Following the footsteps of our Lord: the Eastern Catholic churches
This week a synod of Middle Eastern bishops commenced at the Vatican. The majority of Catholics in the Middle East are members of one of the 22 Eastern Catholic churches*, so most of the representatives at the Synod are Eastern Catholics. As regular readers of this blog know, I have a special affinity for the Eastern Catholic churches, even though I am a member of the Latin church.
Over the past forty years, the Church’s magisterium has made clear that the Eastern Catholic churches are to maintain their Eastern traditions, something that Pope Benedict reiterated this week. This is something that most Western Catholics are willing to give lip service to, but often choke on the details. To many of us, traditions like infant communion (and confirmation), married priests, and self-ruling churches appear to be non-Catholic. But we should not judge the practices of the East in light of our historic battles with Protestantism and secularism, but instead in light of their own ancient traditions. For example, the East does not allow married priests because they despise celibacy (as many anti-Catholics in the West do), but because they live out the celibate lifestyle in monasteries and in the episcopate. The traditions of the East are as venerable as those in the West, and they can – and should – coexist in the Church without preference being given to one over the other.
The Eastern Catholic churches have a role in the Church that is remarkable and in many areas, rejected and even reviled. They are a witness for Eastern Christianity to the West, and a witness for communion with Rome to the East. As such, they are usually held in suspicion on both sides. Western Catholics suspect that they are not “Catholic” enough, and the Orthodox do not believe them to be truly Eastern. They must live out their vocation in the midst of a world which does not support them. Furthermore, their mission is to eventually no longer exist, for once reunion occurs, most would simply be subsumed into their sister Orthodox churches.
In other words, they have a mission which leads them to be rejected by this world and eventually to die. Who does that sound like? The Eastern Catholic churches follow in the footsteps of our Lord, who was rejected by men and was put to death. But just as the death of Christ led to resurrection, so too will the “death” of the Eastern Catholic churches lead to the Church’s resurrection as a reunited Church. All Catholics should pray fervently that the Eastern Catholic churches continue to grow and to be the special witness for a Church that breathes with both lungs again.
* The Catholic Near East Welfare Association has a wonderful overview of these churches in their latest ONE magazine, which can be found online here.
“This is something that most Western Catholics are willing to give lip service to, but often choke on the details. To many of us, traditions like infant communion (and confirmation), married priests, and self-ruling churches appear to be non-Catholic. But we should not judge the practices of the East in light of our historic battles with Protestantism and secularism, but instead in light of their own ancient traditions.”
Eric, it’s about time you stopped brow beating, in this mythological creature that you call “Western Catholics.” Who seem to be judgmental about married priest, infant communion and sundry other Eastern traditions. This mythological creature hardly exists today, There some places in this country that have married Western priest, from Anglican conversions, no one see that in a negative light, why would they now, see married eastern priest as such?
In this day and age, Most of what you can complain about can be chalked up to ignorance, (i.e lack of knowledge) rather than some sort of disdain or judgementalism on the part o Western Catholics. Time for the myth to die.
I agree with Tap. I don’t know of whom you speak. I would love to see the Eastern Churches flourish and become prominent. I would love for communion with our Orthodox brothers and sisters. I think most reasonably knowledgeable Latin rite Catholics reading this(i.e., your target audience) would agree and welcome a more prominent Eastern witness. So perhaps its time to stop scolding us.
Tap and Rob,
I hope and pray that you guys are right, but I must admit that I don’t see things as quite so rosy. I am often encountering Latin Catholics who distrust the Eastern traditions and relegate them to a “second class” status within the Church. As just one example, there is the case of the professor at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross who argued that married priests should be phased out in the East.
I do think we are making considerable progress – just one hundred years ago American bishops were forcing Eastern Catholics to not allow married priests on our shores – but I think we still have a long way to go in this regard.
I think I would personally ascribe this sort of thing more to ignorance rather than malevolence. I’m a big fan of the Eastern Churches and rave about them regularly to my friends. I usually get quizzical looks and questions like “So they’re *really* Catholic?”, rather than any direct opposition.
I think you have hit the nail on the head though – the distrust (or maybe “unease” would be a better word?) with regards to the Eastern Churches comes from the reaction to the Protestant Reformation. The average Catholic sees something unfamiliar and immediately puts up his guard, rather than recognising beautiful diversity in unity.
Eric’s right, though. Those who think that ‘that’ kind of Western Catholic hardly exists, should talk to a few more Eastern Catholics about their experiences. I’m a Latin myself, who believes in every teaching of the Church (now how do I describe that? Catholic, orthodox, traditional?). I go to an Eastern church with a married priest. I’ve seen the pressure to latinize firsthand. It may be out of ignorance, an innocent assumption that the Latin way is the only way to be ‘really Catholic’. It’s one of the things that makes many Orthodox very uncomfortable about reunion with the Catholic Church.
I think that some of the mistrust that Latin Catholics often have of Eastern Catholics is this strange phenomenon that we are starting to see in our Byzantine and Oriental brothers: The outright rejection of Catholic dogma. Some Eastern Catholics have begun to doubt Catholic teachings from Papal Infallibility to the Immaculate Conception. Now, I know that some will argue that they are simply describing the same mystery in different terminology, but that may only be true of some. Some Eastern Catholics, and you will find this online, explicitly profess that the Latin Church is in error on many matters pertaining to dogma. In fact, you will find some that profess that the Council of Trent and Vatican I are nothing more than local synods, without the power to define Catholic teaching.
To add to this, I have seen Eastern Catholics who want Latins to discontinue practices such as Eucharistic adoration. It’s not just the Latins that some times want to push their traditions on the East. It goes the other way as well.
Insofar as statistics are worth anything, are there comparative statistics as to people joining the various Eastern Churches as compared to the ‘Latin’ Church?
Are far should ecumenism go with the Orthodox? For example, can all of the theology of St. Gregory Palamas be accepted by a Catholic, for example the essence energies distinction? Can that distinction be reconciled with Vatican I’s definition of divine simplicity? Are there Catholic Palamites? Has a pope ever spoken on this? I know the Byzantine Catholic churches venerate St. Gregory Palamas liturgically but that does not necessarily imply that the Church accepts his theology as Catholic.
D
You are right. These are indeed areas of concern. Gregory Palamas, was anti-Catholic, in that he opposed communion with the Catholic Church. Can such a man who rejected the Church established by Jesus Christ be a saint?
As for the essence/energies distinction and divine simplicity, yes they can be reconciled, IF one does NOT radically divide the essence and energies into ontologically separate metaphysical attributes as Palamas did.
Dear Christopher,
You accidentally addressed me when responding to Nathan Howe, but I would like to ask you what you mean by “ontologically separate metaphysical attributes” and where (St.) Gregory Palamas (whom I have not read much of, beyond quotations) says something dividing (or seeming to divide) Essence and Energies in this way. And what of St. Basil the Great whose Letter 234 I have seem quoted in the context of Palamite theology: “We know our God from His Energies, but we do not claim that we can draw near to His Essence. For His Energies come down to us, but His Essence remains unapproachable”?
D
St. Basil and the Cappedocians do in fact discuss the energies of God. In fact, even St. John of Damascus discusses the matter. But they don’t go into the detail that Palamas does They innocently discuss a Catholic truth, that we experience God by his effects or operations (energies) but we do not have a direct apprehension of God in this life. This is not incompatible with the Catholic doctrine of divine simplicity. In fact, St. John of Damascus asserts that God is simple and even calls the “Divine Energies” simple.
Palamas, writing much much later, on the other hand, teaches that the essence and energies are really two things and radically divides them so that they become another distinction within the Godhead, much like the distinction among the members of the Trinity. In fact, the division that Palamas drives between the essence and the energies is so radical that some Palamites begin to talk of two different Trinities: the theological Trinity of eternity, and the Economic Trinity acting in time. For this reason, the Palamite view of the Trinity CANNOT be reconciled with the Catholic faith. The patristic view, on the other hand, is fine.
Dear Christopher,
Thank you for your lucid answer. Do you have any primary or secondary (online) text recommendations?
E.g., I would like to see more about how undivided Essence and Energies and no direct apprehension in this life go together, and why the Trinity as Theological and Economic would be (or seem) two or radically ‘divided’.
Here is a recent development we perhaps should be talking about.
http://christerhes.com/2010/10/08/eastern-rite-catholics-fear-for-their-rights-in-ukraine/
the attitude of Orthodox Christians toward Eastern Catholics, in their traditional homelands.