This comment follows a preliminary quick read of your article so I apologize in advance for any misunderstanding.
Now, the issue that bothers me the most in your article is the conflation of The Vatican with the wider body of Catholic believers. I'm a Catholic living in a my home country, Romania, which has an overwhelming majority of Orthodox Christians. Half of my family is Orthodox we often celebrate Easter together and in our eyes we all are Christian brothers. From my perspective this holds true for most if not all Protestant denominations.
There are I think two main points I wish to make. One, the fact that we have a Pope it doesn't mean we are blindly following Vatican's orders. Just like Orthodox Christians we have Tradition that in many ways is more binding than Vatican's policies. And we also enjoy the use of our reason and we do not ignore the fact that throughout history we had several bad Popes and the Vatican did make mistakes.
The second point is this: Are the Catholic Church and the entire congregation vulnerable to socialist infiltration? Yes. At the same time Protestant denominations and the Orthodox Church while enjoying decentralization are also vulnerable to tribalism and infighting. Both these weaknesses of the Catholic and respectively of the Orthodox Church and Protestant denominations are actively being exploited by those who would like to see Christianity destroyed. At the same time, both the unity of the Catholic Church and the decentralization of the Orthodox Churc and Protestand denominations also have advantages. And I believe it's in our best interest to know how to use these characteristics as advantages and not let them being exploited as weaknesses.
I can tell you that during the Communist regime in Romania, resistance against tyranny has been the same among Orthodox, Catolics, Greek-Catholics and Protestant in Romania.
If you manage to see these comment I would highly recommend reading Nicolae Steinhardt's "The Diary of Happiness" He was a Jew who converted to Orthodox Christianity. In his book he recounts, among many other things his experiences as an inmate in the Communist prisons.
Mr. Diaz,
This comment follows a preliminary quick read of your article so I apologize in advance for any misunderstanding.
Now, the issue that bothers me the most in your article is the conflation of The Vatican with the wider body of Catholic believers. I'm a Catholic living in a my home country, Romania, which has an overwhelming majority of Orthodox Christians. Half of my family is Orthodox we often celebrate Easter together and in our eyes we all are Christian brothers. From my perspective this holds true for most if not all Protestant denominations.
There are I think two main points I wish to make. One, the fact that we have a Pope it doesn't mean we are blindly following Vatican's orders. Just like Orthodox Christians we have Tradition that in many ways is more binding than Vatican's policies. And we also enjoy the use of our reason and we do not ignore the fact that throughout history we had several bad Popes and the Vatican did make mistakes.
The second point is this: Are the Catholic Church and the entire congregation vulnerable to socialist infiltration? Yes. At the same time Protestant denominations and the Orthodox Church while enjoying decentralization are also vulnerable to tribalism and infighting. Both these weaknesses of the Catholic and respectively of the Orthodox Church and Protestant denominations are actively being exploited by those who would like to see Christianity destroyed. At the same time, both the unity of the Catholic Church and the decentralization of the Orthodox Churc and Protestand denominations also have advantages. And I believe it's in our best interest to know how to use these characteristics as advantages and not let them being exploited as weaknesses.
I can tell you that during the Communist regime in Romania, resistance against tyranny has been the same among Orthodox, Catolics, Greek-Catholics and Protestant in Romania.
If you manage to see these comment I would highly recommend reading Nicolae Steinhardt's "The Diary of Happiness" He was a Jew who converted to Orthodox Christianity. In his book he recounts, among many other things his experiences as an inmate in the Communist prisons.
https://geocities.restorativland.org/Athens/Olympus/5748/traduceri/diary_of_happiness.html