Alex wrote:
I have never said I was a "Druid."
I don't know who put that in, obviously one of the Moderators who has, whenever I go to change that part of my profile, locked down my profile and is preventing me from changing anything to it.
I don't mind being treated as a child, as indeed I do behave as one here.
The last sentence is key. Alex is obviously a man who has been given great gifts from the Lord but who sometimes chooses to act childishly. When he (and anyone who posts here) acts childishly he is treated like one.
Since Alex brought up the fact that his profile is now locked I will explain why. Alex quits the Forum about once every two weeks. For several years each time he quit he updated his profile with a new e-mail address and sometimes inappropriate comments in the other fields. That meant one of the administrators needed to go in and fix everything. Then, when he decided to come back an administrator needed to update his e-mail and get him a new password. Locking his profile saves a lot of time for the administrators in the long run.
Alex wrote:
I was brought to understand that Ukrainian Catholics aren't ultimately welcomed in the Byzantine Catholic Church (according to some threads in the liturgical section that suggested that was the perspective that motivated some of the mandated liturgical changes).
Alex really has to stretch things to come up with such a conclusion. He sometimes does this in order that he may claim to be offended (or claim that someone does not like him (or Ukrainians or whatever)). I followed the discussions he referred to and the most he can legitimately claim is that some Carpatho-Rusins would like to see the Divine Liturgy changed so that we could never be merged in with other Byzantines. For them, the change in the Liturgy would provide perpetual distinctiveness. We would be different enough so that we could never be merged with anyone once the ethnic reasons for existence disappear. How one gets from there to a claim that �Ukrainian Catholics aren�t ultimately welcomed in the Byzantine Catholic Church� is a mystery.
As far as I know (and I discussed this at length with Alex in private e-mails) the only ethnic issue between Carpatho-Rusins and Ukrainians occurs when some Ukrainians claim that Carpatho-Rusins are really Ukrainians. At that time I used the parallel that when this happens Carpatho-Rusins feel the same way that Ukrainians feel whenever a Russian tells them that they are really Russian and that there is nothing distinctive about the Ukrainian ethnicity. At the time of the e-mail Alex acknowledged that he understood the point. I guess it is much more entertaining to claim offense in an attempt to flame a conversation. There are narrow limits to such behavior.
I join others in praying for Alex�s new beginning. As I often have noted in these discussions I believe that it is always in the best interest of each Christian to place himself under the direction of a spiritual father or mother and remain in that relationship over time. Stability and simplicity in the spiritual life are the keys to growth.
Since this thread has wandered I will close it, asking all readers to remember Alex and all of our Forum participants and readers in prayer.
Admin
