Latin Rite Catholic Dopers: Ask the Byzantine Catholic Chick

[TVAA]

*Originally posted by Thea Logica *
**Interesting statement, coming from someone who has, several times in this thread, misrepresented things I said, and continued to do so even after the innacuracies were pointed out.

** I’ve misrepresented nothing – your reading comprehension is extraordinarily bad.

For example: the “meanspirited article” problem. I am fully aware that you found other articles on other sites on the subject to be meanspirited. I am not contesting this claim – it would be stupid for me to claim that you didn’t find them to be meanspirited. Instead, I claimed that the other articles weren’t actually meanspirited, merely honest about the nature of their beliefs.

You claimed that I said that the article in question wasn’t meanspirited; I wasn’t even talking about it.

I state this, and you claim that I misrepresented your statements.

:rolleyes:

Is English a second language for you, Thea? That would explain many of the problems in this thread…

Byzantine Catholics place the same emphasis on these things the Orthodox do.

Incorrect. The Orthodox don’t regard these things as window dressing or irrelevant ritual – they’re as much a form of teaching as the words of the Gospel or the priest’s sermon. The RCC’s practices have significant differences – and the Byzantine alliance with the RCC demonstrates at the very least that they no longer consider such issues to be important.

**And your point is…? Byzantine Catholics do not have the same emphasis on logic and intellect as the Latins do. Again, you’re attacking me based on the differences between Eastern and Western thought, and falsely asserting that Byzantine Catholics subscribe to the Western point of view because we are in communion with the See of Rome, despite having been corrected several time.

** I AM NOT ASSERTING THAT BYZANTINES HAVE THE SAME VIEWPOINT AS THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH.

I am pointing out that the Byzantines do not have the same perspective as the Orthodox, as the Byzantines are willing to tolerate teachings and practices that the Orthodox view as fundamentally incompatible with their own.

This is in support of my assertion that your claim (that the Byzantines are what the Orthodox would be if they were in communion with Rome) is false.
**

**Great. Now you’re not even reading your own posts. You stated that I said the article was meanspirited, and after I corrected you, you’re claiming that I said *you * said the article was meanspirited.

** No. I stated that the other articles (which you had presumably read) that you referred to as meanspirited weren’t. I then said that I never claimed the article you liked was meanspirited – which is the straight truth. I hadn’t even referred to it yet, and certainly not as meanspirited.

**Just once, can you try arguing your point without lying about what I’m saying? **

I can’t tell if you’re lying to discredit me, so defensive that you’ve deluded yourself into believing I’m lying, or simply unable to comprehend basic English.

[The_Asbestos_Mango]

TVAA, do you want me to go back and count the number of times that you insisted that I claimed that Eastern Christians believe that guilt for original sin is inherited, even after I corrected you? Making statements that you know to be untrue is lying. Unless you have another viewpoint on the issue and another word for it which makes it something else. (Whether Original Sin should be capitalized is an issue of grammar, not doctrine, BTW. Something that would be more appropriate to take up with an English teacher…)

And in you posts, you didn’t say the other sites weren’t being mean-spirited, you said they, in a context which implied that you were talking about the article at hand. Remember, I didn’t say other sites were mean-spirited, I said this site was the first one I’ve found that wasn’t. (been having a wonderful time surfing it, btw. There are some issues that weren’t touched on in my catechism- I did fire off an e-mail to my catechist- and I’m finding it quite educational)

In a grammatical context, therefore, it is valid to say that you were saying the article I linked to was mean-spirited. You then went on to claim that I said that you said the article was mean-spirited. I said no such thing.

I don’t think I’m the one with comprehension problems. Seems when you’re caught in an “error”, you either repeat it * ad nauseum, ad absurdum* (gasp, I’m typing Latin- where’s my komboskini?)

**

Incorrect. The Orthodox don’t regard these things as window dressing or irrelevant ritual – they’re as much a form of teaching as the words of the Gospel or the priest’s sermon.**

As do the Byzantine Catholics.

**

The RCC’s practices have significant differences – and the Byzantine alliance with the RCC demonstrates at the very least that they no longer consider such issues to be important.**

, well being as the Italo-Greeks, along with the Melkites and Maronites, never split with Rome over these issues, I would say that the phrase no longer does apply here. Also, we do consider them important, which is why we have never Latinized, and some of the Uniate churches that have Latinized are returning to Byzantine usages. I would say we do consider these issues to be important, we just don’t think they’re something that Christ’s Church should be divided over. The Latins for the most part (thanks in large part to Pope John Paul II, who has been actively promoting Latin Rite understanding and respect for the Eastern churches and their traditions) seem content to let the Byzantines maintain the traditions that have been handed down to us since apostolic times. The Byzantines are content to do the same with regard to the Latins. **

I can’t tell if you’re lying to discredit me, so defensive that you’ve deluded yourself into believing I’m lying, or simply unable to comprehend basic English.**

I don’t need to lie to discredit you. You’ve done a pretty good job of doing that on your own. And as to your accusing me of being defensive, …you’re the one who came in here looking for a fight. You’re the one using misrepresentations and distortions of what I have said to make your point. You’re the one who resorted to name calling.

You didn’t come in here and say, "well actually, from an Orthodox perspective, this would be considered heretical "(whether in the matter of papal primacy or the Immaculate Conception) and these are the reasons why. You just came in screaming. Your posts had a tone of hostility from moment you decided to get into this thread (the same is true of Dogface, but at least he can provide cites for his position, even though I disagree with him about what the quotations he’s posting mean in regard to East vs. West)

To misuse a quote from Rudyard Kipling, “East is East and West is West and ne’er the twain shall meet.” Which has more to do with human nature than it does with differences in belief. The Orthodox are being hard- headed, the Latins are being narrow minded (I’ve seen posts on Byzantine message boards that basically say, "Why do you have to call your selves Catholics of the Byzantine Rite? Why won’t you just Latinize) and the Eastern Rite Catholics are caught in the middle of it all.

Satan, in the meantime, is laughing his ass off…

[TVAA]

*Originally posted by Thea Logica *
**TVAA, do you want me to go back and count the number of times that you insisted that I claimed that Eastern Christians believe that guilt for original sin is inherited, even after I corrected you?

** I said the Orthodox did not accept Original Sin. You pointed to a brief mention of the phrase on a website and said I was a liar.

You’re lying out of both sides of your mouth, now. Now you’re not capitalizing “original sin”, as if one use is the same as another.

**(Whether Original Sin should be capitalized is an issue of grammar, not doctrine, BTW. Something that would be more appropriate to take up with an English teacher…)

** But in this case, the grammar reflects the doctrine.

**And in you posts, you didn’t say the other sites weren’t being mean-spirited, you said they, in a context which implied that you were talking about the article at hand.

** Yes, Thea, I used the plural “they” to refer to a singular article. That’s it.

Remember, I didn’t say other sites were mean-spirited, I said this site was the first one I’ve found that wasn’t.

Either you hadn’t found any others, and were making a rather peculiar claim, or you’d found others and thought they were meanspirited.

We’re not idiots here, Thea. We can put two and two together. We can even get four!

**In a grammatical context, therefore, it is valid to say that you were saying the article I linked to was mean-spirited. You then went on to claim that I said that you said the article was mean-spirited. I said no such thing.

** I don’t have the heart to respond to this. This is just pathetic.

I don’t think I’m the one with comprehension problems. Seems when you’re caught in an “error”, you either repeat it * ad nauseum, ad absurdum (gasp, I’m typing Latin- where’s my komboskini?)*

I haven’t made an error. The error exists only in your fevered imagination.

I would say we do consider these issues to be important, we just don’t think they’re something that Christ’s Church should be divided over.

That is incompatible with Orthodox thought.

The Latins for the most part (thanks in large part to Pope John Paul II, who has been actively promoting Latin Rite understanding and respect for the Eastern churches and their traditions) seem content to let the Byzantines maintain the traditions that have been handed down to us since apostolic times. The Byzantines are content to do the same with regard to the Latins.

Since your church teaches that the teachings of the Pope must be accepted, you are not following the traditions handed down since Apostolic times. Additionally, you can’t be “content to do the same with regard to the Latins”, since both the Eastern and Western traditions can be regarded as being handed down from the Apostles. At most, one can be.

I don’t need to lie to discredit you.

Yes, you do. You need to lie, repeat the same erroneous claims over and over again, and ignore the counterclaims made by others.

So far, you’re doing an absolutely wonderful job.

**And as to your accusing me of being defensive, …you’re the one who came in here looking for a fight. You’re the one using misrepresentations and distortions of what I have said to make your point. You’re the one who resorted to name calling.

** You’re the one who made false claims about the nature of your faith, then refused to retract them when you were challenged.

**The Orthodox are being hard- headed, the Latins are being narrow minded (I’ve seen posts on Byzantine message boards that basically say, "Why do you have to call your selves Catholics of the Byzantine Rite? Why won’t you just Latinize) and the Eastern Rite Catholics are caught in the middle of it all.

** Obviously, as some kind of bizarre averaging procedure, the Byzantines MUST be the reasonable centrists caught in the middle… right? Right?

[quote]
**Satan, in the meantime, is laughing his ass off… **/QUOTE] Ignorance makes Baby Jesus turn over in his grave…

[The_Asbestos_Mango]

*Originally posted by TVAA *
**** I said the Orthodox did not accept Original Sin. You pointed to a brief mention of the phrase on a website and said I was a liar./b]

Um, no I pointed to a site that gave a pretty good description of the Orthodox beliefs about original sin. Which the Orthdox do believe in. The Orthodox believe, as Byzantine Catholics do, that he consequences of original sin are hereditary, i.e., the effects on human nature. The problem was a poor choice of words that made it possible for someone like, oh, say, you, who doesn’t read carefully to misinterpret the article as stating that the guilt for original sin is inherited. From ths, you drew the conclusion that both the author and I were saying such guilt was inherited even after I repeatedly corrected you.

**
[/quote]
You’re lying out of both sides of your mouth, now. Now you’re not capitalizing “original sin”, as if one use is the same as another.**
[/quote]
Have you read any of my posts? I pointed out to you in an ealier post that I was using the lowercase to make you happy since you seem to feel errors in grammer are equivalet to errors in doctrine.

**

But in this case, the grammar reflects the doctrine.**

No, in this case the grammar reflects whether or not you think original sin is a prope noun.

**

Yes, Thea, I used the plural “they” to refer to a singular article. That’s it.**

Well, considering that in the post you’re referencing, I had not mentioned any other websites, except by inference, and that the use of the word “they” in the singular is a grammatical error so common that it’s frequently overlooked by folks who are more interested in the content of what is being written than they are in grammar, I think that most people who are following the thread (at this point, I think it’s just the two of us, the view count doesn’t seem to be rising nearly as fast as the post count) would have assumed that you were referring to the article I linked to. Otherwise, you would have said “The other sites weren’t meanspirited…”
**

Either you hadn’t found any others, and were making a rather peculiar claim, or you’d found others and thought they were meanspirited.**

I found others. I thought they were meanspirited.

**

Since your church teaches that the teachings of the Pope must be accepted, you are not following the traditions handed down since Apostolic times. **

I have already posted both scriptural and historical evidence that they were. You dismissed Christ’s renaming of Simon, calling him “Peter” (actually “Kephas” in Aramaic) and saying “Upon this rock I will build my church” as a joke. Jesus was just kidding when He said he was making Peter the earthly head of the Church. Sorry, I misunderstood. :rolleyes:

**

Additionally, you can’t be “content to do the same with regard to the Latins”, since both the Eastern and Western traditions can be regarded as being handed down from the Apostles. **

I think you mean “cannot be…” (see, I read for context, not grammatical nitpicks. I understand that in a long post, especially in heated debate, a word might accidentally be left out.) Both traditions can be regarded as being handed down from the apostles. Paul, who is the founder of the Byzantine tradition, primarily worked the mission field in the Eastern part of the Roman Empire, taught people who had Eastern modes of thinking. Peter ended up as the first Bishop of Rome. There people had more Western modes of thinking, tended to be more rationalistic and juridical in their views. This was the view adopted by, or in some cases, forced upon, the western part of the empire. It’s not a question of doctrine, but of interpretation based on ways of perceiveing life, the universe, and everything.

**

You’re the one who made false claims about the nature of your faith, then refused to retract them when you were challenged.**

Polycarp has already taken you to task on this issue. I don’t think I would have anything useful to add.

**

Obviously, as some kind of bizarre averaging procedure, the Byzantines MUST be the reasonable centrists caught in the middle… right? Right?[/b[

Well, yeah, sure ok, whatever.

**Satan, in the meantime, is laughing his ass off… **/QUOTE] Ignorance makes Baby Jesus turn over in his grave… **

[The_Asbestos_Mango]

drat this new letter-dropping keyboard…

[TVAA]

*Originally posted by Thea Logica *
**Um, no I pointed to a site that gave a pretty good description of the Orthodox beliefs about original sin. Which the Orthdox do believe in. The Orthodox believe, as Byzantine Catholics do, that he consequences of original sin are hereditary, i.e., the effects on human nature.

** The Orthodox do not believe in Original Sin, which is a specific doctrine composed of various claims about the nature of sin and guilt which they don’t recognize.

**Have you read any of my posts? I pointed out to you in an ealier post that I was using the lowercase to make you happy since you seem to feel errors in grammer are equivalet to errors in doctrine.

** It’s not an “error in grammar”, although “grammer” certainly is. The capitalization is used to signify a specific doctrine. The meaning of the words changes when capitalization is used.

**Well, considering that in the post you’re referencing, I had not mentioned any other websites, except by inference, and that the use of the word “they” in the singular is a grammatical error so common that it’s frequently overlooked by folks who are more interested in the content of what is being written than they are in grammar, I think that most people who are following the thread (at this point, I think it’s just the two of us, the view count doesn’t seem to be rising nearly as fast as the post count) would have assumed that you were referring to the article I linked to. Otherwise, you would have said “The other sites weren’t meanspirited…”

** In other words, you screwed up and misunderstood what you read.

** I found others. I thought they were meanspirited.

** They weren’t meanspirited, they were simply willing to openly state that they believe the RCC and Byzantine positions to be wrong.

**I have already posted both scriptural and historical evidence that they were. You dismissed Christ’s renaming of Simon, calling him “Peter” (actually “Kephas” in Aramaic) and saying “Upon this rock I will build my church” as a joke. Jesus was just kidding when He said he was making Peter the earthly head of the Church. Sorry, I misunderstood. :rolleyes:

** He didn’t say Peter would become the earthly head of the Church. He was making a pun – unless you’re suggesting that Peter’s corpse would be used as the foundation of a building.

Jesus later made similar statements to all the Apostles, saying that they would have power over both the physical and spiritual world.

It was Peter’s faith in Jesus’ nature that was to be the foundation of the Church.

It’s not a question of doctrine, but of interpretation based on ways of perceiveing life, the universe, and everything.

But Orthodox doctrine includes ways of interpreting the world. Your statement is invalid.

Polycarp has already taken you to task on this issue. I don’t think I would have anything useful to add.

Beg pardon? In discussing your faith, you brought up Orthodoxy and made an untrue statement about it. Specifically, you’ve made a claim that the RCC has been asserting for quite some time and the Orthodox have been vehemently denying.

[The_Asbestos_Mango]

OK, I give up.

I refuse to argue with you anymore. You continue to misrepresent what I say, then when I call you on it, you accuse me of lying.

You accuse me of lying about what my own church teaches, as if I would have any reason to do so, then falsely state that I was making claims about the Orthodox Church. I was not. I was making statements about Byzantine Catholicism.

You continue to quibble over a grammatical error, and insist that the fact that I made this error means that I stated that the Orthodox believe in inherited guilt for orginal sin, and that Eastern Catholics believe the same, when in fact I stated the opposite.

You use circular logic, make factually false statements with no evdence to back them, the demand that I provide evidence to refute them.

You resort to ad hominem attacks and name calling when you are caught in deliberate misrepresentations (also called lies)

All of this violates the rules of reasoned debate.

I’ve gleaned enough questions from this thread and from some Latin Rite Catholics who had sincere questions about the Byzantine Rite. I have written my brochure. The purpose of this thread has been fulfilled.

I’m asking the moderators to close it.

[The_Asbestos_Mango]

OK, I give up.

I refuse to argue with you anymore. You continue to misrepresent what I say, then when I call you on it, you accuse me of lying.

You accuse me of lying about what my own church teaches, as if I would have any reason to do so, then falsely state that I was making claims about the Orthodox Church. I was not. I was making statements about Byzantine Catholicism.

You continue to quibble over a grammatical error, and insist that the fact that I made this error means that I stated that the Orthodox believe in inherited guilt for orginal sin, and that Eastern Catholics believe the same, when in fact I stated the opposite.

You use circular logic, make factually false statements with no evdence to back them, the demand that I provide evidence to refute them.

You resort to ad hominem attacks and name calling when you are caught in deliberate misrepresentations (also called lies)

All of this violates the rules of reasoned debate.

I’ve gleaned enough questions from this thread and from some Latin Rite Catholics who had sincere questions about the Byzantine Rite. I have written my brochure. The purpose of this thread has been fulfilled.

I’m asking the moderators to close it.

[The_Asbestos_Mango]

OK, I give up.

I refuse to argue with you anymore. You continue to misrepresent what I say, then when I call you on it, you accuse me of lying.

You accuse me of lying about what my own church teaches, as if I would have any reason to do so, then falsely state that I was making claims about the Orthodox Church. I was not. I was making statements about Byzantine Catholicism.

You continue to quibble over a grammatical error, and insist that the fact that I made this error means that I stated that the Orthodox believe in inherited guilt for orginal sin, and that Eastern Catholics believe the same, when in fact I stated the opposite.

You use circular logic, make factually false statements with no evdence to back them, the demand that I provide evidence to refute them.

You resort to ad hominem attacks and name calling when you are caught in deliberate misrepresentations (also called lies)

All of this violates the rules of reasoned debate.

I’ve gleaned enough questions from this thread and from some Latin Rite Catholics who had sincere questions about the Byzantine Rite. I have written my brochue. The purpose of this thread has been fulfilled.

I’m asking the moderators to close it.

[Nomadic_One]

Thea before you ask them to close it I have a question. Is it common practice for Byzantine Christians to pray to Theotokos and if so why? I have a relative whom I attended a mass with (not sure which kind of Catholic) But they were praying to her. …any thoughts?

[The_Asbestos_Mango]

Nomadic One, yes it is common practice. With a caveat, because Protestants really get off on this point…

We don’t “pray to” her in the sense that we pray to God. We do give honor to her as the Blessed Mother of God, and we ask he to make intercessory prayer on our behalf.

BTW, if at the mass you attended (Byzantines call it liturgy BTW) they were referring to her as the Theotokos, it’s an odds-on bet that you were at a Byzantine liturgy. I’ve been to mass at Latin Rite churches many times and I’ve never heard the Blessed Mother referred to as the Theotokos. It’s a Greek thing…

Good thing you got your question in. I’ve already e-mailed DavidB to request that this thread be closed.

[elfbabe]

Wow… I had no idea that it was possible to disagree so violently about details like this! Amazing! I guess things like this are why there are so many kinds of Protestants.

I do have a vaguely relevant question, actually. (Hope it gets in!) How often are services in the vernacular and how often are they in… I guess it would be Greek? And do people get really, really intense about which one they prefer?

[The_Asbestos_Mango]

elfbabe

In the Byzantine tradition, services are always in the vernacular, although there are some congregations that feel that the proper language to do them in is… well, for the first few months of it’s existence, my Fr. Francis was doing liturgy in Greek because there were some elderly people in the congregation who thought the Greek liturgy should be done in Greek. Father wanted to protest because by not doing it in English he feared that he would “lose” the children who didn’t understand Greek, but his sainted mother said, “Let them have their way”.

Mama was quickly proved right. These same folks who had insisted on the liturgy being chanted in Greek soon came to Father and said, “We think the liturgy should be in English…”

Some people forget that the reason that the Latin Rite was done in Latin, the Greek Rite in Greek, the Slavic churches in Slavonic, etc., was because these languages were the vernacular for very large regions of the world for many centuries. It was only after the Roman/Byzantine Empire began to crumble that these languages fell out of common use.

[David_B]

[Moderator Hat: ON]

Closed at the request of the OP.

[Moderator Hat: OFF]