Bishop Manuel Lin of Greek Catholic Eastern Rite knows his stuff, especially synod stuff, and he knows Christ and what the Catholic Church believes, teaches and proclaims, to be revealed by God. His understanding of synodality isn't what we are getting from Rome. The Eastern synods are rooted in Christ as the Son of God and His pastors, bishops and their helpers, priests, leading everyone toward Christ by clear teachings and the Sacramental life of the Church, especially the Body, Blood Soul and Divinity of Christ received during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
Rome's version of synodality is everyone holding hands in a closed circle that omits God and singing Kumbaya. It is very backward 1960's kind of walking together.
Pope Manuel I has a nice ring to it! And he has his own ornate tiara!
Greek Catholic Bishop: Synod on Synodality Is Not Like Eastern Synods
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VATICAN CITY — Despite claims to the contrary, the upcoming Synod on Synodality is unlike any synod of the Eastern Churches — it resembles a parliamentary process, and lacks a clear and coherent goal, a Greek Catholic bishop who will participate in the meeting has said.
In an Aug. 3 commentary published on the Greek Catholic Exarchate website, Bishop Manuel Nin, the Greek Byzantine Catholic Church’s apostolic exarch to Greece, expressed several concerns about the synod general assembly, the first session of which will take place Oct. 4-29 and the second in October 2024. The upcoming meeting marks a significant break with previous synod assemblies in that a selected group of lay participants will now be allowed to vote.
Bishop Manuel recognized that this exercise of authority has a “synodal dimension” in that decisions taken at a “fully collective level belong to the synod’s bishops,” but he stressed that if the West understands synodality as where “everyone, lay and clerical, act together in order to arrive at some ecclesiastical, doctrinal, canonical, disciplinary decision, whatever it may be, it becomes clear that such synodality does not exist in the East.”
Synodality
in all Christian Churches, both East and West, cannot be a kind of
reflection of the modern world whereby the Church becomes like a “modern
Western democracy, possibly parliamentary, where everyone can say
everything,” he warned. The life of the Church, he said, “has never been
a form of democracy in which everyone decides everything by majority
rules.”
“Decisions within these Churches are made by the assembly of bishops (almost always called a “synod” or sometimes a “council of hierarchs”) belonging to an Eastern Church,” he said. And he explained that such meetings are convened by the presiding bishops in view of important decisions relating to the “Christian journey undertaken by pastors for the good of their faithful, spiritually and materially.”...
...By contrast, he noted that the Synod on Synodality is a “collective ascent” of laity and clergy but he wondered: “To get where? To what end?” He also posed the question: with whom are the participants walking?....
Closing with the question, “What then is synodality?” Bishop Manuel said that for him, it is the “journey of all of us who have been baptized in Christ, who hear His Gospel, celebrate our faith, receive His grace in the sacraments, even through our brothers and sisters — a journey definitely together, guided and accompanied, at times, by the hand, or even carried on the shoulders of our pastors, following in the footsteps of the One who is the way, the truth and the life.”
READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE BY EDWARD PENTIN AT THE NATIONAL CATHOLIC REGISTER
5 comments:
His Grace is exactly right.
I recall my own engagement during the "listening session" phase of this process. I was thinking to myself "this has nothing to do with us and how we function". Additionally, the questions were vague, perhaps on purpose, where one could be led to the desired conclusion.
The Eastern Churches, particularly those adhering to the Byzantine Tradition, are orthodox and Orthodox, counter-cultural, rooted in unbroken tradition and unbending to current trends, fads and whim.
This process is wholly and completely manufactured, lacking a true purpose as noted and can only lead to the aforementioned being called into question. Again, this is wholly contrary to the Eastern ethos. Personally, I feel that the Eastern Byzantine Churches that are part of the Catholic Communion should eschew any resulting plans to change anything, not one scintilla that would jeopardize our current alignment with Orthodox tradition and praxis.
To note, "we've" already had an Eastern cleric as pope, in the 1968 film, The Shoes of the Fisherman.
Maybe it's high time for a real one. I've wondered if most papabiles are even capable of fulfilling this role anymore.
His Grace wears a mitre, Fr AJM. While it is a "crown" of sorts, it is not a tiara. In the Byzantine East, there is no concept of a tiara.
Byzantine clerical headdress are detailed here:
https://catalog.obitel-minsk.com/blog/2018/11/7-types-of-orthodox-clergy-and-monastic
My priest routinely wears the skufia during Divine Liturgy removing for the gospel proclamation and anaphora (consecration).
current curia official's response to this blog post by Father McDonald:
"A Byzantine Catholic Pope? He doesn't even speak Italian! Next, the Father will suggest a negro from Africa? We will tell his Bishop exactly that!"
He's not wrong,
Something I've thought for the longest time, it would be a lot easier for the West to adhere to the principle of subsidarity within the life of the Church, if the Bishops themesleves had the Faith. (This isn't to say there aren't examples of those in the West that do have the Faith)...but generally speaking a lot easier, when the Bishops of the West, particularly in the US don't uplold one of their many common nicknames...the DNC at prayer...or the United States Council of Confused Bishops. Or as I often say, with Bishops like these, who needs enemies.
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