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.
From what has been posted here, I have the impression that to belong to the Orthodox church, you must learn the original Greek language to be able to read the true scripture which only they possess. OR, you must blindly trust those who are teaching you, and believe that they are teaching you the truth.
I think we have established that the scriptures are superfluous in the Orthodox Church. The teachings of the Orthodox Church (the traditions of men) have fully supplanted the scripture as the authority upon which they base their faith. They believe that their traditions are pure, whereas the scriptures are corrupt.
Only Non-Orthodox scripture is corrupt, but not the scripture they produced in Greek! However, you are right :),that tradition trumps scripture and we are back to that circular validation thing again.
“They believe that their traditions are pure, whereas the scriptures are corrupt.”
No, no, most noble LPFOKETT GAHCOEEP-w/o*. Their’s is an ancient hermeneutic found in a Lewis Carroll manuscript.
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone,” it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master — that’s all.”
I couldn't agree with you more, dear 'pipe!
Thank you for your observations about Christianity in China. I am hearing this, too, just as you report it.
Of course, hand-copied editions of the Holy Scriptures are rife with opportunities for errors to creep in. Still, you need this "dangerous book" to testify to the living faith and to transmit it to others; so you do what you can. If no printed texts are available, you hand copy. And may God ever bless them who undertake such a daunting task.
"Is God cool, or what?"
All praise and glory be to God!
Mormons?... and you're hanging with the psuedo angel Moroni..
Cause you're acting like a Moronite..
I would find no joy in heresy; Our Lord was thought of as being heretical against Judaism, not Christianity.
And heresy, for heresy’s sake, cannot be considered a good hing.
Actually, the Church validated Scripture. And there it stops.
Jeepers Alamo-Girl, that's rich! Oh my.
Just turn the other cheek and count it all to God's glory.
But it does not follow that such an apparent brilliant theologian was at the same time a theological thug and a temporal tyrant. His depressing theology took hope away from the people, mixing it with a message of hidden elitism, and removed the responsibility of one’s actions in their contribution towards life everlasting.
How could God Judge a pre programmed robot slave? That’s like creating a mechanical device in order to perform in a certain fashion and then discarding it simply because it performed what it was created to do, and the mechanical device, operating indistiguishably from the first, is exalted simply becuase it performed what it was created to do.
It makes no sense temporally or theologically.
Hoser, dude. You were the one that brought up the pearl of great price. And you’re the one making some really contradictory statements.
Theological mess. Swim the Tiber and we’ll get out the Mr. Clean.
Indeed.. LoL..
Oh! I now get your reference to the Mormon book.. but I was referring to the biblical metaphor of Jesus in the New Testament.. I missed your point, as you missed mine.. We passed each other in the fog of preaching..
What is it again you are preaching?..
When you’re on very thin theological ice, and defense is tricky, offense is often a preferred methodology.
Let us remember all those who hear the little voices telling them what to do. According to http://www.abc.net.au/rn/allinthemind/stories/2006/1689941.htm, about 10 percent of the population hear voices that aren’t there. Apparently Socrates and Joan of Arc heard voices, for instance. People bereaved may hear the newly deceased. Fervently religious may also hear voices.
It may be more usual than we realize.
Here’s the thing: just because you’re hearing a voice doesn’t make it right. And if you are justifying yourself on the basis of those voices, then anything is possible to justify.
The same message as Fulton Sheen. Apparently my oratory and persuasive skills are considerably less than his.
Jesuit jabberwocky.
Sure
That's true
I agree.
That's right.
I'm tempted to take my points as granted and go home. However..
[Knowing what the result of allowing free will would be - foreknowing - God created man with free will.]
And that leaves God a limited sphere within which to create His plan.
He's not limited to choose this finite creation. It could have been different; His choice. It's still whatever sphere He chooses.
if God's plan is micro specific, as I suspect it is, then human free will would be a problem.
Only if God's omniscience is not "micro specific."
That's what I mean by random.
Your definition of random is just incorrect.
Now, what if God "needs" a particular pair to get together for His purposes?
If creation did not meet his purposes, He would have a different creation. He foreknew whether this particular pair would get together or not.
If God does not interfere,
Non sequitor. Foreknowing doesn't have anything to do with God not "interferring."
then He has to "wait" until a pair comes along that meets His specifications, AND freely decides to pair up.
He fore-knew. He fore-knew. He fore-knew.
We run the risk of humanizing God in these discussions and of reducing religion to philosophy. So I tread lightly in discussing logic. It's only a point because you maintain it's logically impossible, generally, for man to have free will and God to have a plan.
Your logic if flawed. God could have created differently; He knows everything; if He wished events in His creation differently; He would have created differently.
You argument continually limits God's omniscience and omnipotence. He's "waiting" for something (doesn't foreknow who/when); He has a "limited sphere" within which to work (He couldn't choose a different sphere).
Knowing - microknowing if you wish - what the result of allowing free will would be God created man with free will.
My point combines what we agree we know about God and what we know about man:
God is omniscient and omnipotent. We can take these as given. Man has free will. We know this from scripture, from the teaching of the Church for almost two thousand years, and from our personal experience of reality.
If you believe God has a plan and is omniscient and omnipotent, then this is your basic starting ground. Logic does not get in your way here.
Do you wear the same cape?.. They re-run old TV programs of his on my cable station.. The man is decked out like a RC super hero.. quite funny, I would say..
Yeah.. True... I feel guilty snickering at him..
He Must be the proto type of father Guido Sarducci(SNL)..
Amen! Great post.
"...what God does with His words in the believer..."
Precisely, amazingly, graciously so.
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