Polycarp,Are you denying that anything that is found to be good and true is not from God or by the grace of God? If so what source other than God produces goodness or truth?
I think what most people object to (including those Roman Catholics who were shoved out the door by the "great reforms of Vatican II", like the Lefebvrists), is that the text is imbued with an over-estimation of the goodness of infidelic/pagan religions, and does not clearly teach that while those "true elements" may be good, that if taken part-and-parcel with the infidelic religion, become utterly useless. IOW, they point to salvation, but cannot grant it in the context of idolatry/atheism, etc.
The Pope being a human made what most of us believe was an error in kissing the koran which he did when presented one as a gift from the head of a Muslim state he was visiting.
That's the sad part - "most of us", as in to say there are actually people in your religion who defend this act in some wise.
Many people in Jesus' day thought Jesus made an error when he sat and ate with taxcollectors or spoke with Samaratan women. For Jesus his associating with sinners was to witness to the truth and invite them to come to the truth of The Gospel. Let us not think we are so high and mighty that we shouldn't speak with nonchristians.
(False) equivocation, and incredibly offensive at that, since there is
no parity between Christ keeping company with those who society thought of as supersticiously "untouchable" (while we so called "righteous" are very often guilty of the same sins as they, even if not in degree, at least in kind...or perhaps are just better at hiding them!), and someone basically redefining what it is to be a "Christian" ala Karl Rahners ridiculous "invisible Christianity".
Yes, Christians should be speaking to non-Christians - precisely so that they may acquire the faith which comes by hearing, not so as to be lulled into believing their religions can grant them the remission of their sins or the hope of the world to come.
However do we not desire to reunite The Church?
As far as Orthodoxy is concerned, "the Church" in the dogmatic sense, has always been, and can only be "one". Since your hierarchs and people cannot/will not provide evidence for professing the same faith as we, which is the same faith your fathers had and agreed do (which included a firm rejection of the filioque interpolation into the Creed), and are not in any wise in communion with the Orthodox Church, we have no evidence that you guys are part of the "one Church." God can do as He pleases, but we little ones can only go by what has been revealed to mankind.
James2,
Is there specific documentation for this excommunication in 1014? I know that at some point prior to 1054 the Pope was dropped from the diptychs, but even the Pope was not excommunicated in 1054, just his legates, so it would seem that 40 years after 1014 the Eastern and Western churches still considered themselves in communion with each other.
The estrangement of western Christendom began well before 1054, and did not become finalized until years following this (though 1054 was certainly a watershed year.) More decisve would be the later Palamite Synods, which very clearly condemn propositions accepted by the Latins, at least during that period.
I think it's dishonest to try and portray an ongoing union via sophistry; sophistry being one of the hallmarks of lesser Roman Catholic polemics. Legalisms, word-games, etc. cannot avoid the concrete fact that you profess things as dogmas which we consider leaven and "traditions of men" - we do not have the same Chalice, and have not for centuries, for precisely the reasons I've just mentioned. Your forefathers broke faith with their brethren, and in outrageous vanity rent the Church asunder by trying to "lord over" others strange teachings which were never our own, and not even of your ancestors in most cases.
Pretending (and that's the operative word here) that none of that happened, and that this can be all
ignored by virtue of the fact no great Council gathered together and excommunicated each and every last person in communion with the Pope is silly - not to mention that this isn't even how the formulas of anathematization typically worked anyway; they were typically far less specific than that, simply pointing at whoever rejected/denied this-or-that teaching/definition. While heresairchs are often named, it's erroneous propositions which are attacked with an anathema directed at those who hold to them.
See, this is the sad and unique thing about the Latin schism - it was gradual, and in a key respect totally unlike previous major schisms. How? Unlike those schisms which involved ambiguities latent in pre-concilliar times regarding choices in terminology, and those who took certain "loose" ways of speaking (found in the Scriptures and the most ancient Fathers) and infused them with novel understandings (materially removed from what right-believing Christians everywhere and always accepted, as given by Christ and the Holy Apostles), this one involved those whose ancestors had
agreed to everything in the Seven Ecumenical Councils, but who for various reasons still fell away into private reasonings, which bred private theologies, and a private confession. In other words, this is not about confused or simply stubborn people arguing over how to describe the fundamentals of the Christian revelation, but people who accepted all of that, but later due to isolation and political ills at home,
apostacizing. I use that word, because that's what happened - a "falling away."
And like any personal fall, such a large scale "corporate" fall (though not without it's points of Light, and those who held to the narrow path till the end) doesn't typically happen all at once - the seeds are there from early on and changes happen here and there, until you come to a point where you suddenly don't recognize what this person has become. Tell me, just how do you give a specific, over arching anathematization of that? I'll tell you when - when it's all too late.
Such was not the case of the Arians, the Nestorians, the Monophysites, etc. As odd as it will sound (since the Roman Catholic Church
nominally accepts all of the Councils which they rejected), the reality is that these heretics actually accepted the
same basic assumptions that the Orthodox did, where as self-alienated Latin Christianity came to not do this. This is precisely why, there is at least a prospect for re-union between the Orthodox and the anti-Chalcedonians - where as this is (realistically speaking) unimaginable with the Latin Church. Even in "superficial" matters, identifiable ancient heresies like Arianism or Monophysitism were nearly identical with their Orthodox neighbours - this cannot be said of Latin Christianity at all, now less than ever.
