Gratitude

I have only been reading your blog for a few days. Your writing is intelligent and thoughtful. I do wish you the best in your Orthodox Christian life. While I am a Catholic, I am very close to Orthodoxy and I participate in Orthodox worship as I can. God, who reads our hearts, knows why you have been drawn to Orthdox Christianity and His judgement is the only one that counts. May you be blessed in following Christ.
John>

"Rod, it's possible that your public comments about leaving the Catholic Church may cause your Ordinary to clarify your status, both out of love for you and for the sake of the Catholic community."

If the Archbishop of Dallas formally excommunicates Dreher then I think we'll all know for certain that all that *really* matters in the RC is being with the Pope.

How ridiculous would it be for the Archbishop to speak formally about Rod when he's never said anything about heretic priests and politicians who are pro-choice?>

Rod, being the same age with you and with young children, I can really empathize with you. It would be easier to tolerate the terrible state of the Catholic church if you were single, but with children whose faith you are also responsible for, you begin to look at things differently.

I have also considered making a move and I have considered the Orthodox. I fully believe in the doctrine of the Catholic church and if I were to make the switch, a church with a valid apostolitic succession, sacraments, beautiful liturgy would be my only choice.

I live in Alberta and we have a large Ukrainian population as well as numerous other immigrants from central and eastern Europe. Around 100 years ago whole villages uprooted themselves and moved to the prairies. We have Eastern Orthodox towns as well as Uniate Catholic towns.

From my personal relationships and observations, most eastern Orthodox do not practice their religion and rarely go to church. In fact, I have never met one who was active or in their faith. The church attendance in Orthodox countries reflects this pattern. As a result, I do not see it as a place where my children would flourish in their faith with the support of the community.

Terrible appointments such as Levada, Wuerl, Niederauer, etc. have left me wondering just how serious the pope is in his mission.

That is not to take away the flaws in the American and Canadian Catholic church. I sent a guy to their doorstep to convert and they told him "just because you married a Catholic there is no reason why you should join the church". Maybe he was not enthusiastic but I doubt if he would have been brushed aside if he went to an evangelical church.

On the Roman Catholic Faithful site, Stephan Brady wrote that a devout priest advised him that as a result of his mission if he ever started to lose his faith then he should stop. Maybe Rod, although your pursuit of justice was noble and just, you went too far and it hurt your own faith. If I knew and saw the things you did I am not sure I would come away unscolded.

I have managed to find some light in the darkness by getting involved in the tridentine mass community. I go to both FSSP and SSPX masses and I have been impressed by the faith and boldness of the priests (often strengthened after persecution, marginalization, and scorn by the contemporary church) and the faithful. Community does not get imposed, it just happens. Breakfasts after mass are well attended where everyone is friendly and knows each other.

It is too bad you did not explore this option. I have noticed a knee-jerk reaction against Latin mass by many in the St. Blogs universe.

Even in it's weakened and wounded state, the Catholic church is the biggest opposition against the forces of dark forces in the culture wars. True many of the culture wars are even played out in the church and it is a tragedy that the church does not remove heretics from positions of power. But still, no one else speaks for the poor, the marginalized, against abortion, homosexuality (even though the priesthood is infested with it), gay marriage, bio-ethics, etc. with one universal voice as the Catholic church does. We are a community of sinners called to be saints.

We seen to offend everyone and if that were not the case we should then be worried.

The Orthodox church is not a paradise. Few Orthodox churches recognize the Macedonian Orthodox church. Then you have Mosocow vs. Constantinople, old calendar vs. new calendar, etc. Also in regards to the culture wars, the EOC is mostly silent.

I will pray for you and your family. I hope you find peace, happiness, and most of all faith in your new church. I mostly agree with your articles, and though I do not post often, I will continue to visit your blog.>

You probably don't need me to tell you this, but your journey to Catholicism, and then to Orthodoxy, would make a good book. Even those, like myself, who cannot ever imagine leaving Roman Catholicism could benefit from your insights on our modern, dessicated Mass; the importance of ritual, liturgy, and beauty as an aid to truth; and the necessity of a proper Church environment to sustaining Christian families.

As we suffer through the Howdy Doody Mass so common these days it is worth reminding us that we, and the Church, deserve better.>

Let's see. Your first date with the young woman who would become your wife was to an Orthodox monastery. On the Feast of the Protection of the Mother of God (os).

It may have taken ten years, but why am I not surprised that you became Orthodox.

I wish you and your family Many Years.>

Let me add my prayers and best wishes to you and the family in the kind words of Fr Neuhaus.
Bishops and priests who believe that all is now right with the Church will have a rude awakening.All is not right.Games are still being played by both.The worst offenders seem to be Archbishops.
I regret that you had to leave the Catholic church but I pray that as your life unfolds you will find your way back to the Bark of Peter where you might be called upon to do a lot of work in the name of God and His church.
Oremus pro invicem>

I commented on the first post but it is worth saying again, God bless you and yours, Rod. And, many years!

My own son became Orthodox and married an Orthodox girl, and I thanked the priest who chrismated him. I believe my son also commented in the long thread after the first "I'm Orthodox" post.

Because of him I attended Orthodox worship and was so moved that my discontent with the current state of Catholic worship came to a head and I had to do something. I have started attended a Byzantine Catholic parish. I don't think we do it quite as well as the Orthodox do it (in my extremely limited experience) but it is enough, dignified, reverent, beautiful.
I would like to worship in Orthodoxy but I became a Catholic after much thought and prayer in 1972 and I can't help it, I remain a Papist.
However I don't find the "white knuckle" comment off base at all. Some folks are in parts of the church where this might not be true, but there are many in dioceses where there really is a serious problem with Catholic worship...not "abuses" so much as a whole style which is not God centered, not numinous. I do know Catholics who would identify with Rod's "white knuckle" comment. If I didn't live near a Byzantine church I think it might apply to me. If any reader has no reason to feel this way, he should count his blessings.

I don't understand the impulse to tell Rod that he is excommunicated...or maybe damned, to impute dishonorable motives to him, to tell him he is a person who can't be happy anywhere. What a way to treat a personal, emotional, soul baring story! I don't think anyone who is really happy with himself and with where he is, needs to say such things to anyone. Obviously Father Neuhaus is happy with himself and secure in his own beliefs and has no need to put Rod down or to violently assert the superiority of his own position. And can anyone imagine that such statements will be likely to attract Rod back to Catholicism? Or to attract anyone else to it?

Even if Rod had decided to be an Evangelical Protestant I would accept that his move was made in good conscience and wish him well. In this case, he has become part of an apostolic church separated from us originally through historical events in which the behavior of "our side" leaves much to be desired. Our Holy Father believes we still have essentially the same faith and I am sure prays daily for reunion. I know that Orthodoxy does not look at the situation quite this way, of course, but still, I think Rod has not gone so far away.

And for goodness, sake, he asked for our prayers? What man if his son asked for bread, would give him a stone, or if he asked for a fish, would give him a serpent? What man, if his brother asked for prayers,
would give him condemnations?

My prayers and good wishes are with you, Rod.
Susan Peterson>

I have only now discovered the earlier, longer post outlining Rod Dreher's conversion. Rod, my question was answered there. I pray that we may soon be reunited in one Church via the erasure of the stupidities of 1054.>

Jennifer
the fellow wrote "Catholic Church"
not Orthodox Catholic Church! so to change a persons words and think you are being funny is dumb...Jesus established the Catholic Church not the Orthodox Church!>

"not Orthodox Catholic Church! so to change a persons words and think you are being funny is dumb...Jesus established the Catholic Church not the Orthodox Church!"

Yes, Anonymous, you are correct. Jesus did establish the Catholic Church and those of us call ourselves Orthodox Christians are members of the Catholic Church.

You see, Anonymous, we Orthodox believe that the Orthodox Church is the Catholic Church.

And I was attempting to be "funny" because many triumphantist RCs miss that point. You beat us over the head with "Jesus established the Catholic Church" and we're like "yeah...that's why we're a part of it.">

Yes, we're orthodox Catholics, not catholic Orthodox. There is a difference.>

Actually, James, I've known some pretty unorthodox Catholics in my time! A lot of them, unfortunately, were Jesuits.>

David, I certainly agree with you there about many Jesuits. I weep in my heart for the sorry state of that once-great order.

But I don't count them as Catholic, no matter how much they claim they have the so-called "Catholic imagination" or "Catholic sensibility." I think the Orthodox would agree that right belief is what counts, and these heterodox "Catholics" do not share the historic Catholic faith. Followers of Nestorius, after all, were no longer Catholic after Ephesus---they were Nestorians. "Catholic" itself started to be used as the name of the Church to distinguish it from the smorgasbord of other heretical forms of Christianity. So Catholicism has always laid claim to its universality by virtue of it having "right belief," or orthodoxy. Thus it is not a surprise that Western and Eastern historic Christianity are called Catholic and Orthodox, respectively. They are defined by the authentic apostolic faith that rests in their churches.

So, in my view, a heretic cannot reasonably lay claim to the name "Catholic." A "progressive" Catholic is a Modernist, not a Catholic.

Those of our Orthodox brothers who follow historic Orthodoxy (they have their heretics too) are more Catholic than our Richard McBriens or Joan Chittisters of "progressive Catholicism.">

Well, I would say that full catholicity will not be achieved until communion is restored. You are a body without a head, and we are missing a lung and half a heart.>

"Well, I would say that full catholicity will not be achieved until communion is restored. You are a body without a head, and we are missing a lung and half a heart."

First, we believe that Christ is the Head of the Church so we don't the need the pope to be our head. Second, we have the Eucharist so we have the fullness of the Church.>

James,

There was no "concelebration" between the Patriarch of Constantinople and the pope of Rome.

period.

Evan>

I have already agreed with you that the current Roman ecclesiology, especially with regard to supreme papal jurisdiction, was not always practiced towards the East in the first millennium. Our last two popes even agree with you, and they have (most graciously) opened that up for discussion in dialogue with the East. The pope has supreme jurisdiction over the West, but he is willing to consider mere primacy over Easterners not currently in communion.

I must say that development of doctrine is a concept that must be shared by you, because it certainly did occur over the course of the first millenium---and nowhere is there any justification for the idea that it has been frozen since then. Even Orthodox understandings have developed since then.

Papal primacy is a different topic than papal infallibility (which has become the straw in so many straw man arguments presented by Orthodox and Protestants---it is not what many claim it is). We were discussing primacy. Of course you'll deny it, since it is the sworn mission of anti-Catholic Orthodox polemicists to deny any share of blame whatsoever on the part of the East for the Great Schism (we Westerners, after all, simply apostacized), but the patriarchate of Rome held a privileged place as pre-eminent see in the Church, the mark of the unity of the apostolic faith for being the seat of Peter, first of the apostles. As the Council of Constantinople in 381 decreed (councils, of course, were not considered ecumenical unless the bishop of Rome was represented), Rome was the patriarchate of first rank, followed by Constantinople. The bishops at Chalcedon, after hearing Pope Leo's Tome, proclaimed that St. Peter was speaking through the mouth of Leo.

It is a blessing that many Orthodox do not see the Bishop of Rome as obsolete as the shepherd of unity in the universal Church. They refuse to wallow in smug triumphalism, acknowledge blame on both sides for our current separation, accept that East and West are sister churches (EP Bartholomew's words), and aren't prey to the same sin of schismatic spirit that pervades certain Orthodox today and that pervaded so many Catholics until more recently. They see that Catholics and Orthodox need each other to be truer to the Church that Christ founded and entrusted to Peter and the other apostles.

In the unity of Christ and his apostles,

James>

Jennifer,

You're right, many of the comments I've seen have been deplorable. The thing is, according to both council and pope, you (and now Rod) have a true apostolic church and faith, despite the differences we have on certain ecclesiological and theological matters and the current separation we share. It is the duty of every Catholic to recognize this and to fraternize with Orthodox to work for unity. As John Paul II wrote in his beautiful encyclical on this subject, ORIENTALE LUMEN ("The Light of the East"), "Since, in fact, we believe that the venerable and ancient tradition of the Eastern Churches is an integral part of the heritage of Christ's Church, the first need for Catholics is to be familiar with that tradition, so as to be nourished by it and to encourage the process of unity in the best way possible for each."

We certainly have our hard-asses, and I am sorry for them, but there is no doubt as to what the Church's official position is.

I think the problem is that your hard-asses seem to have freer reign. In Orthodoxy, it seems, any attitude or position on Catholicism is accepted, since the prelates and/or churches can't agree. On many questions, the answer depends on which representative of Orthodoxy you are asking. Ask all the overlapping jurisdictions in America and you'll get a range of different answers. That is why Patriarch Bartholomew can solemnly issue a joint statement with John Paul II that we are "sister churches," while another bishop or theologian can strongly deny that there is any grace in the sacraments of the Catholic Church.

This lack of consensus obviously makes dialogue difficult (as we've seen with the Eastern reactions to the Balamand statement in 1993 and the agreements at Lyon and Basel in the 13th and 15th centuries). I am reminded that dialogue between Orthodoxy and other churches with which it is not in communion can also be strained by this lack of consensus. I recall the 1991 official agreement between the Antiochian patriarchate and the non-Chalcedonian monophysite Oriental Orthodox church that each share a common faith and that there was nothing left to bar full communion between Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy. That statement raised both approval and fierce condemnation from other circles of Orthodoxy.

So we both have our uncharitables, but I worry that the lack of official consensus on your side allows for uncharitable attitudes among some of your clergy and religious. I have sometimes encountered some very smug attitudes in my experience with some. I was a member of the Orthodox Christian Fellowship (which, interestingly, included Copts) when at university, and I was very hurt one evening when we invited a nun to give a lecture on the Da Vinci Code, who spent a deal of time explaining how the "so-called Catholic Church" was to blame for Dan Brown's book. I am also sometimes hurt by the regular referral of Catholics by articles written by monks from Mount Athos as the "heterodox" and "papists." They also contend that many Catholics are "tormented spiritually" by the pope, who they refer to as the "man-god and idol of Western humanism." I have great respect for the communities on Mount Athos, and it is one of my lifelong dreams to visit them (and Cappadocia and Hagia Sophia), but I would hope for a bit more charity.

I'm glad that many Orthodox clerics and religious do not share these attitudes, but it is hard to deny that they are not uncommon among a vocal and significant proportion of others.

I certainly don't deny a measure of anti-Eastern attitudes among Catholic clerics and bishops in the past, but that has dissipated greatly over the past 40 years, since the magisterium, expressed through the Second Vatican Council and papal encyclicals, discouraged and/or condemned them. The Church has spoken clearly on it. I have found it hard to find Catholic clerics or theologians, save schismatics or near-schismatics themselves, who speak so strongly against the East today.>

They are not Catholic clerics or theologians.

Secondly, those words from the monks at Mount Athos are seen frequently not just from them but from others. You'll find the Mount Athos statement here: http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/ecumenism/athos_bal.aspx

Very ugly stuff.


It is a bit hypocritical for you to accuse the Catholics of being uncharitable in their refusal to recognize Anglican orders. Most leaders in your Church do not recognize any orders except their own. I would also surmise that many would also argue that since the Anglican (and Catholic) communions are devoid of grace, theosis is not possible among them, and thus they are headed for damnation. I have actually heard this from Orthodox clerics. One of our clerics, Leonard Feeney, was excommunicated for his presumption that he could determine the limits of God's grace.

"Speaking for myself only, the RCC's got a lot of stuff to work on before we can start talking."

This smug statement speaks for itself.

Though you have it half right---you still need to talk it out amongst yourselves, especially in the chaotic United States, before you are ready to talk seriously with anybody else. A large number of Orthodox do not agree that their largely ethnic churches have a monopoly on grace and truth. That kind of thinking makes you feel powerful and self-righteous, but it isn't of Christ. I'm glad that the Catholic bishops have agreed to THAT.>

Think what you want, Jennifer. Your statements and twisting of the truth speak for themselves.

I have great affection for Orthodoxy and consider it a true church. I count many Orthodox as friends and even attended a Greek Orthodox divine liturgy while in university.

What I have a problem with are smug, superior Orthodox like you who think your relative splinter of the true Church is all there is. Look beyond the narrow confines of your own institution and see the light that shines elsewhere, including in the Western Church which stakes as great a claim to apostolicity as yours.

I believe you are wrong in that you think you are the ONLY bearer of the fullness of truth.

Don't accuse me of superiority. Look at yourself before you lay that charge. Are you a convert to Orthodoxy?

To be honest, you shouldn't be arguing with me. You should be arguing with the many faithful Orthodox who consider East and West to be sister churches, who respect the Western tradition and don't fall into a quasi-Donatist idolatry. Perhaps you should start with your own Ecumenical Patriarch.>

Jennifer, it was educational and interesting for the rest of us.>