Posted on 07/22/2007 7:40:38 PM PDT by xzins
Wednesday, 11 July 2007
Yesterday's Reuters headline: "The Vatican on Tuesday said Christian denominations outside the Roman Catholic Church were not full churches of Jesus Christ." The actual proclamation, posted on the official Vatican Web site, says that Protestant Churches are really "ecclesial communities" rather than Churches, because they lack apostolic succession, and therefore they "have not preserved the genuine and integral substance of the Eucharistic Mystery." Furthermore, not even the Eastern Orthodox Churches are real Churches, even though they were explicitly referred to as such in the Vatican document Unitatis Redintegratio (Decree on Ecumenism). The new document explains that they were only called Churches because "the Council wanted to adopt the traditional use of the term." This new clarification, issued officially by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, but in fact strongly supported by Pope Benedict XVI, manages to insult both Protestants and the Orthodox, and it may set ecumenism back a hundred years.
The new document, officially entitled "Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine on the Church," claims that the positions it takes do not reverse the intent of various Vatican II documents, especially Unitatis Redintegratio, but merely clarify them. In support of this contention, it cites other documents, all issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith: Mysterium Ecclesiae (1973), Communionis notio (1992), and Dominus Iesus (2000). The last two of these documents were issued while the current pope, as Cardinal Ratzinger, was prefect of the Congregation. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was born in 1542 with the name Sacred Congregation of the Universal Inquisition, and for centuries it has operated as an extremely conservative force with the Roman Catholic Church, opposing innovation and modernizing tendencies, suppressing dissent, and sometimes, in its first few centuries, persecuting those who believed differently. More recently, the congregation has engaged in the suppression of some of Catholicism's most innovative and committed thinkers, such as Yves Congar, Hans Küng, Charles Curran, Matthew Fox, and Jon Sobrino and other liberation theologians. In light of the history of the Congregation of the Faith, such conservative statements as those released this week are hardly surprising, though they are quite unwelcome.
It is natural for members of various Christian Churches to believe that the institutions to which they belong are the best representatives of Christ's body on earth--otherwise, why wouldn't they join a different Church? It is disingenuous, however, for the leader of a Church that has committed itself "irrevocably" (to use Pope John Paul II's word in Ut Unum Sint [That They May Be One] 3, emphasis original) to ecumenism to claim to be interested in unity while at the same time declaring that all other Christians belong to Churches that are in some way deficient. How different was the attitude of Benedict's predecessors, who wrote, "In subsequent centuries much more serious dissensions appeared and large communities became separated from full communion with the [Roman] Catholic Church--for which, often enough, men of both sides were to blame" (Unitatis Redintegratio 3). In Benedict's view, at various times in history groups of Christians wandered from the original, pure Roman Catholic Church, and any notion of Christian unity today is predicated on the idea of those groups abandoning their errors and returning to the Roman Catholic fold. The pope's problem seems to be that he is a theologian rather than a historian. Otherwise he could not possibly make such outrageous statements and think that they were compatible with the spirit of ecumenism that his immediate predecessors promoted.
One of the pope's most strident arguments against the validity of other Churches is that they can't trace their bishops' lineages back to the original apostles, as the bishops in the Roman Catholic Church can. There are three problems with this idea.
First, many Protestants deny the importance of apostolic succession as a guarantor of legitimacy. They would argue that faithfulness to the Bible and/or the teachings of Christ is a better measure of authentic Christian faith than the ability to trace one's spiritual ancestry through an ecclesiastical bureaucracy. A peripheral knowledge of the lives of some of the medieval and early modern popes (e.g., Stephen VI, Sergius III, Innocent VIII, Alexander VI) is enough to call the insistence on apostolic succession into serious question. Moreover, the Avignon Papacy and the divided lines of papal claimants in subsequent decades calls into serious question the legitimacy of the whole approach. Perhaps the strongest argument against the necessity of apostolic succession comes from the Apostle Paul, who was an acknowledged apostle despite not having been ordained by one of Jesus' original twelve disciples. In fact, Paul makes much of the fact that his authority came directly from Jesus Christ rather than from one of the apostles (Gal 1:11-12). Apostolic succession was a useful tool for combating incipient heresy and establishing the antiquity of the churches in particular locales, but merely stating that apostolic succession is a necessary prerequisite for being a true church does not make it so.
The second problem with the new document's insistence upon apostolic succession is the fact that at least three other Christian communions have apostolic succession claims that are as valid as that of the Roman Catholic Church. The Eastern Orthodox Churches, which split from the Roman Catholic Church in 1054, can trace their lineages back to the same apostles that the Roman Catholic Church can, a fact acknowledged by Unitatis Redintegratio 14. The Oriental Orthodox Churches, such as the Coptic and Ethiopic Orthodox Churches, split from the Roman Catholic Church several centuries earlier, but they too can trace their episcopal lineages back to the same apostles claimed by the Roman Catholic Church as its founders. Finally, the Anglican Church, which broke away from the Roman Catholic Church during the reign of King Henry VIII, can likewise trace the lineage of every bishop back through the first archbishop of Canterbury, Augustine. In addition to these three collections of Christian Churches, the Old Catholics and some Methodists also see value in the idea of apostolic succession, and they can trace their episcopal lineages just as far back as Catholic bishops can.
The third problem with the idea of apostolic succession is that the earliest bishops in certain places are simply unknown, and the lists produced in the third and fourth centuries that purported to identify every bishop back to the founding of the church in a particular area were often historically unreliable. Who was the founding bishop of Byzantium? Who brought the gospel to Alexandria? To Edessa? To Antioch? There are lists that give names (e.g., http://www.friesian.com/popes.htm), such as the Apostles Mark (Alexandria), Andrew (Byzantium), and Thaddeus (Armenia), but the association of the apostles with the founding of these churches is legendary, not historical. The most obvious breakdown of historicity in the realm of apostolic succession involves none other than the see occupied by the pope, the bishop of Rome. It is certain that Peter did make his way to Rome before the time of Nero, where he perished, apparently in the Neronian persecution following the Great Fire of Rome, but it is equally certain that the church in Rome predates Peter, as it also predates Paul's arrival there (Paul also apparently died during the Neronian persecution). The Roman Catholic Church may legitimately claim a close association with both Peter and Paul, but it may not legitimately claim that either was the founder of the church there. The fact of the matter is that the gospel reached Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, Edessa, and other early centers of Christianity in the hands of unknown, faithful Christians, not apostles, and the legitimacy of the churches established there did not suffer in the least because of it.
All the talk in the new document about apostolic succession is merely a smokescreen, however, for the main point that the Congregation of the Faith and the pope wanted to drive home: recognition of the absolute primacy of the pope. After playing with the words "subsists in" (Lumen Gentium [Dogmatic Constitution on the Church] 8) and "church" (Unitatis Redintegratio 14) in an effort to make them mean something other than what they originally meant, the document gets down to the nitty-gritty. "Since communion with the Catholic Church, the visible head of which is the Bishop of Rome and the Successor of Peter, is not some external complement to a particular Church but rather one of its internal constitutive principles, these venerable Christian communities lack something in their condition as particular churches." From an ecumenical standpoint, this position is a non-starter. Communion with Rome and acknowledging the authority of the pope as bishop of Rome is a far different matter from recognizing the pope as the "visible head" of the entire church, without peer. The pope is an intelligent man, and he knows that discussions with other Churches will make no progress on the basis of this prerequisite, so the only conclusion that can be drawn is that the pope, despite his protestations, has no interest in pursuing ecumenism. Trying to persuade other Christians to become Roman Catholics, which is evidently the pope's approach to other Churches, is not ecumenism, it's proselytism.
Fortunately, this document does not represent the viewpoint of all Catholics, either laypeople or scholars. Many ordinary Catholics would scoff at the idea that other denominations were not legitimate Churches, which just happen to have different ideas about certain topics and different ways of expressing a common Christianity. Similarly, many Catholic scholars are doing impressive work in areas such as theology, history, biblical study, and ethics, work that interacts with ideas produced by non-Catholic scholars. In the classroom and in publications, Catholics and non-Catholics learn from each other, challenge one another, and, perhaps most importantly, respect one another.
How does one define the Church? Christians have many different understandings of the term, and Catholics are divided among themselves, as are non-Catholics. The ecumenical movement is engaged in addressing this issue in thoughtful, meaningful, and respectful ways. Will the narrow-minded view expressed in "Responses" be the death-knell of the ecumenical movement? Hardly. Unity among Christians is too important an idea to be set aside. Will the document set back ecumenical efforts? Perhaps, but Christians committed to Christian unity--Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant alike--will get beyond it. The ecumenical movement is alive and well, and no intemperate pronouncement from the Congregation of the Faith, or the current pope, can restrain it for long. Even if ecumenism, at least as it involves the Roman Catholic Church's connection with other Churches, is temporarily set back a hundred years, that distance can be closed either by changes of heart or changes of leadership.
You can exist and be dead, FK. Existence and death are not mutually exclusive. If you are created you exist. If you are given life you live. If you lose it, you still exist but you are no longer alive.
I am just following YOUR rule. You told me to look up heresy in the dictionary. I did. It states: an opinion contrary to generally accepted beliefs in any field. Since your opinions run contrary to the Protestant beliefs, you are, by definition, a heretic. Just like I am a heretic to you, as you so many times have called me and my beliefs.
When YOU call my beliefs HERESY, I respond by calling your beliefs heresy. If you can’t take it, quit calling people names.
You must believe that the Blessed Mother is unstained as well ,because God would not come into this world through an unstained creature.
I think we may be making progress,Dear Brother
Do you think you could fall in the future?
If so, will you blame God or yourself for being in hell if you fall? It is that simple.You have to blame yourself or God if you fall and wind up in hell
The reformers said nothing of the Orthodox.
“some we turned away for various reasons”
How do you know that these persons you turned away were not of Christ?
Did you Judge them on your own ,or by someone else’s opinion of them?
Should read... God would not come into this world through a “stained” creature
I never called you a heretic. Show me when and where I called you personally a heretic.
When YOU call my beliefs HERESY, I respond by calling your beliefs heresy
No, you called ME personally a heretic. That is against the rules. You can call Orthodoxy whatever you wish.
You are making your own rules.
RM, I will no longer repsond to this nonsense. I am turning this to you. Please deal with this individual who makes ad hominem remarks and insists he has the right to do so. Thank you.
Sorry, The Lords says “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”. It doesn’t say “all but Mary”, it says ALL. I have to go with what the Lord says. Mary was good, she was blessed, she is rightly honored, but she is still a sinner, needing salvation just like all the reast of us.
Do with me as you will, I stand by my comments. I have been putting up with him and his friends for over 10,000 posts. They denigrate me, my beliefs, and the beliefs of my church, and yet dare to call my beliefs heretical. I will not stand for it anymore without saying something.
As if you can call someone belief heresy WITHOUT calling him a heretic?
“The Lords says “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God””
Do you think Adam and Eve were created to sin?
The Bible says that man was created in the image and likeness of God
Does the image and likeness of God contain sin to you?
\
***Do you think you could fall in the future?
If so, will you blame God or yourself for being in hell if you fall? It is that simple.You have to blame yourself or God if you fall and wind up in hell***
Can I fall in the future? I do not believe so. Once I am Christ’s, I will be Christ’s forever. He says he will not lose one of his own. I believe that. Now, can I sin? Can I fail to obey? Yes, and I do. But I also claim God’s forgiveness. How many of my sins did Jesus die for? The answer is “all of them.” Those in the past, those I do today, and those I will do. All of them.
If I do end up in hell, it will be because God wanted it. But it will be my fault.
“Now, can I sin? Can I fail to obey? Yes, and I do.”
Why does God have to accept this sin? because you say you’re saved?
Don’t you think your making your own decision that you’re saved?
Again, I have to go to the Bible. God created everything, agreed? He created everything for a purpose, agreed? Then why did he create that tree and plant it in the Garden? It was his plan all along. All part of HIS perfect plan. The Bible does say that God created man in the image and likeness of God, but it doesn’t say that God created man AS God. Man is a creation, nothing more, nothing less.
“Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect. “(Matt 5:28)
The Bible does not say that man can redeem himself or be a God. We are to humble ourselves to follow the will of God and embrace His will for us
Good night,Dear Brother.I have to get up early in the morning and travel for work .
I wish you a Blessed Evening!
***Why does God have to accept this sin? because you say you’re saved?
Don’t you think your making your own decision that you’re saved***
God said he forgives or sin because of the work of Jesus. My sins have been paid for by the blood of the Lamb.
Did I make my own decision to be saved? No way. Man, in his sin nature is dead. Man in this condition cannot please God, and has no desire to please God. God is the one who gives the faith, God is the one who changes a man. God is the one who saves. It is nothing by man, all by God.
OK, this confirms my original hypothesis. You only consider mortality as regards destination. But if so, then this raises another issue. :) At what point does a mortal soul become immortal? All I know is that you have said it is "by grace" which we must accept. This appears to raise a problem since I think it is the Orthodox view that the vast majority of the saved do not reach theosis during physical life. If that is true, and the immortal soul is determined by accepting grace, then when does this happen? Can a person' mortal soul be transformed into an immortal soul, only to revert back again to a mortal soul?
The Bible also says this....
“Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect. “(Matt 5:28)
Not to be Holier than thou... It’s Matthew 5:48 :>) The other verse had something to do with adultery.
The Bible does not say that man can redeem himself or be a God. We are to humble ourselves to follow the will of God and embrace His will for us
I agree. That is part of the being perfect. Something we will never attain until God calls us home. But we can work at it :>)
Not to be Holier than thou... It’s Matthew 5:48 :>) The other verse had something to do with adultery.
Good night to you, also. May God richly bless you and your endevours.
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