Is Pope Francis a Liberal Protestant?

As an outsider, I can’t help but wonder whether the pope and the USCCB were particularly provoked by Weinandy’s suggestion that Jesus had allowed this controversy in order “to manifest just how weak is the faith of many within the Church, even among too many of her bishops.” Catholics will have to make up their own minds—but I’ll admit I have questions about the faith of Pope Francis, which seems, if not weak, at least different from that of the Catholic tradition.

Even before the release of Amoris Laetitia in March 2016, Francis had caused many to question his fidelity to that tradition. In 2014, the midterm report of the Extraordinary Synod on the Family recommended that pastors emphasize the “positive aspects” of cohabitation and civil remarriage after divorce. He said that Jesus’s multiplication of bread and fish was really a miracle of sharing, not of multiplying (2013); told a woman in an invalid marriage that she could take Holy Communion (2014); claimed that lost souls do not go to hell (2015); and said that Jesus had begged his parents for forgiveness (2015). In 2016, he said that God had been “unjust with his son,” announced his prayer intention to build a society “that places the human person at the center,” and declared that inequality is “the greatest evil that exists.” In 2017, he joked that “inside the Holy Trinity they’re all arguing behind closed doors, but on the outside they give the picture of unity.” Jesus Christ, he said, “made himself the devil.” “No war is just,” he pronounced. At the end of history, “everything will be saved. Everything.”

Weinandy and other Catholic critics have pointed to alarming statements and suggestions in Amoris Laetitia itself. The exhortation declares, “No one can be condemned for ever, because that is not the logic of the Gospel!” In December 2016, the Catholic philosophers John Finnis and Germain Grisez argued in their “Misuse of Amoris Laetitia” that though this statement reflects a trend among Catholic thinkers stemming from Karl Rahner and Hans Urs von Balthasar, it contradicts the gospels’ clear statements and the Catholic tradition’s teaching that there is “unending punishment” in hell. Finnis and Grisez charge that, according to the logic of Amoris Laetitia, some of the faithful are too weak to keep God’s commandments, and can live in grace while committing ongoing and habitual sins “in grave matter.” Like (Episcopalian) Joseph Fletcher, who taught Situation Ethics in the 1960s, the exhortation suggests that there are exceptions to every moral rule and that there is no such thing as an intrinsically evil act.

I take no pleasure in Rome’s travails. For decades, orthodox Anglicans and other Protestants seeking to resist the apostasies of liberal Christianity have looked to Rome for moral and theological support. Most of us recognized that we were really fighting the sexual revolution, which had coopted and corrupted the Episcopal Church and its parent across the pond. First it was the sanctity of life and euthanasia. Then it was homosexual practice. Now it is gay marriage and transgender ideology. During the pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XVI, we non-Catholics arguing moral theology could point to learned and compelling arguments coming out of Rome and say, in effect, “The oldest and largest part of the Body of Christ agrees with us, and it does so with remarkable sophistication.”

Those of us who continue to fight for orthodoxy, in dogmatic as well as moral theology, miss those days when there was a clear beacon shining from across the Tiber. For now, it seems, Rome itself has been infiltrated by the sexual revolution. The center is not holding.

Though we are dismayed, we must not despair. For the brave and principled stand made by Tom Weinandy reminds us that God raises up prophetic lights when dark days come to his Church.

Gerald McDermott holds the Anglican Chair of Divinity at Beeson Divinity School.

The pursuit of love is full of surprises.

Yup!!

JESUS: Hey Smith! Remember that boast you made about doing more than even I had done to hold the 'church' together?

JOSEPH SMITH: Where am I?

JESUS: Don't you remember? A few seconds ago you were in that jail.

JOSEPH SMITH: Oh; yeah; but where am I NOW?

JESUS: Don't you remember? Does bang - bang ring a bell?

JOSEPH SMITH: Oh; yeah - that crummy gun I had was about USELESS!

JESUS: I hope you left instructions on how to hold your church together.

JOSEPH SMITH: Dang! I knew there was SOMETHING I was forgetting!

JESUS: Looks like there's a power struggle going on down there.

JOSEPH SMITH: Yeah; there was always SOMEone who wanted the power that I held - especially over the LADIES - wink wink.

JESUS: No need to worry about that now; remember what my friend Matthew wrote down?

JOSEPH SMITH: This? “At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven” (Matthew 22:30)

JESUS: That's it.

JOSEPH SMITH: I thought that was mistranslated.

JESUS: Nah - it was right.

JOSEPH SMITH: Oh well; it was fun while it lasted. My buds will still get it on with the girls.

JESUS: Uh; I'm sorry; in just a few more years; your followers will cavein to the United States government and abandon the 'Eternal Covenant' that you came up with.

JOSEPH SMITH: ME!? YOU are the one that told me to do that!

JESUS: Sorry; but you must have mistranslated what I told you. What part of Do NOT commit ADULTERY did you not understand?

JOSEPH SMITH: mumble....

JESUS: What did you say?

JOSEPH SMITH: Oh, nothing.

JESUS: Well; it was interesting talking to you; but now I must get back to perparing a place for those who believe in Me.

JOSEPH SMITH: Oh, yeah; the Celestial Kingdom.

JESUS: No...

JOSEPH SMITH: The Telestial one?

JESUS: Nope.

JOSEPH SMITH: SUREly not the TERRESTRIAL one!!

JESUS: Nope. Didn't you read that the mind of man had NOT conceived of it? Paul wrote it down in 1 Corinthians 2:9.

JOSEPH SMITH: I thought that was mistranslated.

JESUS: No; it wasn't.

JOSEPH SMITH: You SURE?

JESUS: Yes. Now I must be going: what did you say your name was again?

JOSEPH SMITH: Joseph Smith.

JESUS: Hmmmm. According to my Heavenly FAITHbook, you didn't sign in as one of my friends - sorry, I never knew you.

JOSEPH SMITH: But....

“AMPU MAY be suggesting that there is no one true church at all. I wanted to look at that idea. A conversation which assumes that there is and then asks if the Roman Catholic Church is it is really logically later.”

There is but one “church”, which is all who have entrusted themselves to Christ alone for salvation and eternal life.

Eternal life is only in Him.

His Body is made up of the saved, who are baptized into it by the Spirit.

The expression of His Church occurs locally, where believers live out His life. This is all you see in Scripture and what Paul wrote about to the churches in each city. These inspired letters were circulated to other churches and recognized as Scripture at that time.

Historically, when the Church was attacked from within and without, a council of leaders from these churches was called to speak with one voice.

What you said was true... as soon as many people join the same conversation, it becomes fragmented.

Best to you.

AMPU MAY be suggesting that there is no one true church at all. I wanted to look at that idea

A conversation which assumes that there is and then asks if the Roman Catholic Church is it, is really logically later.”

Not much has changed...

Acts 15    Version 1.54

The Council at Fresno...

¹ Certain Catholics came from all across the world to FreeRepublic and were trying to convince the believers: "Unless you are Catechized, according to the custom taught by Rome, you cannot be saved." ² This brought Elsie and Metmom ETAL into sharp dispute and debate with them. So Elsie and Metmom were appointed, along with some other believers, to lurk on FR to see the Catholics and NON about this question. ³ The Holy Spirit sent them on their way, and as they traveled through the Religion Forum, they told how the NON-Catholics had been converted. This news made all the Protestants very glad. ⁴ When they came to FR, they were scorned by members of the ONE TRUE church, to whom they reported everything God had done through them.

⁵ Then some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Catholics stood up and said, "The Protestants must be baptisted correctly and required to keep the laws of Rome!"
⁶ The posters met to consider this question. ⁷ After much discussion, Metmom got up and addressed them: "Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Protestants might hear from our fingers the message of the gospel and believe. ⁸ God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. ⁹ He did not discriminate between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith. ¹⁰ Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of Protestants a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear? ¹¹ No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are."
¹² The whole of FR became silent (Yeah; THAT's gonna happen!) as they listened to Elsie and Metmom telling about the signs and wonders God had done among the Protestants. ¹³ When they finished, Boatbums spoke up. "Brothers," she said, "listen to me. ¹⁴ MGinTN has described to us how God first intervened to choose a people for his name from the Gentiles. ¹⁵ The words of the prophets are in agreement with this, as it is written:
¹⁶ "'After this I will return
   and rebuild Rome's fallen tent.
Its ruins I will rebuild,
   and I will restore it,
¹⁷ that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord,
   even all the Protestants who bear my name,
says the Lord, who does these things'
¹⁸ things known from long ago.
¹⁹ "It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Protestants who are turning to God. ²⁰ Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from vision and apparations, from Brown Scapulas, from the endless repetitions of the ROSARY and from so-called blood. ²¹ For the laws of Rome has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the sanctuaries on every Sunday."
The Council's Letter to Gentile Believers
²² Then the posters and lurkers, with the whole church, decided to choose some of their own men and send them to Fresno with Mark17 and Tennessee Nana. They chose Daniel121 (called Wise) and eagleone, men who were leaders among the believers. ²³ With them they sent the following letter:

   The apostles and elders, your brothers,
   To the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia:
   Greetings.
²⁴ We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said. ²⁵ So we all agreed to choose some men and send them to you with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul— ²⁶ men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. ²⁷ Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas to confirm by word of mouth what we are writing. ²⁸ It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: ²⁹ You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things.
   Farewell.

³⁰ So the men were sent off and continued to post on FR, where they gathered the people together and delivered the GOSPEL. ³¹ The people (most all except Salvation and Vlademir998) read it and were glad for its encouraging message.

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