Some of my comments and thoughts on part of Fr. Robert Taft's interview with John Allen. The interview can be split into roughly two or three sections. The first deals with Taft's observations on the Uniate Patriarchate and it's official recognition as Patriarchate by the Pope in Rome. The second and third deal with Roman Catholic injustices done to the Orthodox, and Taft's subsequent defense and justification of them. The interview itself can be read here: http://sainteliaschurch.blogspot.com/2011/04/nterview-with-jesuit-fr-robert-taft-of.html
Professor Robert Taft lifts his "Orthodox" in Union with Rome Mask and shows us his real face. The interview itself is rather old - it was given in 2004. Yet there is nothing really new about it. He simply repeats Papal political theory in a clearer and audible tone than ever before. "To hell with Moscow." That is, to hell with Orthodoxy and those people whom, after we fell away from them, proceeded to launch a vicious Crusade against them, took over their Empire, ransacked their capital which was the richest in the world, burned down Churches and Monasteries, raped nuns, and placed a whore on their Patriarchal throne....
Need I recall all the Latin heretics did to us in 1204 when they took over Constantinople? Need I tell you how "Christians" going to rescue the Holy Land from the "Islamic Horde" took a brief stop in New Rome to butcher babies, women, and children? Need I describe to you how they broke into some of the most ancient Churches in the world, threw the Holy Mysteries into the sewers, threw Holy relics of the Saints on the streets, burned icons, and even stole the gold from the walls and the marble tiles from the floor? As the Apostle Paul says "The time fails me to recount..." All that the treasures you see when you go to museums and cathedrals in Western Europe - everything - they stole it all from us in 1204.
I expected Fr. Taft to defend the Unia. He himself is a child of the Unia, a faithful son of the Vatican. I did not expect him to defend the 4th Crusade. I did not expect him to defend the 4th Crusade in 2004 when, supposedly, Pope John Paul II apologized for it. Well, this just proves that the Jews would have gotten a sincerer apology from Hitler for the Holocaust then we would have from the Pope for the 4th Crusade.
In case you don't know what the Unia is, it's when the Kingdom of Poland - Lithuania took over the western part of little Russia - what is now called Ukraine - thereby enslaving the local Russian Orthodox population not only politically, but also religiously. Roman Catholicism is Christianity which has replaced God with the Pope. If you want to know what Christianity is without God, convert to the Latin heresy.
Getting back to our topic, it is all politics. You keep your Orthodox faith, you keep your married priests, you keep your rites, and you keep your fancy vestments and your icons, but you just kiss the Pope's feet. Many Orthodox Bishops submitted to this false Union, and thus Gallicia was plunged into chaos and darkness from then till now. You can read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_of_Brest
The interview up until the question: "What is it that bothers the Orthodox so much about the idea of a Ukrainian Patriarchate?" does not tell us anything that we don't know. We know that the Pope doesn't want to give them official Patriarchate status less he burn his bridges with us. We know that they tried to erect a Coptic Patriarchate sometime in the 1700s or 1800s to suck in the Copts, and as Taft himself says, they could fit all it's current members into one room. Folks, we know Rome's political motto is: Kiss the Pope's feet, give us your money, and give us your lives.
In the above stated question, Taft begins to show his true and vibrant Papal zeal. Firstly, he concedes that we are right. He admits that these people, half of little Russia was "won away, coaxed away." The problems Ukraine has today - Ukraine's identity crisis one could say - is due to them. The Poles told the Ruthenians or Ukrainian "Catholics" or little Russians, "look at you, "Russian", no way! You're Ukrainian, tak? Of course tak! Not da, wash your mouth out with soap!" And I'm not going into the bloodshed they initiated in their attempt to make Rome's earthly Empire larger. In a nut shell, this is what this is about: Rome's thirst for earthly glory and power at all costs. Taft is simply trying to save the Vatican bureaucracy's face.
And then he proceeds to ramble on giving us examples that would justify the continuation of the Unia's existence, namely, black people in the Southern States and Anglicans. Again, he simplifies history. He simplifies the racial conflict that took place in the South in recent memory. Anyways, that's after he tells you that you don't need to learn about the 4th Crusade. Do you know what Sir Steven Runciman says about the 4th Crusade? "There never was a greater crime against humanity than the Fourth Crusade of 1204 - when the Latins took Constantinople." Sir Steven goes on to argue that the very history of the world and most historical events which we take for granted today: The America's discovery, the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Industrial Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, and the two Great Wars - with all the history that follows them to the present might have never happened, or might have happened in a tremendously alternated form. The world would literally have been a different place. And what does Fr. Taft tell you to do? "Well, kindly forget that we hijacked history and destroyed a whole civilization. And by the way, don't forget to express your love and loyalty to Rome by buying an indulgence for grandma."
Folks, the Vatican has been lying to you to get your money to build her earthly Empire of glory, with the Pope as Caesar. Heck, check out the man's title for crying out loud. Plain and simple.
In any case, Fr. Taft tells us to forget about the Fourth Crusade and the Unia, giving us the analogy of black people in the South and Anglicans. Well, Mr. Taft, had you not taken and rapped Constantinople ten times over, maybe millions of African's wouldn't have been kidnapped from their native lands to be shackled and chained and taken across an ocean in conditions I doubt you or I would be able to survive, in order to pick cotton in some fat European's plantation. I doubt any of that would have taken place. Because
fundamentally, Orthodoxy with her Hellenic roots and Roman Imperial outlook does not conquer people and enslave them, on the contrary, we share the Gospel and our civilization with them. In fact, to be more exact, we marry our civilization to theirs. This is why 5,000 Africans are being baptized each week. This is why most native Alaskans are still proudly Orthodox.
So no, we will not play stupid and forget. Just because you fly twenty Bishops around the world to conferences at fancy resorts where you make fancy statements about "unity and love," well it doesn't mean you have the rest of us fooled. In the end if you want to sink Orthodoxy which has been your goal and objective since your founding in 1054 you'll have to get through an army of yiayias and babas. An army of zealous monks and nuns, pious village priests who can't read, and holy hierarchs from the Congo to the Altai. You'll have to get through all of us, and may God save you from our wrath.
In the last part of the interview, Taft justifies the existence of Catholic Bishops in Russia by pointing to the existence of the Metropolitan of Vienna as an example. Why should he exist and why shouldn't the Catholic Archbishop of Moscow exist. To put it plainly, there is only one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, with one hierarchy. You aren't it. So we aren't placing a Hierarch in an occupied see by having a Bishop in Vienna. As far as the comments on the Monastery in Calabria go, anyone who reads a little will see how Hellenized (and by this of course, I mean Romanized: a true Roman is an Orthodox Christian, subject of the true Roman Emperor in New Rome, Constantinople) southern Italy was, what a bastion of Orthodoxy it was, and how you tore it away and Latinized it. The Roman Catholics who are converting back to the Orthodox faith are simply returning to their roots. We don't proselytize your flock as you say we do: as Dostoyevsky says, you are responsible for atheism and the moral degeneration of society, therefore those who search after Truth naturally come to the Orthodox Faith. As far as achieving Communion goes, it'll happen when you convert to Orthodoxy.
As far as your statement: "To Hell with Moscow." We thank you for your kindness, and assure you of our love.
We earnestly await your repentance and return!
