A discussion of the Catholic and Orthodox views on Mortal sin and realted issues

zhilan · Aug 21, 2007

Benedicta00 said:
No, that is not why it is different. The validity of the bishops and subsequently the priests ordination is in question.

There is no question that Catholic bishops within the Catholic Church are validly ordained.

Just like there is no question that Orthodoxy's bishops validly ordained bishops.

The Catholic Church does not view your bishops or diocese as invalid or illicit, why? becuase you are who you say you are. You belong there. You have business being there. You are legitimate apostolic seats. You have valid succession.

Anglicans, not so much.

Not becuase they teach heresy, but becuase they are break-aways from Peter's chair. They are not a patriarche, not a apostolic seat. IOW, they have no business doing what they do.

A validly ordained bishop teaching heresy and teaching apart from Rome is illicit and wrong becuase he has no authority to go and set up shop somewhere else teaching what he wants.

But if he is indeed a validly ordain bishop, his ordination is not invalid, he can ordain priest and other bishops and again, that is illicit and wrong and he is out of line to do that but if his ordination was validly done, he is a valid bishop as far as I know. If not, someone will have to correct me.

So some of their bishops and preist may be valid although illicit. I think the deal with the Anglicans is, no one actually knows who is valid and who isn't. That's why they are in question. but i could be wrong about that.

But in any event, they just have no business doing what they do valid or not.

The Orthodox does have business, becuase the Orthodox are true churches. True apostolic seats.

You didn't rebel and break off of Rome, you are your own chair... you just decided that you no longer recognize Rome as having any authority, you kind of made your individual seats authority unto yourselves and you branded Rome as heretics in order to justify shunning us.

But the Anglicans are breakaways from Rome. They are supposed to be under Rome's authority, and they have blown him off and are doing their own thing in totally autonomy/rebellion.

The bishop of Rome as never been under the authority of any of the Eastern patriarche. So how could he have broken away?

Rome was always been since the first days, the final court so to speak on matters concerning the faith.

This is what is in dispute, whether or not Rome has said authority as the final court.

Not whether or not Rome is valid.. of course it is! It is Peter's chair... no one has the power to just up and say, the patriarch of Rome is no longer valid or licit. He has business being there just as the Orthodox has business being where they are.

Holy orders is a sacrament- just like marriage is a sacrament. And just as the Orthodox church has no business allowing divorce becuase what God puts asunder no man, not even a bishop can take apart, you can not just up and invalidate an apostolic seat that God almighty instituted. It just doesn't work that way.

What cracks me up is the offense taken at papal authority... no pope has ever been so brazen to think he can invalidate a whole apostolic chair.

You know there are plenty of Catholics on here who disagree with us. Many that even disagree strongly with us.

I have no problem with most of them.

But there is no one else on here who I feel so completely does not even attempt to understand us. You simply tell us "you're wrong, we're right."

You don't even give us the dignity of acknowledging our position.

It's sad. =(

zhilan · Aug 21, 2007

jtbdad said:
I have no desire to argue this with you. I don't particularly care if either the Roman Catholics or the Eastern Orthodox accept Anglican Orders as valid. You see I am one of those Anglicans who believe the Anglican Church to be the Church of Christ on earth and that the other two bodies while part of the Church are doctrinally in error.

Like it, don't, it makes little difference to me. I only intended to make the comment that it was Ironic that some Catholics are quick to point the finger and forget about the other three pointing back. It was not my intention to derail the thread and I apologize for doing so.

I like your style

zhilan · Aug 21, 2007

Benedicta00 said:
I asked, in reference to what they do to their own bishops mind you, how they think they can just kick a bishop out of communion becuase he is a heretic and then claim he is no longer a bishop.

They have no power to do that.

Yeah, if the bishop is teaching crazy stuff and he won't stop then kick him out and the bishop would be illicit if he went off and set up shop doing his own thing and sure, he would no longer be considered an Orthodox bishop but to say he no longer is a valid bishop is not within their power to say.

I would like an explanation as well.

It's funny because you keep telling us what we do and do not have the power to do, what is a sin and what isn't, what is valid and invalid as if that has any bearing whatsoever on our Church.

You seem to be forgetting that we are not Catholic. You might as well go to India and tell them what gods prefer what type of food.

zhilan · Aug 21, 2007

Benedicta00 said:
I understand that. It's the same reason why I would not receive communion in a SSPX church.

But i realize the SSPX are Catholic, they are rebelling, doing their own thing and they need to come back under the pope but they are Catholic none the less.

I just wish we would be respected for being Catholic.

You are respected for being Catholic. 100%. And the Anglicans are respected for being Anglican. No one is trying to say any different. What we are saying is you are not Orthodox and we are not Catholic. That's all.

Benedicta00 · Aug 21, 2007

zhilan said:
I already explained it, not sure if you read it or not. But thanks for your kind words about us not knowing what we're talking about. Clearly you know better than all the Orthodox bishops.

Yup, they are both sins.

As I said (in an earlier post) the pill is a sin.

I'm glad you know more about our religion than us.

Then you need to clue EC in.

No Swansong · Aug 21, 2007

zhilan said:
I like your style

;Thank you that is very kind of you to say.

Benedicta00 · Aug 21, 2007

zhilan said:
You know there are plenty of Catholics on here who disagree with us. Many that even disagree strongly with us.

I have no problem with most of them.

But there is no one else on here who I feel so completely does not even attempt to understand us. You simply tell us "you're wrong, we're right."

You don't even give us the dignity of acknowledging our position.

It's sad. =(

well then this is the end of the road for us.

xristos.anesti · Aug 21, 2007

Seriously, I think that we should concentrate our efforts to re-communing with Anglican communions and Oriental Orthodox communions as it is obvious that Rome is far gone -

It is also obvious that there is no point in arguing with Latins on anything - they know what they need to do before we can start talking, we also know they will never do it - therefore it is a waste of time -

Many years.

No Swansong · Aug 21, 2007

xristos.anesti said:
Seriously, I think that we should concentrate our efforts to re-communing with Anglican communions and Oriental Orthodox communions as it is obvious that Rome is far gone -

It is also obvious that there is no point in arguing with Latins on anything - they know what they need to do before we can start talking, we also know they will never do it - therefore it is a waste of time -

Many years.

I think there are a number of the Anglican provinces that are very close doctrinally. Additionally many of the "continuing Anglican" Churches would also be very close.

There is a wonderful Coptic Church in the city I belong in. My wife contacted the Abouna there to ask for an interview (for school) He spent the entire day with us, offered us lunch, answered every question gently and with love. He invited us to the liturgy anytime we wish. (He apologized over and over again that he could not commune us) All in all a very gracious and loving man. It was a wonderful experience.

Da_Funkey_Gibbon · Aug 21, 2007

zhilan said:
See now this is funny.

The Anglicans say to Catholics, "we're the same, we have valid succession, etc etc."

Catholics say, "Sorry, you don't."

Catholics say to Orthodox, "we're the same, we have valid succession."

We say, "sorry, you don't."

The only reason you think it's a different ball game is because in this case you are the on in the Anglicans position.

Can't you see that just how they don't see differences but you do, is the same as how you don't see differences but we do?

No. Did you even read the post addressing this? The whole point of debate is that you, you know, counter agruements rather than just finding everything amusing.

If Anglicans were in schism and in heresy, as long as their bishops went on conferring the sacrament of ordination they would have valid bishops. In Rome's view (a view which is outside the bounds of papal infallibility or anything like that, for the record), the wording of the book of Common Prayer was such that it was an acceptance of the priesthood of all believers as proposed by Luther, and so the ordinations did not take place as there was no intent to ordain in the true sense, and so the line was cut. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that the Orthodox probably agree that if there was no intent to ordain, no ordination took place, right?

In the case of the Orthodox, we think you have valid bishops, because while you may be in schism, your bishops still validly conferred ordination on the successors, that's the difference.

I have to admit, I was a bit confuzzled as to why you guys didn't return the favor, but I have to say I've come to understand where you guys are coming from a bit more, even if I still disagree. I mean, just because your Church doesn't explicitly recognise our Bishops as valid, it doesn't say they're not either. In once sense it'd just be simpler if you said that because we are in schism, none of our sacraments are valid. At least then Benadicta and I could go away with the satisfaction of a theological explanation, rather than woolly uncertainty, but I get that you think it's better not to do that.

Da_Funkey_Gibbon · Aug 21, 2007

zhilan said:
You are respected for being Catholic. 100%. And the Anglicans are respected for being Anglican. No one is trying to say any different. What we are saying is you are not Orthodox and we are not Catholic. That's all.

That's the point I wanna make here - why on earth are you respecting us for being Catholic?

I don't respect you for being Orthodox, I respect the Orthodox church because they are close to the Catholic Church in terms of theology, have valid sacraments, and faithfully hold on the much of the tradition of the Church.

Just the same as I don't respect Protestants for being Protestant, I respect them for preaching Christ crucified.

Likewise I don't want to be respected for being Catholic by someone of the Orthodox faith, that's just meaningless sentiment. I want to be respected for a mutual heratige, what we do have in common, and yet from post one in this thread you seem out to deny that we have anything in common.

zhilan · Aug 22, 2007

Benedicta00 said:
Then you need to clue EC in.

What does the EC have to do with anything I said?

zhilan · Aug 22, 2007

jtbdad said:
I think there are a number of the Anglican provinces that are very close doctrinally. Additionally many of the "continuing Anglican" Churches would also be very close.

There is a wonderful Coptic Church in the city I belong in. My wife contacted the Abouna there to ask for an interview (for school) He spent the entire day with us, offered us lunch, answered every question gently and with love. He invited us to the liturgy anytime we wish. (He apologized over and over again that he could not commune us) All in all a very gracious and loving man. It was a wonderful experience.

Coptic priests are universally awesome (in my own opinion =) )

zhilan · Aug 22, 2007

xristos.anesti said:
Seriously, I think that we should concentrate our efforts to re-communing with Anglican communions and Oriental Orthodox communions as it is obvious that Rome is far gone -

It is also obvious that there is no point in arguing with Latins on anything - they know what they need to do before we can start talking, we also know they will never do it - therefore it is a waste of time -

Many years.

I think more and more I agree with you. If anything this forum has convinced me that we have more common ground for discussion (even if in some regards we may be theologically further apart) with the Anglicans than the Catholics. At least with the Anglicans I feel like we can begin a discussion.

Da_Funkey_Gibbon · Aug 22, 2007

zhilan said:
I think more and more I agree with you. If anything this forum has convinced me that we have more common ground for discussion (even if in some regards we may be theologically further apart) with the Anglicans than the Catholics. At least with the Anglicans I feel like we can begin a discussion.

Sorry you feel that way Z (can I call you "Z"... it's cool.

), I feel I've taken a lot from this thread myself.

zhilan · Aug 22, 2007

Da_Funkey_Gibbon said:
No. Did you even read the post addressing this? The whole point of debate is that you, you know, counter agruements rather than just finding everything amusing.

If Anglicans were in schism and in heresy, as long as their bishops went on conferring the sacrament of ordination they would have valid bishops. In Rome's view (a view which is outside the bounds of papal infallibility or anything like that, for the record), the wording of the book of Common Prayer was such that it was an acceptance of the priesthood of all believers as proposed by Luther, and so the ordinations did not take place as there was no intent to ordain in the true sense, and so the line was cut. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that the Orthodox probably agree that if there was no intent to ordain, no ordination took place, right?

In the case of the Orthodox, we think you have valid bishops, because while you may be in schism, your bishops still validly conferred ordination on the successors, that's the difference.

I have to admit, I was a bit confuzzled as to why you guys didn't return the favor, but I have to say I've come to understand where you guys are coming from a bit more, even if I still disagree. I mean, just because your Church doesn't explicitly recognise our Bishops as valid, it doesn't say they're not either. In once sense it'd just be simpler if you said that because we are in schism, none of our sacraments are valid. At least then Benadicta and I could go away with the satisfaction of a theological explanation, rather than woolly uncertainty, but I get that you think it's better not to do that.

This is the problem. You are saying, "the difference is that Anglicans don't have valid succession but we do" but not failing to see that appointing yourself a valid doesn't make it so to us anymore than the Anglicans claiming they have a valid succession makes it ok for them to receive Catholic sacraments. The argument you're basically making is "well the Anglicans are obviously wrong so anyone can see why we can't commune with them." But that is just silly. No one is obviously wrong otherwise no one would be that religion. I'm sorry, but you're never going to get a report card on who has valid sacraments from the Orthodox. We don't put those outside the Church on a gradient. In the opening of the book The Orthodox Church, Ware begins by taking about Catholicism as being + A and Protestantism as being -A. Both of them are just + and - of the same thing. To us it doesn't matter that you are + A and Anglicans are - A. Neither are Orthodox and thus, neither can share communion. We're never going to say, "oh it's better to be + A so we'll let CAtholics commune but not [insert other group]." We believe that communion means being part of the fullness of the Truth. We aren't trying to be mean (just like you're not trying to be mean to the Anglicans), but we can't make false unity.

Da_Funkey_Gibbon · Aug 22, 2007

zhilan said:
This is the problem. You are saying, "the difference is that Anglicans don't have valid succession but we do" but not failing to see that appointing yourself a valid doesn't make it so to us anymore than the Anglicans claiming they have a valid succession makes it ok for them to receive Catholic sacraments. The argument you're basically making is "well the Anglicans are obviously wrong so anyone can see why we can't commune with them." But that is just silly. No one is obviously wrong otherwise no one would be that religion. I'm sorry, but you're never going to get a report card on who has valid sacraments from the Orthodox. We don't put those outside the Church on a gradient. In the opening of the book The Orthodox Church, Ware begins by taking about Catholicism as being + A and Protestantism as being -A. Both of them are just + and - of the same thing. To us it doesn't matter that you are + A and Anglicans are - A. Neither are Orthodox and thus, neither can share communion. We're never going to say, "oh it's better to be + A so we'll let CAtholics commune but not [insert other group]." We believe that communion means being part of the fullness of the Truth. We aren't trying to be mean (just like you're not trying to be mean to the Anglicans), but we can't make false unity.

Z, I'm getting really fustrated here - are you even reading my posts at all?

"The argument you're basically making is "well the Anglicans are obviously wrong so anyone can see why we can't commune with them.""
That's NOT WHAT I SAID!!!!! READ MY POST! Gahhh!

For us, (not for you, I agree) validity is about which people have the capacity to give out the sacraments - not about who's in communion with who, that's a whole other question. We're not in communion with the Orthodox, but we think you have valid sacraments. Just like we're not in communion with the SSPX, but think they have valid sacraments. I don't want to share communion with you (well, actually I would love to, but you get my point

), the arguement isn't about that.

zhilan · Aug 22, 2007

Da_Funkey_Gibbon said:
That's the point I wanna make here - why on earth are you respecting us for being Catholic?

I don't respect you for being Orthodox, I respect the Orthodox church because they are close to the Catholic Church in terms of theology, have valid sacraments, and faithfully hold on the much of the tradition of the Church.

Just the same as I don't respect Protestants for being Protestant, I respect them for preaching Christ crucified.

Likewise I don't want to be respected for being Catholic by someone of the Orthodox faith, that's just meaningless sentiment. I want to be respected for a mutual heratige, what we do have in common, and yet from post one in this thread you seem out to deny that we have anything in common.

By that I mean I'm not trying to harass you or call you an idiot for being Catholic. Bendetta seems to be implying that she is someone not being "respected" or allowed to be Catholic. I don't think she's an idiot for being Catholic. I understand that there are very devout and intelligent people who truly believe in the Catholic Church. I don't have a problem with that. But Bendetta likes to make sweeping statements about all religion based on her beliefs as if we are some sort of belligerent idiots for not being Catholic. She has stated that the only reason we are Orthodox is because we are running away from personal problems with the Church and she tells us what our Church has the authority to do and believe. And then she pretends to be a victim like she is being attacked for being Catholic. The only person I see making flat out attack statements again other faiths is her. I may have qualms with Catholic theology, but I certainly don't believe that the only people who are Catholic are either idiots or deliberate deniers of the truth. Unfortunately she does not return that favor.

I don't ask for you to agree with Orthodox teaching, only to at least try and attempt to see where we are coming from.

zhilan · Aug 22, 2007

Da_Funkey_Gibbon said:
Z, I'm getting really fustrated here - are you even reading my posts at all?

"The argument you're basically making is "well the Anglicans are obviously wrong so anyone can see why we can't commune with them.""
That's NOT WHAT I SAID!!!!! READ MY POST! Gahhh!

For us, (not for you, I agree) validity is about which people have the capacity to give out the sacraments. not about who's "in communion" with who, that's a whole other question. We're not in communion with the Orthodox, but we think you have valid sacraments.

I know that you think that. I read your posts. I know that you think we have valid but illicit sacraments. And I know that you think that Anglicans have neither. But Eastern Orthodox do not view things in the same way. For Catholics it is about validity and who has it, but for us it is not about that. For us, there is not a difference between Catholic communion and Anglican communion. So for you the fact that you do not define the Anglicans have having a valid order means they cannot receive. To the Anglicans, they believe they have a valid order and do not understand why they can't receive. Are you being mean? No, you are guarding the chalice based on how you understand the workings of the Holy Spirit.

Because of the way Anglicans understand the Sacraments, they do not understand and feel hurt by you're not allowing them. Under their understanding you can receive. But under your understanding (ie it's about validity) they cannot.

Because of the way that you define it, you accept our validity and thus allow us to receive and feel hurt by us not returning the favor. But because of the way that we define things (ie we don't determine the validity of non-Orthodox churches), you cannot receive.

So do you see what I am saying? In both cases it is about different understandings of the Sacraments. For you it's about validity, for us it's not. We are not being anymore more "mean" than you are to the Anglicans.

zhilan · Aug 22, 2007

Da_Funkey_Gibbon said:
Sorry you feel that way Z (can I call you "Z"... it's cool. ), I feel I've taken a lot from this thread myself.

Sure you can call me Z, although the Z actually makes a J sound (Zhi is pronounced like "jur" as in "jury"). But Z does seem cooler than J...which wouldn't make sense to anyone who doesn't know pinyin.....

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