Sorry to ask again...

[The Squalid Wanderer]

Dear Wolseley,

I am not trying to prove the evils of Catholicism. I ask questions and attempt an even handed interaction with the responses. Please note that most of my disagreements have been over matters of fact.

The point of bringing up the filoque in the context of 1054 was that Souljah had stated that this was the point at which Orthodoxy became a derivative of Catholicism. My response shows some incredulity at the idea since one of the reasons for the excommunication was the Easts refusal to change. As for 1204, my statement is easily supportable, many, if not most historians do see that date as a more appropriate date for understanding the terminal point between a unified East and West.

I try to ask hard questions and I attempt to rigorously test the responses I get, but I hope that my latest response to Jukes will show that I am not on an anti-Catholic crusade.

I am trying to accomplish an investigation of Catholicism. I admit that I am much more knowledgable in the area of Protestantism and Orthodoxy and this is one attempt to rectify that situation, and perhaps see just where the differences between them and Catholicism lie by cutting through the usual rhetoric of pop apologists and getting down to the meat of the matter. So in a sense, I am stirring the pot to see what rises, not for some devious purpose but because I honestly don't know what's in the pot and want to find out.

It's easy to just accept the polemics of my own camp and dismiss Catholicism, but I don't want to do that.  I want to give Catholicism a fair shake and see what they really believe, to know what the differences actually are and not just what anti-Catholic rhetoric says it is.

 

[Wolseley]

If you don't want responses from "pop" apologists, why are you here? Wouldn't you be better off questioning a Jebby with a Ph.D in moral theology?

Forgive me, but my impression is that you are arguing for the sake of the argument. I don't mind answering questions if someone is curious about some aspect of Catholicism, and I take pains to be as accurate as possible, although I make an error now and then; but going into these topics as we have here, again, to me is simply arguing just to argue, or to see if you can trip somebody up; and if that is the case, I have better uses of my time and facilities.

 

[VOW]

duhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

What's a "Jebby"?


Peace and ignorance,
~VOW

 

[The Squalid Wanderer]

Dear Wolseley,

I am here because all of you are actual Catholics and not caricature of some Jack Chick tract. That and I don't know what a Jebby is.

Why do you think I am arguing for arguments sake? How was I seeking to trip anyone up. If matters of a factual basis are presented and I know them to be erroneous I mention it. Should I do otherwise?

I really do want information, and I would be disappointed if you should choose to no longer participate, as you seem to be a very knowledgeable individual.

Help me to see where I have given you this wrong impression and I will try to clean up my act. I would rather do that then lose the opportunity to dialogue with you and other knowledgeable Catholics in this forum.

 

[Wolseley]

VOW, a Jebby is a Jesuit, a member of the Society of Jesus.

 

[The Squalid Wanderer]

Dear Wolseley,

Well then, I would love to, but I don't know of any Jebby's.  I should have made it clear that what I meant by pop apologists is someone who puts themselves forward as an expert on, say Catholicism, but when investigated, turns out to be quite ignorant.  This is why interaction with actual practicing Catholics is invaluable.

Do you think that this forum is inappropriate for my questions then?

 

[Wolseley]

I should have made it clear that what I meant by pop apologists is someone who puts themselves forward as an expert on, say Catholicism, but when investigated, turns out to be quite ignorant.

I wish you had said this to begin with. You appeared to be speaking about Catholic apologists, not anti-Catholic propagandists.

Why do you think I am arguing for arguments sake? How was I seeking to trip anyone up.

I received that impression from your statement here:

I try to ask hard questions and I attempt to rigorously test the responses I get

To me, this seems to indicate someone asking the most arcane questions they can think of---which they already know the answers to---to see if they can catch somebody in a factual error. I apologize if such was not your intent.

You must realize, however, that most of the questions we deal with in here are explanations of basic Catholic doctrines such as Marian dogmas like the Immaculate Conception or the origins of the doctrine of Purgatory. The questions you've been asking, like the impact of the barbarian migrations into the Western Roman Empire on East/West ecclesial relations, or the comparison of a hypothetical checks and balances system within Orthodox Christianity and Eastern European governments, and how this contrasts with the system of local and federal governments in the United States, are not the type of things we answer on a regular basis.

These are indeed "hard questions", and not the ususal thing most of us deal with here. We are laypersons here, and although most of us have college degrees and are extremely knowledgeable about our Faith, these types of questions send most of us to the research books, because we don't have answers for them. And while speculating on such topics makes for an interesting intellectual exercise, at the bottom line, they have very little to do with Catholic theology, belief, or doctrine as it is practiced on a day-to-day basis. The divide between Catholicism and Orthodoxy does indeed contain an element of disagreement about the role of the Bishop of Rome, but asking why a tribe of Visigoths crossing the Danube River and taking up residence in rural Gaul should affect this discrepancy, quite frankly, will obtain an intitial reaction from most of us here that can best be summed up as "Who cares??? What difference does it make?"

I'm not saying that your questions are irrelevant----but some of them are close. Maybe you might want to refine your inquiry to ask what Catholics believe on this topic or that, and leave the "hard" questions behind. In the end, they are nothing more than scholastic speculation anyway, and besides that, they amount to little more than personal opinion. I don't mean to be blunt, but in this forum we discuss Catholic belief and practice, not what any individual Catholic thinks of the dispute over the filioque between ecclesiastical jurisdictions.

Now: at this point, is there anything I can help you with?

 

[The Squalid Wanderer]

Dear Wolseley,

Thank you for the response. I'll try and lighten up and wait and see if I can come up with a question that is more appropriate.

For myself, these apparently arcane questions of history and filoque are the fulcrum upon which my decision toward either Orthodoxy or Catholicism swing. I don't know how to get to the bottom of questions like the Papacy without this kind of background knowledge.

In my mind, how the question of the Papacy goes decides everything. Part of the reason I investigated Orthodoxy first was my opposition to the Papacy, but lately I have been thinking that I was too hasty and need to properly investigate the subject to make an informed decision based upon fact and not prejudice.

This is what I have been attempting to do, not only here, but with the purchase of some more scholarly Church History books, so that I can get to the bottom of these different claims concerning the Papacy. It has been a very frustrating investigation to date.

I'll post something on my history thread that should make it abundantly clear why I asked that particular question.

 

[Wolseley]

Have you gone into the primary source documents (in this case, the Patristic literature), and investigated how the earliest post-Apostolic Christians viewed such topics as the Papacy?

That always did it for me. As Chesterton once said, "To read the Church Fathers is to cease to be a Protestant."

 

[The Squalid Wanderer]

Dear Wolseley,

The question of Protestantism is largely answered for me, it is the matter of Orthodox versus Catholicism.

I have read some primary sources and continue to read more, but I haven't found anything which might be called decisive.