These rules could have a significant impact on the status of the OCA. You may read the details at his blog. Please leave comments there.

Catholics see progress on "the Eastern Front"

The highly respected and well connected Vatican observer Robert Moynihan has a new piece out on Zenit. It is good enough that I am going to post his essay in its entirety.

Rome-Moscow Relations Begin New Era

By Robert Moynihan

WASHINGTON, D.C., DEC. 14, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Things are moving on the Eastern front. And more movement may be coming soon, as an old winter chill in Rome-Moscow relations seems to be thawing, with profound consequences for Europe and the entire world.

Vatican observers have been following these developments with great attention. "For Rome and Moscow, It's Spring Again," the respected Italian Vatican observer Sandro Magister noted in a Dec. 11 column.

This improvement in relations is due in part to many quiet steps taken by the Vatican under the direction of Cardinal Walter Kasper, the Vatican's chief ecumenist, who led the Vatican delegation to a week-long theological dialogue in Cyprus, and by Archbishop Antonio Mennini, the Pope's very able nuncio to Moscow.

Magister, however, was commenting on two key recent events: (1) the upgrading of relations between the Holy See and Russia, and (2) the publication in Russia, for the first time ever, of a collection of Benedict XVI's homilies.

And this "springtime" has a goal, Magister argues: "the defense of the Christian tradition" in Europe and around the world.

So what we have, essentially, is the announcement of a new alliance on the world stage between two powers that have long distrusted each other: Rome and Russia.

Incredible as it may seem -- given that just 20 years ago Russia was the atheist, Church-persecuting Soviet Union -- this is what seems to be occurring right before our eyes.


On Dec. 9, following a meeting in the Vatican between the Pope and the president of Russia, Dimitri Medvedev, Russia and the Vatican announced "the establishment of diplomatic relations between them, at the level of apostolic nunciature on the part of the Holy See, and of embassy on the part of the Russian Federation."

The week before, Benedict XVI had received Medvedev in audience at the Vatican and gave him a copy, in Russian, of the encyclical "Caritas in Veritate."

On Dec. 2, the day before Medvedev met with the Pope, a book published by the Patriarchate of Moscow containing the main speeches about Europe made over the past 10 years by Joseph Ratzinger, as cardinal and Pope, was presented in Rome.

The entire volume is in two languages, Italian and Russian -- again, a sign of the ever-closer relations between Russia and Rome.

Kindred spirit

Archbishop Hilarion Alfeyev of Volokolamsk, the head of the patriarchate's department for external Church relations, wrote the introduction for the book. The archbishop is an increasingly important figure in the Russian Orthodox Church, and in the Orthodox world. (The previous occupant of this post, Kirill, was elected patriarch of Moscow earlier this year, which suggests the possible future importance of Archbishop Hilarion himself.)

In his introduction, Archbishop Hilarion, 43, sets forth his vision for Europe, and the new "alliance" needed to realize that vision. It is a remarkable text, which we can only touch upon here.

Magister was so impressed by this introduction that he wrote: "Those who expect an Orthodox Church removed from time, made up only of remote traditions and archaic liturgies, will come away shaken from reading the introduction to this book. [...]

"The image that emerges from it is that of a Russian Orthodox Church that refuses to let itself be locked up in a ghetto, but on the contrary hurls itself against the secularist onslaught with all the peaceful weapons at its disposal, not excluding civil disobedience against laws 'that oblige the commission of a sin in the eyes of God.'"

Those in the West, both in Europe and in the United States, who feel that unjust laws have been passed that cannot be countenanced by Christians, will find a kindred spirit in Archbishop Hilarion.

The title of the Orthodox archbishop's text is, "The Help That the Russian Orthodox Church Can Give to Europe."

It begins with a very candid, and deeply felt, lamentation by an Orthodox leader for the closing of Catholic and Protestant churches in Western Europe.

"When traveling in Europe, especially in the traditionally Protestant countries, I am always astonished at seeing not a few churches abandoned by their congregations, especially the ones turned into pubs, clubs, shops, or places of profane activities of yet another kind," Archbishop Hilarion writes. "There is something profoundly deplorable in this sad spectacle.

"I come from a country in which for many decades the churches were used for nonreligious purposes. Many places of worship were completely destroyed. […] Why has the space for religion in Western society been reduced in such a significant way in recent decades?"

Help for the West

Then Archbishop Hilarion makes his main point: Russia can help. Russia can come to the rescue of the West.

"The Russian Orthodox Church, with its unique experience of surviving the harshest persecutions, struggling against militant atheism, reemerging from the ghetto when the political situation changed, recovering its place in society and redefining its social responsibilities, can therefore be of help to Europe," he writes.

Then he draws a line in the sand.

"The totalitarian dictatorship of the past cannot be replaced with a new dictatorship of pan-European government mechanisms. […] The countries of Orthodox tradition, for example, do not accept laws that legalize euthanasia, homosexual marriage, drug trafficking, the maintenance of brothels, pornography, and so on."

In short, the archbishop is saying that the Orthodox, including the Russian Orthodox Church which he represents, are ready to fight for Christian values in the West, alongside Catholics and Protestants.

And Archbishop Hilarion does not exclude disobedience against unjust laws.

"Obviously, disobedience of civil law is an extreme measure that a particular Church might adopt in exceptional circumstances," he writes. "It is nonetheless a possibility that must not be excluded a priori, in case a system of secularized values should become the only one operating in Europe."

Was this a random, unrepresentative text, out of the mainstream?

Well, one indication that it is not merely a stray opinion, but rather part of a growing consensus, is that the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano saw fit to publish Archbishop Hilarion's text almost in its entirety on Dec. 2.

John Thavis, the distinguished Vaticanist for Catholic News Service -- of the U.S. bishops' conference -- wrote Dec. 11: "The Russian Orthodox Church has come forward to propose a strategic alliance with the Catholic Church aimed, in effect, at saving Europe's soul from 'Western post-Christian humanism.' The offer came in an introduction written by Russian Orthodox Archbishop Hilarion to a book of speeches by Benedict XVI on Europe's spiritual crisis, published in Russian by the Orthodox Moscow Patriarchate. In an unusual move, the Vatican newspaper published almost the entire introduction in its Dec. 2 edition."

Thavis notes that Archbishop Hilarion's proposal comes precisely as 140 Christian leaders in the United States met in New York and issued the "Manhattan Declaration" pledging renewed zeal in defending the unborn, defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman, and protecting religious freedom.

And, Thavis summed up, "Vatican officials made no formal response to the archbishop's text, but read it with great interest."

St. Gregory of Nazianzus

This introduction by Archbishop Hilarion should not come as a surprise. During the last four years, the archbishop has spoken publicly a number of times of such an alliance. In fact, in May 2006 the Vatican and the Moscow Patriarchate held a weeklong conference in Vienna, which I attended, outlining the framework for such cooperation.

Last month, I traveled to Russia and met with Archbishop Hilarion and his close associates.

One of them is Leonid Sevastianov, 31, the executive director of the Russian Orthodox St. Gregory of Nazianzus Charitable Foundation, established a few weeks ago with the blessing of Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill to help carry out Archbishop Hilarion's vision of working with Western Christians on behalf of Christian values.

"We want your help, the help of Catholics, and of Western Europeans and Americans," Sevastianov told me. "Patriarch Kirill has called for the moral renewal of Russia, through a return to the deep values of the Christian faith. This is our vision." (Forbes magazine in November named Patriarch Kirill as one of the most powerful leaders in Russia today.)

St. Gregory of Nazianzus was a theologian in the 300s, well before the division of the Church into East and West, and so is venerated both by the Catholics and by the Orthodox. He is a Father of the Church for all Christians.

The co-founders of this new foundation are Archbishop Hilarion and Vadim Yakunin, one of the wealthiest businessmen in Russia.

Other wealthy Russians are also prepared to support this foundation. But participation by Americans and Western Europeans would also be very much appreciated, Archbishop Hilarion and Sevastianov told me.

"We want to try to attract the attention of religious believers, in Russia and abroad, who believe in traditional Christian values, and who want to contribute to making society more just and more moral," Sevastianov said.

"We want to promote the idea of the unity between the West and Russia on the basis of common Christian roots."

Source

The role of Communion: Denominations wrestle with who should receive bread and wine

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Marialice Searcy, 83, of Kansas City, Mo., has attended Mass all her life and couldn't imagine not receiving Holy Communion.

"I can go to Mass and pray, but the Eucharist (Communion) is the focal point of my spiritual life," she said. "Without the Eucharist, I feel I would be missing an important nourishment for my soul."

But some Catholics are sometimes asked to forgo this expression of faith.

Most recently, U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy said his Rhode Island bishop asked him to abstain from receiving Holy Communion.

Other bishops have made similar requests to other Catholic politicians such as Vice President Joseph Biden and then-Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, and a few have said they would deny Communion to Catholic politicians whose positions, especially on abortion, go against church teachings.

How serious is such a stance for Catholics? And how do other churches view Communion?

"Of all the symbols of our faith, none invites more intimacy with God and identification with other baptized Catholics than the act of receiving consecrated bread and wine," said Edward Foley, professor of liturgy and music at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago.

"Conversely, preventing someone from receiving Communion is a very serious act, for it announces a rupture in their communion with the church, which is also thought of as Christ's body," he said. "Furthermore, it withholds what the church believes to be a most intimate and gracious encounter with the God of Jesus Christ."

In the final meal with his disciples, Jesus invited them to eat of his body and drink of his blood. Therefore, Roman Catholics believe that Jesus Christ is actually present in the bread and wine, and the practice is to receive Communion at each Mass.

"The Orthodox and Catholic churches understand Communion as a means of grace, a way by which God's grace comes to us," said James Brandt, associate professor of historical theology at St. Paul School of Theology in Kansas City.

"That is also the view of the Anglican tradition and the Lutheran tradition. The Baptist and Disciples traditions would tend to see Holy Communion more as the expression of the faith of the people than as a means of grace. Typically for them, they do Communion because Jesus said to, and it is more of a memorial."

The Methodists, Presbyterians and United Church of Christ are more in the middle, he said.

"They tend to be sacramental but not as much as the Lutherans, Catholics and Orthodox. For example, John Calvin, founder of the Presbyterian tradition, said Communion is a means of grace and a testimony of our faith, so he combined the two."

Brandt said that from the Middle Ages to the 1960s, Communion was seen as a somber penitential rite because it was a way of asking forgiveness for sins.

"With the liturgical renewal movement from the 1970s, Communion for a lot of people came to be seen as a celebration of Christ's resurrection and took on a tone of celebration and joy," he said. "A lot of time, the language is that it is a foretaste of the feast to come in heaven."

The Rev. Nicholas Papedo of St. Dionysios Greek Orthodox Church in Overland Park said he applauds the Catholic bishops who are saying, "If you are not going to support the teachings of the church, you should not take Communion."

The Eastern Orthodox tradition views the wine and bread as mystically changed into the body and blood of Christ, he said.

"Orthodox Christians are coming forward asking for the forgiveness of God and the mercy of God," he said. "They are standing before the altar of God asking for their sins to be cleansed.

"If they separate themselves, there is not mercy at this time, so there needs to be repentance so they can be in communion with God. If they are not repentant, instead of receiving the mercy of God, they are receiving God's judgment. Therefore, asking them not to receive Communion is for their own protection."

As with Roman Catholics, Holy Communion is closed, only for members of that denomination. And it is received at every divine liturgy and the major observances of saints.

Read the rest here.

Where have the young people gone?

“Nationwide polls and denominational reports are showing that the next generation is calling it quits on the traditional church. And it’s not just happening on the nominal fringe; it’s happening at the core of the faith.”

That’s the opening paragraph in a press release promoting a new book, “Already Gone,” by Ken Ham and Britt Beemer, with Todd Hillard.

Nick Garland, pastor of First Baptist Church in Broken Arrow, considers the findings so on target, the church recently hosted an “Answers in Genesis” conference led by Ham.

During the conference, Garland asked those in attendance to have a small group prayer that young adults at First Baptist would not be among the two-thirds who are “already gone” from the church.

Two-thirds of young adults who have grown up in evangelical churches are leaving, according to Ham and Beemer.

Information in the book is based on data collected from 20,000 phone calls and detailed surveys of 1,000 20-to-29-year-olds who used to attend evangelical churches on a regular basis but have since left them behind.

Garland compared what is happening in 21st century evangelical churches to Martin Luther’s Reformation in 1517 that created protestant churches and the creation of the Puritans who separated themselves from the Church of England.

“This is a literal re-shaping of the church the way it has been for the past 400 or 500 years,” Garland said.

“They (young people) have written church off as a moralistic bad guy that wants to keep them from enjoying their life. You don’t have to have a passport to find them; they are on every street in the city,” he said. And they’re not just young adults. Separation is beginning as early as middle school.

Young people no longer believe in Genesis, which is the basis for Christianity, Garland said. They question everything from creation to the divinity of Christ, and for that he credits laws that require the evolution theory be taught in public school classrooms and ban instruction on Biblical creation.

Nancy Mabry, youth director at St. Stephen’s United Methodist Church, agrees that evangelical churches are losing twenty-somethings, but she credits a reluctance to make any sort of commitment as the underlying cause.

If young people can’t commit to a skating party on Sunday evening until Sunday morning, they’re going to have difficulty making long-term commitments to anything else, Mabry said.

When she was in her 20s, she said “If you didn’t have a fever, you went to church. Some people say they don’t come to church because Sunday is the only day they have to spend with family. Why don’t they spend it with their family in church? Now, church is an option,” Mabry said.

There is an exception, however, according to Mabry. Traditional churches that are liturgical churches and smaller evangelical churches seem to be retaining their twenty-something members in greater numbers than larger and mega-churches.

The Rev. John Wilke, senior pastor of Immanuel Lutheran Church, has read the book and said he found it to be a fascinating study.

He cited one of Luther’s writings as something for church leaders to consider: “A faith that costs nothing and demands nothing is worth nothing.”

“I think that is where the church is today. I get too many things in the mail from churches that say, ‘Come just the way you are, you don’t have to change,’” Wilke said.

“While God loves you where you are, he expects you to change. We don’t put the fear of God in our churches, we don’t have that respect. We’ve made Jesus our homeboy. He’s not our homeboy, he’s our Saviour.”

Wilke said the only church he knows of that is experiencing growth in the 20-to-29-year old age group is the Greek Orthodox Church.

“The Greek Orthodox Church is a liturgical church. Kids want to return to something different from what they get from the world. If we want to reach these kids again, we are going to have to return to what the early church was doing. We need to raise the bar,” he said.

Read the rest here.

60 Minutes to broadcast segment on the Orthodox Church

The CBS news program "60 Minutes" will air a segment on the Orthodox Church this Sunday Dec 20th (check local schedules for broadcast times). His All Holiness Bartholomew Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople and New Rome is interviewed in the segment.

Source

Cardinal Husar of the Ukrainian Catholic (Eastern Rite) Church calls for unity in the Ukraine

Kiev. December 15. Interfax - The leader of the Uniates Lubomir Husar called for the unification of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the self-proclaimed "Kiev Patriarchate and Ukrainian autocephalous Orthodox Church, as well as the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in one local Church of the country.

"We have a desire to see these four branches back to the primitive unity. But this unity will not be the same as in the times (prince), Vladimir (Grand - IF)," - said the head of Church in Tuesday's press conference Kiev.

According to L. Husar, the establishment of a united church of Kiev should occur in the form of participations - need to combine faith and traditions of each of the branches to leave. "We are all equal ... We are the same can be only in the holy faith. And those already operating time, tradition, way - this is secondary. We must learn to be tolerant to each other, take it, do not insist that we must all become like one or another branch ", - the head of the Uniates.

In the view of L. Husar, Patriarch, who will head one local church, could belong to any of the four branches, and the spiritual center of the united Church will be Cathedral of St. Sophia in Kiev.

Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church came under the Brest union in 1596 to unite the Orthodox and Catholic churches in the territory of the Commonwealth with the recognition of the primacy of the Pope and a number of Roman Catholic canon, while maintaining the Eastern rite.

After the Lviv Cathedral Church in 1946 has been eliminated, although continued to operate illegally in the western regions of Ukraine and abroad. In 1989, the Church in fact was re-legalized as a result of diplomatic agreements between Mikhail Gorbachev and Pope John Paul II.

Source

Hat tip to Mike L. at the Byzantine Forum

Note: The above translation is from Mike L.

Keith Olbermann slams the Senate Health Care reform bill

It is not often I agree with Mr. Olbermann. That said I agree with more than a few of his complaints. Passing a mandate that people buy insurance from the Health Insurance Cartel with virtually no meaningful restrictions on what they can charge is outrageous. This bill is fast moving to the point where as bad as this would be, I think it is better to accept defeat, blame those responsible and move on. I am no fan of national socialized medicine. I favor a system similar to what the Swiss do. But just passing a law that requires everyone to buy insurance without any kind of regulation of the insurance industry is a bridge too far for me.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Bp. Williamson (SSPX) questions the validity of post Vatican II Catholic sacraments

OK. He did not exactly declare them all to be invalid (though he said some are). But he clearly put a question mark after the sacraments of the Catholic Church post Vatican II. Fr. Z says he sounds like a Donatist. I think he sounds like a sede-vacantist coming out of the closet. Of course after one announces that one of the most horrific and thoroughly documented crimes in history was a hoax it's pretty hard to get seen as anything other than a complete loon.

Read Williamson's statement with Fr. Z's commentary here.

Congress considers reinstating Glass Steagall Act

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Financial giants such as Goldman Sachs Group could be broken up under two bills introduced in the U.S. Congress on Wednesday, one with the backing of former Republican presidential nominee John McCain.

Both would reinstate the 1930s-era Glass-Steagall laws that barred large banks from affiliating with securities firms and being active in the insurance business. Those limits were largely repealed in 1999, a high-water mark for deregulation.

"It is time to put a stop to the taxpayer financed excesses of Wall Street ... This country would be better served if we limit the activities of these financial institutions," McCain said in a statement with Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell.

Passage of the Cantwell-McCain bill would force firms at the center of last year's financial crisis -- such as Goldman, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo -- to spin off investment and insurance operations, said Demos, a progressive think tank in New York.

A similar measure was offered on Wednesday by seven Democrats in the House of Representatives, including Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers and Maurice Hinchey.

The bills come as Congress debates a sweeping overhaul of financial regulation more than a year since a severe banking and capital markets crisis that rocked economies worldwide.

Read the rest here.

This is a rare case where I think government regulation is warranted. The repeal of Glass Steagall under Bill Clinton's administration allowed banks to grow into massive conglomerates with their fingers in every sector of the economy that have since been termed "too big to fail." That is something that must not be allowed to continue. We can't afford to have the entire country's economy put at risk again by Wall Street bankers playing fast and loose with other people's money.

Ben Bernanke is Time's "Person of the Year"

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, a student of the Great Depression who has fought to avert another one, is Time magazine's "person of the year.''

It was Bernanke and then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson who were said to have sucked the oxygen from a room filled with congressional leaders on Capitol Hill when they met last year to explain the gravity of the credit crisis that was unfolding.

Bernanke has since won another term as Federal Reserve chairman, reappointed by President Obama. And now he's won a Time cover.

Time chose Bernanke over House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Gen. Stanley McChyrstal, "the Chinese worker'' and many more.

Read the rest here.

I have a different honor in mind for the Federal Reserve Chairman. If we keep printing money as fast as they can load the paper and ink into the machines his face could adorn the $1 million dollar bill, which should cover the cost of a McDonalds double-cheeseburger and fries.

Howard Dean: Time to kill the bill (health care) and start over

WASHINGTON — Former Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean argued Wednesday that the health care overhaul bill taking shape in the Senate further empowers private insurers at the expense of consumer choice.

"You will be forced to buy insurance. If you don't, you'll pay a fine," said Dean, a physician. "It's an insurance company bailout." Interviewed on ABC's "Good Morning America," he said the bill has some good provisions, "but there has to be a line beyond which you think the bill is bad for the country."

"This is an insurance company's dream," the former Democratic presidential candidate said. "This is the Washington scramble, and it's a shame."

Read the rest here.

The political risks of success for health care reform

...If this legislation passes, Democrats will be held accountable for any failures or problems in the system. So if Americans' insurance premiums rise, they will blame the Democrats. If patients have to wait in line at emergency rooms, it will be seen as the Democrats' fault. If health-care costs don't drop, the Democrats will face the wrath of the electorate.

Many Democrats, including people in the administration, blame poor marketing for their difficulties in passing health reform. They say they haven't gotten the message out. But advocates of reform have spent millions on advertising and lobbying this year. And Obama, who many say is the best orator ever to occupy the White House, has pushed for this legislation constantly over the past six months. In that time, support for Obama's handling of health-care reform has dropped by more than a net of 30 points.

Yet before Republicans cheer that they may defeat this effort, they should beware what they wish for. A vast majority of Americans still believes that we need fundamental health-care reform. If the legislation fails, Democrats can blame Republicans by saying reform was in sight and the GOP blocked it without offering a real alternative to decrease costs and increase access.

The dominant issues today are the economy and jobs, and the public doesn't see either party making these a real priority. Further, polls show trust in government handling of domestic issues remains at historic lows. What most voters hear from Washington these days is squabbling over health reform involving a government role they don't trust and don't want.

Read the rest here.

Hear My Voice Oh God

The Republican Party is becoming "irrelevant" in California

Further evidence that the GOP is rapidly becoming the party of Wall Street bankers, the medical insurance cartel and Protestant Evangelicals. The party seems determined to repeat the mistakes of the Democrats in the 70's and 80's when they allowed their left wing to run the show condemning them to two decades in the political wilderness as their party became a minority in every region of the country outside of the left coast and the liberal North-East.

CLAREMONT, CALIF. -- A few facts reveal just how far the Republican Party has fallen in California.

A Republican hasn't carried the state in a presidential contest since 1988. The last time a California GOP candidate won a U.S. Senate election was in the same decade. Nowadays, Republicans' share of the state's registered voters has shrunk to 31 percent, a historic low.

"There are large parts of the state where the party is irrelevant," said Allan Hoffenblum, a well-known California political analyst who has been a campaign manager for Republicans in the state. "It's not even a statewide party, really."

But few stories better reflect the divisions and disarray among state Republicans than the saga of an obscure Southern California assemblyman.

He was unknown even by political junkies in the region until early this year. Then, with one vote, conservative Assembly member Anthony Adams became a symbol of California Republicans' chaos and destructive divisions. The story of the man who was once regarded as a loyal foot soldier exposed the toxic infighting that has come to define the party.

Now he became the latest straw dog in a fight much larger than anything about himself, an unlikely proxy in a broadening war for the heart of the Republican Party's, one engulfing Republicans nationwide. In New York, conservatives and more moderate party members fiercely contested a congressional seat that had drawn Sarah Palin into the fray on behalf of the party's right. Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a darling of conservatives, found himself in a political death match against fellow Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison, who had begun a primary challenge against him. The Adams skirmish was part of a pitched battle led by conservatives furious at those who, they thought, had not demonstrated loyalty to their principles.

When he cast an aye vote for Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's 2009-2010 state budget, which included about $12.5 billion in tax increases, Adams instantly became a pariah in conservative GOP circles -- targeted for political extinction.

Read the rest here.

Iran to try American hikers

LONDON — As tensions build between Washington and Tehran, the Iranian foreign minister said Monday that three Americans arrested in July after crossing the border from northern Iraq would be tried but did not specify the charges, according to news reports.

The minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, told a news conference in Tehran that the three had “entered Iran with suspicious aims. The judiciary will try them.”

Reuters quoted him as saying “relevant sentences” would be handed down.

Read the rest here.

Sentences are being contemplated before the trial? If the name were not in the story, that line would have narrowed the list of potential countries quite a bit. On a side note; while I feel badly for the families of these people I am compelled to ask why Americans keep behaving like morons by hiking or sailing near the territory of unfriendly countries? This sort of thing happens far too frequently and the US Government is then put on the spot and expected to clean up the mess somehow.