Tripp wanted to know why I, an Orthodox wannabe, was so overjoyed at the election of His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI. Isn't this hypocritical, he wants to know? No. As I told Pastor Hudgins while in the li'l red theological short bus, my reasons for the satisfaction at the conclave's outcome are consistent with my beliefs.
1. Catholics are Christians, and the Pope is the leader of more than a billion of 'em. That their leader upholds the fundamental tenets of the Faith is an extremely good thing.
2. The more Catholic the Pope is, the closer he is doctrinally to Orthodoxy. And this pope is very Catholic. Praise God.
3. This pope, like his predessor, John Paul the Great, very much wants reunion with Orthodoxy. Note these words (cited from here, though I could not locate the full text at the referred URL):
Rome must not require more from the East with respect to the doctrine of primacy than had been formulated and was lived in the first millennium. When the Patriarch Athenagoras, on July 25, 1967, on the occasion of the Pope’s visit to Phanar, designated him as the successor of St. Peter, as the most esteemed among us, as one also presides in charity, this great Church leader was expressing the essential content of the doctrine of primacy as it was known in the first millennium. Rome need not ask for more. Reunion could take place in this context if, on the one hand, the East would cease to oppose as heretical the developments that took place in the West in the second millennium and would accept the Catholic Church as legitimate and orthodox in the form she had acquired in the course of that development, while, on the other hand, the West would recognize the Church of the East as orthodox and legitimate in the form she has always had.
4. This Pope shares a devotion to my own patron saint: Benedict of Nursia.
5. I like his hair. I want silver-white hair like that when I get old . . . -er.
Posted by Clifton at April 20, 2005 09:01 AM | TrackBackFascinating isn't it, how he acknowledges doctrinal "development" and change on the part of the West in the last millenium while acknowledging that the East has essentially remained unchanged in this regard. Of course, the hard pill for some of the Orthodox to swallow would be the acceptance of these Roman Catholic "developments" as orthodox. The details would require negotiation.
Not that I expect reunion (I don't), but I too have high hopes for Benedict XVI and was extremely pleased to hear of his election. I think he's exactly what the Roman Catholic Church needs right now. Many years!
Posted by: Doug at April 20, 2005 11:43 AM