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To: k omalley; Kolokotronis
I don't know what exactly the Rhine theologians did or didn't actually believe (although I have a suspicion, as you obviously do, too.)

I grew up in conservative Protestantism, then lived through the liberal onslaught in Protestantism, then explored Catholicism seriously by reading pre Vat II sources, then encountered post Vat II Catholicism in practice, and finally converted to Orthodoxy.

I have therefore read widely and attended a multitude of different "brands" of churches over the decades. One learns very quickly to spot what kind of theology is about to be taught by the code-words and ways of talking and writing about theology.

And as a "multi-lingual" :-) guy, I can tell you, that modern Roman Catholic theological and liturgical ways of talking/writing are pretty much a barely altered liberal Protestant language, which has its roots in German Protestant higher criticism, etc...

It is not like the language of conservative Protestantism, "old" Catholicism, or Orthodoxy. It has "liberal Protestant" written all over it. That doesn't at all mean that modern Catholic theology is just like modern liberal Protestant theology -- just that this is who modern Catholic scholars have chosen to sound like. I personally feel that this reflects definite theological sympathies with liberal Protestantism in some cases, an academic "inferiority complex" in other cases (we see this in Orthodoxy to some extent, as I have previously noted), and in other cases it is just something that has been innocently learned by imitation. In all cases, I think that this language has an eventual effect on the theology being taught.

If you want to find out whether your priest, for instance, buys into the "radical kenosis" idea, by the way, just ask him to tell you what happened at the Ascension, and then as a followup what will happen at the Second Coming.

The Church is clear on both of these things: Christ ascended into heaven in his glorified human body, and He will return with that same glorified human body. "In the same way" as the disciples saw him going up, the people on earth will see him coming down -- but this time with the angels, etc...

Listen not only to the words -- listen for "side-stepping" language, and watch body-language.

Orthodox priests have a hard time getting by with such ideas (and frankly if they had them, they wouldn't be much interested in being Orthodox priests, generally), because our hymnology is just chalk-full of very retrograde theology on things like this. And because the Byzantines loved to repeat things in a dozen different ways (that's why our services are so long) -- there is just no room for equivocation. By the time one gets done with Vespers and Matins of the Ascension, and of the Last Judgment, there is little room for mistaking what the Orthodox Church teaches!

64 posted on 04/17/2005 7:48:01 PM PDT by Agrarian
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To: Agrarian; Kolokotronis
"I don't know what the Rhine theologians did or didn't actually believe..."

Ratzinger was one of the Rhine theologians who toward the end of the council had a change of heart when he became alarmed over just how radical those Rhine guys really were. Mainly he was in favor of more collegiality for the bishops, which might not be too bad an idea if your bishops are solid Christians. To this day he is considered a turncoat by the liberals.

In "The Desolate City" Anne Muggeridge quotes a philosophy prof, Thomas Sheehan, at Jesuit University of Loyola in Chicago as writing that in Roman Catholic seminaries it is no longer taught that Jesus claimed to be the Son of God or that the Gospels are correct in their Messianic claims about Jesus. When you're dead, you're dead and the same holds for Jesus. The Rhine theologians along with some others, including Americans pushed this liberal consensus.
When I hear that "We are Eucharist" even though this is certainly part of the truth, my hackles automatically go up. Some of the people pushing this believe that we are Eucharist because there is no One Else and so we are truly celebrating ourselves in these "communal gatherings."
I'm not implying that Ratzinger holds to any of this nonsense because in 1984 as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he sent quite a few heads rolling. This theology of the Eucharist still lurks behind the scenes however. I think that Ratzinger because of lessons learned would be a very good watchdog as pope and root this heresy out.

You are very fortunate that the Orthodox Church hasn't been infected by this virus. Guard it with your life!
86 posted on 04/18/2005 12:42:29 PM PDT by k omalley (Caro Enim Mea, Vere est Cibus, et Sanguis Meus, Vere est Potus)
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