Dear brother Stuart, I don't perceive the need to obtain validation of my religiosity from either Fr. Taft or you.

One thing I do need is greater respect for, and sensitivity to the interior religious dispositions of other people.

Instead of a laugh at the expense of folks who might not agree with you, mabe that's what you need, too.

Agreed! While I am willing to be more orthodox in communion, I will not belittle another "way" of getting to Christ. Fr. Taft is not Orthodoxy. He is a brother in Christ!

At issue is the definition of Eastern Catholicism, which is why I believe Stuart appealed to Fr. Taft, of whom no greater regard is held in the study of such.

I personally don't understand the "third way" either. It doesn't seem to be what our spiritual forefathers who originally came into communion with Rome intended.

It seems rather to be opposed to it.

I don't think so. I need people to understand that the Holy See has rejected the Third Way, because, frankly, it has no raison d'etre. As Father Taft has said, if we do not intend to live fully in accordance with the Tradition of our Mother Church, then we have no reason to exist, and should simply become Latin Catholics and make everybody's life much simpler.

The concern I expressed above about the apparent Latinized ecclesiology in the translated text of the new UGCC catechism, and in the pre-release document link by DTBrown, was addressed by the Eastern bishops in the United States back in the early 1990s in connection with the Latin Church's new catechism.

Click the link below to read their assessment of the faulty ecclesiology in the Roman Church's own catechism, a faulty ecclesiology that appears to be endorsed by the UGCC itself in the documents so far posted in this thread:

Toward a Response to the Universal Catechism

Yes, this so-called "third way" turns Eastern Catholics into Latin Catholics with Eastern liturgical vestments and prayers.

I'd hold off judgment for a while, simply because the wording of certain phrases in the translation presented by DT Brown lead me to doubt the accuracy of the remainder.

Again, I ask for clarification. I do not understand Ukrainian. There are several members of this Forum who understand Ukrainian and who should now have the new UGCC Catechism and who can contribute to the discussion. I cannot vouch for the translation as it was done by a friend from Ukraine.

The references (i.e., to Vatican I and Vatican II) seem problematic in themselves, but I recognize the fact that the translation provided in the original post is unofficial.

Finally, I am also concerned by the fact that the new UGCC catechism had to go through the Roman Curia before being published (see DTBrown's post #369309).

Why does Rome need to sign off on a self-governing Church's catechism?

It is sad that Rome apparently feels the need to micromanage the affairs of the Eastern Churches that are presently in communion with it, and I sincerely doubt that the Eastern Orthodox will ever accept such an arrangement (nor should they).

Of course, just because something is in an "official" catechism doesn't mean you have to teach it, anymore than one has to obey all the canons in the CCEO.

Knowing Ukrainian does not a good translator make. One must be able to understand what is said in the original language, and translate it into English terminology that has the same precise meaning. This requires (a) a technical vocabulary; and (b) very high reading comprehension skills. My wife believes that only 5% of the applicants she tests really have what it takes to do translation at this level. And she's been doing it for thirty years.

I agree.

I really enjoyed Toward a Response to the Universal Catechism but the link within the older thread didn't work. Could you provide a link to it again?

Thanks.

That's why I titled this thread with a question mark and have asked several times for feedback from Forum members who belong to the Ukrainian Church.

Dave, my brother,

I've been giving some thought to this.

Those here who are most proficient in Ukrainian are, I suspect, clergy of the UGCC - and none of them are really anonymous; we all know their identities.

On that basis, I can understand their reticence to apply their linguistic skills to the catechism text. It's one thing for laypersons to do so (even if they are not anonymous, as is true of so many of us here).

Clergy, on the other hand, have to answer to their hierarchs and are likely loath to publicly offer a translation or interpretion of the text (regardless of their level of proficiency), lest it come back to bite them. It would not be a career-enhancing move to offer a public understanding of a nuance which turns out to differs from what the Holy Synod of the UGCC intended.

We may be waiting a while.

Many years,

Neil