Posts

Credo: what I believe

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Credo: what I believe On being a Catholic: God, Christ, the Trinity, the hypostatic union, Mary the Mother of God, bishops, the Mass, sacraments that do what they signify, baptismal regeneration, auricular confession, and the option of using images in worship ("all can, some should, none must"). Doctrine. Creed. The true church subsists in the Catholic Church. The common set of beliefs and practices of the ancient churches with apostolic succession (us, the separated Eastern churches including the Orthodox, and a few splinter groups). The Vincentian canon and the great Catholic family of valid orders (again, the ancient churches: credal orthodoxy, unbroken apostolic succession, and unbroken true teaching about the Eucharist). Traditional Mass ( video ). Office. (Actually I have Winfred Douglas’ Monastic Diurnal, the Benedictine office in traditional Book of Common Prayer language.) The Orthodox rite. A rite is a school of Christian thought and living. Prayer fo...

No to the rosary in the Eastern churches

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Why Byzantine Catholic churches shouldn’t promote the rosary The Catholic Church says: respect my rites Written in 2020; updated. ‘The rosary is wonderful: why can’t we promote it among all Christians?’   The Byzantine Rite used by Orthodox and some Catholic churches has its own devotions to Mary including its own version of the Hail Mary: ‘Rejoice, O virgin Mother of God, Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, for thou hast borne the Saviour of our souls.’ There are long litany-like akathists and canons. There is also the prayer rope counting the Jesus Prayer, ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner’, but unlike the Roman rosary it’s not usually a lay devotion at home and in the parishes but a monastic practice. Here is a similar answer from one of the Orthodox churches in America. Like the Stations of the Cross , the rosary developed in the Roman Church after the split with the ...

My trip through Eastern Orthodoxy

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My trip through Eastern Orthodoxy Testimony of a Russian Orthodox Christian under Rome Originally written in 2014, when I was going to the traditional Latin Mass; updated. tl;dr: Don't get rebaptized to preach contraception. The Orthodox have their problems: anti-Western bigotry and being wrong on contraception and on remarriage after divorce. But they also have defined doctrine that's true — the first seven great church councils, real sacraments including real bishops and the real Eucharist — and a rite that's entirely Catholic , as is, and better than the Novus Ordo ; don't latinize it . Their worship services and prayer practices are mine. Better than mainline churchianity including Bergoglianity . I'd known of Eastern rites and churches since the early 1980s, and my first traditional Catholic liturgy was Byzantine, by Ukrainians. I'd be interested to know: why did you you leave the Latin Church when you did? Three things: I was trying t...

Catholic Anglican links

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Anglo-Catholic links Catholic Anglican links An·​glo-Cath·​o·​lic , ˌaŋ-glō-ˈkath-lik. An Anglican who believes that the "Reformation" neither cut off nor altered the Church of England's Catholicism and insists on its Catholic character (World Book, 1964), ... emphasizing its continuity with historic Catholicism and fostering Catholic dogma and Catholic liturgical traditions (based on Merriam-Webster online). Catholic Anglicanism made me. Anglo-Catholics were around when I was a teenage Episcopalian to teach me traditional, pre-Vatican II high church, in beautiful English, when the official Catholic Church wanted nothing to do with it. Thank you! Buy books to support me Anglo-Catholic facts How it began: the Oxford Movement What started by claiming divine authority for Anglicanism, reacting partly against an effect of Catholic emancipation, ended up imitating the Catholic Church Tract XC was well meant but intellectu...