Benedict has chosen a poor route to take in attempting to reconcile Protestants with the Church in Rome.
And yeah, Benedict was probably not being diplomatic. I normally give Catholics a pass on being Christmas and Easter Christians, but I’ll bring it up in response to Benedict’s new “dialogue.”
Yeah, repeating Catholic doctrine. Imagine that!
Reconciliation on your terms isn’t his motivation.
True. I'm reminded of the Catholic attitude toward us Prods every time I attend a Catholic service and am denied communion, but he didn't need to rub our noses in it.
(BTW, all my Catholic friends are quite welcome to take communion with me at my church.)
That is not what he said! When are you going to realize that the mainstream media does not present Christianity in an honest light? Laura Ingraham interviewed Raymond Arroyo from EWTN and also a Southern Baptist (I’ve been both Baptist and Catholic) and neither one thought the Pope had been insulting of the Protestant Churches.
Why is it a "poor route"? Should Benedict continue the apostate 'protestantization' of the Catholic Church to appease them back into the fold? Is mediating and negotiating the Truth the way of Christ? This false ecumenism has been a ridiculous and disastrous position by the Church. Since Vatican II the Church has been devastated by shocking changes, a horrendous drop off in attendance, scandal after scandal. Church doors continue to be closed from coast to coast. The Church in Europe is almost non-existant, and the Church in America is not much better off. "By their fruits you will know them"; and the 'fruits' of Vat II and false ecumenism are rotting the Church to her foundation. The Truth needs to kiss nobody's feet to bring them to the Light, and Benedict knows this. The Church doors are not only open to Protestants who wish to convert, the Church pleads with them to do so. If they don't want the Truth, if they reject the Church founded by Jesus Christ on Peter, that's their problem, not ours.
Just as in John 6:66, when many of Jesus' followers were scandalized by his doctrine of literally eating and drinking of his flesh, and left Him, so go the Protestants. In my opinion, Pope Benedict is trying to bring them back by telling them the hard, cold facts.