Will the Pope's Pronouncement Set Ecumenism Back a Hundred Years? (Challenge to Apostolicity)

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.

There seems to be a "school of thought" among some Protesants that the Scriptures dictate to God what must be done.

No, Scriptures display God's dictates.

Thus, the Incarnation MUST have happened. Rather than a free-will choice to show His immense love for mankind, the Incarnation is a sterile part of the "PLAN" that is executed grudgingly.

Not "grudgingly." Joyfully.

"Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God." -- Hebrews 12:2

Does the RCC actually teach that the crucifixion and the incarnation were NOT part of God's eternal plan?

Christ, "the lamb slain from the foundation of the world," certainly thought so it was part of God's plan, so how can we doubt it?

"Then said Jesus unto Peter, Put up thy sword into the sheath: the cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?" -- John 18:11

"Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." -- Matthew 5:17-18

"Not my will, but thine, be done." -- Luke 22:42

Read Isaiah 53 and tell us God has no plan.

"Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?
For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.
He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.
He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.
And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.
Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.
He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.
Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors." -- Isaiah 53:1-12

Thank you for your most kind and considerate advice:

You can stay where you're at but if you move you can only go one of two ways.

I realize you see it differently from outside, but, for me, it's quite easy to recognize: it's one church; the Latin Fathers, Greek Fathers, Apostolic Fathers, Desert Fathers, the Sacraments, the Communion of Saints, Apostolic succession and on and on.

I live in the West and am Roman Catholic and I study the East. If I lived in the East I would likely be Eastern Orthodox and study the West. This is part of the incredible depth, breadth and beauty of our faith - it is never exhausted.

I read the older writings of St. Teresa of Avila or St. John OTC or St. Simeon, or the masterful compilation of theology of St John Damascene, or St. Gregory Palamas, or Bishop Bianchaninov and Theophan the Recluse on unceasing prayer, and I study the writings of more recent bishops, Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI or Bishop Kallistos Ware. I say the Rosary and I practice the Jesus Prayer. I use my rosary or komboskinia for both or either. It's the same Body of Christ throughout the centuries, through all the upheavals and conflicts and personal conflicts and trials, through the distance and different languages, it's the same Gospel, the same sacramental life.

It's all part of the same church, one church, and it's my home. There's no need to leave home to go home again.

You are putting God on a timeline again.

God put Himself on a timeline when He created the world and time itself. He did that for a reason. We are creatures. We understand linearly.

To say "Poof! God is infinite and therefore cause and effect don't matter" is simplistic.

God created cause and effect. God is the cause. We are the effect.

To deny that God had a "preordained" plan of salvation before you were born is to deny the Scriptures. Period. It's there in black and white for all to read.

God created the heavens and the earth in seven days. On the FIRST day He created the light and the darkness. On the SECOND day He created the firmament. On the THIRD day He created the earth , etc.

God is timeless, but He created within time. And He created the human mind to understand time for a reason -- because He wants His creatures to understand the order of existence -- God creates and men are created.

He decreed the end from the beginning. THAT is the most important aspect of what we are to know of time.

"Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure" -- Isaiah 46:10

"That which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been" -- Ecclesiastes 3:15

That isn't just poetic hyperbole on the part of God. That's the truth of existence.

It's hard to wrap our minds around this considering we are all indoctrinated with the modernist "Just Do It" mentality, but we "just do it" by God's will. And the rewards of that understanding are great.

"For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." -- Philippians 2:13

To be hated by God means you are less gifted? That's the wonkiest biblical reinvention of scripture I have heard in a very long time.

LOL. Stick around. It gets better. 8~)

God 'hated' Esau to showcase His sovereignty and His providence. To emphasize that it is His will that be done. That he is the master of salvation. To think of God as anything less would rob Him of his being God. In the fall all men were condemned. It is according to the will of God that some are called out of darkness into light. Jacob was called Esau was not; both deserved hell. Both would have willingly gone apart from the active will of God to save.

To think of God's calling is to be humbled, as we must certainly know we are in and of ourselves not deserving of His love towards us? Do we not cling to Christ in loving thankfulness for making us clean and presentable by His work on the cross? Can there ever be doubt that no work we do is ever free of some element of self and therefor self serving? Esau served himself and his flesh when he traded his birthright, revealing his true nature as a lover of self only. As all unbelievers he was at enmity with God.

AMEN!

How else can we to feel true gratitude if we don't acknowledge the actual extent of the gift?

"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
Not of works, lest any man should boast.
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." -- Ephesians 2:8-10

Even our "good works" were ordained by God for His glory.

You are forgeting that just because man has been given free will does not mean that God does not aid man to complete a task that man assents to

I'm not forgetting that. Even Calvin and Luther stated that man has a will. The problem is that you see this as an "aid" whereas I see this as a "healing". God doesn't "aid"; He "heals". He gives man faith where there is none and raises man to a newness of life.

If man has no free will, then there is no such thing as sin, since sin is a WILLFUL disobedience to God.

You are confusing two conditions. The first condition is that man is dead. God must make man alive. Man cannot do this on his own.

The second condition is what happens after man becomes a new creature. He will from time to time willfully sin against God. God doesn't cast him off. Instead He chastises him so that he learns obedience.

We only understand enough to know we don't understand!

If that is the extent of your understanding, then go back to your Bible and read it, jo kus. There's plenty to grasp.

"But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:
Having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ." -- 1 Peter 3:15-16

"And it shall turn to you for a testimony.
Settle it therefore in your hearts, not to meditate before what ye shall answer:
For I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor resist." -- Luke 21:13-15

There are no "real numbers" in infinity, because every "number" has the same value. Thus, there is unity in infinity. Time, also, has little value in infinity, because time is a measure of change and there is no change in infinity. All points are the same.

You have just given an excellent reason why the answer "because God is infinite" is not appropriate or sufficient for all questions. God gives us answers that go beyond some timeless shrug.

God has purposed that time does "have value" since He created time and He created within time for our benefit.

There are "real numbers" in God's creation (the Trinity certainly comes to mind.)

And the "unity of infinity" is due to the exact fact that God creates everything for His purpose, including infinity.

All points are the same.

And thus, that fact supports the lie of universalism because not all points within God's existence are "the same."

So again, "infinity" is not the answer to everything. Whereas "God's will" is sufficient to answer any question (although graciously, He often expands on that answer through His word and the indwelling Holy Spirit.")

Amen, Suzy.

My cousin was very depressed six months ago from enormous pressures at work and from the responsibility of two aging and sickly parents. I told her to hang on and that God would show her His predestining love for her by eventually leading her out of her anxiety and fears. God's plan is often difficult to see, but it's there, nonetheless.

Slowly but surely, she has changed jobs, moved to a new house and her parents' health has greatly improved.

At any given moment, it's not so easy to see God's predestination of all things, but looking back over these past six months, she's seen how God has completely altered her life for the better.

She made the changes, but it was God's will that this occur.

May God give your friend eyes to see all the goodness He plans for her.

In other words, you’re ducking the question as to the level that God controls each individual....Am I to understand that under Reformed doctrine that man can only commit acts of spontaneity (ie God providing the entire inner principle of action and man CANNOT do any other), or does man have the ABILITY to commit acts only with that apprehension of an end

It is a ridiculous notion that God chooses people to go to hell and adjusts their mindset so that they like it.

The problem you have is why did God make man to go to hell. I don't know. But that is what He's done. He knew perfectly well when He created Adam that Adam would sin. God knew very well what sin and judgment He would pass on to Adam. And yet God still did it all.

The descriptions of hell are the worst possible descriptions of any environment that the early Jews could think up.

does it really matter? No.

EVERY ONE

We suffer the consequences of what we DO. And don’t do.

There is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. We don't suffer consequences. Everything works for our good. If we sin and fall, God may make our path back to Him painful but it is for our benefit and we grow from that experience. It isn't a matter of what WE do and don't do. It is a matter of being ambassadors and representing Him appropriately.

God put Himself on a timeline when He created the world and time itself. He did that for a reason. We are creatures. We understand linearly.

God created time, but that doesn't mean He is subject to it. Yes, we understand time linearly, but this type of speech about God is anthropomorphic and does not accurately state the concepts of infinity or timelessness.

To say "Poof! God is infinite and therefore cause and effect don't matter" is simplistic.

When did I say "cause and effect do not matter"? That God is not subject to creation does not mean that cause and effect do not matter.

To deny that God had a "preordained" plan of salvation before you were born is to deny the Scriptures. Period. It's there in black and white for all to read.

Scripture is written from the point of view of man, who is subject to time. The idea of "preordained", to us, means that BEFORE we were born, God sat down and made a plan. True enough, for us. But was there EVER a TIME that God did NOT have a plan? Does God subject to the chronological movement of time, or are we?

He decreed the end from the beginning. THAT is the most important aspect of what we are to know of time.

I agree that there is Divine Providence. All I am saying is that God is transcendant. Although He chooses to operate inside of time, He is not subject to it.

Regards

Even Calvin and Luther stated that man has a will. The problem is that you see this as an "aid" whereas I see this as a "healing".

Well, I am getting different answers on free will. Some here say we have it and others deny it.

I also see God's interaction with us as a healing. God's graces enable us to do good. But that does not deny that man is still responsible for following God's will. Without God, we can do no good. But that doesn't take away free will because God is necessary to make a free will decision.

The first condition is that man is dead. God must make man alive. Man cannot do this on his own. The second condition is what happens after man becomes a new creature. He will from time to time willfully sin against God. God doesn't cast him off. Instead He chastises him so that he learns obedience.

The Church does not teach that man is "dead", but you are correct that he cannot save himself and absolutely requires God to save him and to please God through faith.

Regards

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