Opinion of the American Apostolic Old Catholic Church

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Christianity has always aspired to be a religion for everyone, not a select few.  We can't all be weirdos, because if we were, then our weirdness would be normal instead of weird.

Institutions founded for weirdos can perfectly easily accommodate normal people, but the opposite is usually not true. If you want to be "for everyone", you have to have the weirdos in mind.

This is exactly what I was getting at, yes.

Anyway, Ernest can insist that orthodox Mariology is somehow Gnostic as much as he likes, but I just don't think it's so. By the time most of the Marian dogmas developed in their modern form Gnosticism had had its day and it was other heresies the Church was reacting to.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Christianity has always aspired to be a religion for everyone, not a select few.  We can't all be weirdos, because if we were, then our weirdness would be normal instead of weird.

Institutions founded for weirdos can perfectly easily accommodate normal people, but the opposite is usually not true. If you want to be "for everyone", you have to have the weirdos in mind.

This is exactly what I was getting at, yes.

Anyway, Ernest can insist that orthodox Mariology is somehow Gnostic as much as he likes, but I just don't think it's so. By the time most of the Marian dogmas developed in their modern form Gnosticism had had its day and it was other heresies the Church was reacting to.

Catholic Mariology comes from the same core viewpoint of seeing our corporeal existence as irretrievably corrupt as Gnosticism, tho I will grant it has a different line of development and no interest in "secret wisdom" that could free those worthy of such knowledge from our corrupt corporeal cosmos. That said, the noncanonical Protoevangelium that is the basis of much Catholic Mariology is a 2nd Century text written well before the decline of Gnosticism.

Also, just to repeat myself, while I find the Assumption unnecessary, it doesn't bother me like the Immaculate Conception and the Perpetual Virginity do, since there are other Biblical examples of people being assumed into Heaven, just no scriptural support for it happening to Mary.

But back to the Perpetual Virginity, the logical gymnastics used to discount the import of Matthew 1:25 as arguing against Mary and Joseph not seeking to be fruitful and multiply after the birth of Jesus are impressive, but unconvincing as far as I'm concerned.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Christianity has always aspired to be a religion for everyone, not a select few.  We can't all be weirdos, because if we were, then our weirdness would be normal instead of weird.

Institutions founded for weirdos can perfectly easily accommodate normal people, but the opposite is usually not true. If you want to be "for everyone", you have to have the weirdos in mind.

This is exactly what I was getting at, yes.

Anyway, Ernest can insist that orthodox Mariology is somehow Gnostic as much as he likes, but I just don't think it's so. By the time most of the Marian dogmas developed in their modern form Gnosticism had had its day and it was other heresies the Church was reacting to.

Catholic Mariology comes from the same core viewpoint of seeing our corporeal existence as irretrievably corrupt as Gnosticism, tho I will grant it has a different line of development and no interest in "secret wisdom" that could free those worthy of such knowledge from our corrupt corporeal cosmos. That said, the noncanonical Protoevangelium that is the basis of much Catholic Mariology is a 2nd Century text written well before the decline of Gnosticism.

Also, just to repeat myself, while I find the Assumption unnecessary, it doesn't bother me like the Immaculate Conception and the Perpetual Virginity do, since there are other Biblical examples of people being assumed into Heaven, just no scriptural support for it happening to Mary.

But back to the Perpetual Virginity, the logical gymnastics used to discount the import of Matthew 1:25 as arguing against Mary and Joseph not seeking to be fruitful and multiply after the birth of Jesus are impressive, but unconvincing as far as I'm concerned.

You realize that as a Catholic who went to a Methodist divinity school I've encountered all of these arguments and jaos before and just don't find them as sage as you intend them to be, right? I just can't take this series of points seriously when for every Protestant critic of Catholicism making it there's another making the exact opposite point that the Catholic view of Mary as a created being is overinflated in a way that implies excessive carnality.

Anyway, yes, Catholicism sees the created universe as permanently wounded and weakened due to original sin, and this obviously informs Catholic Christology and thus Catholic Mariology. If you want to argue that that's too close to Gnosticism to be orthodox then fine, but you can't just assume that people will read that argument into ridiculous terms like "Pauline/Gnostic" without any definition or elaboration needed. In any case, "permanently wounded and weakened" is not the same as "irretrievably corrupt" (unless you want to argue that I'm "irretrievably corrupt" because I recently incurred a permanent physical disability) and the concept is not specific or unique to the theology surrounding Mary.

[DC Al Fine]

I don't approve of microdenominationalism, but this church bothers me less than others becauseit does have clear conditions for reunion with Rome, even though those conditions are extremely unlikely to be met. I think that's much more respectable than a denomination just drifting off on its own over the decades.

Speaking from the Protestant experience, new conditions for reunification have a strange habit of cropping up in microdenominations shortly after the original conditions have been met

[Kingpoleon]

Speaking from the Protestant experience, new conditions for reunification have a strange habit of cropping up in microdenominations shortly after the original conditions have been met

Look at the UMC - no one I have met seriously argues that different interpretations of LGBT issues, including ordination, is grounds for division of the church. It is predicated upon intolerance for people who disagree AND a belief that those who disagree with you will not tolerate your own views. Most liberals and conservatives in the laity say of the unitive plan: “Yes, they say this would allow us to have gay pastors, but they won’t really let us./Yes, they say they won’t send us gay pastors, but they really will make us have gay pastors.” In general, grounds for church division are theological nonsense predicated upon intolerance of other viewpoints. In most churches, this might make sense. In the Methodist tradition, it makes none. Our very founders disagreed about predestination, about slavery, literally about a civil war (1776), and stayed united.

[Kingpoleon]

Mary was physically a virgin, with an intact hymen, even after giving birth to Jesus.

Which is as ridiculous as the "like light sliding through glass" phrase arguing Mary had no birth pains.

It is these rather nonsensical thoughts which broadly define miracles as a violation of probability and not possibility, at least in my view.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     They don't explicitly say it, but the things they have to say about ecumenical councils seem to imply that they share the belief that I have seen elsewhere that the Second Millennium councils Catholics hold are not ecumenical because the Orthodox are not involved, which entails a strange and rather innovative definition of what constitutes an ecumenical council. Certainly it is a definition we do not recognize, even though they claim to accept the same councils as we do.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

     They don't explicitly say it, but the things they have to say about ecumenical councils seem to imply that they share the belief that I have seen elsewhere that the Second Millennium councils Catholics hold are not ecumenical because the Orthodox are not involved, which entails a strange and rather innovative definition of what constitutes an ecumenical council. Certainly it is a definition we do not recognize, even though they claim to accept the same councils as we do.

Can you elaborate on this? Why wouldn't the Orthodox understanding of ecumenical councils necessitate Orthodox involvement?

[Associate Justice PiT]

     They don't explicitly say it, but the things they have to say about ecumenical councils seem to imply that they share the belief that I have seen elsewhere that the Second Millennium councils Catholics hold are not ecumenical because the Orthodox are not involved, which entails a strange and rather innovative definition of what constitutes an ecumenical council. Certainly it is a definition we do not recognize, even though they claim to accept the same councils as we do.

Can you elaborate on this? Why wouldn't the Orthodox understanding of ecumenical councils necessitate Orthodox involvement?

     Most certainly we would require our own involvement. My point of view more relates to the concept that the East and West are separate parts that must be reunited for a council to be properly ecumenical. To complete the analogy, to agree to the Old Catholic definition we would have to think that Rome must be included for a council to be ecumenical, which is not a view held by Orthodox Christians. Indeed, some call the Palamite synods of the 1340s the Ninth Ecumenical Council (though this is a minority view).

     From our perspective, an ecumenical council is a council of the Ecumene, or the Roman Empire. The Seven Councils were all called by the Emperor sitting on the throne of Constantinople. We cannot call an ecumenical council now, not because we are lacking something, for the Church lacks nothing, but because the imperial throne wherein the authority to call the council is vested lies empty.

     Pan-Orthodox synods can still happen, and they can decree things for the entire Church, but none of them will be numbered among the ecumenical councils. And it honestly doesn't matter that much. We have had dogmatic pronouncements from various second millennium councils, e.g. Blachernae 1285, Constantinople 1351, Jerusalem 1672. The idea that it's not dogmatic if it isn't said in an ecumenical council just isn't a thing in the Orthodox Church.

[Kingpoleon]

     From our perspective, an ecumenical council is a council of the Ecumene, or the Roman Empire. The Seven Councils were all called by the Emperor sitting on the throne of Constantinople. We cannot call an ecumenical council now, not because we are lacking something, for the Church lacks nothing, but because the imperial throne wherein the authority to call the council is vested lies empty.

Interesting. Is it possible to claim that the imperial throne of authority to call the council now lies somewhere else? I’m rather surprised Putin hasn’t tried something of the sort, and very surprised if the Romanov’s didn’t.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     From our perspective, an ecumenical council is a council of the Ecumene, or the Roman Empire. The Seven Councils were all called by the Emperor sitting on the throne of Constantinople. We cannot call an ecumenical council now, not because we are lacking something, for the Church lacks nothing, but because the imperial throne wherein the authority to call the council is vested lies empty.

Interesting. Is it possible to claim that the imperial throne of authority to call the council now lies somewhere else? I’m rather surprised Putin hasn’t tried something of the sort, and very surprised if the Romanov’s didn’t.

     This gets into Third Rome territory. Many Orthodox Christians hold the opinion that when Constantinople fell in 1453 that its status as the foremost city of the Church transferred to Moscow. Some object to this identification saying that no canon recognized by the entire Church has ever established Moscow as the Third Rome, whereas Constantinople was identified as the New Rome in Constantinople 381 and subsequently confirmed as such in Chalcedon 451 and Trullo 692, though it also seems that the power of the Constantinopolitan throne to call a council preceded any such canon.

     On the other hand, the Ecumenical Patriarch and his allies are generally opposed to Third Rome beliefs, because they perceive it as a challenge to the prerogatives they assert and are attempting to expand. This perception is in various parts true and false, but it nevertheless exists.

     Suffice it to say, the answer to your question is that it is possible, but any attempt to exercise such authority would be highly controversial.