Help, Help, Help Please! Dealing with A Radical Traditionalist Family Member who left SSPX to start a resistance Church.

Ok, so, for starters, this is another example of sedevacantists and schismatics trodding out any document (though this one is a lot less 'ancient' than they generally like to misuse) that has something in it they personally disagree with and construe that to somehow mean that the Church has taught error (in which case, by their own premise, Christ's promise to us has failed and the whole thing was a sham from the start) - its not at all ironic in the sense that sedevacantists can never agree on exactly when or where the 'true Church' splits off from, nor who constitutes said 'true Church!' (except themselves of course! And certain members of their congregations because other members still hold to whatever form of heretical doctrine they can think of), the Balamand Statement is no different.

The Catholic Church has always regarded the Orthodox Churches as true Churches. There are no quotation marks around 'true' like you'd find with some protestant churches - all of which that subscribe to the Creed are still incidentally Roman Catholic, but still in protest of one or more Roman doctrines, this is both historically and theologically true whether or not they want to do the necessary research to find that out or admit it. This is essentially what schismatics and sedevacantists are, they're just too prideful or ignorant about the circumstances to also admit it. The Catholic Church has always regarded the Orthodox Churches true in the sense that they can provide sacraments, they are apostolic, and that they can offer salvation to their members; nowhere, am I aware of at least, has this ever been contradicted by the Church. This is not at odds with the Catholic Church's very clear notion that there needs to be a reunion between the Orthodox and Rome; and the Balamand is not the end-all to this process, but was supposed to be a first step. Whether it is a step that works or just another step that doesn't go anywhere, remains to be seen. The 'out-dated ecclesiology' referenced in the document doesn't mean the liturgy, etc., but the stance that the Catholic Church's missionaries used to take in trying to incorporate as many Orthodox as they could back into the fold, whether by intentionally splitting Orthodox Churches up, accepting people without proper catechesis, or actually infiltrating Orthodox Churches to spin trouble.

This goes into how the Church has integrated Orthdox back into the fold in the past and how it is trying to do so in the future. Previously, with the ecclesiology that the document speaks about, the Church would integrate in small orders however it could. This wasn't always done in a...Christ-like manner, and caused much consternation between both the Orthodox Patriarchy and the Orthodox laity, and probably did more damage than harm in the long run of full communion, which is what the document is trying to address and solve: an entire re-integration of the Orthodox Churches back into communion with Rome.

Also, you could point out the not-at-all hilarious notion that a sedevacantist is mad about what he thinks the document is doing, which is making it so that the Orthodox don't have to come into submission to the Pope. Good stuff.

/r/Catholicism Thread