For Your Consideration
by modestinus
Note: What is written below is a reply to a comment from the previous post. I am putting it on the main page because, after writing it, I realized that it expresses, better than most things I have written, my — how shall we say — “attitude” with respect to the contemporary Catholic Church and its relations with the Orthodox Church in particular and the Christian East generally (including those brave churches that are in communion with her). But I want to preface my posting of this comment with an apology toward those Orthodox readers of this blog who have, for good reason, taken my remarks toward their confession as hostile or, at the very least, uncharitable. It’s important to stress that I did not leave the Orthodox Church because I detest it; I became Orthodox — for a time — because I truly loved and revered the childhood-to-teen years I spent as an Eastern Catholic. Because of my very particular situation nine years ago, I saw no alternative to the childish atheism I embraced from my late teens to my early twenties than Eastern Christianity. Growing up where I did, and coupled with the decision some of my immediate family made, “Eastern Christianity” meant Orthodoxy. Yes, I could have held fast and returned to a dying Eastern Catholic parish, but that choice was not immediate to me at the time. I needed something concrete, something stable, and the Orthodox Church — for a time — offered it. The fragments of piety that I have as a professed Roman Catholic is due in no small part to what I experienced and learned as an Orthodox Christian. I have used this blog to defend the Catholic Church from what I consider to be the inadequate criticisms of the Orthodox, and I will — to the best of my ability — continue to do so. But that’s all it should be: a defense. I have no interest in seeing Orthodoxy fail. I do not rejoice in the afflictions of the Orthodox Church, whether here in the United States or abroad. The most meager student of military history, likely from the time of Ug the Caveman to the freshman class at West Point, knows that the surest martial strategy remains “divide and conquer.” That is exactly what Satan has done to a once unified Christendom. The unified counterattack has yet to come.
An Orthodox priest I respected and cared about a great deal once preached a sermon where he talked about several non-Orthodox visiting the church “after hours” because they were curious about what was inside. He showed them around, let them see the iconography and so forth, and answered their questions. I presume that these individuals were Protestants since they expressed to him that everything they saw and heard made them conclude that the Orthodox “were just like the Catholics.” He boasted that he told them that was not the case, that Orthodoxy was something substantively distinct, and that it should not be confused with Catholicism. I will confess openly and honestly that that sermon was one of the “kickers” that brought me back to the Catholic Church.
There are honest Orthodox quarrels with Catholicism. Some of them substantive, and some of them illusory. I don’t begrudge any Orthodox — particularly cradles — who are wary of Rome because, to be quite honest, there are a lot of problems in the contemporary Catholic Church. Even now, for the life of me, I can’t imagine why a devout Orthodox Christian in a stable, healthy parish would convert. The sad state of affairs is that most would see nothing to convert to. Sure, the “ideal” or, to put it another way, the “essence” of Catholicism should — in my humble opinion — lead to the conclusion that communion with Rome is the right decision, but these are, for most people, abstractions. In far too many circumstances, an Orthodox Christian would see nothing to convert to; they would only see what they would lose in the process. And let’s be frank, the thrust of the Great Commission was not to convert all nations after the populace had been schooled in 2,000 years of nuances, contradictions, problems, tensions, difficulties, etc. You cannot expect — and I, certainly, never expect — people to invest large amounts of time to studying the details so intricately that they can conclude that a Church beguiled by some of the most devilish problems in her long history is “the place to be” when their current position is, by even Catholic lights, a sufficient pathway to Salvation. That is a failing of Rome or, rather, the modern Rome — the one that sold out so much of its patrimony as to be, to the passing eye, a shell of herself.
Let me be clear. I say this as someone who loves the Catholic Church. It is the Church I was Baptized and Confirmed into, and it is the Church that I will remain loyal to — God willing — until the day I die. It is my path to Salvation, but I won’t ignore the fact that my path has not been a straight one. I pray for the day when the Catholic Church restores her heritage to the fullest and, with that, fulfills without compromise, politics, and chauvinism the profession of being the universal Church. That means, at the very least, ending its senseless internal quarrel with traditionalist Catholics and, with respect to the Christian East, making good on its promise to respect, uphold, and promote the fulness of the Eastern Christian heritage. I believe that God smiles on the Eastern churches in communion with Rome and the unjust hardships they have endured for embracing the full meaning of Catholicism. But their cross is a unique one to bear, and it is not one that Rome, in good faith, can expect the Orthodox to bear as well simply because it is convenient to do so. Traditionalist Catholics would do well to remember that and make the cause of unity with the East — and the promotion of their heritage and rites — part of their struggle.
My experience of Eastern Catholicism is of some rather strange liturgy and hybrid devotional practices. As with so many things, trying to be two things at once tends to result in some oddness — which is probably perfectly heimish and comfortable to those born and raised within that spiritual tradition. But it does seem to me, from what I have known of it (having worshipped for years in three EC parishes, one in Brooklyn and two in Atlanta) that Eastern Catholicism has all the worst of the ethnic insularity of Orthodoxy with very little of Orthodoxy’s coherence. I suppose that insularity comes from having been beset behind and before for too many long years, ground between the upper and the lower millstone as they are.
What, in your view, makes Orthodoxy “more coherent”? Because it doesn’t have “hybrids”? That would be a pretty myoptic statement given how much of contemporary Orthodoxy (particularly in the Russian tradition) is shot through with “Latinizations.”
that sermon was one of the “kickers” that brought me back to the Catholic Church
Wouldn’t you say, then, that the priest was right that “Orthodoxy should not be confused with Catholicism”? It would seem that you concluded that the two faiths are not substantially the same, and of the two you believed Catholicism to be the truth.
It is common for Catholics (on the Internet at least, for what that is worth) to take the attitude that Orthodoxy is pretty much the same as Catholicism and to find fault with Orthodoxy for not submitting to the Pope (i.e. “you already believe all the same things we do; why don’t you join us already?”). But in general these folks do not have the experience of actually living the Orthodox faith for a number of years, and so are not in much of a position to say whether or not it is substantially the same. It is otherwise with you; you were Catholic and are Catholic again, but you were Orthodox for a while. Does your experience tell you that Orthodoxy and Catholicism are “pretty much the same”?
I’ve never been a Catholic and so do not speak from much experience (though when I was younger I attended RC Masses frequently and had a lot of Catholic friends), but it seems to me that between Orthodoxy and Catholicism the similarities are superficial and the differences are profound. Since you are in a better position than I to judge, I wonder what your take on that is.
With all due respect, Chris, that is the sort of attitude that makes Catholics’ skin crawl. One almost despairs of reunion when one encounters attitudes like this.
Happily, I am not Orthodox, so my skin-crawl-inducing attitude will not be any barrier to reunion between Rome and the Orthodox. The more progress towards such a reunion there is, the more I shall be cheering from the sidelines.
In any case, assuming that what makes your skin crawl was my saying that “the similarities are superficial and the differences are profound,” that’s not an “attitude,” it’s an opinion. It’s a fairly well-informed and strongly-held opinion, but it is still only an opinion and is therefore subject to change, given better information and more effective persuasion than I have yet encountered.
It is information, not persuasion, that I am looking for here. I didn’t take Modestinus’s post in a polemical spirit, and I didn’t intend my comment in that spirit, either. And I honestly would like to learn from the experience of someone who has actually been both Orthodox and Catholic, since that is an experience that I do not have. It might change my opinion.
In the interest of full disclosure and given that we are talking about “attitudes,” I will say that many Catholics (again, mostly on the Internet for what little that is worth) seem to have an attitude that minimizes the differences between Orthodoxy and Catholicism, and does not take the distinct theological position of Orthodoxy seriously. And I will admit that this attitude irks me a bit; not to the level of “skin-crawling,” but a bit.
I think most Catholics don’t take the theological-spiritual differences “seriously” for a few reasons:
First, there are plenty of good arguments (which I won’t get into here) that the Orthodox overstate their differences as a matter of course. To say this as numbed Catholics to the “we’re so different!” routine would be an understatement. All I can do now is roll my eyes at most of it.
Second, where differences do exist, many Catholics are likely to take them as minor since these same differences exist within the various Eastern churches in communion with Rome. It’s not surprising for Catholics to default to the position that if the Eastern Catholics aren’t griping (or, at least, griping loudly), why does it mean so much to the Orthodox?
Third, most Catholics (like most Orthodox) aren’t sophisticated enough when it comes to what one might call the “true differences” to really dig down into the particulars. You have to reach deep — sometimes very deep — into theological history to extract the major divergences, and even then many Catholics with some (if not a lot of) sophistication of the issues will still shrug their shoulders and wonder, quite honestly, what all of the fuss is about.
Fourth, Catholicism — even prior to the mid-20th C. — has always been a big tent. Theological disputes, differences, borderline heresies, etc. have been a part of the Church’s patrimony for over a thousand years. There is a strong sense, even among more traditional Catholics, that the Church has room for alternative points of view so long as they don’t throw into question any fixed dogmas or major doctrinal points. Yes, the Orthodox reject the Catholic understanding of Papal Primacy, the filioque, Purgatory, etc., but again, many Catholics find that bridges can be built on these issues (at least in theory). And, again, many will point to the Eastern Catholics here.
With that said, I don’t deny — as a former Orthodox — that there are concrete experiential differences at the mundane level, though these, too, are minor in the grand scheme of things. It doesn’t take a 500 page tome to lay out the aesthetic difference between, say, a Low Latin Mass and a Sunday Divine Liturgy. I would say that Orthodox piety — especially popular and liturgical piety — is exponentially more ostentatious than Latin piety, but that’s not universally true. I kiss less icons and kneel in front of more statues now that I am back in the Latin Church, but so what? I don’t recall a different “spiritual high” taking hold of me when I was Orthodox over what I might feel/experience as a Catholic. (Does that make sense?) My personal disposition is toward the more “reserved” aspects of the Catholic tradition, but that’s just me. I’ve always been on guard against letting my feelings substitute for spirituality. Some, of course, don’t.
My issue with the priest was also one of tone. Sure, there are distinctions to be made between “mainline Orthodoxy” and “mainline Catholicism” (we’ll leave the niche groups to the side for the moment). But I wouldn’t be shocked if this priest thought there was more in common between, say, Orthodoxy and Taosim (cf. Christ the Eternal Tao) than Orthodoxy and Catholicism. Indeed, I have met more than a fair share of ex-Evangelical converts who will swear up and down about the commonalities between their previous confessional haunt and Orthodoxy and then utterly deny there could be any substantive relationship between Orthodoxy and Catholicism. This was really brought home to me after I announced to friends and former coreligionists that I was leaving. The litany of accusations against the Catholic Church poured in, and almost all of them could be turned right back on the Orthodox. The cognitive dissonance was astounding.
As a final point, I’m not sure what “experience” means here. Are you asserting that there is a fundamental distinction between the “experience” of being Orthodoxy and the “experience” of being Catholic? Maybe if you mean the experience of an Orthodoxy monk compared with the experience of a Catholic layman who goes to Mass twice a year, but then what you’re talking about is piety and focus, not the nature of the respective confessions.
I’d argue that the two are similar and different. The similarities are centered around sacramental practice and liturgy. The differences are centered on how those two are expressed through language and culture.
That may seem to not say much and be not much of an argument but, when
one compares both to evangelical Protestantism, especially the type that has no liturgical practice whatsoever, the two are remarkably alike.
I’m more interested in what is described as “traditional Catholicism”.
What does the phrase actually mean? After all, there are numerous Catholics, all formed in religious orders who have expressed an interest and openness towards other Christians and those of other faiths, who express Catholicism in language that goes beyond that of pre-Vat II Catholicism; Dom Aelred Graham, Dom Bede Griffiths, Fr. Henry Le Saux, Fr. Thomas Keating, Fr. Basil Pennington, Louis Massignon, Thomas Merton, Sr. Elaine MacInnes, Fr. Richard De Smet, Sr. Sara Grant, Raimundo Panikkar, etc;etc;. They are all Catholics yet would be considered by those who style themselves “traditionalists” as being heretics or heteredox at best. Yet they seem to me to express the true Catholic tradition of the best Catholic theologians, that of openness towards the contemporary world and a desire for true inter and intra religious dialogue.
That is one particular difference between Catholics and what has been considered standard Orthodox thought.It may be changing somewhat as Paul Gavrilyuk describes in an article in the December issue of First Things, ( sorry no link). He does describe how newer Orthodox theologians are working away from the neo-patristic views of Florovsky and others towards a more open theology. In that sense there is a similarity between Catholic “trads” and Orthodox “trads”-both seek to enclose themselves in a hermetically sealed religious world and a similarity between those Catholics I’ve mentioned and the newer Orthodox theologians.
We don’t live in the ancient world of either Byzantium or Rome. The “modern” world is here to stay and no amount of polemic against it will make either Rome or Byzantium, ( or Moscow), appear again.
We don’t live in the ancient world of either Byzantium or Rome.
No, but the authentic Tradition of the Church comes to us through those times and through the thought of the Fathers who lived through those times. The point is not to reject “the modern world” but to remain faithful to the Apostolic Tradition that comes down to us through the cultures of ancient Rome and Byzantium (and many other cultures). Of course we must engage the modern world (post-modern, now), but if we allow the modern world and its values to sit in judgment of the Tradition that we have received, then we have lost our patrimony and have proved faithless.
Then the “problem” is to “explain” that Tradition to the post-modern world.
Explaining is not repeating. Most of the theological language and
terminology has lost its direct meaning, ( person is an example- what was once quite a clearly defined term, used to describe the Mystery of the Trinity, has now become reduced to “personal” license plates, phones, etc;etc;).
If one has been exposed to this language for many years, it’s easy to think that it’s understandable to all when, of course, it isn’t.
The Church, Orthodox and Catholic, hasn’t done too good a job in this.
This remark rings strange to me. There’s a more plausible argument to be made that the Catholic Church’s insistence on speaking on a “modern tongue” has seriously compromised her position as the “pillar and ground of the Truth.” While it may have seemed like a bright idea to adopt (post)modern language, concepts, paradigms, etc. to express the Faith, too many theologians — without proper self-reflection — have run into the disaster of compromising the Faith in order to make it fit into alien forms. It’s too simpleminded to argue that since the early Church was able to appropriate the categories of Hellenic thought for its evangelism and apologetics it can do the same with, say, existentialism. People who argue this way embrace a form of epistemic-philosophical relativism that implictly denies there could be “truth” or, at least, “greater truth” in the thought of, say, Aristotle than the thought of, say, Husserl. Socratic philosophy is not the same as Phenomenology — and it just may be that the former is superior to the latter.
Socratic philosophy is not the same as Phenomenology — and it just may be that the former is superior to the latter.
Love this! Sharing with my hubby.
I’m intrigued about the notion of Tradition having to “fit” modern thought. I’m more intrigued about making modern thought “fit” into Tradition which is what, if my understanding is correct, Aquinas did. If I remember correctly, Aquinas was rather controversial.
Modestinus,
I am a convert to Orthodoxy, but I have found great spiritual benefit in praying the Rosary. More than any other devotion, it has led me into a greater love for Our Lady.
Because of my interest in the Rosary (I also pray the Fatima prayer after the Gloria Patri), I have recently become interested in Fatima. Would you please consider writing a post on it? From what I can gather, there is a lot of controversy that surrounds the third part of the secret.
Thank you.
When I was a viator, on the way to the Orthodox Church from Lutheranism, one of my former Lutheran friends who had become Roman Catholic (he’s taught at a Catholic seminary, too) told me, “Robb, you can believe everything that the Orthodox do, and be a Roman Catholic.” I replied, “I can already do that as a Lutheran. I want to belong to a body where we all believe the same thing.”
The case of the Byzantine Catholics is enough to give the Orthodox pause wrt affirming the primacy of the bishop of Rome. I’ve spoken with BCs recently who tell me that they are forbidden to ordain married priests in the US now. So their bishop has the priests ordained in Canada or overseas, then imports them into the US. No, thanks, very much.
And a shout-out to Christopher Jones. Long time no hear from!
Will reunion happen? Pehaps, in the will of God, when Peter is “converted” he will “strengthen his brethren.” It will be the work of the Spirit. And in my not so humble opinion, the cause of reunion is fostered better by those who strive, in Rome or in the East, to be faithful to their own tradition…not by those constantly blurring lines.
If this sounds cheeky, forgive me. I mean no disrespect.
Unworthy priest,
Fr. Gregory Hogg
Fr Gregory,
Shout-out right back. I’ve scaled back my online presence somewhat, particularly by writing fewer comments on blogs than I used to do. I find I don’t have the gumption for polemical discussion that I once had, and I am not sure that that is a bad thing.
the cause of reunion is fostered better by those who strive … to be faithful to their own tradition
I strongly agree with this. It calls to mind what I wrote when Benedict XVI was elected:
The new Pope is an orthodox Catholic, and therefore closer to traditional believers in other Churches than to liberals of any denomination. Christian unity, if it comes, will come not from watering down our confessions to a lowest common denominator, but from deep devotion to our common heritage in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
I hope I will be able to say the same of his successor. We’ll see.