Friction
A friend's encounter with a member of non-Catholic eastern church has reminded this blogger that there is considerable animosity toward Catholics. Granted, one or two or a hundred people do not represent the entirety of a given community. Nevertheless, the experience was puzzling and somewhat unpleasant for him and consistent with those who have had similar experiences.
This blogger has observed similar interactions between Novus Ordo attendees and traditionalist Catholics. If experience is any kind of a confirmation, Rad Trads tend to create religious silos of folk whose attitudes and behaviour run from bearish to bullish.
How can someone steer clear of conversations with people who hold resentment toward the Catholic Church or a different form of the Mass? How can one avoid insecurities that might harm unity in the community? Should we simply keep to ourselves and stay away from all discussions with non-Catholics?
People searching for the Church founded by Jesus Christ often face countless communities, each claiming to be the true expression of the Church and the Holy Gospel.
Furthermore, we declare, say, define, and proclaim to every human creature that they by necessity for salvation are entirely subject to the Roman Pontiff.
Protestant communities are rather obvious in their differences from Catholicism. For starters, a lack of valid holy orders and no valid Eucharist; emotionalism in place of sincere reverence; incompatible theologies between sects. Other communities claim orthodoxy, and the veneer of pretense may be so thick that a seeker may be deceived and enter into one of those communities.
On several points, despite their claims of apostolicity, the non-Catholic national eastern churches come across as pretenders. Harsh? Maybe a bit blunt, sure. But the facts speak plainly when looked at honestly. Without truth, there’s no real religion or genuine relationship with Christ. And without truth spoken in love, souls can’t find or receive the Light that leads to salvation.
Yes - many communities share elements of the Catholic Faith, but lack the fullness of the Catholic and Apostolic Faith. Lacking Catholic communion, they are but sects. Large sects, perhaps, but still sects marked by division and, oddly, contempt for history and facts.
Through the centuries, easterners have returned to communion with the Catholic Church while many of their brethren have remained outside the fold. Some communities never left the communion of the faithful. The Maronites, for example.
The Second Vatican Council used the word "communion" in a sense other than communio in sacris when speaking of Christians separated from the Catholic Church. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, citing the Second Vatican Council and Pope Paul VI, states:
"The Church knows that she is joined in many ways to the baptized who are honoured by the name of Christian, but do not profess the Catholic faith in its entirety or have not preserved unity or communion under the successor of Peter" (Lumen gentium 15). Those "who believe in Christ and have been properly baptized are put in a certain, although imperfect, communion with the Catholic Church" (Unitatis redintegratio 3). With the Orthodox Churches, this communion is so profound that it lacks little to attain the fullness that would permit a common celebration of the Lord's Eucharist.
The Catholic Church still recognizes that the Eastern national churches, commonly called "Orthodox", have valid sacraments and valid apostolic succession. However... .
Divorce
The Eastern non-Catholic churches allow divorce in certain circumstances because they believe that some marriages are no longer viable and are destructive to the well-being of the people involved. They view divorce as an exception to the rule, and only grant it when a marriage is completely unsalvageable. In that regard, i.e., fudging the rules, they are not unlike communities of the Protestant Reformation.
If a marriage is valid, then divorce and remarriage is in conflict with the teaching of Christ. There can be no compromise with the darkness of half-truths. Misguided tolerance weakens faith.
Catholic Teaching
2384 Divorce is a grave offense against the natural law. It claims to break the contract, to which the spouses freely consented, to live with each other till death. Divorce does injury to the covenant of salvation, of which sacramental marriage is the sign. Contracting a new union, even if divorce is recognized in civil law, adds to the gravity of the rupture: the remarried spouse is then in a situation of public and permanent adultery:
If a husband, separated from his wife, approaches another woman, he is an adulterer because he makes that woman commit adultery, and the woman who lives with him is an adulteress, because she has drawn another's husband to herself.
CCC 2385 Divorce is immoral also because it introduces disorder into the family and into society. This disorder brings grave harm to the deserted spouse, to children traumatized by the separation of their parents and often torn between them, and because of its contagious effect which makes it truly a plague on society.
In Catholic teaching, an annulment is not a declaration that a union ever existed but rather that it was never valid according to Church law from the beginning. It's an examination of the marriage to determine if all necessary elements for a valid marriage were present at the time. If the Church finds that a valid marriage was not formed, it can declare the marriage null, essentially saying that it was never a valid sacrament.
Not the same as a civil annulment
A civil annulment declares a marriage never existed, while a Catholic annulment argues that the marriage was invalid from the start, even if it appeared valid.
Examination of validity
The annulment process involves a Church tribunal that examines in detail whether all necessary elements for a valid marriage were present. These elements include free consent, intention to be married for life and be open to children, and adherence to Church norms.
Causes for nullity
A marriage can be declared null if, for example, one party did not give free consent, if they had a prior valid marriage, or if they were not of the appropriate age, among other reasons.
Legitimacy of children
Children born in both valid and putative (objectively invalid but at least one party in good faith) marriages are considered legitimate, as stated in Canon 1137 of the Code of Canon Law.
Impact on future marriage
Once a Catholic annulment is granted, the previously married individual is free to marry again in the Catholic Church.
Process
The annulment process can vary but generally involves written testimony, witnesses, and a defender of the bond who argues for the validity of the marriage.
Donatism (fourth to the sixth centuries)
The Donatist controversy involved significant theological debates, particularly on the issue of baptism, with Donatists rebaptizing those who had been baptized in the Catholic Church.
Donatists argued that bishops who had betrayed the faith by surrendering sacred texts ("traditores") could not administer valid sacraments, including baptism and the Eucharist.
To ensure full membership and spiritual renewal, some non-Catholic churches typically perform a baptism, sometimes referred to as "rebaptism," for converts from other Christian traditions, including Catholicism. This baptism may be followed by Chrismation (Confirmation), which completes the process of initiation into an Orthodox community. The thinking goes that the Catholic teaching on the Trinity does not align with their understanding. The form may align, but not the substance, so they claim. Such an attitude is untenable, since the Catholic understanding of the Holy Trinity is as it always has been, received from the Apostles and the Church Fathers, not to mention the councils approved by the Supreme Roman Pontiff. (A Church council was considered legitimate only with the approval of the Bishop of Rome.) The Catholic Faith is that which has been believed “everywhere, always, and by all” (ubique, semper, et ab omnibus). To suggest otherwise is an offence against truth and therefore against charity.
For the Latins and Greeks, meeting in this sacred ecumenical synod, used great diligence in order that, among other things, that article concerning the divine procession of the Holy Spirit might be discussed with the utmost diligence and assiduous investigation. But after the testimonies were presented from the divine Scriptures and from the numerous authorities of the holy doctors of the East and the West, some indeed saying that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, and some from the Father through the Son, and all looking to the same understanding under different terms, the Greeks indeed asserted that what they say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, they do not say with this intention of excluding the Son; but because it seemed to them, as they say, that the Latins assert that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son as from two principles and two spirations, therefore they abstained from saying that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. The Latins, however, affirmed that they do not mean to say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, so as to exclude the Father from being the source and principle of the entire Godhead, namely of the Son and the Holy Spirit, or that the Son does not have from the Father that which the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son; or that they posit two principles or two spirations, but rather that they assert only one principle and one spiration of the Holy Spirit, as they have hitherto asserted. And since from all these one and the same sense of truth is elicited, at last they unanimously agreed and consented to the union below written, holy and lovable to God, in the same sense and in the same mind.
The Catholic Church rightly distinguishes between Mormon "baptism" and Christian baptism, the former being not Christian baptism because the Mormon god is not the God of revelation. See here: https://www.catholic.com/qa/are-mormon-baptisms-valid
Disunity, schism, scandal.
Like communities of the Protestant revolt, the non-Catholic national eastern churches have experienced a near constant division. The non-Catholic eastern national churches, being national churches, have often been allied to state governments (and royalty) in ways which have seriously compromised their Christian identity.
Recent and ongoing schisms.
- 1996 Moscow–Constantinople schism over the autocephaly of the Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church (almost 3 months)
- 2018 Moscow–Constantinople schism, Orthodox Schism, or Eastern Schism, over the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (2018–present; ongoing). The Moscow Patriarchate severed communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate, The Alexandrian Patriarchate, The Church of Greece, and the Church of Cyprus.
- Schism of the Russian Church or Raskol, the splitting of the Russian Orthodox Church into an official church and the Old Believers movements in the mid-17th century (1653/1667–present; ongoing)
- Schism between Constantinople and the Serbian Orthodox Church (1882–1920; 38 years)
- Schism between Constantinople and the Greek Orthodox Church (1833–1850; 17 years)
- Schism between Constantinople and the Bulgarian Orthodox Church (1872–1945; 73 years)
- Schism between Moscow and the Georgian Orthodox Church (1917–1943; 26 years)
- Schism between Moscow and the Polish Orthodox Church (1924–1948; 24 years)
- Schism between the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Macedonian Orthodox Church (1967–2022; 55 years)
- Schism between Antioch and Jerusalem (2014-2023; 9 years)
St. Irenaeus, pupil of St Polycarp, who was the pupil of the Apostle John | Since, however, it would be very tedious, in such a volume as this, to reckon up the successions of all the Churches, we do put to confusion all those who, in whatever manner, whether by an evil self-pleasing, by vainglory, or by blindness and perverse opinion, assemble in unauthorized meetings; [we do this, I say, ] by indicating that tradition derived from the apostles, of the very great, the very ancient, and universally known Church founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul; as also [by pointing out] the faith preached to men, which comes down to our time by means of the successions of the bishops. For it is a matter of necessity that every Church should agree with this Church, on account of its pre-eminent authority, that is, the faithful everywhere, inasmuch as the apostolical tradition has been preserved continuously by those [faithful men] who exist everywhere.” Against Heresies (3,3,2), 180 A.D.
When eastern patriarchs and councils were in conflict, all turned to Rome to resolve disputes. Rome exercised real power, in charity and in truth, not merely presiding as a "first among equals", a concept foreign to both Scripture and Tradition and unknown in the early Church. It is a label invented to massage the egos of those vying for power and control. Christ chose one and one only from among the twelve apostles to feed his sheep, to tend the flock, to be the King's "prime minister" and His vicar. That understanding has been preserved in the Catholic Church.
Despite attempts by the Church to reconcile non-Catholic eastern Christians to the One Church of Christ, for example at the Council of Florence, where the easterners accepted the Council's authority and teaching, non-Catholic eastern Christians returned to schism and remain separate from the Church.
The Council successfully negotiated reunification with several Eastern Churches, reaching agreements on such matters as the Western insertion of the phrase "Filioque" to the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, the definition and number of the sacraments, and the doctrine of Purgatory. Another key issue was papal primacy, which involved the universal and supreme jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome over the whole Church, including the national Churches of the East (Serbian, Byzantine, Moldo-Wallachian, Bulgarian, Russian, Georgian, Armenian, Coptic, Syriac etc.), and nonreligious matters such as the promise of military assistance against the Ottoman Empire.
On 6 July 1439 the union was proclaimed (in both Latin and Greek) in the document Laetentur Caeli ("Let the Heavens Rejoice") which was signed by Pope Eugene and by the Byzantine Emperor John VIII Palaiologos. All but one of the bishops were present. Some Greek bishops, perhaps feeling political pressure from the Byzantine Emperor, reluctantly accepted the decrees of the Council. Other Eastern bishops did so by sincere conviction, such as Isidore of Kiev, who subsequently suffered greatly for it. Only one Eastern Bishop refused to accept the union, Mark of Ephesus, who became the leader of opposition back in Byzantium; the Serbian patriarch did not even attend the council. The Russian Orthodox Church, upon learning of the union, angrily rejected it and ousted any prelate who was even remotely sympathetic to it, declaring itself autocephalous (i.e., autonomous), with subsequent Russian sources portraying the actions of Grand Prince Vasily II of Moscow as protecting the purity of the faith.
The Council of Florence contained the following assertion, agreed to by the Byzantine easterners:
Item diffinimus sanctam apostolicam sedem et Romanum pontificem in universum orbem tenere primatum, et ipsum pontificem Romanum successorem esse beati Petri principis apostolorum et verum Christi vicarium totiusque ecclesie caput et omnium christianorum patrem ac doctorem existere, et ipsi in beato Petro pascendi, regendi ac gubernandi universalem ecclesiam a domino nostro Iesu Christo plenam potestatem traditam esse, quemadmodum etiam in gestis ycumenicorum conciliorum et in sacris canonibus continetur.
We also define that the Holy Apostolic See and the Roman Pontiff hold primacy over the entire world, and that the Roman Pontiff himself is the successor of blessed Peter, prince of the apostles, and the true vicar of Christ, the head of the entire church, and the father and teacher of all Christians, and that in blessed Peter he was given full power by our Lord Jesus Christ to feed, rule, and govern the universal Church, as is also contained in the acts of the ecumenical councils and in the sacred canons.
Pope Boniface VIII, in his Bull Unam Sanctum (1302), spelled out the doctrine of the necessity of the Church for salvation and with it the necessity of submission to the Roman Pontiff. Regarding the primacy of authority of Peter and his successors he stated:
But this authority, although it is given to man and is exercised by man, is not human, but rather divine, and has been given by the Divine Word to Peter himself and to his successors in him, whom the Lord acknowledged an established rock, when he said to Peter himself: Whatsoever you shall bind etc. [Matt. 16:19]. Therefore, whosoever resists this power so ordained by God, resists the order of God [cf. Rom. 13:2] ... Furthermore, we declare, say, define, and proclaim to every human creature that they by necessity for salvation are entirely subject to the Roman Pontiff.
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