Dr Andrew Thomas Kania... Today we re-publish what is probably Dr Kania's most provocative commentary ever. "Breathing Deeply, With One Lung" , was one of the first pieces that Dr Kania published after he returned to Australia from his studies in Uppsala, Sweden. The article has been published many times in various journals in Australia and overseas, and is probably the piece that Dr Kania is best known for. Recently it formed a major part of the educational material published in Australia for WYD 2008, regarding the structure of the Catholic Church. The article has become the point of reference for much that Dr Kania has written since on the Eastern Catholic Churches. As such it forms good background reading for a piece that Dr Kania has written for the forthcoming edition of The Tablet. ARTICLE NAVIGATION: You are presently looking at Part 1 NEXT >>

PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 "The greatest test of a friendship is whether one person can reprove the other. All of us commit sins from time to time; and all of us try to blind ourselves to our sins, making excuses for ourselves, or pretending the sin did not even occur. At such times we need friends to open our eyes to the reality of our sins. Put yourself now in the position of the friend. Are you willing to open that person's eyes? Are you willing to expose the excuses as false? Are you prepared to risk that person's wrath, as wounded pride rises up in anger? Or do you prefer to blind yourself to your friend's faults, and so join a conspiracy of blindness?" (St. John Chrysostom, 1996, p. 48) Examples of the geneeral ignorance of Latin Catholics of the universality and catholicity of their Church: The year is 1977, the scene, a Catholic Boys School in Western Australia. A Year Six (11 years of age) class in Religious Education is coming to its close, as with another school day. To conclude the class, the teacher, a devout Latin Catholic asks her pupils to stand and say a final prayer. As the teacher initiates the sign of the cross, she stops the class and draws their attention to one of the boys, who in her words: "Has crossed himself the wrong way!" Bringing the child to the front she asks him to repeat his indiscretion. Seeing a chance to instruct the entire class further, the teacher poses the question: "Can any person in this class see what this silly boy is doing wrong?" To which 30 hands respond in answer. Grabbing the pupil by the right arm the teacher proceeds to correct the boy, who resists. Vigorous laughter ensues. Stating that she will not dismiss the class until the recalcitrant has shown to everyone that he has learnt his lesson the teacher forces the boy's hand open (which had been positioned with three fingers joined together, representing the Holy Trinity in Byzantine formulae), and draws on him the sign of the cross — left shoulder first then to the right. The boy in this story became in time the author of the article before you, and the sad event took place nearly two hundred years after the first Eastern Christian, a Ukrainian, came to Australia on the First Fleet in 1788. (See: Clark, 1962, p. 94) As an adult I was exposed to even more examples of the lack of catholic understanding of the Church by many Roman Rite Catholics. A number of the more astonishing cases were to occur when I was completing my Doctoral degree in Sweden. On one occasion a Palestinian student came to Uppsala University in Sweden. Seeing the sign, Katolska kyrkan (Catholic Church), he entered. During a discussion about his Parish Priest and the Priest's wife, with a number of the parishioners, he was informed that he was not Catholic but Orthodox. Hearing the tail end of this discussion, I called the young man back. He told me: "All my life I have been Catholic but now they say I am not". The young Palestinian was indeed a Catholic, and informed me that he was from the city of Bethlehem! On another occasion in Uppsala a near riot ensued when I spoke about married clergy in the Catholic Church, to which two Spanish exchange students who were members of Opus Dei, declared: "We do not know what you are – but you can't be Catholic!" All these anecdotes serve to introduce the underlying premise on which this paper is based: that like the Religious Education teacher in 1977 the majority of Catholics even today have little idea as to what it means to be a member of the Catholic Church. This gap in knowledge has had serious ramifications in the quality of Catholic Education that we continue to deliver our students, in that the perception we provide of the Catholic Church is too often of monochrome Catholicism. This assumption was made still more painfully clear to me not only growing up as an Eastern Catholic in starkly Latin influenced Catholic Church schools, but also most recently after taking up a position as a university lecturer. On one occasion I delivered a lecture on the Eastern Churches. Afterward senior Church-going academics came up to me with amazed expressions on their faces wishing to know why they had never heard of the Eastern Catholic Churches seeing they had been educated at Catholic schools, and considered themselves to be practicing Catholics. One of these lecturers had even taught Religious Education for many years at the tertiary level. Further, while researching for this article I asked a librarian if she had any material on the Eastern Catholic Churches, to which she replied in inquisitive innocence, "These churches are east of where?" A more painful reaction occurred in one of my graduate classes when after discussing the Eastern Churches a student came up to me and stated that she felt that she had been robbed by the Catholic Church. In her words: "For forty years I have been a Catholic, but why has it been only now that someone has explained the grandeur of who we are?" (i) Latin Church dominance: These anecdotes beg the very serious question: If we sincerely seek as Catholics a unified Church – a unified Bride of Christ, then before we can accommodate our Orthodox brothers and sisters we must become more knowledgeable of that Eastern Church, which exists, already in complete union with the Holy See. If charity indeed begins at home, it becomes imperative that the Latin Church witnesses to the catholicity of the Church, by, as John Paul II has exhorted, showing "concretely, far more than in the past, how much she esteems and admires the Christian East and how essential she considers its contribution to the full realisation of the Church's universality" (John Paul II, 1995, §3). By so doing the Latin Church will be encouraging reunion with those of the Eastern Church who still remain separated from the Church Universal. As mature and intelligent Catholics we must heed Pius XI, who called for all to "be excited to a yet warmer love for the true Bride of Christ ... bewitching beauty in the diversity of her rites" (Attwater, D., 1935, p. xii). By so doing perhaps the thirst for the mystical east, which has drawn so many Latin Catholics to Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam, may be quenched by the rich and as yet untapped wealth of the Catholic East, which offers the religious mystery of the Orient within a Christian theological context. On this latter theme, whereas I am in full accordance with the study of non-Christian religions in the Catholic School system, and seek to encourage this for it adds to the catholicity of the young mind, it is ironical that Catholic School students who graduate after twelve years of education, have received far more information on Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism (in Western Australia, at least) but have left without studying in any depth the eastern lung of the Catholic Church. I have found in this age of political correctness, that there seems to be no shortage of willingness for educators to become more informed about non-Christian Religions, yet perhaps out of fear or perhaps out of a distinct lack of interest there is no similar desire to learn about the Eastern Churches – Catholic or Orthodox. The perception that the ancient Churches of the East have lost their relevance is far from the truth, as the Latin Church discovered at the Second Vatican Council. Of the 25 changes to the Latin liturgy which were implemented, over 20 of these were direct influences from the Eastern Catholic Churches who had maintained the ancient liturgical traditions of the Catholic Church. A number of the more important examples being: celebrating the liturgy in the vernacular, concelebration of the Eucharist, having communion under both species, as well as changing the rite of the Sacrament of Penance where the confessor and penitent sit face to face. As an Eastern Catholic child, I can recall asking my father why I could not have wine with my Holy Communion when I went to Mass at the local Catholic School in the early 1970's. Asking my Irish primary school teacher the same question she informed me in no uncertain terms that I should not be ridiculous. Tragically in an endeavour to appear more Western a number of the Eastern Catholic Churches have adopted within Western nations such as Australia, the Confessional booth as well as other Western innovations, such as kneeling during the Consecration, which in toto detract from Eastern theology. I shall deal in detail with all these matters in a later paper, entitled: Unity in Diversity or Procruste's Bed, only wishing now to make the reader aware of some of the inherent issues facing the Eastern Catholic Churches. Other contributions which the Eastern Catholic Churches have the potential to give the contemporary Church of the West lie in the area of the theological arguments behind a married clergy. The over-preoccupation in the Western Church and the quantity and nature of the discussions over a married clergy highlight the myopia of many in the Latin Church who continually discuss this issue by saying, "Married men cannot be priests in the Catholic Church". Such comments totally disregard the presence of the Eastern Catholic Churches. The correct formulation being, "In the Latin Church etc." or "In the Catholic Church of the West etc.". As a point of reference 95% of the 300 Ukrainian Catholic seminarians in Lviv, Ukraine, are married men. Charles Hill, instructs the neophyte to take note that his studies have put him: in touch with Eastern as well as Western forms of Christian life and theology. We in the West do not share the accent on mystery and divine transcendence, on the deification of the human being, on the role of the Spirit, on healing rather than fall that emerges from the worship and theology of the East. Western, Roman forms of worship, models of Church, doctrinal expressions and styles of theologising do not exhaust the totality of means of response to the sources of faith. Our map ... demonstrates clearly the purchase that Eastern centers of Christian life had on Christendom in early centuries. It explains why the patriarchates and ecumenical councils were to be found east of the Italian peninsula. The schism of East and West in the eleventh century deprived us of this sense of diversity; we tend to think now in a monochrome Western fashion, and are the poorer for it". (Hill, 1995, p. 76) This work therefore has a twin dimension: to inform members of the Latin Church of the Catholic Church, and to inform the same group of the critical need of embracing the Eastern Churches so as to nurture a spirit of ecumenism. We must as Catholics show all the separated brethren that there is still a place in the Catholic Church for them, and that, in the case of the Orthodox, the vacuum which they have left behind, has not been arbitrarily filled and that their hoped for return has not been diminished either by our chauvinism or myopia. As Benedict XIV implored: The Church does not require schismatics to abandon their rites when they return to Catholic unity, but only that they forswear and detest heresy. Its great desire is for the preservation, not the destruction, of different peoples – in short, that all may be Catholic rather than all become Latin. (Benedict XIV, 1775, §48) Another intention of this paper is that it seeks to reveal the beauty of the Catholic Church to the reader and hopefully create in the hearts of the faithful a deeper and more aware love for Christ's Bride here on earth. It is in short a response to Pope John Paul II's call in Orientale Lumen: "I believe that one important way to grow in mutual understanding and unity consists precisely in improving our knowledge of one another". (John Paul II, 1995, § 47) My comments although critical at times of the Latin Church do not seek to diminish the Latin Church, nor its members, but point out and explore a number of quite serious problems within the Latin Church, which have affected and still negatively influence the life of the entire Catholic Church as well as Her own self. I unequivocally revere the role that the Latin Church offers, as with all her sister Churches to the schema of the Church Universal. What I write in this paper is a summative echo of what many Popes for hundreds of years have exhorted. If the Catholic Church does not act on these many Papal letters and encyclicals, then criticism levelled at the Catholic Church as to Her only being ecumenical to the point of lip-service may be true. This paper is written with a spirit of charity, which hopes to assist the entire Church in becoming more Catholic in its every day ecclesiastical and spiritual reality. To do this both East and West must enter into a new marriage, one of equality and respect, one where to borrow from Cardinal Newman, "heart speaks to heart" (Ker, 1988, p.719). As John Paul II has written: Since, in fact, we believe that the venerable and ancient tradition of the Eastern Churches is an integral part of the heritage of Christ's Church, the first need for Catholics is to be familiar with that tradition, so as to be nourished by it and to encourage the process of unity in the best way possible for each. Our Eastern Catholic brothers and sisters are very conscious of being the living bearers of this tradition, together with our Orthodox brothers and sisters. The members of the Catholic Church of the Latin tradition must also be fully acquainted with this treasure and thus feel, with the Pope, a passionate longing that the full manifestation of the Church's catholicity be restored to the Church and to the world, expressed not by a single tradition, and still less by one community in opposition to the other; and that we too may be granted a full taste of the divinely revealed and undivided heritage of the universal Church which is preserved and grows in the life of the Churches of the East as in those of the West. (John Paul II, 1995, § 1) ARTICLE NAVIGATION: You are presently looking at Part 1 NEXT >>

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PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 ii) The Catholic Church IS catholic: The division of the Church to East and West was a demarcation necessitated by the twin halves of the Empire of Rome. The geographic designation of East referred to those areas, which lay to the East of Rome. After the spread of Christianity such cities as Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria and eventually the Emperor's own city, Constantinople became centres of religious worship; as in fact Rome and the cities to the West of her also. Yet the aforementioned Eastern cities had a special significance to Rome due to their communities of faithful having been founded by the actual apostles and disciples of Christ. Many Catholics are aware that sacred tradition has subscribed that St James established the community of Jerusalem, that Ss Peter and Paul established the Christian faith in Rome, that St Mark founded the Church in Alexandria, that St Andrew established a community in Byzantium and on the shores of the river Dnipro, and that St Thomas journeyed as far as India to found what was to become known as the Syro-Malabarese Church. Christianity which was born in the East spread across the entire Empire, yet the direct influence of the disciples was in the main contained in the East, later apostles and missionaries sent by the Disciples of Jesus, pushing the faith to the Western boundaries. Pope Leo XIII described this fact well when he wrote that the Apostles of the East "swiftly gave forth their yield ... From them has come a wondrously grand and powerful flood of benefits upon the other peoples of the world, no matter how far-flung" (Leo XIII, 1894, § 1) The light of the Catholic Church rose from the East, hence the title of the Papal Encyclical, Orientale Lumen, and this fact should not be forgotten irrespective of numerical or political supremacies within the Catholic Church. If it is forgotten then truly the chance for a full reconciliation between East and West is doomed, for the Eastern Churches are particularly aware of the contribution they have made to the Catholic Church. The rapid growth of Christianity led to the Gospel message having to be enculturated and developed according to the customs of the area in which the message was being proclaimed. As a result a variety of religious celebrations and liturgies arose within the Church, which in time was to become known as Catholic. The word Catholic derives from the Greek word, katolikos/katholikos. The general translation of this word into English is "universal", the Greek term literally expressing the meaning of "taking nothing away from the whole" — or all encompassing, all embracing. Prior to ecclesiastical usage the term catholic was used frequently in classic Greek literature, by writers such as Aristotle and Polybius. In early Christian writings the term was used often in its original Greek meaning. Justin Martyr writes of the catholic resurrection, Tertullian speaks of the catholic goodness of God, and Ireneaus describes the four catholic winds. Modern scholars would refer to the "general" resurrection, the "absolute" goodness, and the "principal" winds. I feel that both Catholic and catholic should be used to describe the Church — for what is our faith if not based on Catholic dogma, and what is our Church if not catholic? The expression "the Catholic Church" (he katholike ekklesia) was used for the first time by St Ignatius of Antioch in a letter to the Smyrnaeans (110AD). In this document St Ignatius writes: "Wherever the bishop appears, let the people be there; just as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic [katholike] Church". (St. Ignatius of Antioch, 8,1) The Church was Catholic for its message was given to all of humanity, and this universal message could be enculturated for all peoples. Important to note also is that a man from Antioch was the first to coin the term Catholic Church, for not only is Antioch one of the Eastern Churches but, it was here that the followers of Jesus of Nazareth were also first called Christians. (See: Acts of the Apostles 11:26) The strength, unity and holiness of any local Church was not drawn into question as long as there was agreement by its members over the articles of the Apostles and/or Nicene Creed, the celebration of the seven Sacraments and Apostolic succession. As Meyendorff succinctly describes: The term "catholic church" applies ... to the local eucharistic community: each church is, indeed ekklhsia Teou in its fullness, because what gives that fullness is God's presence, is the Body of Christ indivisible manifested in each Eucharist. This understanding of catholicity, however is not congregationalism; catholicity implies unity with the past (apostolicity) and with the future (eschatology), and also unity in faith and life with all the other churches which share the same catholicity. Local churches are identical in their faith, and therefore always interdependent. Although celebrated locally, the Eucharist has a cosmic or universal significance. The Church is always the same Church of God, she sojourns (paroikousa) in different geographic locations. (Meyendorff, 1983, p.55) Despite the threat of heresy arising within the community of faithful (resulting in the creation of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed to suppress dissension), the Catholic Church was unified in its system of belief for over one thousand years. The strength of the Church's unity was seen as divinely inspired, the Body of Christ bringing into one the rich diversity of peoples and Rites reflecting their worlds. The power of the Holy Spirit was seen as visible in bringing to fruition a unity in diversity. Pope Pius XI strongly enforced this point when he explained that: "The Church of God, by a wondrous act of Divine Providence, was so fashioned as to become in the fullness of time an immense family which embraces all men". (Pius XI, 1923, §1) According to Pius XI, "The Church possesses a fact known to all – as one of its visible marks, impressed on it by God, that of a world-wide unity". (Pius XI, 1923, §1) The Catholic of the early Church seemed to understand that differences within the Church made the Church stronger so long as dogmatic unity was seen to rest at the heart of the diversity. Yves Congar acknowledged this when he wrote: "a Christian of the Fourth or Fifth Century would have felt less bewildered by the forms of piety current in the Eleventh Century than would his counterpart of the Eleventh Century in the forms of the Twelfth", after the schism (Congar, 1959, 39). St. Augustine's comments encourage a wider understanding of what it means to be Catholic, "in essentials, unity; in doubtful matters, liberty. In all things, charity" (John XXIII, 1959, §72) St. Augustine's adage lies at the heart of an understanding of what it means to be a Catholic — not cultural imposition and liturgical uniformity across all Churches but a free respect for difference, being preceded only by an adherence to those articles of faith which together form the dogma of the Church Universal — both East and West. To this point, Pius XII wrote in Orientalis ecclesiae, "Each and every nation of Oriental rite must have its rightful freedom in all that is bound up with its own history and its own genius and character, saving always the truth and integrity of the doctrine of Jesus Christ". (Pius XII, 1944, §26) To allow for a variety of linguistic and cultural influences and distinctive perceptions of theology, spirituality, liturgy and church law, the Catholic Church properly understood consists of a body of sister Churches. As such the term 'Church' refers to a particular community of faithful within the one Universal Church. Each Church has its own level of autonomy. As the Australian Conference of Catholic Bishops emphasise: We have been accustomed to speaking of the Latin (Roman or Western) Rite or the Eastern Rites to designate these different Churches. However, the Church's contemporary legislation as contained in the Code of Canon Law and the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches makes it clear that we ought to speak not of the Latin or Maronite or Melkite or Ukrainian Rites, but of the Latin Church, the Maronite Church, the Melkite Church and the Ukrainian Church. Canon 112 of the Code of Canon Law uses the phrase "autonomous ritual Churches" to designate the various Churches. (Eastern Catholics in Australia, 1997, p. 4) To re-emphasise, the Eastern Catholic Churches are those autonomous ritual Churches whose ancient roots come directly from the Apostolic missions of the East and who are in complete union with the Holy See . The Eastern Catholic Churches have their own liturgies, codes of canon law, customs, and patriarchs. The Eastern Catholic Churches as with the Latin Church are a Christian way of life, transcending territorial groups or cultural divisions. A Catholic of any Church may and should worship in any of the other Churches. Eastern Catholics are not Orthodox although the two Church communities share the great majority of traditions, including liturgy. Orthodox and other non-Catholic Eastern Christians are some 10-12 times larger in number of faithful than their Eastern Catholic brethren. For the ill informed, the term Uniate Churches or Uniates (to describe the faithful of these Churches), has become synonymous with the phrase the Eastern Catholic Church; yet the reader must note that Uniate is a pejorative term for Eastern Catholics first coined by the opponents of the Union of Brest in 1595. It is a derisive term, which is considered offensive by Eastern Catholics, who do not see themselves as Uniates but as in loyal sisterhood with the West. In this sense the term Uniate would apply equally well to a Latin as with a Melkite, for both are one with the other. In a secondary sense, the Ukrainian Catholic scholar, Cyril Korolevsky, explores the term uniate, clarifying that it has a further dimension referring to those Churches of the East which have so lost their Eastern roots and orientation in favour of Western rituals and theology (See: Korolevsky, 1993, pp.545-549). In any event the term Uniate is NOT used in Vatican documents, and should be entirely dropped for the purpose of sisterly love between Eastern and Western Catholics. It is necessary that all Catholics be uniform on this point, for the term uniate is still in relatively common usage, especially when in ecumenical dialogues some Orthodox Churches prefer its use when making reference to the Eastern Catholic Churches. To use the term in such a fashion corresponds to an Eastern Catholic, who calls his brother Latin when speaking with him, but a Mick when referring to his brother in a private conversation with a Protestant. ARTICLE NAVIGATION: You are presently looking at Part 2 << PREV | NEXT >>

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PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 ii) The Catholic Church IS catholic (cont'd): Although the Catholic Church consists of 25 autonomous sister churches: four belonging to the Western Church and 21 belonging to the Eastern, the dominant driving force rests with the Latin Church, which not only pushes her Eastern brethren to the background by the sheer enormity of her presence, but has done similar to her sister churches of the West – for example: most Latin Catholics do not not know of the Mozarabic (a unique blend of the Spanish and Moorish cultural influences, particular to Toledo in Spain) and Ambrosian (particular to Milan, Italy) Churches. Few Irish, (who are considered almost universally as being 'staunchly' Catholic), know that they lost their Celtic Church (the fourth of the Western Churches), in a pre-Reformation invasion by England in which the Celtic Church was supplanted by the Latin Church. Population distribution between the Eastern Catholic Churches, 2008 St Thomas Aquinas who typified the catholic spirit of the Western Church was called to preach sermons in both the Latin and Ambrosian Churches. As the Ambrosian Church calendar has two further weeks of Advent than the Latin Church, beginning the period of Advent earlier, Aquinas on one occasion preached on the First Sunday of Advent in the Latin Church, and then travelled to Milan to preach on the very same day a sermon on the theme of the Third Sunday of Advent. A statement such as that made by Pope Benedict XV that: "The Church of Jesus Christ is neither Latin nor Greek nor Slav but Catholic", is still today valid in theological terms, but devoid of impact, for most Catholics perceive the term Catholic to mean Latin, be they members of the Church, Greek or Slav (Benedict XV, 1917, Dei providentis ). To the average Catholic, the frequent swinging of a thurible, the presence of icons and chanting, means not Catholic, but Orthodox or foreign. The Australian Conference of Catholic Bishops expressed the same point: For many Latin Catholics the mention of Eastern or Oriental Churches is understood as a reference to "the Orthodox Churches", to those Churches of the East which are not in full communion with the Catholic Church governed by the successor of Peter and the bishops in communion with him. ( Eastern Catholics in Australia , 1997, p.32) This misconception is explored through the work of the Ukrainian Catholic scholar and Basilian monk, Anthony Holowaychuk. According to Holowaychuk not only is there a need to make the Latin Church aware of her Eastern Catholic Church brethren, but on a similar plane there is a critical need to make the Latin Church aware of her own sister Churches of the West. The process of making the Church more Catholic is one which has a number of focuses: First, that both East and West understand re-discover and come to understand the other; Second, that on the level of both Eastern and Western that they come to a level of self-discovery — coming to know exactly who they are as a particular lung within the Corpus Christi. It is on this latter point where the Latin Church, so long thought of as the monolithic rite of the West, must break open this false perception within Her, and discover Her role in the sisterhood of Western Churches. Perhaps in the future "there will be from the Latin Church the development of many particular Churches" (Holowaychuk, 1988, p.217). The first place from which to begin this journey would be in the rediscovery of the Mozarabic and Ambrosian Churches. The promotion of these two Churches would create the climate where Western Catholics could appreciate to a newer level the enculturation of their faith. Moreover the resurrection of the ancient and emasculated, Celtic Church would be a precedent, which perhaps could be used as the role model for the building of new particular Churches within the Western Church. By so doing there may be seen a devolution of power, and the encouragement of fresh diversity within the Catholic Church — so that culture can speak more explicitly to faith and faith more explicitly to culture. In this way the Latin Church could come to an understanding of the many pre-existing particular Churches within the Catholic Church. Monochrome Catholicism as practiced by many Latin Catholics and perceived by many Eastern Catholics to be the reality needs to be addressed so as to create a renaissance among all Catholics as to what is the real beauty of the Church. The words of the Nicene Creed and the belief in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church, too often for many Latin Catholics refers to a belief in a ritually uniform Church, which although celebrated in various tongues around the world, is centered in Rome and takes its roots from Saint Peter — and hence the true Church must needs be for these people — Latin. John Meyendorff in his book Catholicity and the Church remarked on this problem. To Meyendorff such an interpretation of the Catholic Church has many serious implications and repercussions. Meyendorff writes: All this denotes not only a large degree of ignorance but also a spiritual loss and a danger for the true faith. The concrete and direct implications of our confessing a belief in the "one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church" are lost, and are replaced by a vague and imaginary, or a narrowly confessional, concept of "catholicity", coupled with, in practical terms, a congregational, Protestant, or sectarian understanding of church life. (Meyendorff, 1983, p.9) Uniformity of ritual is completely contradictory to the structure of the Catholic Church and its tenet of a sisterhood of unity in diversity. In retrospect the ecumenist Yves Cardinal Congar would write about the lack of Catholic understanding by the Latin Church: For a very long time, the 'other' was not sufficiently recognized as different and diverse, and the profound values concealed by that diversity were not appreciated. It is in fact only quite recently that we have come to understand this, and sometimes this understanding has been accompanied by doubt about our own values and an overestimation of the 'other' and its exotic aspects – the grass is always greener in the other field. Catholic Christianity has for centuries encountered different cultures and religions, but now the need is to encounter, recognize and welcome them in a new way. (Congar, 2000, Vol, II, p.25) First, to Congar reference to the catholic church within the Nicene Creed is one both present and expectant. The believer affirms the notion that the Church of Christ is unified through the charisms of the Holy Spirit — hence the Church is catholic as the gift of the Spirit necessitates a universal oneness of all: "The Church was, in this fundamental sense, catholic on the day of Pentecost and will always be so until the day of Parousia" ( Catechism of the Catholic Church , 1994, §830) Second, the Church is catholic as the Spirit allows for a diversity of religious expression while maintaining dogmatic unity. Catholicity as stated in the Nicene Creed is therefore a present reality as the Spirit holds the Church unified at all times. Moreover it is expectant as all believers are asked to keep the Church catholic on a day-to-day basis, by obeying the call of Christ to respect the gifts of the Spirit throughout the entire world. As Congar concludes, there has been a general misconception by Latin Catholics that believers are affirming faith in the Church of Rome when reciting the creed yet the Creed speaks not only of the local or particular Church (for example a Coptic Catholic stating their belief in their local Church), but stresses the universal bond between all the Churches and the peoples of these Churches (See: Congar, 2000 Vol, II, pp.24-35). The Catholic Church therefore not only affirms what is, but affirms the continual evolution of the communities of faithful to push toward unity within their diversity. Congar writes: "The Church overcame Babel, not by a return to a uniformity that existed before Babel, but by proclaiming an implantation of the same gospel and the same faith in varied and diverse cultural soils and human spaces" (Congar, 2000, Vol, II, p.26). Unbeknown to many Catholics each week they profess a devotion to strive toward a rejoicing in the sisterhood of all the Churches and all the cultures behind ritual differences. It is sheer hypocrisy therefore if one recites the Creed to be racist, or culturally imperialistic, for the Creed implies diversity and love between all Catholics. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church concluded, In the mind of the Lord the Church is universal by vocation and mission, but when she puts down her roots in a variety of cultural, social, and human terrains, she takes on different external expressions and appearances in each part of the world". The rich variety of ecclesiastical disciplines, liturgical rites, and theological and spiritual heritages proper to the local churches "unified in a common effort, show all the more resplendently the catholicity of the undivided Church. ( Catechism of the Catholic Church , 1994, §835) The Catholic or Universal Church West The Eastern Catholic Churches Rome Jerusalem Antioch Alexandria Constantinople Ambrosian

Latin

Mozarabic



Celtic

(no longer in existence) Armenian*

Maronite

Malankar*

Syrian*

Chaldean*

Malabar* Coptic*

Ethiopian* Albanian*

Byelorussian*

Bulgarian*

Church of the Byzantines*

Greek*

Hungarian*

Italo-Albanian

Melkite*

Romanian*

Russian*

Ruthenian*

Slovakian*

Ukrainian* (iii) Conclusion: Throughout the course of this article it has been my intention to reveal to the reader that the Body of Christ, His Church, truly has two lungs — the West, and the hereto poorly recognized East. For far too long the Catholic Church has expressed herself to the world with a singular profile, and as such has often been perceived by the world as speaking with one dimension. Yves Congar mentions that up until the second half of the Sixth Century there existed a magnificent pluralism in the Catholic Church: "one passed easily from East to the West and vice versa, celebrating the mass with the people of any particular place, in their language and according to their rubrics" (Congar, 1959, pp.34-35). As Catholics of the third millennium we must seek to regain the catholicity of the past in order to renovate the Church for a resplendent future. We must endeavour to give our children both catholic hearts and catholic minds. Like the athlete in St Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians, if we wish to run the race and win the prize, we must learn to breathe fully and deeply with both lungs. By so doing we will win for ourselves that wreath which will never wither, and with our efforts combined shall reveal to the world the true Church, She who is the splendid icon of our God, a God who is universal in goodness, understanding and love. (See: 1 Corinthians 9: 24-27, The New Jerusalem Bible ) ARTICLE NAVIGATION: You are presently looking at Part 3 << PREV

PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 Bibliography:

Attwater, D., (1935), The Catholic Eastern Churches, The Bruce Publishing Company, Milwaukee, WisconsinBenedict XIV (1755) Allatae Sunt, at www.papalencyclicals.net

Benedict XV (1917) Dei providentis, at www.papalencyclicals.net

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Dr Andrew Thomas Kania is a visiting scholar at Blackfriars Hall at the University of Oxford, where he is completing a book on Dag Hammrskjöld. He has taken 12 months leave of absence from his position as Director of Spirituality at Aquinas College, Manning in Western Australia to complete this task. Prior to this appointment at Aquinas Dr. Kania was a lecturer for the School of Religious Education at the University of Notre Dame Australia as well as for the Catholic Institute of Western Australia at Edith Cowan and Curtin Universities. Dr. Kania belongs to the Ukrainian Church and is interested in ecumenical issues as well as contemporary problems facing religious educators. What are your thoughts on this commentary? You can contribute to the discussion in our forum. ©2008Dr Andrew Thomas Kania [Index of Commentaries by Dr Andrew Kania]