My reference to snake-handling churches indicated a general extremist-Protestant tendency, not a literal comment about the exact number of such churches there are in America (I was, after all, mainly writing not about America but about Australia). One can – as I tried to indicate – have the general snake-handling mentality without having the practice itself. Plenty of extremist-Protestant churches in Australia have (at least in the eyes of outsiders) just such a mentality. If I can be shown up as mistaken regarding the Australian religio-political situation, I’ll happily stand corrected.

Essentially the people condemned by St. Pius X and who were stifled by Pius XI and Pius XII began their own October Revolution after 1958.

The local hierarchies, clergy, laity and pols sniffed the air as the Church is a top down institution!

I agree with Donoso’s mid 19th Century assertion and the late 20th Century assement of Solzhenitsyn i.e “All political problems are at bottom, religious ones”

In that case, the duty of lay and clerical orthodox Caholics is simple. We must reunite the Church with the Faith!

In the pre-liberal 1950′s Oregon, when all the adults were conservative, and all the students I ever met were the future’s liberals, I don’t remember the Catholicism question as being so much political.

There was the very real functional question: If you believe the Pope infallible, and he tells the President of the US that he is going to hell if he doesn’t vote a certain way, will this effect us? I look back on that concern and laugh, but then it was a very real concern.

FYI – There are less than 50 churches in the United States that practice snake handling. If your going to insult Protestants, there are far better ways to do so.

Also, it’s probably not the best strategy to complain about Protestants being hostile to the Catholic Church and then turn around and call them “Snake Handlers.” Pretty counterproductive eh?

3. The supreme ecclesiastical, legislative, administrative, judicial and controlling authority in the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia is her Council of Bishops, convened by her Primate (First Hierarch), in accordance with the Regulations [ Polozheniye ] of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia.
(…)

If I understand you correctly, the ROCOR and the Moscow Patriarchate exist as separate jurisdictions in the U.S. According to SCOBA Jurisdictions, Bishop Mercurius of Zaraisk is the Representation of the Moscow Patriarchate . Does this Bishop also represent the ROCOR?

If not, is the ROCOR a member of SCOBA? Who represents them?

Huson
9 months ago :: Dec 13, 2008 – 10:57AM #4
SeraphimR
SeraphimR
Posts: 1220

[QUOTE=Huson;953569]If I understand you correctly, the ROCOR and the Moscow Patriarchate exist as separate jurisdictions in the U.S. According to SCOBA Jurisdictions, Bishop Mercurius of Zaraisk is the Representation of the Moscow Patriarchate . Does this Bishop also represent the ROCOR?

If not, is the ROCOR a member of SCOBA? Who represents them?

Huson[/QUOTE]

ROCOR is not a member of SCOBA

Reconciled with the Moscow Patriarchate-but still independent of the Orthodox Church in America which was granted autocephaly by Moscow in 1970.

Also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Orthodox_Church_Outside_Russia
“The Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (Russian: Ру́сская Правосла́вная Це́рковь Заграни́цей, Russkaya Pravoslavnaya Tserkov’ Zagranitsey), also called the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, ROCA, or ROCOR) is a semi-autonomous part of the Russian Orthodox Church.”
(…)

What does “semi-autonomous” mean?

A church that is autonomous has its highest-ranking bishop, such as an archbishop or metropolitan, appointed by the patriarch of the mother church, but is self-governing in all other respects.

From the 1940s until the mid-1980s, the Australian Labor Party and the Australian Liberal Party were, respectively, Catholic and Protestant-Masonic in their voting bases. (The expulsion from Labor of various right-wing Catholics in 1954-1957, these men proceeding to form their own Democratic Labor Party, had little or no effect upon the fundamentally tribal religious allegiances of antipodean politics.)

This changed only a generation ago, with a fairly slight but steady movement of Catholics away from Labor toward the Liberals. In 1996 these Catholics helped put the Liberals, under John Howard, in power; “Howard’s Battlers” were the Australian equivalent of “Reagan Democrats.” (Eleven years later these same Catholics helped throw Howard out.)

But although there are now Catholics – or at any rate soi-disant Catholics – prominently represented among Liberal leaders (federal Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull describes himself as a Catholic, for instance), any hope which optimistic Australian Catholics might have nurtured of somehow Catholicizing the Liberal Party has been a complete failure. There are at least as many pro-abort, pro-euthanasia, and pro-homosexual-”marriage” types among the Liberals as among the Laborites. Even former Health Minister Tony Abbott, probably the nearest thing to a believing Catholic in the federal parliament today, merely wants abortion to be – Hillary Clinton fashion – “legal and rare.”

Moreover, although Freemasonry is pretty much extinct as a factor in present-day Australian administration, the large and vocal bloc of pro-Liberal Australian snake-handling-style evangelicals continues to regard Catholicism as The Scarlet Woman, The Whore of Babylon, etc. This hostility continually astonishes most Australian Catholics, whose spokesmen for the most part maintain ecumenical delusions of get-togetherism. Since the snake-handler bloc is increasing rather than decreasing, I predict that the present Australian situation will continue, particularly when only a miracle can stop the Liberals from being crushed at the next federal election (due no later than 2010) and probably the federal election after that.

If religion is going to be that important in the next two election cycles, my advice to Rand-not Ron-Paul is to convert to the ROCOR, the denomination Solzhenitsyn belonged to in the US. Just think: no snake-handling or faith-healing televangelists, no very unusual theology like the Mormons and no history of widespread sexual scandal and shoddy compromises with pro-abortion pols like the US Catholic Church.

But in this day and age, is there really a “Catholic” vote anymore? The days when Catholics thought of themselves as an organized bloc of voters has long since past. Catholics are intermarried. They don’t always attend church. The Pope doesn’t say Protestants are evil. Much has passed away in Catholic culture since Jack Kennedy was first elected. And it’s hard to vote Catholic when one party is closer to you on economics and the other closer to your social values. So you’ll find Catholics spread out in different voting blocs than “Catholic” these days.

But I can see how they looked at them back then. They did beat the WASP’s at there own game. The South and Mid-West (in some ways still do) distrusted Catholics, and the Kennedys showed, that we were Americans too. In their own way. They were also the “sterotypical” Catholic in the Evangelical and WASP’s eyes. “They drink booze, they love women, then they go to Church? Sinners!!” (I’ve heard that before on numerous occasions)

Now for your next point about Catholics going to the GOP. I think it will remain the same numbers. As long as the GOP is hanging out in the Wal-Mart (mega-) Churches, most North-Eastern Catholics will still away.

And for the Dems? As long as Irish/Italian Catholics are in unions, they will have there vote.