http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=56210

Read this today, sounds like an interesting book.

Phil Lawler, the author, is a son of Reverend Paul Lawler, of blessed memory, active as both Proto-Deacon of the Annunciation Melkite Cathedral and Chancellor of the Eparchy of Newton of the Melkites until only days before he reposed last summer at age 93.

Perhaps if Phil Lawler had conducted some further investigations back into the 19th century, he might have changed his premise. What ultimately caused the fall in Boston? Was it only the three points he mentioned and the initial cover-up of evil deeds of certain priests? I think not. Why were those priests ordained in the first place? How and why did some seminaries and colleges become dens of iniquity?

Let's face it, even the Orthodox Church is struggling, so I am not pointing a finger.

First, take a look at the whole purpose of public education and the role played by the accrediting boards who now dictate that students and professors in schools, colleges, and universities use gender neutral terms such as chairperson and postal worker to avoid using "him" or "man." Next, understand that in our public schools the Christian faith is often displayed as bigoted, while in California Islam is promoted. Then take a look at what this politically correct wording has done to our Bibles and texts for the Divine Liturgy. In some passages, Christ is no longer mentioned as a "he."

Second, ask yourself why Americans (both Catholic and Orthodox) are suffering from a crisis of faith and morals? Why are some of our Church clergy and hierarchy out of control?

Among the key events which occurred in Catholicism were (1) changes in the ancient church fast and (2) changes in the Holy Canons of the Catholic church which ultimately led to the 1917 Code of Canon Law, where some old canons were discarded and others suffered major revisions. Yes, the canons were often contradictory, but many of the ancient canons had the air of infallibility. Should those have been revised?

I have an ancient Catholic book dating back to 1870 which talks about the change in the fast brokered by the U.S. Bishops with the Vatican. Did the changes in the ancient fast weaken the dike of morality and ultimately cause the dam to break?

Isn't it true that when we fast we are saying "no" to sin. Isn't the whole idea of our four Lenten seasons to pray and repent from sin? So, didn't the abolition by the Catholic Church of the 40 days fast during Great Lent, Lent, The Apostles' Fast, the Fast of the Theotokos, and the Wednesday and Friday fast contribute to our general spiritual malaise today? How can four ember days take the place of the four fasting seasons and the Wednesday fast? This is what happened in 1870. Then in the 1960s, the ember days were abolished. So that today, the only mandatory days of fasting and abstinence in the Roman Catholic Church are Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.

Third, ask yourself what affect this relaxation of the fast has had on Byzantine and Orthodox Christians?

Many of my fellow parishioners do not fast anymore. The situation is now so dire that Bishop BENJAMIN of San Francisco and the West (OCA) has recently told his priests to announce just before distributing Holy Communion that only those Orthodox Christians who have prepared by prayer and fasting and who have confessed their sins within the last 30 days can approach Holy Communion.

Maybe this is the solution? Prayer, fasting and repentance.

Elizabeth Maria:

What you post is so true. Few know the history of the Catholic Church becoming "Americanized" as it was planted in this country. Each generation has been progressively educated to ignore the customs and practices of their parents in the same fashion that the general culture has done in the public schools. There was another major shifting in fasting and other practices in 1985, but that is material for another thread and another day.

What you say about Orthodox Christians may also be something that is becoming generalized. I have some Orthodox Christian friends and they seem to ignore the Wednesday and Friday fasts on a regular basis, as well as all fasting periods other than Great Lent. Some even think that fasting is restricted to the first week of great Lent and Holy Week.

Maybe that's why Pope John Paul II of blessed memory called for a "new evangelization" in the Church. As I understand it, he thought we all needed to start over to get ourselves back on track.

In Christ,

BOB

Dear Bob,

Yes, we need a renewal. And perhaps the renewal should start with the East and then move West.

After all, it was an Eastern Catholic Byzantine Bishop in Europe around the time of WWII (who I think is now canonized or might be shortly) who predicted that the West would apologize to the East and that the East would convert the West.

There is a Lenten Class being conducted through the GOARCH website at

http://learn.goarch.org/moodle/login/index.php

It will last for four more weeks and so it will end on March 23.

Please join us. In fact, I hope that we can bring some of the topics here and have open discussions here to renew and strengthen all the Eastern Christians here.

What do you think?

In Christ,
Elizabeth

Interesting. His main point, in explaining the cover-up by the Catholic hiaerarchy of sexual abuse by Catholic priests, seems to be the following (emphasis added).



That, perhaps, hits the nail on the head.

Perhaps certain leaders only saw the Church as a human institution. Perhaps certain leaders --in the clergy and in the laity-- saw the Church more as a cultural or ethnic thing, instead of a relationship and community with God.

If that is the case, then the pattern of cover-ups and accomodating the prevailing culture makes a certain kind of (twisted) sense.

According to that mindset, if the Church really isn't about God and living in union with Him, if the Church is really just about "us" -- well, of course, we have to CYA . . . just like any other human institution (like Enron) would consider doing.

Sadly, I suspect that kind of mindset is not just in the Catholic Church . . .

Lord have mercy !

-- John

That is why, Harmon, we need to have a spiritual renewal in both the Catholic and Orthodox Church.

Many parishioners and clergy have lost sight of the great calling .. we are called to be saints. We are living in the Kingdom right now and do not even know it.

So what else is new? The Faith is not a matter of genetics.
This is America. Anyone who expects American children to autotmatically accept their parents' beliefs is not living in
the real world. We are not part of peasant communities of the
Old World where children were rarely exposed to views other than
their parents' and neighbors'. And this, indeed, is a very good
thing. Faith that is nothing more than consent to unchallanged
custom is no faith at all, but merely conformity. That it is
conformity to something that is true does not change anything if
the conformity is not because the child is convinced that the
beliefs in question are true, but because "everybody else belives
them". The question then becomes, "do we live our lives so in
conformity to Christ so that the young will look on us and and
think, 'they know the right way, these old ones, I wish also to
walk in that way'"?

Edmac

Do you believe, Edmac, that children should be exposed to snake bite so that they can know how dangerous rattlesnakes are?

Our public school systems and even the Los Angeles Archdiocesan parochial schools are filled with texts that promote humanistic secularism and postmodernism where teachers promote alternative lifestyles and situational ethics. Many children who graduate from both the LAUSD and the LA Catholic Archdiocesan schools have been brainwashed to believe that abortion by demand is okay and that there is nothing morally wrong with homosexuality. Yes, I know quite a few kids who have graduated from our local parochial schools, and most have already voted for Clinton and Obama, because they see nothing wrong with abortion.

When I was a young adult, I read a book that carried the imprimatur of Cardinal Mahony. This book was part of the youth education program and it promoted pre-marital sex as normal. When you realize that Mahony was involved with hiding perhaps hundreds of priest and did not want to expose their crimes to the police, then you realize why the wickedness continues.

By exposing our children to this secular education because we have unholy leaders in the church, we are poisoning their minds with a neurotoxin as deadly as the bite of black widow spider, only we cannot see the spiritual damage because like a neurotoxin, the damage is often hidden.

My family members were devout Catholics until my son's fear of Catholic priests drove us to the Orthodox Church. He was only nine years old. Yes, that was not the right reason, but he was losing his faith and I had to act before he lost all hope. During our catechumenate, we learned to love Christ and His Holy Church. Christ saved us.

Elizabeth Maria: Children are going to be exposed to rattlesnakes
inevitably. Do they watch televison? Do they surf the Internet?
Do they talk to other kids? Do they go to school? In the latter
case they are are just about as likely to be exposed to rattle-snakes in a nominally Christian school as anywhere else, things
being what they are.

My point is that linking religion to ethnicity is absolutely and
uttterly fatal as far as children are concerned. They don't know
and they don't want to know, and why should they? Grandma and
Grandpa's worlds are not their worlds, much less Great Grandpa's
and Greatgrandma's. Sad but, I think, true in most cases.

To the extent any Eastern Christian Church focuses on its ethnicity, its disappearance within a generation or two seems to
me to be guaranteed, and rightly so. If Christ, and Christ only,
what's the point?

Edmac

In the Eastern Church, where I attend, ethnicity is not promoted, but the teachings of the Ancient Christian Church -- the unchanging faith once taught by Christ to the Apostles which is for all men of all times.

Situational ethics and postmodernism as taught in most schools are heresies and yes, they are very deadly for the soul.

We did not have a TV and so our son was spared. TV is not essential for modern living.