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’ll stay with His Church, thankyouverymuch.”
Chacun son goût.
Then what is Purgatory all about?..
Your free will entitles you to be blithe about your eternal soul.
He Knows but He does NOT interfere.
That is love!
Why must you insist that God (LOVE) creates evil?
Dear Brother, You need to understand AGAPE!
Good Night!
I wish you a Blessed Evening!
I don’t have to be a follower of Calvin to know that Judas was destined for hell before he was born.
Did he steal in the womb? Will he be a thief til the day he dies?
Perhaps you are there for some reason too.
Know?
LOL
Let’s say that Mother Theresa is in heaven.
Did that surprise God, or did God always know it?
Do you think that God is going to accept dirty laundry into heaven?
...Or do you think that you must be fully clean to enter into heaven?
I'm tired.
I wish you a Blessed evening!
All knowing. No surprise.
No, the scriptures tell me I can rest and rejoice and be carefree (blithe)in the salvation secured to me by the finished work of Jesus which salvation was appropriated by faith. Phil. 4:4-7, "Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice. Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand. Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus."
Being "blithe" (carefree) should be the normal state of a believer.
Thank you, kosta. Mxxx
Look, the Church understood it from the beginning to mean triple immersion and for a good reason. The language of the Church was Greek. This is not some private interpretation or a matter of private taste. If the immersion is misunderstood Chrsitians outrside the Church, you can imagine what else is. Making a church according to one's private preference is a man-made "church."
:)
Isaiah 55:8 "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways," says the LORD.
What a great post.
When you see all those verses that say GOD is the ROCK it can't help but open eyes that want to see. I believe the "Keys to the kingdom" of heaven is the indwelling HOLY SPIRIT in all believers.
You’re right, matters regarding salvation should never be a matter of private taste. Yet as you noted yourself, the interpretation of a triple immersion is without scriptural support, and is/was a matter of private interpretation.
Whether this interpretation is recent, or ancient is not the question.
If a triple immersion was vitally important, would not Christ and his Apostles have CLEARLY spelled it out? The fact that they used a word that has implications of multiple immersion does not mean that it is automatically so (much less 3), and as Greek speakers they would have been aware of this possible interpretation. Yet, being aware of it, they did not see the need to stress that it was triple.
You place a lot of stress on not interpreting the scriptures according to personal taste, and this is entirely important. Yet merely because an interpretation was made centuries ago does not exclude it from this necessity. The highest authority we have is scripture, guided by the Spirit of God, and it is to this that we must constantly return.
Yes and yes. The EO (usually the Greeks, for reasons too complicated to go into here) have used and recommend the KJV. The errors contained in the KJV are corrected against patristic teachings and early Church documents. The Church put the Christian canon together and therefore reserves the right to its correct interpretation. You cannot accept the Bible, which is the product of the Church, and deny church's authority when it comes to the Bible.
The KJV is particularly riddled with errors because (1) it was tailored for political reasons to Protestant bias; this included necessary alterations in the text on which it is based, (2) its foundation is in Textus Receptus, which is a product of (a) two latter-day Greek sources of Alexandrian-type text (known to contain redactions and changes relative to older versions), (b) a private retro-translations from Latin into (poor) Greek by William Tyndale, (c) sections derived from unreliable Latin Vulgate, and (d) translational errors.
Also, KJV is written in archaic English which you may think you understand. Many of the same sounding words words as those in modern English found in KJV are of archaic meaning which is different from the contemporary meaning. Unless you are well versed in Shakespearean English, chances are you will misconstrue may be a verse in KJV simply for that reason alone.
As far as the Orthodox Church goes, each particular Orthodox Church will use a specific Christian canon, whether it is KJV, NAB, NIV, etc. because it is the Church that ultimately applies the correct concepts, as they have been understood and used since the beginning, and certainly since the time when the Church put together the Bible.
First, you don't know it He did or not, because a lot of what was taught tom the Apostles was not written down. Second, the whole Church practiced triple immersion form the beginning, is it was not a matter of private interpretation of a local church but something accepted by all churches.
The fact that they used a word that has implications of multiple immersion does not mean that it is automatically so (much less 3), and as Greek speakers they would have been aware of this possible interpretation
The number of immersions represents how many days Christ was dead before he rose again. Baptism involves immersion (burial). For obvious reasons, one cannot remain submerged under water for three days, so the three-day submersion burial is fittingly represented by three immersions before the newly baptized person is resurrected.
If the word baptiso means multiple immersions, what number would be fitting for the person being baptized to follow in Christ's footsteps if not three? Obviously, one is not correct because the formula calls for multiple. Two is meaningless. So is four, and five, because they have no bearing on Christ whom we are following in death and resurrection.
WoW Fass.. dogma has screwed up your observations.. as I see it..
No flame.. God bless you.. Vaya con Dios..
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