I have been attacking preachers a lot lately, and this gives me the fear that some Catholics might think I’m a good guy. I am NOBODY’S good guy.
So let me take a blast at the Pope here. Everybody loves him, like everybody loves Winston Churchill and the group that calls itself The Greatest Generation.
The Roman catholic Church has Eastern Rite Churches. These are churches whose entire ritual is Eastern Orthodox, with a single exception. That exception is that in their Nicene Creed they says that the Holy Spirit proceeds from “the Father and the Son” while Eastern Orthodoxy says the Holy Spirit proceeds only from the Father.
Both churches have murdered and demand a lot of people over that.
Jesus said “of such is the Kingdom of Heaven,” referring to children. Those must have been some extraordinary children if they stayed awake at night worrying about whether the Holy proceeds from the Father and the Son or just from the Father.
Anyway, this is called the filioque, and having the right filioque is what God is all about, say the theologians.
I think I already pointed out that all theologians are psychopaths.
Anyway, Eastern Rite churches are interesting. The Ukrainian Eastern Rite Church has millions of members. The Melkite and Marionite Churches, both Lebanese Eastern Rite, make up most of the Christian population of Lebanon, which used to be the only Arab country with a Christian majority.
Eastern Rite priests are Roman Catholic priests, but they are married. In the Orthodox Church a priest can be married if he marries before ordination. A lot of Orthodox priests finish seminary and put off their ordination until they are married. Eastern Rite priests do the same thing.
I said, “Eastern Rite priests are Roman Catholic priests, but they are married. ” An Eastern Rite priest would not like that sentence. They insist that they are Orthodox. The local Greek Orthodox priest told me that part of their regular reading is Melkite writings.
The Catholic Church recognizes an Orthodox priest and an Orthodox service to be as valid as a Catholic one, and vice-versa.
So recently the Melkite Church asked that their members be allowed to go to either Orthodox or Roman Catholic services, as they chose, in the many places where there is no Melkite Church. It was the Pope who refused, for all his talk about Church Unity.
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