Posted on 07/10/2007 7:10:55 PM PDT by Jacob Kell
The Vatican has described the Protestant and Orthodox faiths as not proper Churches in a document issued with the full authority of the Pope.
Anglican leaders reacted with dismay, accusing the Roman Catholic Church of paradoxical behaviour. They said that the new 16-page document outling the defects of non-Catholic churches constituted a major obstacle to ecumenism.
The document said that the Orthodox church suffered from a wound because it did not recognise the primacy of the Pope. The wound was still more profound in Protestant denominations, it added.
It was difficult to see how the title of Church could possibly be attributed to them, said the statement from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Roman Catholicism was the one true Church of Christ.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
Jesus was Roman Catholic?
Prediction: This topic will be shifted to Religion from News/Activism
bump for later... this is gonna get nasty
http://www.lcms.org/ca/www/cyclopedia/02/display.asp?t1=C&word=CHURCH
Church.
1. The word church is commonly applied to the whole number of true believers, the communion of saints, the invisible ch. of Christ; any particular denomination of Christian people; particular congs. of any Christian denomination; the religious establishment of any particular nation or govt. (e.g., Ch. of Eng.); the sum total of the various Christian denominations in a country; and the house of Christian worship.
2. Biblical meaning. The word church is derived from the Gk. kyriakos, of, or belonging to, the Lord. In the OT 2 words were used for the idea of assembly: edah and qahal (Lv 4:13, 14; cf. Heb 12:23). In the NT the term is ekklesia, derived from ekkalein, call out; hence the term describing the town meeting of the Gk. city is transferred to the gathering of those who have been summoned by the call of God and His Spirit to belong to His people in Christ (Eph 1:22, 23; 4:16). The 80-plus instances of the term in the NT designate the body of all believers in all the world, or the believers gathered in a particular place (e.g., Gl 1:2; ch. in the house Cl 4:15; Ro 16:5). In no case is the term used of gatherings in which also unbelievers are essentially numbered, unless Rv 23 is so interpreted. The picture of the ch. used by Paul (cf. 1 Co 12; Eph 4:116; Ro 12:418; 14:1; 15:1) and probably implied by Jesus (Mt 25:3146), that the mems. of the ch. are the body of Christ on earth, stresses that they stand in a functional relation toward each other, namely that they edify (1 Co 14:26; Eph 4:12) or build up one another in faith for life. This mutual relation is termed koinonia (sharing) and involves mutual care expressed in forgiveness and admonition (cf. Mt 18; Eph 5:19, 20), the Lord’s Supper (1 Co 10:16, 17), and care for physical need (2 Co 8:4). The breaking of this mutual activity receives vivid rebuke (Ro 16:17, 18; 3 Jn 911). Other analogies for the ch. stress that it is the place where God is worshiped (Eph 2:1922), the means by which God is glorified to the world (1 Ptr 2; Ph 2:1416).
3. Visible and invisible. In reaction to RC stress on the political quality of the ch. in its submission to the pope, the concepts of visible and invisible ch. were developed, though the terms are not in the Bible and the Luth. confessions. The term invisible is a useful adjective for the ch., if it denies a political essence to the ch. (Ap VII and VIII, 2328), reminds of the worldwide community in which true Christians should live together, and denotes God’s own recognition of each believer (2 Ti 2:19); it is harmful if it makes of church an abstract idea without counterpart in fact (Ap VII and VIII, 20) or allows the assumption that a perfect unity already exists that does not need the careful ministry of every mem. of the ch. (cf. Eph 4:116). The term visible is useful if it sets up a sphere of activity in which Christians genuinely labor for each other and in witness to their world; it is harmful if activism is allowed to replace Word and Sacrament as the means of propulsion of the ch. See also Luther, Chief Writings of, 7.
4. Marks. In contrast to the position that the episcopate or apostolic succession are the esse of the ch., the Luth. symbols have developed the concept of the Gospel and the Sacraments as the marks of the ch. (AC V, VIII, XIII). Special ministers of the Word are significant for the ch. as they use Gospel and Sacraments and train Christians for their mutual ministry (Eph 4:713).
See also Church Militant; Church Triumphant.
C. Bergendoff, The Doctrine of the Church in American Lutheranism (Philadelphia, 1956); R. R. Caemmerer, The Church in the World (St. Louis, 1949); R. R. Caemmerer and E. L. kueker, Church and Ministry in Transition (St. Louis, 1964); F. E. Mayer, The Proper Distinction Between Law and Gospel and the Terminology Visible and Invisible Church, CTM, XXV (March 1954), 177198; P. S. Minear, Images of the Church in the New Testament (Philadelphia, 1960); F. Pieper, Christliche Dogmatik, III (St. Louis, 1920), 458534, Eng. tr. Christian Dogmatics, III, ed. W. W. F. Albrecht (St. Louis, 1953), 397435; H. A. Preus, The Communion of Saints (Minneapolis, 1948).
“Jesus was Roman Catholic?”
I always thought it was weird for the Pope to be in Rome, considering that the Romans killed Jesus and all that.
I’m going to get extra butter for my popcorn for this thread.
Actually I’m most interested in who stands to gain the most from a fight between Protestants and Catholics.
“Where two or three are gathered in My name, there I am.”
1Timothy 2:5 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;
... Nasty).
I hope you have flame proof undies on!
Schism as a state of sin has always been their position- that the Holy Spirit went directly from St. Peter through each successive Pope.
Thyatira.
What the Pope/Holy See not cozy with other faiths and that is something new?
As in something different from the last 1500 years?
Just to point out, Protestants haven’t exactly been cozy with us either - especially in England and the U.S where they were majority.
Does the line of apostolic succession go through Pope Alexander VI ? Just asking...
Muslims
I thought that we had gotten past this issue with the first ecumencal council. I guess its back to my youth when the Catholic kids told me I was a bastard and my mother was a whore because I was Protesant.
Too bad its come to this again.
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