It’s Jesus’ Fault!

The Archbishop of Genoa and President of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, said this week the impossibility of divorced and remarried Catholics receiving Communion “does not depend on an external disposition but rather comes from the interior of the sacrament of the Eucharist itself, the sacrament of the perennial unity between the love of Christ and humanity.”

I rather like that. The problem isn’t in the sinners who have done this thing: rather it’s in the bread and the wine. They told us we can’t give communion to you when we asked ‘em. Which I find odd: because Jesus gave communion to Judas - who had already sold him away.

This is the problem I have with all the traditions of men impinging on the gospel: it’s not that they are there - they will always be there! It’s that we imagine we can know more than Jesus and the Twelve even here. The traditions of our communities are important. But we confuse them with the Gospel at every turn.

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Over the Top

As in you can’t get back in without going right to the top… Vatican decrees excommunication for participation in ‘ordination’ of women:

The decree from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith also mentions that it applies to all people in communion with the Catholic Church, including any bishops or women who are members of the Eastern Churches. Anyone who incurs this excommunication can only be received back into the Church by the Apostolic See, the decree says.

The declaration, which is signed by Cardinal William Levada, concludes by saying that it is absolute, universal and immediately effective upon its publication in L’Osservatore Romano.

If you rattle their cages, the powerful get scared and try to bully you into submission. If you think the Church is wrong… you’ve already taken the first step to freedom and this decree isn’t going to scare you. I love all the “scare quotes” in the article, btw.

Fake Icons

I forget who it is… there’s a monastery out in the Southwest, I think? Well, someplace. They paint icons. They are, I think, not a Roman Catholic monastery, or, maybe, not “officially” so: perhaps Sedevacantist? Or maybe just “Old Catholic” Episcopi Vagante? Don’t know. Anyway, they paint icons - and sell them on the web. And there are those Orthodox hyper pious sorts out there who will tell you, straight up, that because the party in question are not really Orthodox, these icons are not really icons: real Icons can only be painted by real Orthodox doing traditional things. Otherwise they are, really, just idols and we risk our souls…

So here’s a story of Damned Thing. (Pardon me, I use that phrase in the Fortean Sense.)

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PTSD

I’ve just noticed that I’ve developed an inability to trust people in dealing with religion. This is not a problem I had before.

When I moved to A’ville, the folks at St Nicholas parish reached out to me: the Deacon took me into his own house and fed me every weekend. His kids called me “Uncle Raphael”. Other members of the parish gave me furniture, offered help in moving, made sure I never went hungry or that I was able to come to Liturgy in bad weather. I’d hear bad things about the Greek parish in town (or silly stories about every priest over the last 10 years), or about the ROCOR parish or about the Carpatho-Russians or the other Antiochian parishes in our area - and know that I’d made the right choice. When people would leave the parish, I’d hear gossip about them from the priest.

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St Peter the War Lord

Just so you know the kind of people conservative Episcopalians are sleeping with these days:

Twelve mosques and 300 houses went up in flames. Young girls were marched to a nearby Christian town and forced to eat pork and drink alcohol. Many were raped, and 50 were killed…

The Exes

Bob+ blogs on an ex-gay documentary. Peterson blogs on a conference called Deconstructing the Ex-Gay Myth (and several other posts all over his blog.) And Sheri tells of her experience in a “Modern” Orthodox Shul.

Most people don’t know enough about psychological matters to make any suggestions at all: most of us can’t tell the difference between Bi-polar and Polar Bears. When Teh Gay comes up in conservative worlds, even though most of them don’t even believe in Freud or Jung (and some would go so far as to think that psychology is demonic at all) they just say “Oh, Ex Gay Therapy!!!!”

As I wrote to Bob+ “My social circle in SF included many ex-ex-gays who were exChristians as a result. [Except for my own unfortunate period of internalised homophobia - DHR] My usual response to their tormentors was “way to Gospel, schmucks”. Having been so tortured by Christians once, they didn’t want to bother going back to even a “gay-friendly” church now.”

I was lucky enough to have clergy who imagined there to be no such thing as “ex-gay”. While I may no longer agree with their theological position, I’m blessed by a history where no one sent me away to “get fixed”.

There goes *everyone*

According to new rules for sainthood from the Vatican (they are, I guess, not “new” because, of course, the Church Never Changes™) candidates for sainthood must be 100% Orthodox All The Time.

“The second part describes the preliminary phase of the cause which extends as far as the ‘Nihil Obstat’ of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.” The ‘Nihil Obstat’ is a status given to the works of the person in question which certifies that nothing in their teachings contradicts the teachings of the Church.

I worry about Matthew 28:17 where, even looking at the resurrected Jesus, some of the disciples still doubted… but Jesus sent them out as evangelists anyway. I wonder if any of those people would fail the doctrinal purity test. Clearly some of the early Jewish followers would. I’m so VERY happy that I have no freaking clue any more what makes someone Holy. St Francis, St Benedict, St Gregory of Nyssa, … all these would, I think, fail the Raztinger Purity Anschluss. Eastern Orthodoxy, at least, has always made clear that sanctity and teaching are not tied together: that’s why Augustine is included on the EO Calendar.

For the uberfrum

From Google Sightseeing, to-day is an Holy Day
for the frumest uberfrums, without regard to thier denomination or sect.

American Export-odoxy

I’ve been following the attempt of a couple of American Orthodox to take over the SPCK bookstores in the UK. Over at Cartoon Church, Dave Walker has been a valiant reporter. (The above image links to his category on the topic.) Today’s post announces Further SSG / SPCK shop closures - staff sacked by e-mail.

But today’s post carries a bit of a kicker: a comment from Fr Gregory Hallam, an Antiochian Priest from the UK.

Mr. Brewer has embarrassed us Orthodox. If he were to present himself at my church he would not be allowed to receive Holy Communion.

I sincerely wish he would keep himself in Texas, disengage and never show himself here again.

The thing is … if he is so “Orthodox” why does he not care what the Orthodox here actually think?

So happy was I to see this that I sent Fr G a note thanking him. Certainly the Brewers are not “American Orthodox” in the sense that they represent all members of the American church. But they do model a particularly virulent strain of American ex-Protestant Uberfrumerry in the act of self-propagation. This would be the place where one might ask “why did the Americans not consult with the local church?” Just as we might ask about Baptists who go to evangelise in Russia. There really are only two of them - the Brewer Brothers, near as I can tell.

I was saddened to see on the OrthodoxWiki Article, that these guys have a blessing from a real live, canonical Orthodox bishop, although, like many bishops (of many denominations) I’m sure that Metropolitan Joseph is oblivious to the decidedly unchristian actions of his underlings. (I see also in the Wiki article that, “In November 2007 Fr Gregory Hallam, of St Aiden’s Orthodox Church, described the distance between SSG and UK Orthodoxy as comparable ‘to the span of the observable Universe’”. This also made me smile.) One wishes, in the name of good ecumenism, and labour justice, that some Romanian Orthodox in the US could get through to Metr Joseph to have him withdraw his blessing.

Just to be clear

ROCOR says:

This film is harmful to the spiritual health of our children (and to most adults as well), and thus we should avoid seeing it, or allowing our children to see it.