I’m not really sure as to what happened to Fr. Al Kimel’s Ponifications Blog, but it appears to be gone. He had a temporary space at WordPress.com, and perhaps, that is where he’s going, but who knows.
I recall reading that he was planning on moving the blog – and he well may have, but I’m not going to perform an exhaustive search for it.
As one of my web design mentors, Dean, at Heal Your Church Website might say, mystery meat navigation is bad enough, but non-navigation is completely wrong. If you are going to move a site, at least leave clues (Col. Mustard in the library with a pipe 😉 ).
I searched a few of the usual suspects like Sacramentum Vitae, but no news. While there I did find a pointer to an argument Fr. Kimel and his Orthodox correspondents were engaged in (see: Not talking about God) which pointed to Not Yet Ecumenical from Energetic Procession.
It was the typical point and counter-point of the filioque, the Immaculate Conception, the Assumption, etc. Nothing I want to cover in this post though. The PNCC and Orthodoxy are on the same page on these issues anyway.
The quote from Not Yet Ecumenical that struck me was as follows:
Third, Fr. Kimel’s —ecumenical— approach isn’t yet ecumenical. To be ecumenical he needs to recognize the legitimacy of the other in terms of the other. Orthodoxy has to be seen to be legitimate on its own terms. It cannot be ecumenically engaged by either reducing its teachings to some other Latin expression in a dismissive fashion or arguing contrary to fact that its distinctives don’t hold the weight of the teaching authority of the Orthodox Church. These are both strategies that Fr. Kimel has employed rather routinely.
Nor is it ecumenical to dismiss Orthodox commentators as —polemicists— who are only interested in seeing Rome as heterodox. It never enters Fr. Kimel’s mind that they might have some measure of rational justification for thinking so. And yet the Orthodox are supposed to take seriously the dogmatic claim by Rome that the Orthodox are at least materially heterodox. What Fr. Kimel’s whine amounts to is the old canard that the Orthodox are just instrinisically [sic] sinful and schismatic. To even speak of the same common faith that we are to work towards presupposes the Catholic view of things, that we do in fact have a common faith. That has to be demonstrated, from the Orthodox view, rather than assumed. And this I think picks out a major difference between us. Communion for the Orthodox will depend on a demonstration and not the judgment of a singular authority.
That’s it in a nutshell. That is why great care must be taken when speaking of dialog with the Roman Church.
The table you sit at, with the Roman Church, allows for the dialog – it is conducive to that. The table allows for on-going grievances and difficulties to be aired, but the table, regardless of its shape, still represents sides and positions.
The Roman Church, by its sheer size, weight, and attachment to certain stumbling block dogmas, while at the same time adhering to (albeit in an unspoken way) extra ecclesiam nulla salus is not in a position to bind up wounds and heal divisions. All of us, in the Catholic fold, excepting Rome, are inherently schismatic in their eyes, and anyone who lives apart from the Pope is not fully Catholic.
I’m not saying these things because of Fr. Kimel’s positions. He is certainly a top notch apologist and polemicist. He has personal axes to grind with the folks in TEC that let him down. He found solace in the strictures and rule books of Roman Catholicism, which is fine for him. At some point the hurt will lessen, the polemics and staunchness will wear down, and faith, the core element of hope will come out on top.
As to the general theme of dialog, the final quote from the Not Yet Ecumenical post sums up the problem of ecumenical dialog with Rome:
And to even ask when Orthodoxy dogmatized this question is to measure Orthodoxy by [Roman] Catholic standards. It didn’t and doesn’t need too because it is in the Fathers and the Liturgy. It’s called Tradition, not a dictionary.
Indeed the Roman Church’s sine qua non for unity is adherence to its terms, conditions, and definitions.
When the PNCC, or Orthodoxy for that matter, are admitted in the door as full living Churches with their own character and practices, which are at heart fully Catholic, then I’ll believe it is otherwise. Else wise we must continue to pray and talk.