Ortho-Anglo stumpers

1: Can someone explain the Eastern view of Sin to me? The Orthodox seem to take the non-inheritance of Sin to a level that renders Baptism irrelevant. One suspects that in their haste to toss the filioque bathwater out, all sorts of Augustinian babies went with it.

(Not that the filioque should be viewed as bathwater by right-thinking people. As a red herring, perhaps, but certainly not bathwater.)

However, I'm rather confused on the issue, and some assistance is needed here.

2: Regarding the recent Anglo-Catholic conference, The Pontificator wrote a piece on the possibility of a Western sui iuris Church being set up for returning Anglicans. Discussion here centers on how self-governing churches don't exist in the Western Church, save Rome, and that those areas "watered" by a certain strain of Catholicism are forever locked into that flavor.

This is said to be the ecclesiological formula accepted in the Ivory Tower. However, one must note that both Southern Italy and Poland, to name a few, changed from East to West or West to East. Thus from patriarch to pope or vice versa. It's happened multiple times in history.

Perhaps it is true that self-governing churches don't exist in the West. So what? Outside of priests, deacons, bishops, and the pope, no ecclesial jobs were instituted by God directly. Patriarchs, cardinals, mitred archpriests, monsignors, archimandrites, etcetera, owe their existence to human innovation, if perhaps guided by the Holy Spirit.

And indeed large swaths of Europe have in the past labored in various levels of de facto sui iuris status. The Gallican Rite comes to mind. This sort of situation in policy is in keeping with what could be the "legitimate diversity" that the smart set can't stop bandying about. The same set that will give away the store to Protestants.

Can someone convince me that this is anything other than power politics?

3: Related to both points one and two, why does the Church care about "Uniatism?" This is nonsense. So what if the remaining Orthodox, or perhaps the remaining Anglicans, flip out? Nip a church here, nip a region there, then they're all ours eventually. Renouncing "Uniatism" gives scandal by tacitly saying that people have full access to Truth in schismatic congregations.

I have much more respect for the Orthodox and Anglican traditions than I do for any others non-Catholic outfits. But wrong is wrong.

And Union works. This flip concept of "dialogue" fails. Just more politics. It's the Vatican making peace with The World.

Want to solve the divisions of Christianity? Let them all come back at sui iuris status. Take any parish that will come. Sign the "hands-off" agreement in blood, if need be. Only make them renounce whatever is obviously wrong. It can't get more generous than that.

Any straggling groups that won't take the bargain will be marginalized and irrelevant after a few generations of absorption.

Biblical brain teasers

Have been reading the Old Testament again recently. Some thoughts occur:

1: If King Solomon was the wisest person to ever live, before or since (Kings 11:12), was he wiser than Christ?

2: If Adam and Eve had children, and then sinned, but the child refused the serpent's offer, it's natural to assume that the parents would be kicked out of Paradise, not the child. Since the entire Earth was cursed due to their actions, would Creation then be split up 50/50 for Fallen Humanity and Pure Humanity?

3: If Adam and Eve had sinned while Eve was pregnant, how would God resolve the need to banish the sinning mother and preserve the pure baby in Paradise?

Byzantine priest with young family needs help

The following was posted on the ByzCath message board:

"Got this e-mail from Fr. John Zeyack, who is a visiting instructor at the Greek Catholic seminary in Uzhorod. PLEASE TRY AND BE GENEROUS!

Glory to Jesus Christ!
Dear Fr. Mike Fr. Chris and Deacons,
Several months ago I was asked about helping here in Zakarpatia, Ukraine. I have a special need. We have a young priest here who is ordained 2 1/2 years and is about 28 years old. He has a wife and two sons, one 3 1/2 years old and the other 6 months old. He has been suffering from tiredness and headaches and finally went to a doctor last week. Their diagosis is that he has minimally a brain tumor or a cancerous brain tumor. They are not aggressive in treatment or diagonosis as they are in the States. They are treating him with bed rest and medicine. They have told him that he has from two months to one year to live. His 3 1/2 year old son has a clef palate and needs an operation now to correct his bite, speech ability and appearance. The operation is $1200.00 in Ternopil. He has no money. He is worried for his son and for his family. He also has no money for his own health care.
If you are able to help, please do so. If you send a check, please send it to Fr. Taras Lovska and mark on it for Fr. Andrew.Fr. Taras' Address:

Rev. Taras Lovska
Blessed Theodore Romzha
Greek Catholic Theological Academy
Patrusa Karpatskoho str. 2A
Minaj, Uzhorod rajon 89427
UKRAINE

Thak you for responding to this appeal.
Fr. John Zeyack"

What bothers me to action here is that it seems to be a sorrowfully preventable situation, barring geography. If the same circumstances were in North America, I get the idea that there would be some hope. $1,200 is a pretty marginal amount for an appeal in our part of the world. That's ten bucks from 120 people, so it's an eminently do-able proposition.

So if you can, would you please pop off a check?

Islamic gamesmanship in Canada

So Musselmen were going to behead Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

The Toronto Star believes that it's "time to challenge Muslim extremists." To a rousing game if Scrabble? It remains to be seen.

Your author is constantly bewildered that a nation that speaks mostly proper English, lives under a monarchy, and generally displays wonderful manners could have such a death urge.

Can Mohammedans play Scrabble? One imagines that Pictionary certainly wouldn't be halal: "Ahmed, that roundish squiggle looks a little like The Prophet! I can't broach such idolatry!" Ahmed might protest that he was drawing a baby carriage, but oops, too late, his head's cut off.

Children in the Middle East don't play Hangman for the same reason. Accidental Hangman idolatry was one of the main causes of student revolt in 1970's Iran. So now they play Hangfalafel.

And forget about drinking games, of course.

Monopoly causes it's own problems, because as we know, once a land is Islamic, just like Spain it belongs to them forever. Forget about selling Baltic Avenue, unbeliever!

They can play Chess, but for one piece to capture another, it has to destroy itself in the process, so it's not much fun.

One place that Islamic gaming has been misunderstood is the schoolyard. Muslims don't have Dodgeball, they have Dodgerock. Much of the footage you might have seen of youth throwing rocks at people has been taken totally out of context. If a soldier catches a rock, the boy who threw it has to sit out the rest of the game.

Perhaps this whole Canadian thing was a similar misunderstanding.

Crusader; Trek; Uecker; Cravats; Grillin'

Some odds and ends today, mostly found while surfing:

***

1: SCANDERBEG: Warrior King of Albania. A movie being put together by some very proud Albanians, about a, yes, warrior king who leads a revolt to kick the Mahometan menace out of his nation. Fun! Watch the promo, it looks like it'll be spiffy.

2: Ragemonkey: The Future of Star Trek. Father Tharp ruminates on the direction of the next Trek vehicle. His ideas sound good, and a commenter makes note that The Fall needs to be present in the Trek universe. True, it's an idealized world, as Roddenberry desired.

As father points out, scuttlebut has it that a new project would focus on Kirk's years in the Academy. My dream script, however, would involve Harry Mudd teaming up with Lt. Kevin Reilly in something like "The Road to Orion:" It'd be stuffed with witty reparte, sprightly duets, and competitive flirting for the attention of an Orion slave girl who tags along on their misadventure to cheat pirates out of ill-gotten technology.

3: Bob Uecker Stalker. The link is directly to a letter she wrote to Mr. Uecker. From the looks of her prose, her more serious crime is First Degree Thesaurus Abuse.

4: For Father's Day Consideration: A History of Neckties. Your author is coming more to the opinion that modern daywear does little more than reinforce social discipline. A suit qua suit (or a tie qua tie) has no precise meaning, as would wearing the purple, or perhaps sporting a meaningful clan plaid. And the streamlined, unimaginative cuts of today's dresswear isn't just Protestant, it's downright republican.

So we're left with a situation whereby a man must wear clothes that somehow manage to be both unimaginative and uncomfortable. And instead of signifying anything useful, like profession, family ties, aristocratic heritage, etcetera, male daywear simply shows who has the time, money, and physique to preen and who doesn't.

When a middle class blue collar man dresses for work, one expects him to look the part of a workman. When a middle class white collar man dresses for work, one can't help but notice that he wears the same dress code as the wealthy, but in a lower quality way, like he is a cheap imitation.

Just one more reason there is more inherent dignity in honest physical labor than in the suit-and-tie world.

5: Your Author is Going to Refurbish His Grill! The first idea was to give it a flame job, but that's a rather tired look. Perhaps paint it like the shuttlepod Galileo from the Enterprise?

Here's where your help is needed. Any ideas for good monarchist barbecue art? Preferably, it has to be something that my wife won't know is making a statement, else she'd complain. It has to be code ... it has to be what the Ichthys was to early Christians. A secret design that will alert believers without letting the pagan authorities know.

A photo of the completed masterpiece will be published in mid-late summer.