COMMENTARY: The threat facing the Church is not about liturgical preference, but about something older, more beautiful and far more costly to lose: communion with Peter.
As an Eastern Catholic deacon, I will be the first to admit that we don’t always show forth our love and appreciation for our union with Rome.
Too often we minimize our union and make jokes about Rome being the “home office,” as if we are merely a branch of a larger multi-national corporation. In conversation we can quickly enumerate the abuses that we’ve suffered because of our union with Rome, yet we cannot name the benefits (both practical and spiritual) of our communion with the Holy See.
This is an impoverishment we cannot afford — especially now.
Yet again in history, we find the threat of schism looming large. The episcopal consecrations planned by the SSPX on July 1, without papal mandate, are not a canonical technicality — they are a wound to the Body of Christ. I have dear friends who are nourished by the Traditional Latin Mass, and I understand that love. As an Eastern Catholic, I know what it means to cherish a liturgical and theological tradition as the
