Why Catholicism and Not Eastern Orthodoxy?

[00:00:00] Foreign. [00:00:14] So today is the anniversary of my reception in The Catholic Church 32 years ago today, I became Catholic at the Easter vigil. And it's a great, It's a great day for me. It's a great anniversary for me. I always enjoy April 10th for this reason. And I just want to say, I recommend to everyone who is not Catholic that you would also do that, that you would become Catholic. But it got me thinking about something, and that is, why did I choose Catholicism and not Eastern Orthodoxy? And I think this is a legitimate question. It's a very good question. Because if you look at, kind of the way I look at it, I should say, is we want to analyze the truth claims of all the religions of the world. I personally think it gets very quickly down to just two, Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy. Because if you look at all the different religions, Christianity obviously stands out. It's the only religion with a man who claims to be God, who we claim has risen from the dead. And I really just think Christianity stands out so far beyond any other religious truth claim that it's not even. There's not even a close second. [00:01:31] But within Christianity, of course, then there's different options. So is Protestantism the way to go? Is some offshoot that's not really kind of pseudo Christian like Mormonism the way to go? And of course Catholicism and Orthodoxy. And I think the only ones that, the only institutions that really don't fail the historical test is Catholicism and Orthodoxy. I mean, Protestantism clearly is an invention of the 16th century, clearly is not connected directly to the time of Jesus Christ like Catholicism and Orthodoxy are. [00:02:11] And honestly, only Catholicism and Orthodoxy are internally consistent. [00:02:17] They're logically consistent within themselves. Protestantism just fails at that. Obviously, the pseudo Christian organizations like institutions like Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, things like that, they fail miserably. So really it does come down to those two. So then the question becomes, why Catholicism over Orthodoxy? Now, in my own life, when I became Catholic 32 years ago, this is 1993, then I honestly did not have hardly any exposure to Eastern Orthodoxy. I only saw Roman Catholicism as really the only. [00:02:53] That was the only other option besides Protestantism, within Christianity. For me, obviously I rejected Mormonism, things like that, and I rejected non Christianity atheism or something like Islam or Judaism. And so for me, it really was just Protestantism and Catholicism and Catholicism won out. But that doesn't mean that it was a, it was a, a done deal in, in the sense that it was. It was now finished my thinking, because obviously any convert will tell you this. If you've converted once from one religion to another, the door is open, in a certain sense, at least psychologically, mentally, of doing it again because you've done it. I mean, we know converts. We know people who've converted from Protestantism to Orthodoxy to Catholicism. I know somebody. I know people convert from Protestantism to Catholicism to Orthodoxy. And so it's like you've opened the door to leaving your childhood faith. So you're not, like, against the idea, at least in general, no matter how convinced you are of the religion that you currently are. [00:03:57] And in fact, after I became Catholic, just two years after I became Catholic, this is around 1995, I became involved with. With a local group, this is in the Baltimore area, a local group that was a ecumenical group of Catholics and Orthodox. And this was my first real exposure to the Eastern Church, to Orthodoxy. And I really started studying it. Now, this is like right at the beginning of the Internet. So most of my studies, I was going to the library. I was trying to get books, and I was getting. I found some articles online. Not a whole bunch, but in this group I was part of a lot of people would bring books, they'd bring texts, they'd bring articles from magazines, things like that. And so I really did start to learn about Orthodoxy, the Eastern churches, Eastern Catholicism. That's when I first really was exposed to it. And to be honest, I came to really appreciate Eastern Christianity. When I say Eastern Christianity, then I'm including Orthodoxy and Eastern Catholicism. I really came to appreciate it. And I started and I attended the Divine Eastern Divine Liturgy. Eastern Catholic Divine Liturgy. I started about that maybe. I think that was probably late 90s, not regularly, not like every week, but I would go there maybe a few times a year. And I was just blown away, as most people are, by the Divine Liturgy. And I really came to love a lot about the East. In fact, it was a Divine Liturgy. I think I've said this before on the podcast, but it was my exposure to the Eastern Divine Liturgy that eventually kind of set the stage for me embracing the traditional Latin Mass. So my. My path was, you know, Protestant service, Methodist service, to Novus Ordo, to Eastern Divine Liturgy, to traditional at Mass. My liturgical path, so to speak. And so because I came to see, I came to understand what the liturgy is much better by attending even only a few times a year, Eastern Divine Liturgies. I came to understand the reverence needed, the. The. The what it. The glorification of God much better there than I did in the Novus ordo And that led me to the Traditional Latin Mass. [00:06:16] And so I, I continued. I mean, so that was 30 years ago, 1995, I joined that group. And, you know, that group lasted for a few years. I moved out of the area, but I continue to be very involved with. I would be on forums. Internet forums is back in the day before social media Internet forums with Orthodox and Catholics and Eastern Catholic, Roman Catholics and Eastern Catholics debating the subjects. I was on, you know, doing so a lot of stuff online. I was, I was reading books, reading articles, things of that nature, going to the Eastern Melkite Church, particularly in Washington, D.C. area for quite some time. [00:06:53] And so I would be lying if I said I wasn't. I haven't at times in my past been tempted by the pool of Eastern Orthodoxy because I think that if you're honest with yourselves and yourself, you're really exploring these things. You have to at least put yourself in the shoes of somebody who is Eastern Orthodox and say, why do they believe what they believe? Why do they think it's true? And so, yes, I have been. And to be honest, the temptation has come at times from seeing the almost apparent destruction of the Catholic Church in the West. Obviously, I don't believe the Catholic Church can be destroyed, but just the diminishment of it, the lack of reverent liturgies, the problems with the Novus Ordo Mass, the problems with our hierarchy, all those things, I don't need to recount them here, but they do make. For. They do make Eastern Orthodoxy on some level at least, tempting. [00:07:57] And so I'm honestly not tempted by it anymore. I'm talking about. This was probably in the, in the early 2000s in particular, I was most tempted by. I never really was tempted so much that I, that I was like, okay, I started a process of becoming Orthodox like that, but just tempted in the sense of, like, I looked at very seriously and, you know, on and off over the years. Like I said, I'm not really tempted anymore, but I want to explain why that is, why it is that I personally chose to remain Catholic, to not become Orthodox. And this isn't going to be a full apologetic, obviously. That would take hours and hours. I want to kind of give more of an overview of my own personal reasons why I think the, the arguments for Catholicism are stronger than the arguments in Orthodoxy. Even though I do believe this arguments for Orthodoxy are like, in second place. If you look at all the world's religions, all the different types of Christianity, that would be, you know, I would still put Eastern Orthodoxy in second behind Catholicism. But Catholicism does come out on top in the end. And I do this because I do think that there are people today, Catholics today, they're tempted by Eastern Orthodoxy. I know people who have left the Catholic Church for Eastern Orthodoxy, and I understand that. And that's why one of my points I'm trying to make here is I'm not just dismissing that as. [00:09:17] Without really having looked into it myself over the years. [00:09:22] Excuse me. [00:09:25] So let me go through then, some of the reasons why I believe Catholicism is the one true faith and is the what everybody should. Everybody should join the Catholic Church and not the one of the Orthodox Churches. [00:09:41] So the first thing I want to bring up when it comes to this is which Orthodoxy? I think this is an important point that we kind of forget sometimes. There's actually multiple forms, three major forms of Eastern Orthodoxy. There's the Chalcedonian, that's the one we think of the most. And maybe. I'll take a step back. Let me give the history real quick, a brief history. Why there's three. So in the early Church, of course, there were the ecumenical councils that were. [00:10:09] That were combating the major heresies of the day. The first one is the Nicene Council of Nicaea, which was in 325 against Arianism. Arianism eventually died out as a, as a movement. It took hundreds of years, but it eventually did die out. Then there was a. There was a council in Constantinople in three. Oh, I'm blanking. I think 380, maybe 370. Boy, I used to know that so well exactly what year. Every ecumenical council, the first seven ecumenical councils were. It's a little embarrassing. [00:10:38] And then. And that wasn't really a major council. It was. It. It finished the Nicene Creed, but it didn't. It was talking about the, the divinity, the Holy Spirit. But it wasn't like major in the sense that there was a major heresy that was really sweeping the Church that combated more like some minor heresies. [00:10:54] And then in 431 we have the Council of Ephesus and this was another major council because it was going against Nestorians, which the Patriarch Nestorius basically were arguing against. [00:11:08] They were arguing for the idea of. [00:11:12] About the natures and person of God, that whether or not there was two natures. I'm sorry, of Jesus, two natures in the Catholic teaching is that there's two natures, human and divine. Jesus Christ, one divine person. And so after that council, though, some people left and they formed along with the Persia and they continued on like apostolic succession. And they're today known as the Assyrian Church of the East. And you know, they don't really like being called an Assyrian Church, but that's. They basically hearken back to that split, that schism that happened after the Council of Estes in 431. Then 451 there was a Council of Chalcedon and there was another schism after that, and that's the Monophysites. I'm not going to get into all the details of the various of heresies about that. You can look at that up. But that still exists today as well, the Oriental Orthodoxy. And so you have the Assyrian Church of the east, which came, which is Nestorians, the Oriental Orthodoxy, which came after Chalcedon, the Schismetrix Chalcedon, which is the Monophysites. And then you have the Chalcedonian Orthodox, which is basically the united Church that Catholics and Orthodox both hail from that accepted chalcedon decisions in 431 that Jesus Christ had two natures, human and divine, and was one divine person. [00:12:35] Note that all of these are Apostolic, all four of these major branches. I don't really want to call it that, but Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, we call it Chalcedonian Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy and the Assyrian Church of the east, all four apostolic, they have, they all have valid orders. And so if we're talking about this is one of the things that I would say when we're talking about, if you want to consider Orthodoxy over Catholicism, which Orthodoxy, why is it that you would accept the first four councils and not the. Or the first, but only, not just the first three or the first two. Because essentially what's happening, historians only accept the first two. The Monophysites only accept the first three. The Chalcedonians, Catholic and Orthodox, accept the first four. And more in the case of the Chalcedonians, of course. [00:13:24] But this is a real issue that you have these splits within Orthodoxy that have never been resolved. And so which one do you pick? Why do you pick one over the other? As a Catholic, we of course know that we're very much accepting of these councils because ultimately, for a lot of reasons, but one is because the Pope is part of these councils and the Bishop of Rome accepted these councils. So that's a very strong argument. But in the east, it's just a matter of, well, we accept these councils but not others. Why? Because we accept these councils and not others. [00:13:57] I mean, ultimately, the Chalcedonian Orthodox, if I just say Eastern Orthodox, I mean the Chalcedonian Orthodox going forward, the Chalcedonian Eastern Orthodox, they accept seven, and then no more after that. [00:14:11] The Oriental Orthodox except three, no more after that. Nestorians except two, no more after that. How do you decide when the council stopped and why did they stop? It doesn't make much sense that the Church would need these ecumenical councils in order to combat serious heresies in the Church. Are you saying after the 7th there was no need for it, Nothing really happened that after the first seven were done, it doesn't really make sense that the Holy Spirit would guide the Church through these councils through seven eclical councils, and then just stop, just say, okay, we don't need to worry about. [00:14:46] About how many, about having ecumenical counseling more. Because remember, to the Orthodox, there have not been an ecumenical council in over 1300 years. I think it is something like that. I can't remember the date of the seventh Ecumenical council Council in Nicaea, the second Council of Nicaea, I should say, which combated iconoclasm. And so we really have to ask ourselves that question of what is the authority of the Church? [00:15:14] And honestly, there's even splits within, and we'll get to that in a second. But there's even splits within Chalcedonian Orthodoxy. Schisms that exist today. For example, the Russian Orthodox Church and the Greek Orthodox Church, which is under the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, they're in schism right now. They're in schism today. And there's often schisms between the various Orthodox churches. So not only which Orthodoxy do I accept of the three major branches of Orthodoxy, but which, if I go Chalcedonian, okay, which one of those do I accept? [00:15:48] Do I go Russian Orthodox? Do I go Greek Orthodox? Do I go Serbian Orthodox now? Yes, they will say that in general they have the same beliefs, but they're actually in schism with each other. I think it matters, doesn't it? Schism matters. So whether or not I choose the Russian Orthodox Church or the Greek Orthodox Church, I mean, I'm not going to be in communion with the people in the other church. I think that's a big deal. I think at least we should consider it a big deal. And in fact, there are some significant differences between these various churches, particularly when it comes to converts. How do you sacramentally receive these converts? Some of these churches, if somebody's Catholic, for example, they might just Chrismate them, which is like a form of confirmation. Some of them, I think might even accept Catholic confirmation and basically receive it in the church. I'm not 100% sure about that one. Don't hold me to that one. Some, however, will rebaptize the person no matter what their previous baptism. I think I've even heard of some Orthodox churches that rebaptize somebody coming from another Chalcedonian Orthodox church. [00:16:53] So that's a big deal. In fact, it reminds me of something that was a big problem for me when I was Protestant looking into Catholicism was, was the different views of Protestants of baptism. Like, I had a Protestant friend who was not baptized, did not think it mattered, and I was like, that's a huge deal. [00:17:09] If you can't even agree on baptism, where's your authority? Well, I think this matters for, for in Orthodoxy as well. Where's your authority decide how you re sacramentally receive somebody who's being coming into the church? Do you baptize them no matter what their previous, you know, background is? If they were Catholic or whatever, do you just Chrismate them? I mean, baptism is the entry into the church. And some Orthodox are saying that you have to be baptized no matter where your previous. Even if you were previously baptized Catholic, that baptism is invalid. But others do not. That's a big deal. That's a big deal. [00:17:46] So what we see here is when it comes to looking at Orthodoxy, which Orthodoxy, and not just like, what brand in the sense of like what your general views are views are because, like within a Catholicism, you could talk about progressive Catholicism, conservative Catholicism, traditional Catholicism, but they're all still within one sacramental church, which I know can cause problems. And I've talked about those a lot on this podcast in the past and written about a lot of crisis. [00:18:16] But for Orthodoxy, it literally is which communion are you in? Which church are you in? [00:18:22] Which were the three main branches? And if you choose Chalcedonian, which of the actual national churches, which patriarch are you going to be under and how are you going to be sacramentally received? So I think this reminds me too much of the divisions of Protestantism. And so I think it's a real challenge to Orthodox the kind of haphazard sacramental communion they have within Orthodoxy. They're not actually all in communion with each other. And that's a big deal. I've kind of hammered this home a lot in the Catholic Church, when somebody goes set evacantis and they no longer are in communion with the Bishop of Rome, Pope Francis. And I say that's a big deal. That's not just something, yes, it is important that we believe Orthodox belief, but we also have to be in communion with the church. This is the big Difference between Catholicism and Orthodoxy in kind of practice, in mentality often is which is more important, heresy. Which is worse, I should say which is heresy or schism. In the Catholic Church, we tend to make heresy worse. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, let me repeat that. In the Catholic Church we tend to make schism work worse. We will do anything to avoid schism, even allowing some funny business within the Church. In the Orthodox world, heresy is seen as much worse. And so they will go and schism very easily if they think somebody else is a heretic or another communion is a heretic. The truth is, is that obviously both are awful. And I think in the Catholic Church it's better to remain in communion. That's like I said, it's problem with like Seddevacantis is how they, they kind of go out of communion by just rejecting who the current Pope, rejecting following that current pope. Even if, yes, there are heretical people within the church saying things that are leading people into heresy. So that's a big, that's a big problem. Which Orthodoxy do I pick? And I think that, you know, when you become Catholic, there's. You become Catholic, even if you're. Whether you're received into a traditional Catholic Church or a Novus Ordo parish. Like for example, I attend a traditional Latin mass parish and I have been for years, but I was received into a Novus Ordo parish. It's just a regular parish. In fact, the priest was pretty liberal. The parish was pretty, I mean, kind of like bland and everything. Well, when I started going to a traditional mess, I didn't have to get re baptized, I didn't have to get reconfirmed or anything like that. My sacraments completely acceptable and they're completely valid and within communion with the Catholic Church. So that's a big difference between that and Orthodoxy. [00:21:04] Okay, the next thing I want to bring up the next point I think I've kind of beat that drum a little bit. Is the big one between the Catholics and the Orthodox and that's the papacy. This obviously is the biggest issue in my mind. It's really the only issue when it comes to communion between the two churches. The division, I should say everything else is. I'm not saying there aren't other issues, but they're all subservient to this. I think if you resolve this issue, the papacy issue, then all the others will fall into line and will be resolved. And so first we should be clear that the papacy is why Protestantism is wrong. [00:21:47] A big reason. Because if you look, because here's the thing. Protestantism does not grapple with the role of St. Peter seriously. @ least, I mean, I've said this before, I'm not sure on the podcast or not, but Protestantism, often they read the Gospels and Jesus is the main character like he should be, but everybody else is an extra. It's not like a full story with lots of real people interacting with each other. Like, think about a movie where there's one character that is focused on, but then everybody else is like, meaningless. That's kind of what Protestantism is doing with the Gospels. So Mary is meaningless. Joseph is meaningless. St. John the Baptist is meaningless. I mean, St. John Baptist, a little bit of oppressed in the Protestant world, but not much. Peter, the other apostles, the Pharisees, everybody, they're all just simply there to fill out the storyline for Jesus, but they're not really important. That's not really how it is. St. Peter matters. What Christ says to St. Peter and how he makes him the head of the apostles is important. And so only Catholicism and Orthodoxy take that seriously, take that truly seriously, that, that Peter's given a real role. And not only that, if you look historically, the early church always considered Peter, Peter's successor to successors, to have a role as well in the Church. What is that role? Protestantism just ignores that, doesn't give a role at all for St. Peter or his successors. It's just like, okay, he was kind of told a few things by Jesus and then we were just going to forget that. We're going to memory hold that. It doesn't really matter. Why did Jesus make, you know, Peter the head of the apostles? Why is he always considered the head of the apostles by the early Church? And why did the early Church see the Bishop of Rome as a successor to St Peter? These are very important things. And only, like I said, the Eastern Orthodox and the Catholics take that seriously. [00:23:48] The Pope has a certain primacy in both. The Bishop of Rome has a certain primacy in both churches. But of course, the big debate between the Catholics and the Orthodox is what does that primacy mean? Is it a true primacy of that has a specific authority attached to it, or is it just a primacy among equals in which it really is more ceremonial than anything else? Like when you all get together, he sits at the head of the table, but really he has no true authority over any of the other successors to the apostles, any of the other bishops. And so a lot of this comes from. And I think some of this was reverse engineered, so to speak. The source what is the source of Peter's authority, of Rome's authority specifically? And I think a lot of the debate today, and there's a lot of disagreement between orthodox and Catholics between what that source is. And I think some of that, like I said, was reverse engineered after the Orthodox decided they're not going to really follow Rome anymore. They kind of came up with reasons not to. [00:24:53] But the real source, because is the source of his authority what Jesus, the Rome's authority, what Jesus said to Peter, the martyrdom of Peter and Paul in Rome, that's huge. [00:25:05] And the fact that the authority of Peter goes to the next each successor of the Bishop of Rome, or is it just simply due the fact that Rome was the imperial capital, so it was the center of the, of secular authority and so therefore it's the center of church authority? That's what the Orthodox will tell you today. But that's really not why it got authority in the early Church. I mean that of course gave it more credence being, you know, the seat of power of the Roman Empire. Definitely gave it a certain credibility, so to speak. But that's not what gave it authority. It really, I think, I think the number one thing gave authority was the martyrdom of paints, Peter and Paul, that that made it the apostolic see, so to speak, the apostolic Church, that above all other churches. [00:25:58] And so we see that in the early church, Rome is recognized as having primacy. Catholics agree on that. But that primacy has a real, has teeth to it. That's what we see. In fact, a great book that I highly recommend, I've recommended this before, I think is called Papal Primacy From Its Origins to the Presence to the Present by Klaus Schatz. I believe you pronounce his name. Now the funny thing is Klaus Schatz is a priest who is a Jesuit and I gather he's pretty progressive. So it's like normally I wouldn't recommend a book by a progressive modern Jesuit, but the reason I recommend this is because he goes through the history of papal primacy and he goes through all the different examples of papal primacy being exercised in the church. And what he finds is almost grudgingly, he finds that Rome was always right in every single debate that happens in the church. [00:26:56] Whenever Rome comes down one side, no matter how they do it, even if they're heavy handed about it, or if they're not heavy handed, however the case may be, the church ends up saying, okay, yeah, Rome was right. The Eastern Church says that too, that Rome was right. If you look at basically the first thousand years in particular, every time Rome comes down on some, like it kind of, I kind of iconoclasm controversy is a good example where in the east, there's this huge debate over the icons and whether or not you, you know, you can. You can venerate icons, things like that. All the while, Rome's just saying, of course you can. Rome's like, of course you can. Whereas the east is having this debate, and the east has to figure it out on their own kind of. But eventually Rome, you know, Rome kind of comes together and says, yeah, come on, guys, we venerate the icons. And so you see, the triumph of Orthodoxy, lowercase O always comes with Rome on the side of Orthodoxy. There's never a case where Rome is on the other side. And so Rome was always right. And so that's another. That's a huge factor, I believe, in kind of a proof of Rome's claims to have a real authority. Now, the big debate, of course, today is people will look at the Eastern Orthodox particular, will look at Vatican I and say, oh, Vatican I, that's nothing to do. That's nothing like first millennium Christianity. That's nothing like papal primacy as it was exercised in the early Church. And I would say they are right and they are wrong. They are right in the sense that it's true that the papal claims and the exercise of the papacy was not very. Was not as robust as it was at the time of Vatican I in the late 19th century. That is a true statement. But some of that was practical. It's not like Rome could know what was going on throughout the Church with the communications that were available at the time. Most of the church had to run, basically, diocese had to run on their own because they didn't have a lot of direct communications. They had some. And in fact, when. And in fact, when there was a controversy maybe within a diocese or between two diocese, who did they appeal to? They appealed to Rome because they knew Rome was the final authority where the buck stopped. [00:29:16] And so what we see here is that, that it's true that how the papacy was exercised is not exactly identical to how it was at the time of Vatican I. Yet at the same time, at the same time, there is a direct line between the logic and the. And the, The. The theology of the early church's view of the papacy and Vatican I, a direct line between the two. In fact, Father John Meyerndorf, who was a great Orthodox, modern scholar, he specifically says that, like, for example, Pope Lee, I think it's. Yeah, Pope Leo the Great, his view of the papacy is basically found, you know, can be found. Vatican II and that are very similar that I can't remember his exact wording. I read it not that long ago, and I can't read the exact wording. But the point is, is they're not. They're not opposed to each other. They're very much in keeping with each other. And this, of course, is development of doctrine. I always chuckle when I hear. Sometimes you'll hear orthodox kind of go against the development of the idea of Newman's development of doctrine. But that's kind of a joke because the Orthodox know that if they really look carefully at all that doctrine developed in the first millennium within Orthodox, within the East. I mean, so it's not like they can. I mean, the idea. Why would it stop after the 7th Ecumenical Council? It's frankly kind of like a Protestant view that everything stopped after the Scriptures and the Orthodox are just moving it forward to the seventh Ecumenical Council. [00:30:52] And so. But for Catholics, we understand there's been a development of theology throughout the centuries, and like honest orthodox admit that as well. And so, for example, the Trinity is the best example. And this is the orthodox Catholics have to both acknowledge this. There was a development understanding of the Trinity from the first century through the fourth century. In fact, these councils I was talking about before were developments of our understanding of. Of the Trinity. What does it mean? What does it mean that the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God, but there's only one God. What does that mean? How do we explain that? And so they came up with. They developed these ideas of how to explain that better. The same thing is true with our doctrine of the papacy, the role of the papacy, the authority of the papacy. Over the centuries, the Church came to a deeper understanding. Not a new understanding, not a new evolution or anything like that, but a deeper understanding of the papacy and its role and what it means. And if you look at Vatican I, you see, that's a direct line, a direct line from the early Church to Vatican I. Now, that being said, I will say that I am admittedly a somewhat of a papal minimalist. I'm kind of like the Eastern Catholics when it comes to ecclesiology. And what I mean by that is that I read the text of Vatican I very, very strictly and only accept what it says and nothing more. And so I'll be the first to say that there has been hyper papalism practiced within the Catholic Church since the time of Vatican I. And even before Vatican I, where You have the papal office being in practice, seen as even more than the claims of Vatican I. [00:32:40] You see it as a kind of a micromanager of the entire Church, as the, the only bishop that matters, as basically the fullness of tradition and there's nothing else. Now, there is some spirited debate within Catholicism about what is exactly the role of the Pope as far as, you know, how far, and you know, practice things like that. And I think that's, that's, that's a good debate to have. I fall, like I said, more on the papal minimalist role of what the Pope can, how he should exercise it. Ultimately, though, what does matter is the doctrine and the doctrine of Vatican I is in keeping with the continuity. The fullness of Catholic tradition when it comes to the role of the papacy and Orthodoxy is not. This idea of first among equals is simply not the fullness of the tradition of Christianity for the role of the papacy. This idea that he basically just has an honorary title, but really nothing else. If you look at the history of the early Church, like I said, I'm not going to go into super details here, but if you look at the history of the early Church, you see that sure enough, Rome was different. Rome was different. It wasn't just simply the Bishop of Rome was not the same as all the other bishops. He had a specific role, a role that was very important. And so I think, though, that some people in fact, have accused me because of my papal minimalist views of being kind of proto Orthodox, proto Eastern Orthodox, but that's not the case. I mean, I fully accept 100% the teachings of Vatican I and the Orthodox do not. [00:34:17] But I believe that the teachings of Vatican I can be seen in a more minimalist light of how the papacy should be practiced in the Church. The practical application of Vatican I has been, I think, overly hyper papalist over the since the time of Vatican I. Where, and I would say that's for all the popes since Vatican I have basically been over practice the papacy, so to speak. But that does not in and of itself invalidate what Vatican I itself teaches. And so ultimately, when you know, if you're deciding between Catholicism and Orthodoxy, you might be uncomfortable with the way the papacy is practiced today. But ultimately the alternative, which is Orthodoxy, is simply it's a rejection of the papacy as it was understood throughout 2000 years of church history. And that's really the only two choices we have. Remember, we have Catholicism, which perhaps there is a hyper papalist strand in it these days that didn't exist by the way throughout the whole church, but these days particularly. And then you have the orthodox which simply have no bishop of Rome in practice, there's no papacy whatsoever. So between those two, I'm going with the one that is doctrinally correct, which is Catholicism. Even if I think that how popes practice the papacy should be perhaps diminished some than it has been. [00:35:47] Okay, So I want to move on to a few other issues that I don't think are quite as important, but I just want to bring them up when it comes to the differences between Catholicism and Orthodoxy and why I think Catholicism is the way to go. One is the filioque. [00:36:00] Just this week I posted on X this was like a, one of these kind of troll posts. I admit that you're. It was like the, the meme where you're talking about what, what view do you have that everybody's going to come after you at? And this, what theological view specifically do you have that everybody's going to kind of attack you for? And mine is that I believe the filioque is perfectly Orthodox, but I don't think it should have been added to the Creed. And sure enough, people came at me and that's okay. And I understand that because the Orthodox don't agree with that because I don't think it's perfectly Orthodox and the Catholics don't really like that because we should have it in the Creed. Now, to be clear, to be clear, I'm not saying I'm right in the Church is wrong to have in the Creed. I'm just saying, practically speaking, we look at the history. I kind of wish it wasn't added to the Creed. And in fact, let's be very honest, by the way, just real quick, in case you're not sure what the filioque is, what the heck I'm talking about, it's Latin for and the Son. And that was added to the Nicene Constantinople Creed later. And it's basically the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father is the original Creed, and then the Catholic Church later added proceeds from the Father and the Son. And this caused, has caused lots of consternation between Catholics, Orthodox, the Orthodox, many of them would believe it's heretical, which is nonsense. It's obviously not heretical. [00:37:20] I think honestly, sometimes the Orthodox just use, they try to make these grandiose claims about the filioquia being heretical and leads to all these other problems. But really it's not true. [00:37:29] It's not the case that filioquia has led to some, some terrible heresies or anything. Like that. [00:37:35] But I do think that there was, it was unfortunate, maybe I'll put it that way. It's unfortunate that the Filokos add to the Creed in the way it was. I think that's the way to put it. Because it was in about the, I think five hundreds that the filioque started to be said in Spain because it was against Arian heresy. They felt like by adding the filioque it would make it more clear that we don't accept Arianism because Arianism was a real problem in the west for a very long, much longer than it was in the East. There was, there was the Aryan Goths. The barbarians came, they became Aryans who rejected the divinity of Jesus Christ. And so by adding at the Son, it was believed that this would help combat Arianism. In fact, it was one of these things where like you knew somebody wasn't an Aryan, if they would accept the filioque. Rome, however, was very slow to add it to the Creed. They did not officially add it until, I think it was the early 11th century. And so to act like we, we can't say the Creed without the filioque is kind of silly since we literally roamed it, literally didn't say for a 'Thousand, you know, 700 years before they finally added it. And in fact, today Rome fully allows Eastern Catholic churches to recite the Creed at Mass, at the Divine Liturgy without the filioque. [00:38:49] And so I personally think, I personally think this is not a true divide division between Catholicism and Orthodoxy. I think if, for example, one day we were united, we would not require the Orthodox to say the filioque. All we require is they would say it's not heretical. Which I think if you have a full understanding of the filioque, that's, that's pretty obvious. So I think that this is not a. I know some people would disagree with this. I know there's been lots of debate and discussion, division over, over the centuries, but I personally don't think it's a, a deal stopper. If we resolve the papacy issue, the filioque will come pretty easily. [00:39:30] Another issue I wanted to bring up though, with why I'm Catholic and not Orthodox is some moral teachings of the Orthodox churches that really are scandalous. The first and foremost is that they're teaching on divorce and remarriage. They believe that you can be divorced and remarried up to four times. And I think that it's just, that's ludicrous. Jesus Christ made it very clear divorce is not allowed. Yes, I know today in The Catholic Church, there's a push for divorce, remarriage, allowing for communion, things like that. But the fact is the Catholic Church still teaches that you cannot be divorced and get remarried. [00:40:09] That if the only way you can be remarried validly within the Catholic Church is if your first marriage is a null, meaning it wasn't a marriage, so you've not been married twice in that case, or obviously if one of the spouses dies, you could get married again. [00:40:25] But in the Orthodox Church you can get divorced and get remarried. And I think this is a direct contradiction of our Lord's teaching. And so I think this is a deal breaker, frankly, for becoming Orthodox. [00:40:39] Another moral teaching that's problematic is most of the Orthodox churches accept artificial contraception. Not all of them, like I believe the Russian Orthodox, which is the biggest one, doesn't. But if you look at in practice, many of the Orthodox churches, they do a wink and a nudge to artificial contraception. Artificial contraception is immoral. There is no way a Christian can defend it as a morally acceptable practice. And so the fact that many Orthodox churches do accept it as morally acceptable I think is just, it's another deal breaker. It just shows that their lack of a, a true authority of the papacy to keep them in line, I think is causes. Now, I will say it's not like the Orthodox have gone heretical like the Protestants did on day one. In general, the teachings of the Orthodox Church, all of them are solid. They're Orthodox, they're not heretical. [00:41:35] But these two, the moral teachings on divorce, remarriage and the artificial conception are really, really a problem. Now I know Orthodox will say, the ortho bros will say, look at the Catholic Church. Today, most Catholics practice artificial contraception. Divorce and remarriage is rampant and they receive Communion. I get that. Basically what I'm saying though is a weak papacy is still better than no papacy. And that's what we have with the Eastern Orthodox is no papacy. And so they just simply enshrine it in their teachings, in their practice. Whereas at least there is, yes, there is not a strong enough defense against these teachings, these errors, but at least there is still the official teaching against these errors. [00:42:21] I think one more thing I wanted to bring up against Orthodoxy and why go Catholicism is the issue, the elephant in the room, which is the ethnicity of the Orthodox churches. It's a real issue. I think the fact that if I became, for example, if I decide to become Orthodox, go back to the debate, which Orthodox Church. But then if I do, I'm accepting In most cases some specific ethnic identity. So for example, the most attractive Orthodox Church I think is the Russian Orthodox. So if I became Russian Orthodox I basically have to embrace Russian culture. First of all, I actually love Russian culture, I love Russian Russian history, I'm a big fan of Russia so that actually wouldn't be a big deal for me personally. But the fact that it's basically required to become Russian Orthodox I have to embrace kind of Russia itself and like I'm always a second class citizen by not being Russian myself in the Russian Orthodox Church. I think that's a real issue. [00:43:23] I mean, yes, there were always ethnic, historically been ethnic parishes within Catholicism like a German German Catholic parish or the Irish Catholic parish or the Polish Catholic parish or something like that. But that was still just simply a parish situation, not a full communion structured with a patriarch and everything. I mean the Russian Orthodox Church is basically for Russia and not for anyone else. Yes, I know there's Russian Orthodox churches here in America. I've been to one locally for the Russian festival and it's wonderful, I love going to it. But ultimately I shouldn't have to embrace a certain ethnic identity in order to come into Christchurch. The Christ Church is universal, it extends that. Beyond that, I think within the Catholic Church we see that true universality and diversity. We have the universality of church, but we do have a diversity that the Italian Church is going to be a little bit different than the Irish Church. How they do things, that's okay. But overall you're still part of one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, not a confederation of churches that are identified very closely with a certain ethnic identity. I think that's a real issue. It's a real stumbling block for somebody like me who my identity is English. There's no English Orthodox Church, there just isn't one. And that kind of segues me into my next point, kind of my last point, kind of of why not Orthodox? That I want to talk about today. And that is the fact that, and this isn't, this isn't a deal breaker, this isn't why I wouldn't become Orthodox. This is simply though it's a factor in how I look at this. The fact is, is I'm Western, I grew up in America. My whole heritage English, I mean both sides of my family came from England, some from Scotland, but basically it's British, I mean dating back over a thousand years. That is my identity, that's who I am in the Catholic Church. I don't have to give that identity up, I don't have to you know, it works into the Catholic Church. I pray, of course, for the return of the Anglicans to the Catholic Church Communion. But there is no equivalent in Orthodoxy for that, for that kind of ethos of who I am. And so the truth is, is like the, the traditional at Mass, it really speaks to my soul, the Western liturgy, Western spirituality, that you find a lot of it in the, in the great English Western writers, Cardinal Newman, but even going back from before the, the break with the Anglicans, but even throughout, like Europe and all that, just, that's who I am. I am a Western Christian. And so I, Whereas I love going to Eastern divine liturgies. It's almost like when you go on vacation to some exotic location, you're like, this is great, but I want to live here. I might want to go visit the Caribbean or something. I'll live there. I'm from Ohio. I want to live in Ohio. I want to live, you know. And so likewise, I love to visit the Eastern liturgies in Eastern Catholic liturgy. And I, and I appreciate it greatly. [00:46:33] But it's not my home. My home is the Latin Mass. My home is Western Catholicism. Western spirituality, there's no option for that within Orthodoxy. Yes, I know of the Western rite, but it's a joke. It's a joke within the Orthodox Churches. It's rejected by most Eastern Orthodox, and it's very rare. Whereas in the Catholic Church, if you have an Eastern spirituality and Eastern background, there are Eastern Catholic churches, actual churches with hierarchies and completely established that you can go to. [00:47:09] And so if you have a Eastern spirituality, let's say you grew up in Syria or something like that, grew up in Russia or wherever the case may be, grew up in Greece, you can be part of the Catholic Church and maintain that spirituality, that ethos, that literate liturgical history, that liturgical form. In the Catholic Church, you can't do that as a Westerner. [00:47:32] In Eastern churches, if you're a Westerner who loves Western spirituality, you basically have to leave that behind to become Eastern Orthodox. And I think the true church of Christ, the universal Church, the Catholic Church, should embrace all legitimate forms of spirituality, both east and West. And the Catholic Church does that, whereas Eastern Orthodoxy does not. It just does not. [00:47:55] And so that's kind of my overview. Again, it's not a full apologetic. I'm not trying to do that here, but it is a explanation of why after becoming Catholic, even though I looked at Eastern Orthodoxy and I've studied it in depth for decades now, I have no real pull to become Eastern Orthodox. It does not have a temptation for me anymore. It never was a huge temptation. It was a slight. It was a temptation here and there at times. But now it just. I recognize these issues and Catholicism is the fullness of the church is founded by Jesus Christ. Now, all that being said, I just want to make it clear again. I love the East. I love Eastern spirituality and people who embrace it. I have a great, great appreciation for Eastern Catholics in particular because they're maligned on both sides. The Eastern Orthodox hate them and frankly, the Latin Catholics often distrust them and don't really look at them as fully Catholic. And so I have a great. They really have a cross. I feel like they're very Christlike because of that. [00:49:02] And I do think the Church should breathe with both lungs again, as John Paul II said, that we should have a fully united Church between the east and the West. [00:49:11] Now the truth is that I really think that, that. I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon. I pray for the reunion of the east and west all the time, but I don't think it's going to happen. A lot of reasons for that. First of all, who would we unite with? The Catholic Church? Would we unite with the Russian Orthodox Church, the Greek Catholic, or I'm sorry, the Greek Orthodox Church, the Serbians? I mean, they can't come together and agree they're in schism with each other. [00:49:38] And does that include the Oriental Orthodox, the Assyrian Church of the East? And so I think practically speaking the real union is going to be more and more Orthodox, including bishops coming over en masse and coming into union with the Catholic Church, as they did through the Eastern Catholic Church's history. I know that that's kind of not acceptable in ecumenical talks today. That's been rejected as a path forward. I think it's the only path forward. I think all ecumenical talks in general are worthless except for ecumenical talks with the Orthodox. [00:50:12] But I think honestly that they've gone down the wrong path because they rejected the idea of reunion by Eastern churches coming over to the Catholic Church as they did in the past with the Eastern Catholic Churches. [00:50:27] I do think, though, we need to do everything we can for union to unite between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches. Because I think in our increasingly secular world world or increasingly anti Christian world, everybody's against us. We need to be united with our friends against the common enemy, which is secularism, number one. Islam probably number two. I think those are the two great enemies of, of. Of Catholicism, of Christianity. A is the secularism on the one hand and Islam on the other. And I think we need to unite to, you know, to fight that. But there's frankly just too much division within Eastern Orthodoxy right now in order for it to be, to really have a true unity. I also think there's too much weakness within the Roman Catholic Church today. I think you don't a unity that comes about because while we're very weak, I don't think is a good idea. I think we need to be very strong. Strong. I mean, simply that we're very confident who we are. Because if we're confident in who we are, we're not going to compromise on things that we shouldn't compromise on. On. I worry that any type of ecumenical effort today to unite us, we might be tempted to compromise on things that matter. [00:51:41] Now don't get me wrong, I think we should compromise on things like I personally think we should. The Catholic Church should make it very clear and I think we kind of have, although some people don't like this, that if we got reunited, the Orthodox Churches would not have to say the Filioque and the Creed at their liturgies. I also think that, for example, that the, that their churches should be relatively self governing and the Eastern Catholic Churches today are not. They are too beholden to Rome. I think they should be mostly, obviously Rome's still at the top. Rome's still the arbiter, the final appeal. Rome still having some say in things. But each Eastern Catholic Church I think should be run basically with a patriarch and have a certain authority to run things on its own without, without constantly going to Rome. Like the fact that there's a Vatican office kind of in charge of the Eastern Catholic Churches, I think is a scandal. I don't think that should exist. I think the patriarchs should deal directly with the Pope as truly heads of their individual churches. [00:52:39] I don't think it's a matter of just the east submitting to Rome. I think if you look at the history of how we came into schism, it wasn't like there was a moment in when the Chalcedonian Orthodox said, okay, we're not going to be part of the Catholic Church. If you look at the history, 1054 is not the important date. 1204 and 1431, those are the important dates. 1204 is the date of the sack of Constantinople, which was, you know, caused all type of psychological and mental, you know, divisions. [00:53:14] And then of course, 1431 was the council of Florence in which we were united officially in the Catholic Church. We got united and then Markovestas went back and messed it all up and the Orthodox said, no, we're actually not going to accept that after all. But if you look at that history, my point here is it's not like they left in some corporate way, like happened after Council of Ephesus, like happened after the Council of Chalcedon, and like happened in Protestantism. So I don't think it's just simply a matter of the east submitting. I think it's a matter of truly coming together. The two churches, the Catholic Church, Orthodox churches, coming together. I don't think it can be done en masse. I think what you're going to do is, like I said, you're going to have some individual churches, like maybe the Greek Orthodox Church or the Serbian Orthodox Church that will come over and then probably the Russians would reject it. That's just going to happen. Ultimately, though, in light of our, our fight against secularism, a fight against Islam, I think ultimately we do need to come together again and have one truly one apostolic Christian church, which would be under the authority of the Bishop of Rome. Okay, I want to real quick, before I let you go, recommend Eric Ybarra's work on this. He's got a number of books, articles he's written. I have a podcast, I've tried to link to it. Maybe at the end of this podcast I have a podcast interview I did with him about four years ago where we talk about these similar issues, but from his perspective, which is very similar to mine, to be honest, for both Eric's and have similar perspectives. But I want to highly recommend Eric Ybarra's work in this area. You can read about, you know, his work with Eastern Orthodox and debating with them and discussing with him. And I think so that that's, I want to leave it with that, but hopefully this was helpful for people for understanding kind of why not Eastern Orthodoxy when they, they, they. It looks like the grass is greener on the other side of the fence sometimes in Eastern Orthodoxy for the traditional Catholic and the Ortho and the Orthodox Catholic, the small Orthodox Catholic, it can look like the grass is greener over there. I think ultimately though, the truth claims of the Catholic Church are stronger. And they are, ultimately they are the valid truth claims, the full valid truth claims as Christians, we need to accept. [00:55:30] Okay, I'll leave it there for now. Until next time, everybody. God love you. Sat.