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 disagree. You know that +Paul always (and eve "Peter" in 2 Peter) says that "God raised Jesus" and the Creed says "Jesus rose [Himself]" because at no time is Father without the Son and the Son without the Father or the Spirit with out either. At no point does anyone call the Holy spirit in the NT "Lord." But the Greed does.
Presumably, if [Adam and Eve] had never sinned, then they would still be there today, waiting for an occasional visit by God
Occasional? How do you figure that? Is God not present all the time in someone who is spiritually pure? Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. The pristine are in continuous communion with God. Adam and Eve did not have to go through hell, literally speaking, just to get back to (Paradise) where they started from!
How do you figure satan snatched them out of God's hands?
Of course the devil snatched them from God. Even your favorite, St. Paul, admits to the same (and Christ died so he may release us), but you probably don't remember those verses. In fact, +Paul was convinced we knew how the devil things, "for we are not ignorant of his schemes" (2 Cor 2:11). That we were enslaved to sin and death was the devil's doing, "[f]or the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it. (Rom 8:20) Note he not just man or earth, but the whole creation.
If you really think that true believing Protestants think it's fine for them to commit murder because they are already forgiven for it
No but they believe that if they do commit murder they will still go to heaven. So, it all goes back to "we are not violent but can be driven to violence" (amid the more certain you are of your salvation the more easily can one driven to violence; what do you have to lose?)
While I do not doubt your belief and you conviction, the very statement:
I do not need physical “proofs” - the indwelling Spirit authenticates the Scriptures as His own by bringing them alive within.
is Gnostic by definition. I believe that many of the original Gnostics were also sincere and devout. That doesn’t make them non heretical. I would that you would consider your position and your beliefs.
Nice.
Is it the PCP?
Marlowe: "If it is up to YOUR free will, then you are destined for hell."
Absolutely correct, Marlowe. This is the difference between being only merely "wounded" (citation unknown) and being DEAD in our transgressions and sins (Eph. 2:1, 4-5).
So which is it?
Does God wave the magic wand first and then you are saved? Or does one say that one wants to be saved and then God waves the magic wand?
Enquiring minds would like to know, especially since there has been a rather conflicting series of posts about this very subject.
You must not be "clued in to" the marvelous story/stories of the translation of the Word of God.. and the wonderful drama and sagas of the Herculean effort spent by many to translate it into all the languages on this planet.. Some spending a big parts of their lives to learn an obscure language with fairly few people so that they might know the word of god.. with some being martyred in the process.. Many books could be written on this subject..
Even a BAD translation is better than nothing.. better than a good translation of any other work.. Translation of biblical languages is a poorly paid little appreciated holy work.. Even the Vulgate translation to Latin is useful.. There must surely be a special place in heaven for those that have SPENT themselves on this pursuit.. I have no doubt..
As is being done in china to this very day the bible has been copied by hand for several thousand years.. At all stages even parts or excepts of scripture has been all "the people" had.. Not many know the church in china has many many millions of believers.. and is spreading.. also in muslim lands.. The bible is illegal to even posses it in many places on this planet.. WHY?... ITS A DANGEROUS BOOK to HATE.. and oppression.. and trumps ALL RELIGION(s)..
PCP?..
You just asserted that you can't believe before the Spirit changes your heart. Then, how can you pray to Jesus before you believe?
Are you saying the HS just "snaeaks up" on you and zapps you with a magic wand and then you start praying to Jesus tp lret the Spirit in. It sounds like some hypnitized, brainwashed robot, FK, who was turned into a believer without knowing it or wanting it.
ROFLMAO
As I'm sure you would agree, no one should struggle to merit his way into Heaven. However, the true new believer has been given a new heart. That heart will naturally lead the person to the ways and things of God. Sure, there will be struggles along the way, but the basic premise of the new heart is that it is disposed of to do God's will:
Ezek 36:26-27 : 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.
Ah. More of the robot slave philosophy.
God wishes an army of robot slaves. I guess that it amuses Him. Trouble is that He went through a whole bunch of trouble to set up Adam and Eve and that whole free will stuff. Guess He was just fooling us.
I don't know. Were you there then? How can eternity 'start?'
I'm shackled to a body to qualify me.. Were you born unqualified?
I am not a Calvinist. :-)
No one should struggle?
What translation of Scripture could you possibly be reading? Everyone struggles; everyone must persevere until the end. I don’t get it, FK. Are you reading something by Jacqueline Susanne title The Bible?
I do not care. :OD
Obviously you do.
More delusions. Yawn.
:-)
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