not really, no. the orthodox church usually keeps its head down and doesn’t try to gain attention. there are some churches in the orthodox church of america tent that are not very ethnic. some of them under the antiochian umbrella are a bit more outgoing and open to converts.
the traditions and canons of the orthodox church are in some ways more strict and in others more liberal. for example, orthodox church has divorce and allows 3 marriages (due to divorce or death), but no meat or dairy on wed.s or fri.s year around (there are about 5 wed.s and fri.s that allow meat per year); you are nearly vegan on and off for about half the year.
i would think that that a catholic who would want to go to a different denomination, episcopal might fit best. although a lot of episcopalians went orthodox after women being ordained. they mostly went into the antiochian umbrella mentioned above.
Anglicanism/Episcopalianism would indeed seem the closest non-Roman church to the RCC. Anglicanism was founded as a middle way (“via media”) between the Catholics and Protestants, and has a foot on each side of the Protestant Reformation. The liturgy and creeds are very, very similar. As an Episcopalian, I’ve attended RCC mass and felt completely comfortable; and my EC congregation has a number of former Catholics who belong to it.
The key differences are that the Anglicans have much less dogma or official teachings of the church than Catholics are used to, so you see a wide spectrum of theology – from very high church Anglo-Catholics to very liberal progressives to fairly conservative Evangelicals. The Anglican Communion has a titular head in the Archbishop of Canterbury, but the ABC holds nothing like the power or authority of the Pope. It’s not unheard of for Episcopalians to venerate saints or embrace other trappings of Roman Catholicism. And of course Roman Catholic baptisms and other sacraments are fully recognized by the Anglican church.
Methodists, having broken off of Anglicanism later in the family tree of Christendom, are one more step removed, but along with Lutherans also attract their share of Catholic Church refugees.
I’d actually doubt that. LCMS tends to be very fundamentalist in its approach to Scripture, while Catholics are not. In addition, while the ELCA has been very open to a rapprochement with the Catholic Church, the LCMS has not - stressing that the gap is too wide.
Does Pope Francis’s apparent status as culmination of a liberal “project” mean what it appears to mean, that the RCC has become far less liberal since the 1960s?
I heard quite a bit of noise at the time he started, but to me he has just seemed “conservative, but a tiny bit less conservative than the recent ones”.
He’s not more liberal, he just focuses the Church in a different direction than Benedict and JPII did. He’s reportedly said some things that sound more liberal, but has changed nothing that would comply with those reported things. He’s dragged his feet on the pedophile priests issue while really saying some stupid things from a publicity standpoint. His history of cooperation with some very unpleasant governments in Argentina when he was bishop there stands against him, too.
Remember that the same cardinals that elected Joe the Rat also elected Francis. Those cardinals did not all suddenly have an epiphany that the Church should be more liberal less than a decade after they installed the former High Inquisitor.
That’s more or less how I saw it too, though mine had less detail. I was checking because in general I’m liberal enough that most liberals find it excessive, and thought maybe because of that I just didn’t catch some kind of subtlety or something.
Oh hell no… until pretty much yesterday, you had priests with concubines and illegitimate children. Nowadays they’re supposed to ask to be defrocked and marry the woman.
Q: in a small village, how do you know who are the priest’s children?
A: those who call him Uncle instead of Father (translator’s note: not about incest but about the Spanish custom of referring to older males unrelated to you as Uncle).
There is the slight problem that the Orthodox have had the same problems as the RCC, simply not getting as much publicity as the much larger RCC. (For that matter, the prevalence of pedphilia appears to be the same whether one is discussing priests, ministers,rabbis, athletic coaches, etc. with the RCC having an institution with record keeping that allows more discovery. This in no way excuses abuses within the RCC, but people seeking to find shelter elsewhere may be surprised to discover that such shelter does not exist.)
If they identify with the religion, then they won’t leave the religion. Perhaps their specific church, but not the religion.
If they are suffering because of the abuse, then their sense of “community” will be shaken, if not shattered.
Naw, for most Catholics as described by the OP the most common route taken is to just no longer go to church, not switch religions. I mean, hell, “lapsed Catholics” are such a thing they even have their own Wiki page, not something you find for “lapsed Lutherans” or “lapsed Methodists.”
It will be a surprise to the Maronite Catholic Lebanese, the largest and most powerful christian arab denomination to learn they are Orthodox. Or the Melkite catholics.
I stand corrected - thanks. They are indeed in full communion with the Holy See, making them part of the Catholic Church, and not Orthodox.
Wikipedia:
“While the Melkite Catholic Church’s Byzantine rite liturgical traditions are shared with those of Eastern Orthodoxy, the Church has been part of the Catholic Church since the affirmation of its union with the Holy See of Rome in 1724.”
Hey, thanks for the wikipedia link. I quit going to church years ago. (Well, family funerals are the exceptions.) Had no idea I was still Catholic. Wow, who knew!
The Catholic Church’s requirements for who can take communion at a Catholic mass are actually that the person should hold the same theological views concerning the Eucharist. The Eastern Catholics do, and so they’re allowed to take communion. Most of the Orthodox do, too, so they’re allowed, also, at least from the Catholic standpoint, but they should still make sure their own bishop is OK with it, too (they might or might not be). Lutherans and Episcopalians hold what might be called compatible views: The official positions of those churches aren’t as specific as the Catholic Church’s, and so individual Lutherans or Episcopalians might or might not hold the appropriate (from a Catholic standpoint) views: They can talk it over with the priest beforehand to find out. Most other Protestant sects, however, have views of the Eucharist which are specifically in conflict with the Catholic Church’s, and so members of those denominations cannot take communion with Catholics.
But that’s an awful lot to explain to a few hundred strangers at a wedding or funeral or the like (i.e., the most likely occasions for a non-Catholic to attend a Catholic mass), and so it’s easier for the priest to just say that non-Catholics shouldn’t take communion.
And I’ll agree that most people care more about liturgy than about theology, anyway, and Episcopalians have a liturgy that’s almost identical to the Catholic one, and Lutherans and Methodists very similar. That said, movement to similar theologies isn’t unheard-of: After my dad had some confrontations with his parish priest and with the diocese, he started attending the local Eastern Catholic church instead (theologically basically identical, but liturgy more like the Orthodox).