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.

What are you talking about?

The table of contents:

Chapter I — History of Christian Martyrs to the First General Persecutions Under Nero
Chapter II — The Ten Primitive Persecutions
Chapter III — Persecutions of the Christians in Persia
Chapter IV — Papal Persecutions
Chapter V — An Account of the Inquisition
Chapter VI — An Account of the Persecutions in Italy, Under the Papacy
Chapter VII — An Account of the Life and Persecutions of John Wickliffe
Chapter VIII — An Account of the Persecutions in Bohemia Under the Papacy
Chapter IX — An Account of the Life and Persecutions of Martin Luther
Chapter X — General Persecutions in Germany
Chapter XI — An Account of the Persecutions in the Netherlands
Chapter XII — The Life and Story of the True Servant and Martyr of God, William Tyndale
Chapter XIII — An Account of the Life of John Calvin
Chapter XIV — Prior to the Reign of Queen Mary I
Chapter XV — An Account of the Persecutions in Scotland During the Reign of King Henry VIII
Chapter XVI — Persecutions in England During the Reign of Queen Mary
Chapter XVII — Rise and Progress of the Protestant Religion in Ireland; with an Account of the Barbarous Massacre of 1641
Chapter XVIII — The Rise, Progress, Persecutions, and Sufferings of the Quakers
Chapter XIX — An Account of the Life and Persecutions of John Bunyan
Chapter XX — An Account of the Life of John Wesley
Chapter XXI — Persecutions of the French Protestants in the South of France, During the Years 1814 and 1820
Chapter XXII — The Beginnings of American Foreign Missions

Most of the book is either persecutions by non Christians or else biographies of non martyrs. I understand that it could be a rallying point, but once one reads it, it isn’t.

There are a number of Protestant martyrs, to be sure. How is St. Thomas More treated, though? That should give you pause about its accuracy and its viewpoint.

AMEN! AMEN! AMEN! AMEN! A-G:

If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall [your] heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him? – Luke 11:13 Quench not the Spirit. – I Th 5:19

For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent...For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. – I Corinthians 1:19-25

Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world. They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them. We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error. - I John 4:4-6

Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought: But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, [even] the hidden [wisdom], which God ordained before the world unto our glory: ... But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed [them] unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him?

Eeven so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know [them], because they are spiritually discerned... But we have the mind of Christ. II Cor 2:6-16

Moreover, It doesn’t matter what labels we Christians wear. I personally know Spirit-filled Christians in many different assemblies.

However, there may be truth in the assertion that some of the doctrines and traditions of men actually work against the followers being filled by the Spirit of God.

Some for instance might suggest the followers should resist Him for fear He might be Satan deceiving them which is to say God cannot protect them from Satan, so they must protect themselves.

Others might say that they control who receives or does not receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit, which is to say they command God. Still others might say that the followers must embrace their teachings to avoid error which is to say, trust us, don't trust God.

Even so, no force of any kind can prevail between God and His kids. It can however rob them of their peace and joy in this mortal life. And the blowback on those who insinuated themselves is severe indeed.

For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. – Romans 8:38-39

But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and [that] he were drowned in the depth of the sea. – Matthew 18:6

1. The Holy Spirit, not man, has given us the Scriptures. And they cannot be spiritually discerned without personally knowing the power of God, Who is Jesus Christ.

But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.. – I Cor 1:24

It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, [they] are spirit, and [they] are life. – John 6:63

And Jesus answering said unto them, Do ye not therefore err, because ye know not the scriptures, neither the power of God? – Mark 12:24

Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake [as they were] moved by the Holy Ghost. – 2 Peter 1:20-21

2. Christians who are indwelled by the Holy Spirit and follow Him – are not following any mortal man, including themselves, they are following God.

Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye [are] the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. – John 15:4-5

Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. – Proverbs 3:5-6

3. Those who are loving God above all else are in fact keeping the Great Commandment. And if they keep the second as well, loving their neighbors as themselves, they are obeying the law and the prophets.

No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.

And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son [to be] the Saviour of the world. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God.

And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.

Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love him, because he first loved us.

If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also. – I John 4:12-21

So why complicate it? Love God surpassingly above all else, love our neighbors as ourselves. Believe Him. Follow Him. Don't sweat the details.

I certainly agree. Interestingly, I kept trying to select verses above to delete rather than repeat . . . for brevity . . . and had a hard time . . . they are all so important.

I think the truths you emphasized are so crucial in our era. The world system is waxing more and more horrid as Christ, John the Beloved, the other prophets and Paul predicted. It is being overhauled towards utter unmitigated evil as never before in the history of the world.

Scripture makes clear that deception will be so thick and skillfully, demonically laid in this era, that were it possible (if God were to allow it), the very elect would be deceived. Certainly walking close to Him; hearing His Voice as Christ made very clear HIS SHEEP WOULD HEAR HIS VOICE . . . very critical in this era.

All the more so because ALL the systems of man--including and in some respects particularly the RELIGIOUS systems of man--are being overhauled toward evil and the global worship of satan. There is no escaping this phenomena. It is transpiring before our eyes by increments week by week if not day by day.

As Scriptures also attest, God is going to shake the very heavens as well as the whole earth in this era. NOTHING which is not of Him, will stand that most profound of shakings.

NO CONFIDENCE PLACED IN ANY OTHER SYSTEM, ORGANIZATION, ENTITY, PERSON, COLLECTION OF PERSONS . . . NOTHING APART FROM HIM . . . WILL SUFFICE, will be efficacious, protective, safe.

ALL man's good ideas about what this verse or that verse or this series of proof texts or that interpretation or that tradition REALLY MEANT. . . ALL SUCH will be blown away as though they were the ashes from children's fireworks on the sidewalk in a hurricane.

The raw WILL and TRUTH of GOD ALMIGHTY alone will reign.

The rest will be worse than a bad joke. . . . a very deadly bad joke.

All will be reduced to GOD'S ESSENTIALS . . . TO GOD HIMSELF . . . TO GOD ALONE.

The wise are preparing their hearts and spirits by abiding in Him and drinking increasingly deeply of His Spirit NOW. Get Oil. Get extra Oil. Keep the lamps trimmed.

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