Why The West Can't Be Converted

[stevil]

Wow, you change your mind like a girl changes clothes

Is it frowned upon in Catholic circles for a person to listen, learn, think and change their mind?

[Anastasia13]

Is it frowned upon in Catholic circles for a person to listen, learn, think and change their mind?

 

I should have just put the video there, huh?

[Winchester]

Let's see, decide you need to change because it doesn't fit the occasion/got messy/etc., strip down to the essentials, change your private ones a bit (sometimes affected by selecting the right visible set), put on some visible compilation based on what you think works, and review and complete the details to be fully put together. I'm not sure this is that different, except if you are talking putting the right leg in or taking it out first, in which case I remind you, a girl changing clothing isn't quite the same as the Hokey Pokey.

I changed to get the blood off my beliefs.

[Anastasia13]

I changed to get the blood off my beliefs.

 

There's always blood, otherwise there wouldn't be Christ.

[stevil]

I changed to get the blood off my beliefs.

Hey Winchester
Despite our previous "fights" over guns and gun contol, I certainly understand that your driving force is to minimise force and coercion.
I too would like a minimal government but for a different reason, I prefer people to be able to make their own decisions and not have a government make too many decisions on behalf of people. I think this leads to a more tolerant, diverse and interesting society than one that is overly controlled.
I have had a conversation with a person that is pro anarcho-capitalism but it seemed crazy to me at the time. Because I see many problems with the poor beng unable to pay for police, fire service, medical, waste disposal, running water etc.
But I would be interested in exploring your ideas, if you have the time and interest? Or merely if you have some links to useful sites.
Anway, just to say that I am interested.

[Apteka]

Perhaps the OP should be rephrased... the West CAN be converted, just not by Roman Catholicism

[Anastasia13]

Perhaps the OP should be rephrased... the West CAN be converted, just not by Roman Catholicism

 

That's ok. There is always Eastern Catholicism (and other branches of Eastern Christianity).

[Apotheoun]

That's ok. There is always Eastern Catholicism (and other branches of Eastern Christianity).

Eastern Catholicism in the United States is technically not allowed to evangelize, because the America is a Latin region. Do some people convert to Eastern Catholicism anyway? Yes, but in very small numbers. It is likely that Eastern Catholicism in the United States will disappear in a generation or two at the most.

[Selah]

Eastern Catholicism in the United States is technically not allowed to evangelize, because the America is a Latin region. Do some people convert to Eastern Catholicism anyway? Yes, but in very small numbers. It is likely that Eastern Catholicism in the United States will disappear in a generation or two at the most.

 

This is honestly the saddest thing in the world :/

[Apotheoun]

This is honestly the saddest thing in the world :/

Yes, when the Roman authorities were writing the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, which was imposed upon Eastern Catholics by Rome in the early 1990s, there was a clause that would have allowed for the enrollment of a baptized Protestant convert, or a non-baptized convert, in the Church sui juris of his choice, but Pope John Paul II had that clause removed. So when a baptized Protestant, or a non-baptized person in a majority Latin territory, converts he is automatically to be enrolled as a member of the Latin Church.

[Anastasia13]

Yes, when the Roman authorities were writing the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, which was imposed upon Eastern Catholics by Rome in the early 1990s, there was a clause that would have allowed for the enrollment of a baptized Protestant convert, or a non-baptized convert, in the Church sui juris of his choice, but Pope John Paul II had that clause removed. So when a baptized Protestant, or a non-baptized person in a majority Latin territory, converts he is automatically to be enrolled as a member of the Latin Church.

 

I am disappointed in JPII for the first time ever.

[An Historian]

This is honestly the saddest thing in the world :/

 

Hardly.  Would you say the same for Latin Catholics in Russia?  The Americas are Latin terriory and rightfully so.  The Eastern Churches exist there for the spiritual nourishment of their diasporas and rightfully so.  The sadness of their disappearance is more for the sadness of the fall of practising Eastern Catholics, practising Catholics as a whole, than to any integral necessity of the Eastern Churches in American Catholicism as a whole.

 

Bl. Pope John Paul II was entirely right in his decision to remove the option for converts to enter the Eastern Churches if they are from the Latin West.

[Apotheoun]

Hardly.  Would you say the same for Latin Catholics in Russia?  The Americas are Latin terriory and rightfully so.  The Eastern Churches exist there for the spiritual nourishment of their diasporas and rightfully so.  The sadness of their disappearance is more for the sadness of the fall of practising Eastern Catholics, practising Catholics as a whole, than to any integral necessity of the Eastern Churches in American Catholicism as a whole.

 

Bl. Pope John Paul II was entirely right in his decision to remove the option for converts to enter the Eastern Churches if they are from the Latin West.

He may have been right from a Latin Catholic perspective, but the Eastern Orthodox will never accept any restrictions on their missionary activity in North America, and so the Pope's action simply creates another grievance with the Orthodox, as if new ones are really needed. 

 

Orthodox missions have existed in North America since the late 1700s.

[An Historian]

He may have been right from a Latin Catholic perspective, but the Eastern Orthodox will never accept any restrictions on their missionary activity in North America, and so the Pope's action simply creates another grievance with the Orthodox, as if new ones are really needed. 

 

Orthodox missions have existed in North America since the late 1700s.

 

Oh I can fully understand why an Eastern Orthodox Christian would squirm at the restriction of their missionary activities.  I would feel just as disgruntled if Catholic missions were to be side-lined in pagan Africa.  I didn't realise that the poster I responded to was Orthodox however.

 

From a purely internal Catholic position though, missionary efforts by Eastern Catholics in Latin territories should rightfully be rebuked, the same with Latin poaching that occured in India, for example.

Edited October 12, 2013 by An Historian

[Apotheoun]

Oh I can fully understand why an Eastern Orthodox Christian would squirm at the restriction of their missionary activities.  I would feel just as disgruntled if Catholic missions were to be side-lined in pagan Africa.  I didn't realise that the poster I responded to was Orthodox however.

 

From a purely internal Catholic position though, missionary efforts by Eastern Catholics in Latin territories should rightfully be rebuked, the same with Latin poaching that occured in India, for example.

Yes, the person you responded to (Selah) is Eastern Orthodox. 

 

As an Eastern Catholic I find Pope John Paul II's action reprehensible, because it enshrines the false notion that the ecclesiastical territory of the Roman Church is the whole world, while the territories of the Eastern Catholic Churches are limited to basically the Middle East and Ukraine. It is one, but only one, of the reasons why the Eastern Catholic Churches in the United States will probably die off in a generation or two. The Ruthenian Church, for example, had approximately 200,000 members forty years ago, while today there are about 60,000 Ruthenians.