Home Forums All Things Catholic What is a “Roman Catholic?” Reply To: What is a “Roman Catholic?”

#6377
Anonymous
Inactive

Gesundheit, the other rites are all 100% fully Catholic in communion with the Pope at Rome. The only difference between Catholics of different rites are their traditional practices (such as the order of Holy Mass or how they make the sign of the cross), not their beliefs.

I think they are wonderful. Our Eastern brothers have a different history and, thus, a different focus than those of us in the Latin Rite. For example, as a generalization, we focus on the crucifixion while they focus on the Incarnation.

I noticed a thread from earlier in which I mentioned to Victor that in the East they hold that Jesus would have been incarnate even if Adam never sinned, because the Incarnation brought man and God closer than even the condition of an unfallen Adam. When you contemplate the Incarnation as a facet of God’s original plan, rather than an element necessitated by the fall of mankind, it opens a whole new dimension of significance.

No longer are you focused only on the Incarnation as a necessity for Christ’s atoning sacrifice, but as God’s plan to bring mankind even closer to Him than at our creation.

“God became man so that man might become God.”