Nicholas wrote:Joe Zollars asks that people email him at joe_zollars@yahoo.com to continue this conversation as he has left the forum in accordance to his Roman Spiritual Father. Pray for his true and complete conversion please.
Then he REALLY has not left this forum, has he? And he is NOT following the direction of his Roman Spiritual Father. Gee... wonder why he decided not to become Orthodox?
----------------------------------------------------
They say that I am bad news. They say "Stay Away."
Tom,
I think Joe said one of the main reasons he chose to go/stay
ROC was this:
"I don't think I could stand being in a Church where love and christian charity seem to have no place along side jurisdictional politics and legalism. "
The question is, does what he say, have some merit?
Not merit in the sense of justifying his leaving, but are Orthodox
Christians in America more focused on jurisdictional politics and
legalism, than on love and christian charity?
Any comments?
Yes. What he said has merit. Of course it does. ANYTHING in this world is corrupt. The Orthodox Church may have been established by the Lord and was originally perfect in HIM, but it has been corrupted just like everything else on this earth once it came under earthly control of sinners.
However, the troubles of the Orthodox Church are NOTHING compared to the evil that the Roman Catholic Church has done throughout the centuries. How ANYONE with even half a brain can still be a Catholic with what that church has done today and throughout history, I will never understand. Satan has that church in his hip pocket.
----------------------------------------------------
They say that I am bad news. They say "Stay Away."
However, the troubles of the Orthodox Church are NOTHING compared to the evil that the Roman Catholic Church has done throughout the centuries. How ANYONE with even half a brain can still be a Catholic with what that church has done today and throughout history, I will never understand. Satan has that church in his hip pocket.
Speaking as someone coming from a similar background to Joe's, I think I can understand something of how he feels.
i) I don't think he was coming to Orthodoxy so much for Her own sake, but because it looked like a refuge from a RCC that is increasingly losing it's mind. While realizing the falsity of papism (and how it is not guarantee of "orthodoxy") due to this disinitigration might be a step in the right direction, I think that can only be the case if one has done some real soul searching about just what is wrong with the RCC, and why it's gone so screwy. I suspect Joe's convictions on the subject were basically those of the SSPX/Tridentine Mass crowd - evil, bad Vatican II, which was loaded with arch-liberals (I'm inclined to agree somewhat with this assessment.) However, the truth is that the sickness which gave the RCC Vatican II has been with the Latins for centuries - Vatican II was just it's most recent manifestation. The Latin Church, sadly, is like a leaf that has been severed from the branch. It kept most of it's form for centuries, but gradually began to fall apart and decay, to the point that now it hardly resembles at all the vibrant, living leaf of St.Gregory the Great, or St.Leo. In short, Joe had not "dug deep enough" in examining just why things went awry in the RCC.
ii) Joe is obviously attached to the forms of piety particular to the RCC. I can understand this to a large extent. I still find Gregorian Chant (which, btw., is Orthodox) comforting in a way that I doubt various forms of Orthodox liturgical chant will ever be. There is also a certain soberness (some would say "dryness" or if they're in a really bad mood, "sterility") to the Tridentine cycle which can be appealing once it has had a chance to grow on you.
He's also probably attached to forms of piety which have no equivelent in the Orthodox Church like the practice of "Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament", and most likely things like the "stations of the cross", etc. If that is what one has found comfort in for a long time, then psychologicaly I know it's hard to put them aside, even if it's in fact for an infinitely greater good.
iii) I don't want to psycho-analyze too much here, but I know in my experience one nagging thing which got a hold of me at some points was the "fire and brimstone" aspect of rejecting Catholicism. Having come from a very traditionalist background, we still heard from the pulpit that sin is punished by God (something you're not likely to hear in most contemporary Latin churches), and of course to reject the Pope and his church is an unpardonable sin (well, at least if this rejection is persisted in.) As Fr.Ambrose (formerlly Fr.Alexey Young) pointed out in one of his articles on papism, this can be a very big psychological obstical for many Latins considering Orthodoxy. It's something someone not coming from this background is unlikely to fully grasp. Fr.Ambrose grew up as a Latin in the years prior to Vatican II, which is basically the same religious milieu that "traditionalist" RC's still live in (even if no one in the RCC does, Pope included, oddly enough.) For me, the initial way I overcame this (though ultimatly, it was being utterly convinced of the truthfulness of the Orthodox Church's doctrine of salvation, which is totally distorted in papism - a controversial statement for some I'm sure, but I'd be willing to defend it if requested) was to simply take to heart the fact that while the RCC used to teach this, and while the "traddies" still believed it, the very objects of our loyalty (the pre-Vatican II Popes) most certainly did not believe this, and taught quite to the contrary. In fact, the softening of the papist line on this subject is something which stretches even before Vatican II (which is why there is so much confusion amongst latin traditionalists - some believing in the way say, Pius XII or Pius X did...whereas others, like the "feeneyites" are extremely exclusive in their view, which harkens back to the views expressed in documents like "Quo Primum" or the Council of Florence), but that is another very complicated subject.
In short, I realized if the supposedly "infallible" Popes don't buy into this idea, I didn't see why I should either. Still, it's a big mental obstical, and I can understand someone coming from my background having lots of difficulty with it.
Seraphim
though ultimatly, it was being utterly convinced of the truthfulness of the Orthodox Church's doctrine of salvation, which is totally distorted in papism - a controversial statement for some I'm sure, but I'd be willing to defend it if requested
I don't want to request it if it's gonna take up a lot of time, Seraphim, but if I would certainly be interested in reading your views if you wanted to put them up here. Perhaps if Joe is still lurking he might be helped by them as well. But again, not "requesting" you explain, so much as saying I'd be interested and read your explanation if you wrote one! 
I don't want to request it if it's gonna take up a lot of time, Seraphim, but if I would certainly be interested in reading your views if you wanted to put them up here. Perhaps if Joe is still lurking he might be helped by them as well. But again, not "requesting" you explain, so much as saying I'd be interested and read your explanation if you wrote one!
The short answer, is that fundamentally, humility is not taught in the RCC. It is this pride which created scholasticism, feeding the idea that revelation could be improved upon, and that grace itself is simply a "perfector" of nature, rather than man's transfiguration ("participation in the Divine Nature" as St.Peter boldly taught.) It is the "idea of God" vs. God's actual presence. It was because of this startling absence, that sentimentalism and human efforts had to be put into It's place (thus human fantasy replacing the Glory of God.)
I know the above is very much a "pat answer", probably more offensive than useful to a Roman Catholic due to it's "kurtness" and brevity, but it is very much confirmed both by my experiences and my reading of RC books (in particular, works which reflect RC popular piety.)
Seraphim
