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.
I’m not directing anyone to do anything on your insistence. You have been attacking other posters and hitting the abuse button for no reason.
Knock it off now.
Thanks.
If a sissy, er, ah, I mean, assisi, were to actually read, which total around 5 posts, what I have said pertaining to the false doctrine of the "serpent-seed" doctrine, which I suspect, a sissy, I mean, "assissi" has, such as #10,726:
The serpent/seed false doctrine has been around for a while, being mostly popular among Word of Faith cultists.
Which was followed by "assissi", yet again to follow with a question that has been answered multiple times in #10,729, which amounts to badgering, plain and simple and should cease as it has been kindly asked of "assissi" to do.
Would you not agree?
Not at all, HD. That is precisely what Christ did.
“What the Orthodox believe in is that Christ showed us the way in dying for all mankind and now we are able to imitate that behavior.
Orthodoxy never taught that, HD. You know that,
“Sorry, that was never the teachings of the western church fathers and I be willing to bet that it was never the teachings of the very early eastern church fathers.”
You’d win that bet assuming you found someone uneducated enough to take it. HD, Kosta’s post laid out clearly what Orthodoxy believes about atonement and certainly +John Chrysostomos’ Paschal Sermon states our belief in a most eloquent form.
” Kolo’s post #10,625: And actually quite a bit of “evidence” that Moses was in fact an Egyptian prince, a monotheist and no more a Jew than I am.
“This is a very weird statement considering the fact that Aaron, Moses’ brother was from the tribe of Levi.”
Oh, I don’t know. There’s a plethora of scholarly Jewish work which holds that Moses was an Monotheist Egyptian prince on the outs with the official pantheistic cult. Some of the more recent work was done by a former Chief Rabbi of Budapest who has lived here in America since 1956. There’s nothing “weird” about it, HD. Its a conclusion some have come to based on historical sources. I have to tell you that if those scholars are correct, it doesn’t change my faith one bit, no more in fact than understanding that a bat is not, in fact, a bird, as Leviticus 11:19 would have it.
“You should know by now we trace our heritage back to the early church fathers.”
How?
“In a way I do find it a bit disingenuous on how you will play nice to the Catholics while their around and then slam them with their western views.”
You think that’s disingenuous? HD, its my job to slam their Western, un-Orthodox innovative views. Orthodox lay people do that, especially to our own hierarchs, but we’ll do it to Catholic hierarchs, or the imposed beliefs of Catholic hierarchs, too, at the drop of a hat; its part of preparing them for what they’ll have to put up with after any reunion. I’m nice to you too. It doesn;t mean I won’t tell you where I think you’re wrong as you do with me. The Latins aren’t exactly shy, retiring theological wallflowers either, HD! :)
You’re a slow learner, take a day off.
LOL! Considering that I was an elite athlete who thought that being physically powerful that I could bully my way through life to get whatever I want until I repented. Go ahead and call me a sissy. Your evilness is shining though!
I will be praying for you!
WHEW! :) Thanks for Edwards' sermon. I believe I will be leaving that one off the list of bedtime stories for when I (hopefully) eventually have grandchildren. :) It is very sobering though. I believe I will put Edwards in the John the Baptist camp. I liked the implicit (or explicit) theme that even the reprobate have every reason to thank God (though they won't) for not being sent to hell at this single moment. It is only by His hand that they are not there immediately. Boy, I thought my pastor was tough. Edwards makes him look like a piker. :)
And of course both Edwards and you are right that hell is played down too much. It is very tough to truly grasp how evil we actually are to, IN FACT, deserve damnation forever. Trying to conceive of eternity in hell is sort of like trying to conceive of how much a trillion dollars is. Very difficult. But I'd say Edwards did a pretty good job. :) Thanks again for posting.
Cain was definitely the offspring of Adam and Eve>
Do you agree?
Cain was definitely the offspring of Adam and Eve>
Do you agree?
Dude,she’s been banned for the day.
Yes, there is no one Protestant theology, especially if Protestant is defined as "any Christian faith that is not Latin or Orthodox". So what? Reformers absolutely DO have a very coherent theology, and we have never claimed to speak for all Protestants. If I did the same thing to you, then I would lump you in with the Mormons because you both share the very important characteristic of not being Reformed. How do you defend this association you have with the Mormons?
As I said, you and Osteen cannot be both guided by the same Spirit and be on opposite ends of hell.
I do not know what Osteen's spiritual condition is. And if he is a Christian, I do not know the Holy Spirit's plan for his sanctification. If I claim that God is in total control of MY sanctification, and I do, then I can report that it has so far been a gradual process. I did not have full understanding on day one. I figure that I am not alone in this and that Christians are in different stages of their respective sanctifications. Therefore, perfectly good Christians will disagree on some/many matters, depending on where they are in their walks.
The Holy Spirit leads to consensus patrum, to one Church, FK, not to 33,000 denominations.
Ah, but you didn't see my local paper last Wednesday. There was an announcement that the SBC church in the next town over from us is moving its worship time from 9:15 to 9:30. That matches ours. Therefore, there are only 32,999 denominations now.
What does mystery have to do with relativism?
Everything. The more mystery there is in a faith, the more room there is to supplant the text with explanations that do not require support or evidence. That is relativism's drooling point. :)
Can you describe God accurately as He is? Or do you have to use allegorical language?
I can describe God accurately through scripture as He intends to be known. In no way MUST I use allegorical language to do this.
That's why Christ took on human nature, so that we can relate to Him through the prism of our limited senses and concepts, in human terms. Otherwise, relating to God is impossible without heretical anthropomorphism.
I think the OT righteous would beg to differ. :) While they may not have had the understanding of Christ that is available to us, they were still fully able to relate to God because God revealed Himself to them. That is, BEFORE He took on human nature.
But, unlike Protestants, we believe in one thing, one Holy Apostolic Church, one Truth, One God, one Faith. Not thousands of relatively more-or-less "true" faiths or opinions...and for all the hype of differences between the Orthodox and Catholic, the two Churches are 99% in agreement (the 1% of disagreement is profound and difficult for human mindsets to resolve)...
Kolo, what was that you were saying about ecumenism? :)
Just FYI...
The “Demon Seed” thing did take up quite some discussion in the forum. I think it may have been on this thread. It’s been over a month I think, but it was discussed/debate. I *think* it was from some of the Messianic Jew followers.
I’d never heard of it.
But that the Reprobate will not be saved is true from their birth. Nothing can change their Reprobate status - born and forever Reprobate. Further there is no difference in the guilt or innocence between them or the Elect.
Would these be correct statements in the Calvinist view?
You really do have to take such comments whence they come, FK! :)
Oh, I did! :) You've used the small "g" with me several times and I never said anything. I just noticed that more than one other person brought it up as offensive, so I started to wonder what the lurkers might be thinking. I mean seriously, on top of the small "g" when you start playing the Dagon card, somebody has to say something. :)
I found where it was and it was on this thread:
Here on 08/14/2007 by Diego1618
Quite a discussion thereabouts.
I know I should ping Diego1618 to this post, but I'm gonna forego protocol this time...
But I checked and you guys fully recognize him as a Saint. His feast day is even on my birthday! He HAS to be OK. :)
BTW, among Latins and Orthodox, are there any Saints that one side recognizes that the other doesn't?
An even better example is the compound misunderstanding of the filioque by Protestants.
In truth, I wasn't aware that there was a disagreement between the Latins and Protestants on filioque (but I am no expert on the subject). What is it?
I don’t know if there was any teaching in Hebrew, but Christ and likely at least some of the Apostles certainly knew it.
As proof, I was thinking of Christ teaching in the Synagogue when He was 12. I figure that must have been in Hebrew.
[Greek is] the language God chose, FK, not English, not German, not Latin or French or Swedish.
And my response is "why is that"? Is it simply because that was the language that was "there" at the time, which both Jew and Gentile could reasonably understand? OR, is there something inherently superior to the Greek language itself? Maybe this is way off base, but it entered my mind that in international aviation, English is required of all pilots (via ICAO) because it is considered the most precise language, not Greek. Obviously there was no English in Jesus' time, but God knew it was coming, He invented it. So, that led me to think that there really was no "magic" to the Greek, and that God would transmit His word through all languages, both then current and yet to be invented.
FK: “Careful translation is a must of course, but God knew how many of His children were going to grow up knowing the original Greek, i.e. not many as a total number. God either sufficiently accounted for that, or it was not His intention to reveal His word to all of His children. By your standards, it would clearly be true that the vast majority of believers do not have reasonable access to His word.”
Here’s the problem with your reasoning. Non-Greek/Aramaic/Syriac/Slavonic speakers will indeed have a problem with understanding the scriptures because in every single other language into which the NT has been translated, the translators had a particular theological or political axe to grind, not because God caused a problem but because men decided that they knew better what God meant in scripture than those men who spoke and lived the language it was written in.
Well there's the whole thing. Our difference is in whether God actively controls how those translations are made and what their content is. If He does control, then the substance of the intended message is preserved, and such a copy will indeed include everything a Christian NEEDS to know. If He does not, then all the errors in the world could get in and it's a free for all in terms of accuracy. We would then only have men to trust on what to believe. The Reformed view God as being very "hands-on".
Everyone who wants to know The Truth of The Faith has access to God’s word. It may just be a bit more difficult for some than for others, but in all honesty, FK, in Calvin’s theology, the Elect don’t need that access and the damned are lost anyway.
In Calvin's theology, the elect absolutely need access to God's word, be it in oral or written form. Otherwise, we would have to claim an irrational faith, and we do not. Just as God ordained THAT the elect would be saved, He also ordained the method of salvation.
That could well be too. I don't know. :) I can just imagine that on some level, we either are now or have in the past repeated the same sin over and over again, getting gratification, wanting more, etc., but being relatively comfortable in this arrangement. LOL! I know I have, and so I wouldn't compare that to hell, necessarily. If the desire is never gratified in hell in the first place, then it makes more sense to me. But I'm just guessing. :) So, I don't know if ALL sin absolutely leads to worse sin or not. But, now that I think about it, without God's restraining hand, perhaps it does.
That doesn’t necessarily follow at all, FK. The Faith is transmitted more than orally and in written form. It is transmitted by the forms of the Liturgies, iconography, architecture, chant, even things as simple as the Sign of the Cross or prostrations.
Well, I am not one to poo-poo faith experiences, but in virtually ALL cases, they are based on a pre-existing understanding through language, many times written language. None of the things you listed would have meaning were it not for prior language and understanding. IOW, in normal circumstances I don't think a faith can be built without language undergirding it.
“Kolo, what was that you were saying about ecumenism? :)”
That it can be a dangerous heresy, especially if the Evil One beguiles us into thinking we all believe the same things or into agreeing to gloss over differences for the sake of a surface unity.
“I mean seriously, on top of the small “g” when you start playing the Dagon card, somebody has to say something. :)”
Well, likely you did have to say something, but in all honesty, you shouldn’t care all that much what I think. You believe what you believe and I perceive your beliefs in the way I do. Its honestly no big deal. Remember, our Orthodox mindset is very “unevangelical”. If someone comes to our liturgies, asks questions and then decides that Orthodoxy isn’t for him/her, we don’t react much at all except maybe to offer another cup of coffee and a piece of baklava.
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