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.
You haven’t answered my post as to whether the God-breathed verses in Numbers are as important as the God-spoken Sermon on the Mount.
I don’t expect you to, since that would expose a great weakness in the recent theologies that have been developed. All the certain and relevant ground has already been broken. For 1500 years.
So, I’ll answer your question in return, even if you don’t dare to answer mine.
I have nothing against the second greatest of all the Apostles. Paul is relentless in spreading the Gospel (the Gospel, mind you) and in chastizing and beating the churches in his bishopric into line. He is a hard taskmaster and will not tolerate dissent or heresy.
I find it ironic that the greatest followers of Paul are some of the greatest heretics themselves, but I digress.
Paul was an Apostle and was changed by the Lord. He was great and did great things.
Jesus Christ was God come down to us in human form, but was still God. His words are, well, Gospel. The Apostles used His words in their fashion to spread to all the world. But it all comes back to His words.
Analogy: Albert Einstein came up with the theory of relativity. All scientific and engineering work that developed from that was very important, but Einstein is always referred back to.
Same with Planck. Same with Newton.
First principles, sir. You must go back to first principles if the originator was a man. You must certainly go back to first principles if the originator was God.
Never said that was not good.
Now, I want you to look me in the metaphorical eye and tell me that the list of begettors in Genesis is of exactly equal value to Matt 25:
Go on, I dare you!!!!
Perhaps you could benefit from a glass of Ruby Port and chill a bit.
I will tell you to your face that the entire word of God is of equal value. It is the WORD OF GOD. How dare you denigrate any of it.
I believe they can. I wish I weren’t at work where I could spend some time with it, but I do believe that all of the Bible works in concert. You just have to listen to it more :>)
What parts are you having trouble reconciling?
Jesus went back up to Heaven and let us work out our own future, with His help if we asked for it.
What I am objecting to is the obvious changing of the Gospel messages by misinterpretation of Pauline epistles. It is not Peter who is misconstrued, it is normally Paul. But why?
Because Paul had the most difficult, straying churches and he had to be most strict with them. He had a very difficult hand and he played it as well as any man could have. But you Protestants deify him and misinterpret him to the point where a Calvin could completely change the Gospel message and millions of people fall for it.
I don’t believe in Paul? You guys are only trying to justify your rather shaky beliefs built on a very shaky foundation. I think of Paul as the second greatest of all Apostles, as does the Church. We understand Paul and understand his works. We do not cherry pick them out of context and apply them to the general situation where he meant them specifically.
I appreciate your candor in post 5980 where you say that you cannot reconcile James with Paul. Neither could Luther - he wanted to axe James. But do you see? You are attempting to assume the role of the Magisterium which dictated the content of the Bible.
Either you accept the Bible’s contents and its interpretation which was dictated by the Magisterium, or you reject them all. You cannot cherry pick the Magisterium’s decisions with any more accuracy than you can cherry pick the Bible’s passages.
When you select a misinterpretation of Paul over huge swathes of the Gospels, then you, not Paul, are in error.
And I agree, sir.
There is nothing not Scriptural about Paul. It’s just that there are those who misinterpret him and attempt to create an alternate Christianity.
Answer the question, if you can.
Romans and James 2 cannot be reconciled. James is contradicting Paul regarding works and faith.
Ruby Port.
It has amazing restorative properties, does it?
Works wonders for minor daily arthritis discomfort.
I understand it perfectly. If you say you have faith, but you do not demonstrate it by works of love, then your faith is dead, worthless, no faith at all. Likewise, trying to do good works without faith is worthless. Your faith compels you to do go works. Your faith in God gives you the works your Father set out for you to do. Faith without works is dead, and works without faith is refuse, garbage, to God. Works do not save you, but works demonstrate the faith that you have.
Sounds interesting.
My hemachromatosis has precluded significant ethanol consumption even if I wished; Guinness (as Irish as I can get it - which means Canadian imports when I can get them) is an occasional treat.
Any particular brand? My brew beering in university and my distillation (engineering studies only, really) attempts have bypassed specific knowledge of the fruit of the vine.
If you would actually read my response, I did.
If I may:
The Bible was selected as God’s Word.
If one passage or chapter or book cannot be reconciled against another, does that mean that God’s Word is incorrect?
What if you are not among the elect?
Am I right in saying that neither faith nor works will save you?
So you did.
Well, I guess that that brings us to loggerheads, then.
When a list of begettors in the OT is as important to you as the words of Jesus, I wonder if we can possibly reconcile.
Jesus came to point out where the OT Jews got it wrong. God wasn’t wrong, the OT Jews were, but that’s pushed out of the way. Jesus spends whole chapters telling us that it’s what we do that counts; you give me the occasional Pauline verse that says that works don’t matter and anyhow if you’re not of the mysterious elect you’re going to hell anyhow, in spite of entire verses where Jesus tells us that Heaven is supposed to be for all if only we’d believe and do good.
I’m kinda at a loss right now. I suppose that I oughta get to bed. G’night all. Let’s take this up again after we sleep on it. Later, irish. Have a good one.
You would be right. If I am not of the elect, if I am not saved, then nothing I can do will save me. If fact, I would not even have the desire to turn to God. I would only want to do works that benefit me somehow.
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