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Father Deacon,

I hope it's true that this was just a mistake. With regard to this teaching of VII, I guess it is difficult to interpret (even with the help of "Domine Jesus,") because of the inherent tension between the idea (found in some of the fathers) that in paganism there are precursors and hints of the Gospel and the idea found in Scripture and the fathers that paganism is the worship of demons. On the face of it, I don't think that VII statement does justice to the full teaching of Scripture and in fact, I think that it is misleading in a way that can hinder the salvation of peoples. If what people here from the Church is that they are good and noble and fine even if we have disagreements, then what incentive is there to convert? How are they to know that they need deliverance through the atonement of Christ? Also, if the Church conducts events like the Assisi fiasco, then what is the Church telling these pagans? I think the message they get is "look we disagree on some things but please come into our churches and pray to your gods since brotherhood and world peace are more important." I have to confess too, that I was never comfortable with Mother Theresa's idea that she was not making the people Christians, but that she encouraged them to pray to their gods. I admit I have a hard time seeing any of the Apostles saying and promoting such things.

And by the way, this video is new to me as well, which is why it impacted my sensibilities so hard. I knew that the Catholic Church had invited non-Christians to dialogue and perhaps even shared some kind of generic prayer. I did not realize that the pagans were allowed into Churches to worship.

Joe

Everything may not have went or been as "kosher" as we all would like or even as officially planned, but the fact religious leaders from all faiths around the globe came together in one place collectively to pray for peace,(each in their own time, space and tradition), and promote understanding in our troubled world was moving to at least myself.

I do not let the "spin doctors'" connotations of such events sway me. John Paul II had before him always Christ, the Gospel and the Church. It is a shame the Gospel message he brought so vigorously to our hurting world has been so often manipulated from all sides by so many.

When I am in need may my comfort and strength always be found in Christ...and if I physically beg help may I graciously welcome the "Samaritan" who comes to my aid.

rcguest,

Suffice it to say that the Gospel can be manipulated in sundry ways, by those both knowing and unknowing.

Alexis

Amen to that!

Joe be reasonable here.

We know where you stand today and where you were previously (Catholic gone Orthodox). That being said, there is no reasonable way or need to conflate infaillibility/supreme authority with the outrage you are spending paragraph after paragraph fomenting here.

The question of poor taste, bad judgement, misimpressions made and the like on this event of 22 years ago. (Note, tonight, at my evening job in a restaruant, we had several young ladies dine with us to celebrate their 21st birthday with some wine and cheesecake. These birthday revelers were not even born when this event took place!) AT any rate, the question of the bad taste or poor message of this event of 22 years ago can't really in any reasonable way be understood to offer evidence for a verdict one way or another on the validity of claims made by or about the Papacy.

Those with a mind for polemic against the Orthodox could pick at scabs from the recent past to find things over which to shout "Is outrage!" in the behaviours and activities of some of its memebers. (I rather suspect those that persisted in doing so in that direction would be banned in rather short order from ByzCath!) What would the value of that be? What would such an excercise even tell us?

I think it is telling and sad how a legion of groups seem to have made a cottage industry out of tract writing (and the new-media equivalents) on this event.



IF one were to look at the papacy through the lense of this event of 22 years ago, I rather suspect one wouldn't be able to see what made JP2 so great.

Mercifully, I've never seen a Buddha in a Catholic Church - and I don't want to. But I was at that gathering in Milan, and I must say I enjoyed it, by the simple expedient of staying with the Christians and letting everyone else do whatever it is they do - somewhere else. I met some very nice Christian leaders, whose orthodoxy is not in question, and took thorough advantage of the opportunity to learn more of the beautiful Ambrosian liturgical tradition. It was also the only time I've ever set foot in La Scala, or met Michael Gorbachov.

Such events are best regarded as opportunities - no one at all tried to involve me in non-Christian worship and I heard nothing of attempts to co-opt other Christians for such a thing. Why should I refuse to take advantage of worth-while opportunities because lamentable opportunities are also available?

Fr. Serge

Bless, Father Archimandrite!

Bravo! Thank you for your words that bring a balance to all this (and to much else besides).

Speaking of Buddhas, when "she who must be obeyed" and I went visiting open houses the other week, we entered the home of a Japanese Catholic lady who had a fascinating item - a Cross with a Buddha carved on it.

She indicated that such Crosses were made by Japanese Catholics during the persecution there. To weed out the Christians so they might be imprisoned or put to death, the police put a Cross on the ground and ordered entire local populations to file past it to defile it by spitting. Those who refused were arrested as Christians.

Japanese Catholics then developed Crosses with the Buddha on it as a "type of Christ" or the "Enlightener" so that the authorities would balk at having them spit at a Buddhist image.

She actually had such a Cross in her possession.

Certainly, Western Christian churches in Asia have developed iconography depicting Christ in the lotus position and have otherwise followed closely the architecture of Asian temples in the construction of new Churches. I believe there was a symposium in Rome where a Franciscan priest displayed his version of a Catholic church building that looked very much like an Asian temple. On the other hand, we Christians did the same by "baptising" the Roman pagan culture over time.

St Yaroslav the Wise (added to the calendar of Orthodox Saints by the Moscow Patriarchate in 2005) had his pagan relatives buried in a church, but before he did this, he had the Metropolitan bless their bones with holy water . . .

There is a Tibetan Buddhist shope on Queen Street here, near to St Nicholas' UGC church. I've come to know the (very courteous and respectable) proprietors, immigrants from Nepal. I saw the woman tell her beads with incense as she ran the store (which sells all manner of Tibetan cultural and religious objects). She indicated to me the many styles of prayer beads they have and this led to a discussion about the Jesus Prayer, Who Jesus is and what the meaning of the Cross is.

Very nice people and the whole issue of the existence of an Assyrian Church in Tibet which, during the T'ang Dynasty, had two Archbishops and twenty bishops is fascinating (one such Assyrian Chinese priest visited King Edward I in London, I believe). The extent to which the Mahayana Buddhists adopted mitres, beads and other items from the Assyrians is also a fascinating discussion.

Kissing your right hand, I again implore your blessing,

Your student,

Alex

I will not cease to use that title. John Paul the Great he was indeed, from Orientale Lumen and Ut Unum Sint to his reconciliation of a significant part of the Society of St. Pius X (causing the formation of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter) to his re-renunciation of the anathemas of 1054 with Patriarch Bartolomeos to his beatification of numerous Greek Catholic martyrs, his love for many Eastern saints and devotions - and so many more things could be said. The opening of his cause for beatification so soon after his death (sooner than any 20th century prelate including St. Pius X) speaks for itself.

Diak,

Well, you're certainly entitled to your opinion and I don't begrudge you the right. For me, although John Paul II did many wonderful thing, the appellation of "the Great" is something that has historically been applied only to the very, very rarest and exceptional Pontiffs. And people see his case differently.

Alexis

Folks,

All of your comments and criticisms are well-taken and you make a good point, btw, A Simple Sinner. I am not saying that this event is living proof that papal claims are false. I was, however, agreeing with Fr. Deacon Daniel that these kinds of events make the claims moot. Now what does this mean? I understand fully that the Roman Church's teachings concerning the nature of the papacy have nothing to do with the moral worthiness of the actual popes. And I don't think that any sin, no matter how great, can, in itself, disprove Roman claims. But, just as a messenger loses credibility with people if he exercises bad judgment and bad morality, so these kinds of events have the effect of diminishing the Pope's credibility. It does not matter that clarifications have been made, such as that which was made in "Domine Jesus." That a clarification had to be issued in the first place shows precisely how the Church's credibility is destroyed both through these kinds of activities and through the promulgation of vague, ambiguous, and misleading teaching.
The vast majority of the people in the world will never read "Domine Jesus" nor will they even become of aware of its existence. But people are much more likely to hear about things and see things like the Assisi events. You can tell an anti-Catholic fundamentalist all that you want about not being syncretistic and insisting that all salvation is through Christ, but the fundamentalist is not going to believe you if you are inviting pagans to come pray in your churches.

I'm not going to go on and on about this as I have been. I realize that I'm being a bit hard on the Catholic Church, mostly because of the shock of finding out about this news.

And again I want to add that I never said that I was opposed to praying with folks who are not Orthodox. I am trying to prayerfully consider this issue in light of Church teaching and practice. I am doing this because there is a variety of opinions on this (from His Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew to Patriarch Alexi to Metropolitan Philip to the monks of Mt. Athos, etc. etc...). I want to study, think about, and discuss this issue (inter-faith prayer) so that I can understand what the authentic teaching of the Orthodox Church really is. Anyway, this is why I became immersed in this thread. I apologize if I have ever offended anyone. That was not my intent.

Joe

I will have to do some research on St. Nicholas I to see how he stacks up to John Paul II.

Sts. Leo and Gregory are easy to look up. St. Nicholas I is probably very controversial to say the least.

(In case one is wondering what St. Nicholas I has to do with any of this, he is the last Pope with the appellation "The Great.")

Dear Joe,

The problem is that this video which occasioned this thread is a tendentious one that has already come to its own conclusions.

It not only tries to portray the Pope in a bad light, but also all of Orthodoxy. Is that an objective media report?

In fact, we could not convict Judas Iscariot himself of treason on the basis of such a presentation.

Alex

Dear Dr Eric,

The appellation of "The Great", like the level of veneration of saints, can be both local and universal.

St Basil is "the Great" for the entire Church, East and West. Pope St Nicholas is so only for the West. St Benedict is also "the Great" in the East and there are some Greek Orthodox sources that name St Augustine as "the Great" - but this is hardly normative in universal Orthodoxy.

In Pope John Paul's case, Pope Benedict himself refers to him as "the Great" or the "great pope, John Paul II" to great applause each time.

There is a movement to have Pope John Paul not only canonized a saint, but also declared a Doctor of the Church as "John Paul the Great."

In any event, it will be the Church, not us, which will declare such titles for the Holy Pontiff.

We are doing a proposed bill in Ontario to declare April 2nd "Pope John Paul II Day."

The petition that we have circulated has brought in thousands of signatures from across the country and the U.S., including not a few signatures from Jews, Armenian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Protestants and the like. And Pope Benedict's Secretary of State has formally blessed this endeavour in the name of His Holiness.

In my 22 years here, I've never seen such a tremendous outpouring of esteem for anyone.

Alex

It certainly does - although we might disagree sharply about what it says! People do not normally show up at someone's funeral with 30-foot-long signs reading Santo Subito. One might wonder just who made the signs, and why.

Perhaps there is a certain fitness to it - John Paul II beatified more candidates than all of his predecessors combined.

Fr. Serge

It would appear the "local" use of that title is well established in many places. There are already numerous Catholic schools from grade schools to a university using that appelation, with the approval of their respective local bishops, and numerous bishops have referred to him by that title.

I suppose the greatest suspense will be if that title will be added upon his beatification or if it comes separately. Both seem to be a fait accompli.