Posted on 03/04/2008 9:02:04 AM PST by Gamecock
THE PROTESTANT Churches of the Reformation are proper Churches, the newly elected chairman of the German Roman Catholics Bishops’ Conference told the weekly magazine Der Speigel. Protestants 'are proper Churches'
In a Feb 16 interview Archbishop Robert Zollitsch of Freiburg also criticized the Catholic Church’s traditional ties to the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), questioned the necessity of clerical celibacy, and deviated from the Church’s stated views on childcare.
Conservative members of the Bishops’ Conference were quick to distance themselves from the archbishop’s comments, while others claimed his words had been distorted and there were no plans to abolish mandatory celibacy for the clergy.
Elected leader of the German Church on Feb 12, Archbishop Zollitsch told Spiegel he hoped to improve relations with Germany’s Protestant Church the EKD in the wake of last summer’s statement by the Vatican that the Lutheran and Anglican Churches were “not proper Churches.”
The Protestant Church “is Church. I cannot deny it,” ["ist Kirche. Ich kann ihr das nicht absprechen"], Archbishop Zollitsch said.
He also stated that clerical celibacy was “not theologically necessary,” ["nicht theologisch notwendig"], but noted such a change would be a “revolution” that would require the calling of a Council to enact.
In a Feb 20 statement released on behalf of the Bishops’ Conference, Dr Gerhard Ludwig Müller (pictured), Bishop of Regensburg, stated Archbishop Zollitsch’s words had been misconstrued. Theological subtleties could not be expressed easily “in a fast interview,” he explained.
“The Latin rite of the Catholic Church holds to the sensible union of the priesthood and the celibate life for love of the Kingdom of Heaven. This is and will continue to be the Catholic Church’s discipline,” Bishop Müller said, and will not change “now or in the future.”
The Archbishop told Spiegel he endorsed the use of crèches or child day care programmes --- a stance contrary to the church’s view that women should refrain from working outside the home in order to rear their children. “We need nurseries because many parents simply need them,” he said.
He also questioned the CDU’s pursuit of “neo-liberal” economic policies, saying its neglect of the “social market economy” had “diminished” its historic links to the Catholic Church. Many of the Green and Social Democrat Party’s policies are “important to us, more so than ever before” Archbishop Zollitsch said.
I could have told him that.
bttt
Holt’s Ministry, now that’s a “proper” church!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1979736/posts
Mine is.
But would you say the Catholic Church is a ‘proper church’?
Would the rest of the people you ping say so?
Romans 12:5
so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.
1 Corinthians 12:12
The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ.
Ephesians 3:6
This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.
Ephesians 5:23
For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.
Ephesians 5:29
After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church—
Colossians 1:24
[ Paul's Labor for the Church ] Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church.
Is a “Proper Church” the same as a “Church Proper?”
Someone had to have the courage to ask. :>)
Don’t change the subject. ;-)
Is that a yes or a no?
You first. What do you think about the above article?
Yes/
In other news, "proper" is a word I'd like to understand mo' better and it is not news that celibacy is not theologically required. I think there may be no there there, as far as this article is concerned.
As far as I know, the Catholic Church considers ALL Protestants to be in communion with the Church to varying degrees. I am not familiar enough with what they mean by “proper Church”. However, I have NEVER questioned whether or not my Evangelical brothers and sisters in Christ were true Christians. In fact, I think that conservative Catholics are generally in far greater agreement with conservative Evangelicals than we are with liberal Catholics and I think that most conservative Evangelicals would say the same (though maybe not publicly).
I also think that it’s worth noting that many non-denominational Evangelicals (especially those fond of the “mega Churches”) would be just as uncomfortable in a traditional Lutheran or high Anglican service as they would at a Catholic Mass.
M.C. Escher is one of the great artists of the 20th Century, DO NOT compare that post-modern monstrosity to art!
It’s in German. Means nobody is really sure what it means.
I’m going to make an assumption that Jesus prefers the modest little chapel in my hometown where The Tridentine Mass is reverently celebrated to that monstrosity, but I could be wrong (not likely). In fact, I’m going to go way out on a celestial limb and predict he prefers the inside even more (As would be the case for any traditional altar).
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