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Alex,

"Yeah, we bad!'

Steve,

Thank you for your sweet words about me!

Steve, the pun-meister!

http://oldworldrus.com

[ 02-06-2002: Message edited by: Serge ]

Bless me a sinner, Reader Sergius,

It's good that you take all this seriously

You must be great fun at a party

Steve, what kind of drinks are you serving in that room?

I think I'll join you before I get read out by the Reader!

Bless y'a, O Bearded One, just bless y'a!

Alex

Everyone,
Earlier on this thread, people were using the term AmChurch...what is that?? Sorry for being a bit off the topic here...
-ukrainiancatholic

Dear Ukrainiancatholic,

Actually, anything other than what we've had in recent posts would be more than warmly welcome!

Over to you, Reader Sergius!

Alex

I've posted my comments on what's going on in the Comparative Liturgics thread, which I took the liberty of raising from the dead in the Faith and Worship forum. I figured I wouldn't further stray the thread with my few words.

I actually do like sports and have long maitained, with some sucess in my circles, that parish sponsored sports activities are an excellent Catholic activity. Not just in an indivudualistic sense -- keep the kids busy so they stay out of trouble -- because because they help kids develop a Catholic ethos.

Team sports (I have written elsewhere as to the sad shift away from team sports to the individualistic practice of so many of us of gym membership) build kids into Eucharistic Christians. Kids learn to play on a team, to get along with others, to build social community. Most important, collaborative efforts towards teh achievement of a goal. The team fails when one member know is right as to a particular course of action but does not play as part of the team. The wisdom of position is valueless witht he virtue of team building.

Some years ago a commerical pollster noted by accident that a high corelation exisited between Catholics and team sports (particularly baseball). The pollster had not been commissioned on this issue, but was fascinated by this. He worked the numbers in eve different direction looking for some other corelation but did not find any other than Catholicism.

God bless the CYO and God bless you.

ukrainiancatholic,

Sorry for appearing to use insider jargon. The late author Fr Malachi Martin coined "AmChurch' as a contraction of "American Catholic Church', because dissenters in the US dating back to the '70s often identified themselves as "American Catholics', opposing themselves to the Catholic magisterium, denoting those who follow the latter as "Roman Catholics'. (And conservative Roman Catholics in America have adopted the RC moniker gladly in this context.)

A sampling of issues AmChurch dissents from orthodoxy on:

It is for artificial contraception and in extreme cases even is "pro-choice' on abortion. There exists a splinter group called "Catholics for a Free Choice', funded in part by Hugh Hefner of Playboy (that great promoter of chastity and respect for women), who are good for a media sound bite to stab the Church.

It is pro-women's ordination. But because it doesn't believe in the Sacrifice or Real Presence in the Eucharist like the Church does, it sees this issue instead as a front in Marxist-style power/class struggle between the sexes. Ecclesiastical liberals are the biggest clerical power-trippers who ever lived, and the feminists want to get themselves some. The orthodox, OTOH, are not clericalist, but sacerdotalist.

Regarding the "gay lifestyle' it throws the Bible and natural law/common sense out the window.

It rehashes 19th-century Protestant and early 20th-century Modernist skepticism about the dogmas of the faith (Jesus wasn't really God, He didn't rise from the dead, He didn't found a Church, etc.).

It also copies Protestantism's tired "social gospel', deliberately confusing liberality/charity with liberalism/socialism and proclaiming the No. 1 mission of the Church is to "promote justice and peace' (never mind all that spiritual mumbo-jumbo). The now pass� flirtation with Communism called "liberation theology' was part of this. Saying "�Viva la revoluci�n en (El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala... there was a succession of trendy countries)! made its proponents seem (com)passionate and charitable, and didn't hit suburban North Americans where they live like "You can't kill the unborn natural results of having sex' does.

It either disdains Marian devotion (early-'70s priests ripped rosaries apart from the pulpit) or it perverts it into New Age goddess worship or Jungian-type symbolism. (The "type' of the virgin mother goddess.)

Liturgically it usually is militantly anti-high church. It hates Godward traditional communal worship and turns services into this-worldly pep rallies for "community'. Hence the fanatical insistence that Mass MUST be "facing the people'. It favors liturgical innovation that goes against both 1) all the traditional rites East and West of the Church catholic and apostolic and 2) the rubrics and regulations issued by Rome regarding the Roman Rite. The unnecessary proliferation of lay Eucharistic ministers is a common example. Others include laity standing round the altar like concelebrants, lay "ministers' holding up the Host or Chalice with the priest at the elevations at Mass ( such as at "This is the Lamb of God' ) and laity walking up to the altar and communing themselves. (I personally have seen at least two of these.) More extreme, rarer examples would include (popular in the early '70s) substituting secular writings for the biblical readings and using items other than bread and wine at the service.

It often is iconoclastic too, disdaining statues and other art in church.

Hope that clears things up. I also have a page on this (no surprise), "Field Guide to the Roman Catholic Civil War in North America', linked to the Faith page of my site.

http://oldworldrus.com

[ 02-06-2002: Message edited by: Serge ]

Serge,

"As someone not good at sports, sure, this thread is my version of one-on-one basketball or even boxing. I'd expect a '60s Jesuit-trained seminary graduate (graduate?) like the doctor to play great offense and defense and jab and guard equally well with both gloves. Rope-a-dope." Serge

I do not want to play. This is meant in the best way possible. I've said what I needed to say.

If you feel that I've injured you, please accept my apology.

May I request that when we conduct dialogue here that you do not view me as your sparring partner? I'n not in the ring or on the basketball court.

Im reading and posting on the Fourm because I want to learn and share. So please do not make me part of your personal entertainment.

I will post what I need to say and I look forward to real dialogue with you.

Steve
JOY!

As someone who spend about 19.5 years as an Episcopalian before becoming Orthodox, I thought I would chime in on the appropritate way to view the Anglican Communion, whether from an Orthodox or Catholic perspective.

As is, the Anglican Communion is in no shape to reunite with either Rome or Orthodoxy. The ordination of priestesses and women bishops, ordaining open homosexuals, the introduction of many new-age/pagan blasphemies and a true Modernism/Relativism that denies that Christianity is unique-i.e. that all religions are somehow true.

There were certainly issues back in the heyday of the Oxford Movement, but the situation is radically different. Adopting 1st World Anglicanism means directly going against both the magisterium of the Catholic Church, as well as going against what Orthodoxy believes (branch theory anyone?).

Therefore, as far as Anglicanism in the Western World, the only acceptable option is to convert them to either Anglican Use RC or Antiochian WR usage. Or, a better idea: just have all the liberal RC's in America become Episcopalians. That way, ECUSA's 30 year decline in membership can be reversed, and RC liberals, (who are essentially modern-day Episcopalians, and should admit they have more in common with them than with JP2 and Ratzinger) would find a home that probably would be better than the current situation. Ecumencial dialogue is a waste of time.
MK

Team sports (I have written elsewhere as to the sad shift away from team sports to the individualistic practice of so many of us of gym membership) build kids into Eucharistic Christians. Kids learn to play on a team, to get along with others, to build social community. Most important, collaborative efforts towards teh achievement of a goal. The team fails when one member know is right as to a particular course of action but does not play as part of the team. The wisdom of position is valueless with the virtue of team building.

True enough but in secular culture this has been perverted into PC corporate culture, with "team building' exercises and even "retreats'. Producing passive little sheeple who will do what Big Brother (a fake of the Good Shepherd) says.

Clever swipe — "allusions to one-on-one sports aren't Catholic'. FYI — some of us have disabilities that make active participation in team sports impossible.

http://oldworldrus.com

[ 02-06-2002: Message edited by: Serge ]

Steve,

If you feel that I've injured you, please accept my apology.

In all seriousness, accepted. God forgives. And pray for me, a sinner.

Michael,

Well put. I would go further and say that when Anglicanism first officially adopted Protestant beliefs on the Eucharist, it lost apostolic succession (clinched when its last Catholic-consecrated bishops and Catholic-ordained priests died off) and corporate reunion thus became impossible. That means there has been an irrevocable break for going on 450 years. In this case? Ecumenism = "you-come-in'-ism!

Yes, I have links related to this topic on the Faith page on my site. Enjoy!

http://oldworldrus.com

Serge,
Thanks for explaining it to me. I have never heard of such may I say, radical group. I suspect there are American Catholic parishes around. Well are these people associated with the regular RC dioceses here in America? I wonder also if this trend has found or will find its way 'East'
-ukrainiancatholic

Michael --

Now, now, we know better than to use the word "priestesses". Remember the sensibilities of our Roman Catholic friends who take offense at this term, as I learned myself not that long ago in this very forum.

Brendan

Dear Brendan,

Good for you, Brendan, good for you !

You are an example for all of us!

Alex

Almost everyone ticked me off today, both my opponents and my friends:

Dr. John,

Calling Serge a Russian wanna be is offensive. Putting his name in quotation marks was uncalled for.

Dr. John,

So what if Serge refers us to his website? If you took the time to make a website I'm sure you'd promote it as much as he does. I can't imagine that you had any motive for comparing him to an *annoying* telemarketer than to insult him. How Christian of you. How "impartial" of you as a moderator.

Steve,

I think you made some inappropriate comments to Serge early in the thread (see below), but I see you are trying to be nice to Serge, now. But the constant praise of Kurt and Dr. J. makes you look like you are "one" with them and hence, teaming up against Serge.

Steve,

When you said that you don't expect attacks from Serge's friends, were you referring to me? I hope not becuase I didn't mean to sound like that in the one post I addressed to you.

Serge,

Why do you think that Metropolitan Theodosius's congrats and well wishes for the new Anglican ecumenical guy were wrong? Was the comment that "well he's not infallible" necessary? It didn't seem like he was saying anything inappropriate.

Serge,

Are comments like this necessary?

"Clever swipe — "allusions to one-on-one sports aren't Catholic'."

Do you really think that Steve hates you and is seething with every post to get at you? I don't think so. I think Steve in the past said some inappropriate things (such as the allusion to AmChurch being only in your mind), but I don't think it's good to be looking for ulterior motives behind every post.

Kurt,

You and I made things right a long time ago, but I do think you try to bait Serge at any able opportunity. Lay off a little.

anastasios