Catholic Resources not tagged as such

Michael Aubrey said:

If I focus solely on giving Catholics what they want to see, then I reject every other Christian group. That is not an option. I categorize Augustine or Leo the Great  as Catholic, I reject Eastern Orthodoxy. And currently, there's nobody to defend the Orthodox in the same way that you are here to defend Catholicism.

Michael, I do my best to defend Orthodoxy, honest. [H] I do understand your problem and realize that you have an "impossible" situation. I think, however,that part of your problem would be resolved by making some high-level cuts:

• Judaism rabbinical and non-rabbinical + Samaritan
• Gnostic
• Nestorian ("Eastern Church" or fold in with Orthodox)
• Prior to the Great Schism (Catholic & Orthodox)
• "Byzantine" Church after the schism (Orthodox and Uniate Catholic)
• Western Church after the Great Schism but before the Reformation

Trying to apply names retroactively will always get you in trouble. These divisions would result in some oddities but those would be easily explained. And the historically based titles would be predictable.even if people disagreed with the premise.

fgh said:

You really don't know that there's a whole world of Eastern rite Catholics out there? Maronites, Melkites, Chaldeans, Syrian Catholics, Armenian Catholics and I don't know what.

This is a frequent misunderstanding in America - one that has come up over and over in the forms. The norm in America is to not know even when you have a multi-rite priest. I could have you laughing for hours with stories of our provincialism in the understanding of church structure. Last I knew, the Vatican guessed that there were about 27 rites in addition to the Latin rite. My favorite, however, was an Orthodox church historian who took 3/4ths of a class to understand that the Coptic Jesuit priest in the class was Catholic not Orthodox.[:D]

Donnie Hale said:

What does it mean to say that they "joined the Catholic" but that "none of them are Roman Catholics".

"Roman Catholic" is a popular term for the portion of the Catholic church that used Latin in worship. However, there are others in the Catholic church who have traditionally used Greek or Syriac or Aramaic or Coptic ... and while the worship services follow the same basic outline gathering-scripture-Eucharist-dismissal there is significant variations. You also find differences in canon law (church law) that is cultural rather than theological e.g. married priests. And you find differences in theological emphasis that reflects the history and culture of the area from which the rite evolves. Even in the West, there are small groups remaining e.g. Ambrosian and Mozarabic that do not worship in the style of Roman.

Just as the Orthodox come in Greek, Russian, Syriac, Coptic, Albanian .... flavors, the Catholic church comes in multiple flavors - all the flavors of the Orthodox plus a few more of our own. The newest flavor is the "Book of Common Prayer" flavor which is an updated, resuscitated Sarum rite.

Donnie Hale said:

if they claim to be obedient to the Bishop of Rome, and he's obedient to the Pope - who's based in Rome, then they're *Roman* Catholic.

Since Roman Catholic is a popular term without any real meaning, you are right - but any non-Latin Catholic would look at you as if you were nuts. You are leaving out one level of structure. Most of the non-Latin Catholics have priests who report to a Patriarch; for the Latin-rite Catholics the Pope and the Patriarch are the same. Very little administrative stuff goes above the patriarch so the tie to Rome can appear very distant. However, as the Eastern Church is pushed out of its homeland, the Vatican makes the ties more and more obvious e.g. the use of Armenian seminarians at the televised Christmas Mass at the Vatican.

If you are really interested in the history/structure, from my Logos library:

Still above the metropolitans stood the five Patriarchs,495 the oligarchical summit, so to speak, the five towers in the edifice of the Catholic hierarchy of the Graeco-Roman empire.
These patriarchs, in the official sense of the word as already fixed at the time of the fourth ecumenical council, were the bishops of the four great capitals of the empire, Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, and Constantinople; to whom was added, by way of honorary distinction, the bishop of Jerusalem, as president of the oldest Christian congregation, though the proper continuity of that office had been broken by the destruction of the holy city. They had oversight of one or more dioceses; at least of two or more provinces or eparchies.496 They ordained the metropolitans; rendered the final decision in church controversies; conducted the ecumenical councils; published the decrees of the councils and the church laws of the emperors; and united in themselves the supreme legislative and executive power of the hierarchy. They bore the same relation to the metropolitans of single provinces, as the ecumenical councils to the provincial. They did not, however, form a college; each acted for himself. Yet in important matters they consulted with one another, and had the right also to keep resident legates (apocrisiarii) at the imperial court at Constantinople.
In prerogative they were equal, but in the extent of their dioceses and in influence they differed, and had a system of rank among themselves. Before the founding of Constantinople, and down to the Nicene council, Rome maintained the first rank, Alexandria the second, and Antioch the third, in both ecclesiastical and political importance. After the end of the fourth century this order was modified by the insertion of Constantinople as the second capital, between Rome and Alexandria, and the addition of Jerusalem as the fifth and smallest patriarchate.
The patriarch of Jerusalem presided only over the three meagre provinces of Palestine;497 the patriarch of Antioch, over the greater part of the political diocese of the Orient, which comprised fifteen provinces, Syria, Phenicia, Cilicia, Arabia, Mesopotamia, &c.;498 the patriarch of Alexandria, over the whole diocese of Egypt with its nine rich provinces, Aegyptus prima and secunda, the lower and upper Thebaid, lower and upper Libya, &c.;499 the patriarch of Constantinople, over three dioceses, Pontus, Asia Minor, and Thrace, with eight and twenty provinces, and at the same time over the bishoprics among the barbarians;500 the patriarch of Rome gradually extended his influence over the entire West, two prefectures, the Italian and the Gallic, with all their dioceses and provinces.501
The patriarchal system had reference primarily only to the imperial church, but indirectly affected also the barbarians, who received Christianity from the empire. Yet even within the empire, several metropolitans, especially the bishop of Cyprus in the Eastern church, and the bishops of Milan, Aquileia, and Ravenna in the Western, during this period maintained their autocracy with reference to the patriarchs to whose dioceses they geographically belonged. In the fifth century, the patriarchs of Antioch attempted to subject the island of Cyprus, where Paul first had preached the gospel, to their jurisdiction; but the ecumenical council of Ephesus, in 431, confirmed to the church of Cyprus its ancient right to ordain its own bishops.502 The North African bishops also, with all respect for the Roman see, long maintained Cyprian’s spirit of independence, and in a council at Hippo Regius, in 393, protested against such titles as princeps sacerdotum, summus sacerdos, assumed by the patriarchs, and were willing only to allow the title of primae sedis episcopus.503



Philip Schaff and David Schley Schaff, History of the Christian Church (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997).

fgh said:

It would be hard for a Catholic here to miss the Eastern rites these days, however. Even the smallest churches seem to have Masses in 2-3 rites and 5-10 languages. And the Iraqis are incredibly active. I've read about national meetings where more than half that turned up were Iraqis. And they've only just come! Actually, even my Lutheran church had a Gospel reading in Arabic in the Christmas Vigil. I bet those it was for were either Catholic or possibly Syrian Orthodox (the nearest Catholic church is in the next town).

Our parish had a Orthodox young man go through the entire program to join the Catholics  ... when he had to produce his baptismal certificate we discovered he was baptized in an Eastern rite Catholic church. His parents had simply attended an Orthodox church because it was the only nearby church where they understood the service.[:D]