You Have to Love A Pope Who Loves St. Augustine

OpintionJournal ^ | April 22, 2005 | Daniel Henninger

[Campion]

But, that rings hollow when in 2000, he published a document as part of the Church's doctrine office saying Protestant churches are not "proper" churches and are "deficient."

If he didn't think they were deficient, I would hope he would be a Protestant. You yourself have said much harsher things about Catholicism than "deficient", haven't you?

"Not proper churches" simply means that we don't recognize that Protestant bishops (if a denomination even has bishops) are validly ordained.

[RightWhale]

the West's secularized societies themselves are likely to disappear within a generation.

The schedule is not so certain, but the trend of societal evolution has historically been for the secular society to peak and decline and be replaced by something faith based. Will it happen again?

[redgolum]

If you mean Augustine of Hippo, then yes.

[RightWhale]

Thinking of Donatism.

[Knitting A Conundrum]

Hate to hurt anyone's feelings, but that in part is why I became a Catholic - I wanted to belong to the church of Ignatius of Antioch and Clement of Rome and Justin Martyr, Irenaus and Athanasius and Augustine and Ambrose...not a church founded after the Cane River Revival in the 1800s, like the one I was raised in.

It makes a difference.

[sionnsar]

Augustine is the more mystical personality, closer in some ways to the "new age" impulses of our times. In the writings of Augustine, arguably the most complex mind Christianity has produced, the exercise of deep faith carries with it the possibility of what I would call a "high" experience in one's pursuit of and relationship to God. That was the Church of the 5th century. In our time, religion has become freighted with correct politics (the Left) or correct morality (the Right), rather than the substance of one's relationship with God.

I get the impression that Joseph Ratzinger--who reveres the early, transcendent Church Fathers (its "founding fathers")--is at heart more a vibrant 5th-century Christian than a stale 19th-century dogmatist; as conceivably was John Paul II, who often let himself slip into an Upward-directed reverie in public. In short, Benedict XVI looks to be very different from the stolid, authoritarian German described this week in the public prints.

[Knitting A Conundrum]

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05121a.htm

regarding the consecration of Caecilian and the counter-consecration of Majorinus and the Donatists

[jude24]

"Not proper churches" simply means that we don't recognize that Protestant bishops (if a denomination even has bishops) are validly ordained.

Just to clarify - it does not mean that you consider all Protestants damned schismatics. It just means we do not possess the fullness of the Faith?

[Campion]

"Not proper churches" is even narrower and more technical than "not in possession of the fullness of the Faith".

A "church," in Roman terminology, is a group with bishops whose orders Rome recognizes. No Protestant group meets that qualification, so the Vatican calls Protestant groups "ecclesial communities" instead of "churches". The Orthodox, OTOH, do have validly ordained bishops, so they're called "separated Eastern churches".

I promise not to call you a "damned schismatic" if you don't call me "a lost soul locked in the darkness of Romish Mariolatry" ... LOL ...

I think increasingly God is telling us that we'd better shake hands and act like allies for the duration of the war, even if we can't always manage to act like brothers all the time. Rome, Geneva, and Constantinople need to unite against the common Enemy or he'll pick us off one at a time.

[jude24]

Rome, Geneva, and Constantinople need to unite against the common Enemy or he'll pick us off one at a time

We have to figure out a way to be separate without schism, to have communion without compromise, and find a way to recognize that our differences, which are real enough and should not be minimized, are trivial when compared to the common threat of secularism we Christians face. Our churches are threatened by the common enemy of post-modern secularism; what we believe about Apostolic succession or the Real Presence or the intercession of the saints is comparatively minor when faced with the fundamental issues we both face.

JPII recognized this. Benedict XVI appears to have recognized it; C.S. Lewis recognized it.

Evangelical Protestants need to learn that the enemy isn't "Papists," it's the tares within both our churches and within the secularized world.

[Knitting A Conundrum]

agreed! We all have differences and reasons about what we believe, but we all share belief in Christ crucified. The dark one would like to wipe us all out.

May Christ be the light that guides us and helps us to stand firm against the darkness.

[RnMomof7]

We sat in the same Sunday School class last week when the position of Calvinism and our church was clearly spelled out.

Jude either you agree with the church or you do not..

[jude24]

I agree with the church.

But my disagreements with the Catholics pale in comparison when compared with the tares, both in the Protestant and Catholic worlds.

[RnMomof7]

I do not think you would know a tare if you fell over one .

Heaven will be full of women that have had abortion and been prostitutes and men that practiced sodomy .
There will be men in hell still wearing a clerical collar, that did all kinds of good works and that held conservative views .

You are looking at the temporal when the temporal gets no man into heaven .

You are declaring men righteous based on their works and philosophy.

[D Edmund Joaquin]

black is white, white is black, love the undershirt

[Campion]

Heaven will be full of women that have had abortion and been prostitutes and men that practiced sodomy .

Not if they don't repent.

There will be men in hell still wearing a clerical collar, that did all kinds of good works and that held conservative views .

Yes, and will there be men in hell who wore academic robes, put "Reverend" in front of their names, and preached sermons to packed churches about how Catholics were servants of antiChrist and worshippers of Mary?

[Kolokotronis]

"Augustine is the more mystical personality, closer in some ways to the "new age" impulses of our times."

This is complete, utter and total hogwash! Blessed Augustine, for all his limitations, was absolutely nothing like modern new agers! Other than that one comment, I enjoyed the article. Of course, the article is not about +Augustine, but rather about +Benedict XVI. I've read a good deal of his shorter writings and this writer is right on the money when he says that this pope is no 19th century gloomy dogmatist. His Holiness' writings, while retaining a certain Western flavor and reflective in some instances of +Augustine's influences, nevertheless reflect a certain patristic as opposed to scholastic, phronema. The writer states that this is a 5th century mindset, but in fact it is a patristic mindset, a Christian mindset of the One Church and that of Orthodoxy to this day. His worldview is neither rigid nor totalitarian, it is Christian in the best sense of the word. This is not to say that everything he writes or says will be (or have been) things which Orthodoxy can agree with. It is to say, however, that this pope is someone who probably speaks the same language as the Orthodox East, even if it is with a Latin accent. That bodes well especially for Christians in the West...and its not so bad for those of us in Orthodoxy either.

[RnMomof7]

Anyone that thinks their good works or a conservative position or law keeping will come anywhere near heaven with out coming to Christ as Savior by faith will be spending time in eternity with those false teachers

[Kolokotronis]

"Augustine took much from Plato's philosophy, but he was not a Platonist."

He certainly was not! Neither were the Eastern Fathers. In fact, they roundly and soundly condemned the pagan philosophers, though they did use many Greek words which had their origin in pagan philosophy. +Augustine knew Plato in translation only, and not real good translations at that. He had only limited access to the writings of the Eastern Fathers because he couldn't read Greek and again the access he did have was in bad Latin translations. Perhaps if he had, those areas of contention between the West and the Orthodox East might never have developed. It is often said that the East didn't condemn various of +Augustine's writings, but they weren't translated into Greek until about the 14th century, so very few people knew what he had written. By then, the damage had been done.

+Augustine was certainly more influenced by Plato than the Eastern Fathers were. His writings reflect that. Some have argued that his image of God and the Fall and salvation or damnation was formed by Greek pagan influences which were rejected in the East in favor of a more "Israelite" mentality. Personally I think his ideas were more the product of a Manichean past than Plato, but I am just a simple country lawyer and no theologian.

The distaste which the Orthodox East has and had for pagan philosophy is demonstrated by a story a friend told me once. He had a mentor when he was an Orthodox catchumen, an old Greek man. The Greek told him that the reason the Greeks kept all those statues of the old gods and philosophers around was to remind them of what Christianity and the Fathers had saved them from!

[jude24]

Anyone that thinks their good works or a conservative position or law keeping will come anywhere near heaven with out coming to Christ as Savior by faith

Who teaches that? Who has said that?

You did not get that from any official statement of Catholic dogma. Ott's Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma Sec. 8.2 makes it a matter of dogma that "[i]nternal supernatural grace is absolutely necessary for the beginning of faith and of salvation" and that "[w]ithout the special help of God, the justified cannot persevere to the end in justification." That's a matter of non-negotiable Catholic dogma.