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.
That is not Scripture.
Try the real Scriptures that I provided you for once, and leave the deuterocanonicals and Artotelian philosophy alone.
By the way, Jerome as did the early church rejected the deuterocanonicals as inspired Scripture too.
“Sirach 15: 14-20
That is not Scripture.”
Its not, eh? Says who, some 16th century German or a group of post Resurrection Jews who wanted to “discredit” Christianity?
Of course. He gave every human a chance to be redeemed. He did not force His redmeption on anyone.
What makes you think man born of Adam has a free will to choose God?
Try Deuteronomy 30:19 "Now choose life, so that you and your children may live."
Had God not revealed Himself to man, man could not choose life. But our Lord and Savior appeared to us in human nature and gave us a choice. For a choice to be true the will to choose has to be free.
men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil [John 3:19]
Mankind did forget about God after the fall. The Bible is clear about that. And But in His love for mankind, God chose to reveal Himself to us so that we may come to Him by following Him on our own free accord.
The consensus patrum is not contradictory (itf it is consensus!); it is what the Church as a whole recognizes as truth. Not everything the fathers wrote is part of consensus patrum. The Church does not teach any of the writings that are not part of the consensus.
FK: OK, but what does that MEAN?
How about: darkness is loss of ligth. Death is loss of life. God is life and light of our souls. If we die separated from God, our soul is deprived of God's life-giving enegries and exists in spiritual darkness.
Knowing the Greek won’t help you here. Better to read what people who spoke Greek as their language understood the term to mean in a theological context.
The consensus patrum of the Eastern Fathers NEVER understood predistination in a manner like that of the Calvinists and some other Protestants. That idea is the sad result of Blessed Augustine’s years as a Manichean heretic which carried forward into his days as a Christian. The West’s notion of predestination is one of the primary differences between Eastern Christianity and various sorts of Western belief.
This snip, from +John of Damascus, is consistent with the consensus patrum. It is what The Church in the East has always taught:
“We ought to understand that while God knows all things beforehand, yet He does not predetermine all things. For He knows beforehand those things that are in our power, but He does not predetermine them. For it is not His will that there should be wickedness nor does He choose to compel virtue. So that predetermination is the work of the divine command based on fore-knowledge. But on the other hand God predetermines those things which are not within our power in accordance with His prescience. For already God in His prescience has prejudged all things in accordance with His goodness and justice.”
The Bible uses verbal imagery to "depict" the state of separation of the souls from God in a way that we can relate to. We really don't know what death "feels" like. Thus hell is depicte din many ways, all of which have a common theme and that is that the eternal state of separation from God is something none of us would wish.
If all the Bible verses discussing this, and there are many, are ALL WRONG, then Orthodoxy is hoarding to itself some of the greatest secrets of Christianity
You are too busy reading literally what's in the Bible. These are allegorical references to heaps of fire of Jerusalem garbage dumps, to burning sufur lake, to cold and desolate place where the warmth of God enver reached (outer space where the tenperature approaches absolute zero?), etc. he comon threatd to all is true and clear: Hell is hell!
My guess would be that it is completely within Orthodox theology for a person's soul to be mortal one minute, then immortal the next, then mortal again the following minute. If true, doesn't that throw out the actual meaning of the word?
The wages of sin are death; and we sin avery day, every minute of ours life on earth. So, I would say you are right.
Yes they were. Your theology seems to suggest that infanticide, which some zealot claims was commanded by God, is justified. This is more akin to Muslim fundamentalism than to the message of Christ. Unfortunately, the OT is froth with such God-directed genocidal acts.
Christ revealed the Good News, not the "bad news." The whole focus of Christ's ministry is salvation, not condmenation; the Kingdom of Heaven and not Hell. It's an optimistic and joyful religion, FK. I highly recommend it.
This little snip from +Irish from Seattle:
God is in control. Get used to it.
I spoke of Ecumenical Councils as being considered inspired, and you asked me about the iconoclastic one of 754. I believe you know very well that the Church does not recognize that council as one of the Ecumenical (7th) Councils, so why even ask me such a question unless you were suggesting it was?
Iconoclasm is heresy, and those "churches" who advocate iconoclastic ideas are preaching heresy. Although iconoclasm was defeated in less than one century in large part thanks to the orthodoxy of the popes of Rome who lended their support to their Eastern brothers, Rome experienced its own iconiclastic heresy by none other than Frankish zealots on whose good will the popes of Rome depended heavily.
However, complete break with iconography did not occur until the Protestant deformation, which is also a heresy. You know all that because the nagture of your questions clearly shows that you know the material, and that you did not ask me that question as anything but a straw man.
In my response I said, as you quote me: " The "council" you are referring to is iconoclastic and it is no wonder that heretics of all shades would consider it an 'ecumenical' council."
Nothing in this repsone suggests that you beieve or subscribe to the heretical views of that "council" or that you yourself are in agrement with its pronouncements. You are mentkjoned in a pronoun because you are the source of the question, not of the belief expressed in that "council."
Whether you agree with that council is not subject of my response. This "synod" is considered as valid by all iconoclastic groups and, given that iconiclasm is heresy makes them heretical.
There is not a shred of ad hominem in my response. But if you took an offense, I assure you I was not making it personal.
I am not offended. The FR rules against personal attacks are clear and for a good reason. The purpose of my involving the RM was to reinforce the rules.
Irishtenor, had I been offended I would have forgiven you without an apology. But your good will gesture is valued nonetheless.
If it is allowed to say that Orthodoxy is idolatrous then by extension all Orthodox are idolators. The implication is there but unless someone says to me "You are an idolator" it is not an ad hominem. I think you are building straw men, Missey_Lucy_Goosey.
The Christian God does not preordain wickedness, other "Gods" notwithstanding.
***If it is allowed to say that Orthodoxy is idolatrous then by extension all Orthodox are idolators.***
You said it, not me :>)
God is not in control? Wickeness is beyond God’s abilities? God’s Bible says that he is omnipotent as well as omniscient.
Gos IS in control, dispite what man thinks or wishes.
Amen, MLG! And this is side by side with the saved no less! :) I don't understand it.
That's exactly right. It's interesting that we are often accused of not believing in the value of repentance since we see God as being all-sovereign. Yet, it is the Reformed view that repentance is critical both in the positive sense, and also to avoid something that is very very real.
Indeed, after that quote what else could anyone say? :) It doesn't get much clearer than that.
IT: No, predestine means we are destined to do it. Period. It is predetermined what will come about. Not what might come about.
Yes, quite correct. That which is predestined is predetermined by an ACT. In this case, by God.
STF, I think you may be mixing predestination with "foreknowledge". In the Bible, God specifically uses the word "predestine", and its forms, as a verb. If, as you say, predestination only refers to God knowing what we will do, then what is the actual act committed by God when He predestinates? Is it that He then knows what He didn't know before? Wouldn't that violate the principle of omniscience?
FK: OK, but what does that MEAN?
How about: darkness is loss of light. Death is loss of life. God is life and light of our souls. If we die separated from God, our soul is deprived of God's life-giving energies and exists in spiritual darkness.
Well, I don't really "think" I have any problem with those images, but I don't see how any of them couldn't equally apply to one actually and really existing in a place called "hell". That is why I'm asking what the difference is between existing in a "state" with no location, and actually existing in torment in an actual place that takes up space in whatever dimension it's in.
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