Personally, I just don't understand how one can go to somebody elses house for a visit and then say, oh, btw, I want you to apologize to a member of my family for so and so???
Maybe it's just me, but I wasn't brought up that way!!
I think Harper did the right thing, I don't think he needs to tell the Pope what to do, if anything, it's the Pope that can offer his wisdom to Harper.
Given the appropriate time, I'm sure the Pope will do the right thing. He doesn't need us to tell him what to do.
He could have served him with some court papers. Even Putin would have enjoyed that one, anybody hear how the Churches differ in Russia compared to the Vatican? Harper even cover this angle?
Putin Can Meet With the Pope, but Their Religions Are Worlds Apart
Today’s so-called “Christian world” includes several “branches” or “denominations” of Christianity who differ from each other in dogma, rite, traditions, culture, history etc. Contrary to what a lot of people like to declare, these differences are far from trivial, especially the dogmatic ones. In fact, they are huge. To the point that the that the only politically correct meaning of the word “Christian” is “anybody who claims to believe in Christ, whatever that means“. Kinda vague, no?
That ambiguity or opacity is quite deliberate. The ideology en vogue now demands that we all nod our heads in agreement when we here the cliché about “irrelevant and obscure points of fine theology”. Fine. Though I totally disagree with that, I won’t argue about this today (maybe some other day). Today I want to look into something different: the collective/corporate memory of some, but not all, Orthodox Churches.
Most modern Christian Churches have a very short collective memory, a century or so, max. Even the Latin Christians who claim to be “The Church” usually have no idea about Vatican I, nevermind the Middle-Ages or Antiquity. Most Orthodox Christians, who also claim to be “The Church”, don’t fare much better. Most Russians will have some pretty good notions about the history of the Russian Orthodox Church, most Greeks about Greek Orthodoxy, most Serbs about Serbian saints, etc.
In fact, the sad reality is that most so-called “Orthodox” Churches are no less cut-off from the roots of Christianity than their Protestant or Latin counterparts. To make things worse, most “mainstream” or “official” Orthodox Churches participate in the so-called “Ecumenical dialog of love” with the other Christians, and sometimes even non-Christian, denominations/religions out there.
You must be under the impression that stupid looks good on you in that you wear so much of it all the time.
