Month: October 2010

From the American Catholic blog. Look at the clear thinking going on, the direct challenge to secularists and others working to establish the culture of death. Then compare this to our preoccupation with global warming and other dubious fads, the confusion (as the essay below states) between morality and moral status in our didactic discourse, our inability to self-organize (at least on the hierarchical level) thus binding the nascent creativity of many of our priests and laity (the fact we accomplish as much as we do despite the handicaps proves the point), and so forth. American Orthodoxy is at a crossroads and it no longer acceptable to waste another decade arguing about unity and mission like we have the last four. This has to stop.

One other point. I find in the essay the philosophical rationale for a point I’ve been making for years about the claim that the unborn fetus (latin: little one) is merely “potential human life.” While the culture of death advocates use the claim to deny the moral standing of the unborn child, I argue that it in fact confirms it. Potential is function of being. Potential cannot exist apart from being. The fact that an unborn child has “human” potential affirms its humanity; its being is “human,” that’s why it possesses human “potential.” The pro-abortion argument in other words, doesn’t even work polemically.

Source: American Catholic Blog

Last Friday, John Finnis, whom I and many others consider to be one of the foremost living Catholic intellectuals, debated philosophers Peter Singer and Maggie Little at the Princeton conference Open Hearts, Open Minds and Fair Minded Words (Mirror of Justice‘s own Rick Garnett discussed the constitutionality of legalized abortion on Saturday). My friend, Ryan Anderson, over at Public Discourse has published a revised version of Prof. Finnis’ opening remarks, which are well worth the read. Here are two snippets from the piece (be sure to read the whole thing at Public Discourse):

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Fr. Tom asks: Is it possible that the teaching of the Second Vatican Council about the ministry of bishops in the Roman Catholic Church is now being taught and practiced in an adapted and altered form in our Orthodox churches today? It’s a cogent and sober warning about the subversion of Orthodox ecclesiology that unfortunately has historical precedent. George Michalopulos examined the historical antecedents in his essay The Role of Metropolitan and Its Relationship within the Episcopate: A Reappraisal.

By Fr Thomas Hopko

Fr. Thomas Hopko

Orthodox Christians devoted to accountability are surely aware that accountability in behavior cannot be separated from accountability in understanding since practice (praxis) is necessarily connected to vision (theoreia).

This conviction inspires me, given the present state of things, to raise the following question: Is it possible that the teaching of the Second Vatican Council about the ministry of bishops in the Roman Catholic Church is now being taught and practiced in an adapted and altered form in our Orthodox churches today?

Let me explain why I raise such a question.

According to the Second Vatican Council of the Roman Catholic Church, following Vatican I and the Council of Trent, bishops are not organically connected to the specific dioceses in which they serve. They rather have their episcopal position and power by virtue of their personal sacramental consecration as bishops. They are, so to speak, considered to be bishops in their own right, and not in virtue of their ministries as heads and overseers of actually existing ecclesial communities to which they belong. As such, they can be moved about from church to church, and even function in bureaucratic positions with titles of sees that no longer exist and therefore without being the leading member of any particular church, and without having any flock at all.

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By Fr. Thomas Hopko

Fr. Thomas Hopko

• What concrete steps are now being taken to establish an autocephalous Orthodox Church of the United States that would be recognized as a “sister church” by all the autocephalous Orthodox churches in the world?
• What can Orthodox Christians in North America and around the world expect the Patriarchates of Constantinople, Antioch, Moscow, Romania, Serbia and Bulgaria to do with their North American “jurisdictions” to establish this self-governing Orthodox Church of the USA?
• How will the future Orthodox Church of the USA relate to the dioceses and parishes in Canada and south of the US border that are now in North American “jurisdictions”?
• And why should there be any problems regarding the OCA and its place in the US Episcopal Assembly and in the future Orthodox Church of the United States if the relationship between the Russian Orthodox Church and its North American missionary diocese was settled in 1970 and the OCA was always included in SCOBA?

It seems clear, at least to me, that the only real challenge in establishing an autocephalous Orthodox Church of the USA is the resolution of the current relationship between the old world patriarchates and their new world “jurisdictions”. There are no other problems. The Patriarchates of Constantinople, Antioch, Moscow, Romania, Serbia and Bulgaria have to bless their North American “jurisdictions” to interact with each other in establishing the autocephalous Orthodox Church of the United States. And the North American “jurisdictions” have to be willing to accomplish this task. That is all that is necessary.
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