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.
True.
Your choices will make no difference.
Non sequitor.
Do you see the difference? The gap in logic there?
If you want to believe you have no free will, fine by me. Don’t expect me to be as foolish as that.
That would mean that the autographs are flawed, and in that case, there is no valid resurrection and no valid salvation recounting by the apostles, all of whom were imperfect humans.
There is nothing in which we can have confidence, and certainly not any statement about the authority of the Church, since that is a statement by imperfect men about groups of imperfect men, and with errors compounding continuously.
I believe that even Kosta50 would want to correct what he wrote above.
AMEN!
This understanding was part of the brilliance of John Calvin who wrestled the church from the throes of the dead, decaying, decadent, stultifying mausoleum that was the church in Rome and realigned God's flock towards the Biblical understanding that work is good because it is done in the name of the Lord in order to preach the Gospel to all men for the spiritual and material prosperity of His sheep.
As Calvin noted, it is the duty of men to serve as God's instruments here on earth, to labor to transform the world in the fashion of the Kingdom of God, and to become a part of the continuing process of His creation, as He wills.
The RCC teaches that work is a necessary evil. However, Scripture teaches that work is a calling from God. Therefore, a man glorifies God in his work by working diligently and joyfully in every thought and deed.
It's no coincidence the countries most effected by the Reformation -- England, Scotland, Northern Europe and America, became and remain all the most productive places on earth. Unlike the countries where Romanism is taught and sanctification is so badly misunderstood, such as in South America and Eastern Europe.
Exactly, the HS dwells in us and leads us and we are fallible but the HS is not. It is our interpretation of His actions which makes us fallible while the infallible HS remains infallible.
Now it comes down to why we think the CC is infallible if man can misunderstand the leading of the HS and that will have to wait for another time because I'm working and don't have the time. Maybe another Catholic will enlighten you or you could go to Newadvent.org and look it up in the Catholic Encyclopedia.
If so, then what were they based on?
Thank you, tiki, for your pleasant conversation.
You know, on the surface it certainly seems that way, but then God is definitely not something intuitive. Intuition is "knowledge" of the gnostic type, but does not necessarily lead to truth.
If God were something intuitive, we wouldn't need His revelation.
If God were something we can comprehend (by reason alone), than he wouldn't be God.
God is neither intuitive nor rational. Our faith in God defies reason because we believe in an eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, transcendental, unchanging, simple, trinitarian monad!, who is both God and man, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, One God, undivided!, incomprehensible, who is here and everywhere, without a beginning and without an end, the creator of everything and all, both visible and invisible, complete (perfect), uncircumscribed, etc, etc. etc. none of which is intuitive or something reason can grasp.
"Faith" founded on reason is naked rationalism. The Russian Orthodox Catechism says it this way about our ascent to God via apophatic (negative) statements (i.e. unimaginable, invisible, unlimited...etc. about God), with my emphases:
...including reason.
No, it is the reverse. No, it is not Calvin's list. Those God predetermines will believe. (Rom. 8:29-30) Calvin just recognized that in the Bible.
Now do I get my post-dunk get out of hell free card? Or is this a different subset of Protestant heresy?
Dunking has nothing to do with getting out of hell. You are referring to the Apostolic view that baptism is salvational. I will agree with you that it is heresy, though. :)
You cannot produce one shred of evidence that what you are saying is a proof of anything. You are offering "I feel therefore it must be true" as something of substance.
If you are going to accept the Bible you cannot reject the "organization" that put it together.
Intuition is not “Gnostic” but another way to perceive things. It’s the ability to sense or know immediately without reasoning. I used it as an example of non-rational perception, much like the Holy Spirit’s leading. That is non-rational but not irrational which is nonsensical.
Rom 8:16, The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:” that is non-rational yet true. The same goes for “the peace of God that passes all understanding”.
Those churches were part of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, not some disconnected churches of independent or non-Apostolic origin. In fact very few individual churches proposed any canons. The leader among those who did was St. Athanasius who, by the year 360 or so, compiled what was later agreed upon at the Council of Carthage for the whole Church.
No matter how you turn it around, it was the knowledge of the Church, and the authority to discern the inspired from the profane, that allowed the Church fathers to put together a canon you worship as Bible, yet at the same time you deny that the Church has the authority/kmnowledge to interpret those very books the Church interpreted as holy, the interpretation which you accept!
The Protestant attitude is "yes, the Church did decide which books are canon, and we accept that, but then the Church 'lost' that knowledge afterwords." C'mon, get real.
That’s an incredible statement for it puts in question the perfection of Jesus since by your theology, his conception and birth was the result of divine-human cooperation
How do you know what was written and when? How do you know the original Gospels really contained those verses? How do you know some verse were not added later?
Simple. You don't know. You don't know because the originals are lost. We have shreds ("fragments") of some older copies, oldest one being early 2nd century. Few lines here and few lined there. The earliest completembibles (Codex Sinaiticus and Vaticanus), written in Byzantine-text-type show fantastic variation among each other; the Gospel of Mark is considerably shorter than in modern bibles. And none of the bibles prior to the 15th century contain the famous Comma Johanneum, a well documented and known latter-day addition to 1 John, which is unfortunately still in the KJV.
How can you talk about pristine perfection of anything unless you can corroborate it against the earliest Church practices and writings? The Bible has been washed and dried so many times, we have no way of knowing what is authentic and what is not. Through textual criticism we can figure out which versions are probably "turer" but without that information safeguarded by the Church form the earliest days in terms of worship (liturgy) and church documents, there is no way of corroborating it from the Bible alone.
“turer”=”truer”
Prove it! A Mormon comes and say "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that I am the child of God," quoting Rom 8:16, so then it must be true! Or one can rationalize and say "God made all of us, therefore we are all His children...sensible approach."
Then to you anyone who says "Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God" is a "proof" that he or she is a child of God?!? Or do you suibscribe to the doctrne that we are all children of God "because it makes sense?"
"Dunking" and HS are tow events that take place at the same time. We Orthodox apply the seal (chrism) immediately; the Catholics at the "age of reason." You yourself believe that you can't believe without the HS. As soon as you are resurreected form the baptismal bath, you are forgiven and spiritually clean and the HS can be received.
It's not a salvation as a moment but a beginning of your salvation in the life of faith.
***The CC chose the Scripture that conformed to its beliefs.***
That bears repeating!
What about those who receive the Holy Spirit without baptism?
Illogical as well as unScriptural. If the sin has been forgiven once for all time, completely, then that man stands acquitted before God. Why would that man then suffer for those sins that God has already forgiven?
When you assume men possess the final say in their own salvation, you rob God of His sovereignty and make the cross of no effect.
Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law. Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace. For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith." -- Galatians 5:1-5"Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
What does Christ do for us on the cross? Does He only take us halfway to salvation and leave our fallen will to do the rest? No, on the cross He purchased our redemption (from first to last) which will be applied to His people by the Holy Spirit in a time of His sovereign determination. This redemption includes everything necessary for us to be saved. God has personally set His affection on us from eternity. Father, Son and Holy Spirit work in harmony together to bring about the plan worked out in the eternal counsels of the Trinity (Eph 1:5)...""As servants of Christ we can all agree that God limits the application of the atonement, for ultimately not everyone will be redeemed. The question is, what or who determines how this application will be limited? Man or God? The purpose of this essay is to prove to you the all-sufficiency of the work of Christ in the redemption of His elect. Even if the non-elect receive some non-redemptive benefits from the atonement (temporarily averting wrath for one), there is clearly a sense in which He died for the elect in a way that He did not for the non-elect; that is, to purchase their redemption...
Very cool. And not just "monitoring," but leading all along the way.
"And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left." -- Isaiah 30:21
The Apostles were free agents (from each other) there WAS NO organization in the sense of a christian synagogue.. as a modern day "church" IS.. Peter WAS NOT the main man.. the POPE for at least 300 hundred years.. Albeit the RCC says he was, he wasn't.. A good church history shows that.. Not roman catholic church history which is skewed to support erroneous claims of primacy..
There really is two church historys(RCC and protestant).. three if you include EO history..
A modern protestant christian synagogue is as bizarre as a roman catholic one.. as I see it... but then I'am not "into" clubs.. which is what they are.. Spiritual job security or hand me down spiritual authority attacks the Holy Spirits authority, I THINK..
Thats not to say that the so-called roman catholic church "fathers" were not good christian men.. mostly.. They were.. just a bit deluded to think hand me down spiritual authority would stop the so called heresy's.. it didn't.. Since they got into heresy and pagan influence themselves.. With transubstantiation, priests, nuns, forced non marriage and many other strange rites and ceremonys.. The RCC is weird and "cultic" in my view.. I've looked objectivly into the RCC in the past and thats what I think..
Which is meaningful only to me, I know.. but that don't mean I view all roman catholics as non christians.. There are some strange protestant sects also..
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