Haven't been over here for a few weeks because of some demands on my time and haven't read CAF much of late - the latter because, as several of my friends have noted, it is so incredibly depressing - particularly the EC forum. However, I did stop and skim it a few days ago and it's gotten so much worse that it's scary. You've got folks over there presenting themselves as "expert" and who have no idea what they are talking about.
There's a relative newbie there named belgianwaffles or somesuch who posts with regular reference to how "knowledgeable" he is. Then, one reads a post in which he asserts, unequivocably, as to how Mar Dinkha is about to lead the Assyrian Church into communion with Rome. It was so frustrating to not be able to put fingers to keyboard and point out to the idiot that Mar Bawai is a decidedly different person than Mar Dinkha. And that's only the tip of the iceberg. (The same clown has declared his assuredness that my Church is 'the most latinized' of the EC Churches; he's admittedly never been in one, but thinks he'll check one out during school break and see what latinizations he can spot).
Despite the fact that CAF has picked up the occasional input of a couple of excellent posters from ByzCath (one Deacon, in particular), as Michael noted, none of them seem to be looking beyond the immediate post and seeing the overall flawed nature of the place. It's my sense that they've been 'lured' there in response to a "help, we need some knowledgeable ECs" - but, for the majority of them, ByzCath is still "home"; they'll contribute to CAF from a sense of duty to defend/promote their Churches, but they aren't 'moving in' to become the resident CAF Eastern experts.
The small coterie of Oriental Catholics there are trying to hold there own and helped a bit by the fact that they're too 'foreign' to most of the clueless Latins to be the subject of much attention. Other than the ByzCath imports, and a few ByzCath folk who have long posted there occasionally (like Al/a pilgrim - a dear friend to both Michael and me), the landscape is pretty barren. As before, I thank those few of my Orthodox friends and brothers who are still there for stepping in to try and keep some semblance of accuracy in countering the "facts" offered by those whose knowledge of East is principally that it's a compass marking. It would be a blessing were they to shut that forum down - it offers so little in terms of meaningful, accurate info about Eastern Catholicism that Keating should consider its continued existence an embarrassment.
Many years,
Neil
