Eastern Orthodoxy's Polemecist problem Part 1

  I have to say, that, as someone familiar with Byzantine rite Catholicism (mostly Melkite), that I am not critical of Orthodox spirituality.  Much of it is beautiful, and dare I say, quite useful.  However, the Orthodox seems to like making careers out of insulting Catholics.  They say that the Bishops are all equal, and that the Pope is to be the first amongst equals (yet, they do not recognise his authority), and, in practice, believe that the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople is. (Well, maybe not the Russian Orthodox).  Now, not all the Orthodox are that bad.  Patriarch Bartholomew's English website says things that are patently false, like the "first amonst equals" myth, but, is fairly resepctful towards Pope Francis.  Now, to address the charges that the Orthodox make against Catholics.  Like, the Pope being first amongst equals.  Okay, here's the problem with that, https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+16%3A13-20&version=RSVCE, and the  Orthodox, to their credit, will not try to explain that away as actually insulting Peter, like Protestants do.  They admit that Peter was given a unique authority.  However, their failure is in understanding that this authority is uniquely given to Peter.  The odd thing is, that many Orthodox kind of do admit this.  They will say that all the bishops need to be present at a council to make an infallible decision, but cannot, at the moment, because of the Schism.
Now, a spurious charge that I want to address is how some Orthodox (by no means all, and probably not even most), claim that the Western Church using unleavened bread for the Eucharist is heretical, and quite possibly invalid.  This is something without a basis in reality.  If the Eucharistic meal was a Passover meal, then unleavened bread WOULD have been used https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+26&version=RSVCE, https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=exodus+12&version=RSVCE.
Now, of course, there is the flip side of that.  Some Western Catholics, unaware that Eastern Catholics exist, will say that leavened bread invalidates the Eucharist.  This is not true.  If leavened bread were used in the west, in would be valid (such as is used in Western Rite Orthodoxy), however, if Latin Catholics were to use it, the problem would not be with validity, it would be with irregularity.  Like a Mass celebrated by a priest that has no permission to celebrate Mass, because maybe he has been suspended from public ministry.  The Mass he celebrates is valid, but he has no permission to celebrate it.  I will talk more about the importance of the Papacy in part 2.  I hope that any Orthodox folks reading this understand that I am trying to reach out in a spirit of Christian unity, not to be critical for criticism's sake.

What it's like being an autistic Catholic during the coronavirus pandemic

  For those of you that have been under a rock, there is a rather infectious disease going around called "Coronavirus".  It has nothing to do with beer, I promise.  I'm not going to give the history of it (google can help you on that one), but I am going to tell you how it affected me.  Since I mentioned that I am "autistic", I mean by that that I have a diagnosed autism spectrum disorder (in this case, what was then called Aspergers Syndrome, so, sometimes I refer to myself as an aspie).  And, if you know anything about autistic people, you know that we like routine.  So, when I got the email from my bishop saying Mass was cancelled, I broke down in tears.
Now, I completely understand WHY he did it, and it was to look after his flock.  A blemished lamb is not a worthy sacrifice, if you know your Old Testament.  What happened was that my routine was interrupted, and that was that.  I made a song about it before Mass was cancelled.  (https://youtu.be/iluU6jbDJnA). so there is that.  Anyway, thank goodness we have the good book.  Matthew 11:28-30 has been really helpful at the moment.























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