tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-73042886598650075.post1182160848423683284..comments2024-03-22T11:37:52.668-05:00Comments on Byzantine, Texas: Message of the Council in CreteByzantine, TXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17845681957622343484noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-73042886598650075.post-3749841742901515052016-06-27T16:29:22.809-05:002016-06-27T16:29:22.809-05:00I think you hear their voice more clearly in the e...I think you hear their voice more clearly in the encyclical text. <br /><br />This was a generalized introduction, I think more for the press. I don't believe anyone thought this Council would solve all of the issues. I hope and pray there was is another one soon which will have all together in attendance to give witness to what the encyclical expressed.Tonyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05361210535741723052noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-73042886598650075.post-394585184372953082016-06-27T15:39:56.161-05:002016-06-27T15:39:56.161-05:00Well, I read this “Message” of the council this mo...Well, I read this “Message” of the council this morning. This document (like all such documents) is a mixture of “the good, the bad, and the ugly”. Primarily being *moral* documents almost everyone ignores them. Does it provide any insight into the mind of the delegates? Not sure, as it seems to me to be right in line with the boilerplate coming out of the EPcate for the last 50 years or so.<br /><br />They seem intent on picking up one of the secular connotations of the word “fundamentalism” which is primarily a political meaning concerning political “rights”, etc. Strange considering the experience of Orthodoxy vis-a-vis Islam. Do they REALLY think anyone significant (real Islamic believers, real Orthodox faithful, or even the dedicated modernists/secularists) are persuaded by this neo-enlightment chastisement? Do they REALLY think “fundamentalism” (as they conceive it) is in the slightest way influenced by “inter-religious dialogue”? This section could have been written by any random group of a-religious North American university professors….perhaps it was… 🙂<br /><br />They seem to have swallowed hook, line, and sinker the *secular* (and very apocalyptic) philosophy of “crises” and “ecology”. They don’t seem to understand how fluid (indeed fadish) these “crises” are. Is sticking our finger up in the air to see which way the wind is blowing the message of the Gospel?<br /><br />Unfortunately for the Church point #3 is a succinct and simple affirmation of the *status quo* concerning “ecumenism” or “relations with other churches”. In this sense it is a victory for the program of the EPcate around this issue and does nothing to really examine this effort (going back 100 years – its accomplishments & failures). One does not have to be an “Old Calendarist” or (as certain Orthodox would use the term) a “fundamentalist” to see that this “dialogue” rests on a rotten ground and has lead to real harm in the Church. IMO, it centers around the idea of “dialogue” that presupposes certain elements uncritically borrowed from a secular understanding of man. Whatever the truth however, the need to examine the status quo is real and this gathering did nothing towards that.<br /><br />On the good side, point #9 is interesting and appears to be a small effort to question/criticize some of the fundamental presuppositions of the secular idealization. Of course as I note above, the delegates don’t seem to understand when they themselves borrow from these ideas.<br /><br />Overall, the quality of the content of these sorts of documents is really neither here nor there because almost know one reads them (in or out of the Church). Does it reveal anything about the quality and character of the “Churchmen” (to use an old western term) who signed it? Probably to some extant. This document does nothing but prompt me to ask (along with Newman all those years ago) “where are the Churchmen of old?”, which is to say where are the Bishops of REAL moral and spiritual authority?<br /><br />ChristopherJakehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16152024447008244670noreply@blogger.com