Will the Pope's Pronouncement Set Ecumenism Back a Hundred Years? (Challenge to Apostolicity)

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.

Do you have any idea how foreign your statements are to the message of the Gospels?

“If you follow every fleshly whim, then obviously you were NOT predestined to go to heaven.

Godly discipline and good works and wanting to serve the Lord is evidence of our election.”

Kosta is very accurate - this is the ultimate narcissism. Calvin was an elitist tyrant and this concept appealed to him very much. It also justified his reign of terror - if you weren’t of the elect and therefore going straight to hell, then surely he would be justified treating you on earth like the lowly scum that you were.

We Latins have been more Protestantized - to our diminishment and, frankly, shame. And it is a shame. We are looking to the Orthodox more to reclaim our history and our culture.

Our numbers? Sure, we’ve got a majority of God-fearing good people, but we’ve also got the likes of Pelosi, Biden, the Kennedy whelps, Daschle, Durbin, Kucinich et al.

I am just barely old enough to remember the Ontario blue laws which forebade most stuff on Sundays. It made certain things inconvenient, but overall, it helped strengthen family, and religious, life.

How can I die because of the sin of a Myth, as you have insinuated about that story, and Eden, and Serpent, etc.?

At some point, either human beings were always fallen or became fallen. People who deny archaeological evidence might as well deny medical science or any science they so fervently believe in when it comes to making their lives more comfortable or when using biblical search engines.

It's only when science "refuses" to verify what the Bible says that science becomes ridiculed, "bad," "unreliable," even "stupid."

I wonder if you ever read Genesis 9. In it, God makes his covenant with Noah, his sons, and every living creature (birds, fish, etc.) who were with him (v. 8-11). God makes covenant with animals? (but much later only with Israel)

In verse 12, God says that this covenant he made is for all generations to come. Yet we know that, after Moses was long dead and gone, God announced a new covenant because—get this—the disbelieving Israelites corrupted the first one! What happened? God didn't "know" they would when he made his first covenant?

And since the first covenant promised "no more floods to destroy the earth," God "tied" a (rain)bow in the clouds to "remind" himself of that promise (v. 13-16)! Apparently, if the Bible is to believed literally, there were no rainbows before the first covenant! The sunlight did not separate into colors when passing through denser media! The physics of the world were not yet "fully developed" I suppose!

With all due respect, taken literally, this is ridiculous and untrue. Maybe you can read this uncritically and accept it as "fact," but I can't. A God who has to tie a bow in order to remember, and the assertion that rainbows did not exist (never mind the reason why they exist) is just a little "above" my level of acceptable pretense.

Now, does this challenge one's beliefs? Of course it does. It doesn't mean that one cannot understand this allegorically and realize that this is how the writer could best describe God's revelation for the people of that time to believe.

But, if the only "true" believers are those who read the Bible literally, then I suppose I am not a believer.

They don't have to believe in the scriptures because they have their church and, of course, their church could never steer them wrong......How do they know? ....Because the scriptures tell them so.

P-Marlowe has a great point Kosta. It does seem the only scriptures you agree with are the ones about the church. Most others you seem to hold in disdain.

I go back to His Word - "I come in the volume of the Book", not, I come in the volume of the church, or the volume of man. Or..."In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God", not... In the beginning was the church, or in the beginning was man.

When the mutual excommunications were removed and "committed to oblivion" in 1964 at the Vatican II, there was a real chance for us to approach each other with the authoirty of a Council and begin work on re-union. It was precisely the protestantization that followed the Vatican II that immeditely put such effors to a standstill.

The Catholic Church went in the opposite direction, removing the tradition rather than strengthening patristic ties. We Ortodox watched in horror as chalices turned from gold to glass, and Catholic churches began to look like Protestant prayer barns, and the pre-sanctified Gifts in some instances became grapefruit juice, even coffee, and hosts turned into chocolate chip cookies.

But, thank God, the Church is resiliant and bounced back after only 40 or so years! :) In church time, that is a heartbeat...

Pelosi, Biden, the Kennedy whelps, Daschle, Durbin, Kucinich—and John Kerry and Rudy Guliani to add to the list, are the product of those post-Vatican II years of fall. They grew up in that Church, which frighteningly resembled the Episcopal churches, where you could do just about anything and still call yourself a "Catholic."

Blue laws were reminders that this is not our world but God's world, the way the tree in the Garden reminded Adam and Eve that their freedom is limited and that man must choose between Good or evil, bearing the consequences of that choice: God, who is life, or sin which is death.

No one ever said the world was created entirely for our comfort 24/7/365. While we matter as individulas, it's everyone's world and our freedom ends where the other person s freedom begins.

Narcissism is the work of the devil, as each individual puts himself above others and makes himself a "god." We call that "freedom." Freedom is to be free from fear and free from hungar and free from violence and hate, etc. It is not freedom to sin.

But if you believe your sins are "paid for," and your salvation is "guranteed," becoming a narcissist is easy, almost "natural."

So, we have dismanteled all the inconvenient obstacles, incuding the blue laws, lest God get in the way of our "freedom."

P-Marlowe has a great point Kosta. It does seem the only scriptures you agree with are the ones about the church. Most others you seem to hold in disdain

I realize that you agree with him and that's okay. I don't speak for the Church. My opinions are my opinions. So, before either of you satanize the Church, I suggest you find out exactly what the Church says about the Bible. You are free to disagree with me all you want, but if you are going to ridicule the Church then have some facts in your hand. Otherwise you are arguing from ignorance and prejudice.

I don't identify you with Luther or Calvin, but with your own selves. It would be proper to leave the Church out of this and direct your comments at my opinions.

You personally refuse to know more about the Bible but take the pretty bound volumes that you have at home as the "original" product. That's fine with me. But don't try to peddle your own conviction as universal truth.

If you really do not believe and follow any man, then how can you follow your own convictions? Why is what you believe any more true than that of any other human or even the Church? It is placing yourself above everyone else while claiming you don't follow any man.

K:If you believe you are the elect, no matter what you do you are forgiven already. It's a religion tailor-made to man's taste.

Everytime I see this type of thinking I realize how weak the EO and RC believe GOD to be. It has been made very clear by EO and RC posters that your church does not believe in the power of the HOLY SPIRIT to transform the inner heart of the elect.

Mark 1:8 I indeed baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.

John 14:16-17 And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that he may abide with you forever-the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.

The whole problem is that of the concept of the elect.

The logical extension of such a concept is that the elect may do as they wish since they are going to be saved. Futher, the non-elect may do as they wish since they are not going to be saved.

But it flies in the face of the Biblical concept that all men are called to God, that God wishes hell on nobody, and that it is by your actions whether you accept or reject God. Do you have responsibility for your actions?

The premise of the elect automatically relegates us to irresponsibility, which contradicts great swathes of the Gospels, never mind the entire Bible.

I stole your verse just before I read this.

We share the greatest source of all, SCRIPTURE!

The message of salvation is so clear it seems foolish to the unsaved.

John 3:18 He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

Understanding all the finer points is where the complexity is found, but not in the message of salvation. It always goes back to one thing, FAITH in JESUS our LORD and SAVIOUR.

Everytime I see this type of thinking I realize how weak the EO and RC believe GOD to be.

Exactly. I don't think weak is the word as much as deliberately and calculatingly impotent. God creates everyone to go to heaven, but he has no power on his own to save anyone, instead he lets all men have a choice in whether or not to save themselves.

I see nobody bothered to answer the question of "Why would a loving God give men free will"? The fact of the matter is that if men have free will, the only way they can be saved is to jettison that free will, since free will is nothing more than an albatross around men's necks.

Catholics seem to worship the idea of free will rather than the omnipotence of God. To Catholics the scriptures are murky, God is impotent and FREE WILL reigns inviolate and supreme on the throne.

..............

No you dismiss it because there is no verifiable evidence. You dismiss the Exodus because there is no verifiable evidence. You dismiss much of what Jesus attested to because there is no verifiable evidence

That's how we operate P-Marlowe, especially in your profession. Imagine where we would be if courts operated without verifiable evidence?

Everyone's beliefs are based on some kind of information we take as "evidence." You take bible as evidence.

I didn't say all this never happened. It may have happened but not the way it is described because there is no evidence to corroborate the Bible.

The Great Flood could be the great deluge of the Black Sea, as few hundred cultures in that region of the world have flood myths. The Tigris and Euphrates have also been known to flood, with sediments several feet deep. In the case of the Black Sea, the sediments are as thick as one hundred feet!

Such catastrophes could have only been understood by ancient peoples as God's wrath. Imagine the Dec 2005 tsunami disaster. I am sure a couple of thousand years ago the description would have involved God's hands in it.

Did it happen? Most probably. Did it happen the way the Bible narrates it? Probably not, because there is no evidence to corroborate the biblical story. Is it a lie? Most probably not since some kind of flood did happen for all those cultures to have myths about it.

Did Jews ever live in Egypt? It's questionable. Did they leave and cause the Egyptian army to drown? Unlikely. Ramses' son conquered Canaan a generation after the biblical Exodus and never punished the Hebrews for their act.

Is there evidence of Egyptian presence on Sinai around 14th century BC? Yes. Is there evidence of few hundred Hebrews roaming the Sinai for 40 years. No. The Israeli arheologicsts have been digging for some evidence ever since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

How do you conceal evidence of an entire city of few hundred thousand people (I believe the Bible says 600,000 men! not counting women and children), without a trace is more than a valid question, when archaeologists can find remnants of smaller settlements without any problems?

If there were Jews in Egypt, they could have left gradually in small groups, perhaps even over a 40 year period.

It is difficult to reconcile what the Bible says and what the extra-biblical evidence shows. It's a challenge. It's not what we want to hear. It makes people unsettled. It shakes their confidence and the very foundation of life, which is hope. It scares them. So, they dismiss it.

And that's fine. We all approach our existence as best as we can cope. Some choose to face the challenge; others to hide in a corner and bury their faces in a book.

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