http://www.prescottorthodox.org/2010/10/why-orthodox-men-love-church/?ref=nf
My friend who is an Anglican Priest posted this article on the Greeks / The Orthodox Church and how they don't have issues with the loss of men in the pews - or rather, they have men not in the pews... but in attendance (those Orthodox stand for their services, it's crazy).
I have been studying Russian Politics and history this semester for the first time in depth, and it is horrifying. Russian Patriarchs on the payroll of the KGB, etc, and the Orthodox Church openly colluding with Putin's totalitarianism.
BUT! I must say look at this difference. Our Church (Roman/Latin Rite Catholic Church) has faced the scandal of clerical homosexual child abuse. I'm not going to try to rate each scandal, or try to say 'our's isn't REALLY a scandal' etc. But lets just look at the basic facts. The Orthodox Church fails, because it is too manly, it has masculine virtues and masculine vices. The Catholic Church fails for having feminine virtues and feminine vices. (Although we still have those Eastern Catholic Churches we picked up, which seem to be pretty similar to the Orthodox).
This is a very simplistic surface observation. I know of no man more manly than Pope Benedict XVI. He is my ultimate hero. Look at God's (soon to be) go-to guy downing this beer like a Champion:
Now I've seen some FSSP guys who are really Catholic men, but at an unterrifying english-mass parish, there just aren't any of these folks or their message.
As I sit writing this I am an overweight effeminate fail. I could be a blood-thirsty Russian mobster, and both would be bad. However, I think that the evil one's plan for Westerners like myself is to form the worst of vices in the eyes of their culture. We need new St. Brendan's, St. Benedict's, and St. Peter's. We need the Sons of Thunder calling down holy fire upon the earth. We need to fail in that extreme, the other side of the virtue, not the one we're currently on.
I guess I'm just trying to say, I need to be that way, and am imputing it to my communion perhaps.
So like all good blog posts, after this, I will try to reform myself, get up at 5am and go to the scariest of Latin mass parishes for morning confession, and hopefully man up and do my penance without complaint.
I like the Poles (unlike most of my Anglo predecessors) they just made the world's largest Jesus, with a golden crown. It reminds me of some of the last earthly words of Christ "Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth" Mt. 28:18
I need to add these three images to my fledgling devotional life: Christ Ruler of the Universe, Mary "Our Captain, Queen of War" (Orthodox) / Our Lady of Victory (Catholic), and Mary Destroyer of all Heresies.
Just as a side observation: don't you readers find it annoying that the moral of every post is => Andrew needs to change ? It annoys me. One day...
(In case you were wondering the Anglican Communion fails because Rowan won't man up and kick out the heretics, and the other Protestants aren't a Church so they can only fail at an individual level)
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