Serious question.
Obviously, since we have a 1st Amendment, different religious groups ordain their leadership (if any) in different ways. Plymouth Brethren have no ordained ministers (and won't call themselves a denomination either) and "independent" and congregationally governed churches may (or may not) have firm educational training requirements.
Most Protestant churches however do require a Master of Divinity or the equivalent 3-year graduate degree education at an accredited seminary, along with oral and written testing by a higher denominational body than a congregation.
Presbyterians require an MDiv, including Greek and Hebrew (to read scripture in it's original language) along with intensive review and testing by the local Presbytery (a committee of ordained ministers in the denomination, roughly equivalent in authority in polity to a Bishop in episcopal systems). There is some flexibility in this depending on education and life experience, but, the individual is still examined closely by a Presbytery--a body of greater oversight than any one church. Given that a candidate passes (and not a few don't...)an ordination worship service follows where other ordained clergy pray over and lay hands on the new minister.
In Hahn's case it was an "independent"(meaning no presbytery, no denomination...) 30-person (see above)Presbyterian church, which to denominational Presbyterians, is a lot like an "independent" Roman Catholic church, is to you...
As to the novitiate nun's personal story, most Roman Catholics I've known--usually educated, knowledgeable people, were taught from their Priests we are saved by faith + (charitable)works. If that's not official Roman doctrine, well, there's a problem as that is what is being (and has been) widely taught.
The relationship which brings real relief is faith + salvation = (charitable)works, and this, in, with and through the Person of Jesus Christ alone.
No French (to read Cauvin in it's original language)?
With the soon to be famous M. Dawg (59 year degree - LOTS of clinical work) clarification of, "It's ALL GRACE! Grace do you hear? Grace. And I'm GLAD. Bwah hah hah hah hah hah!
In fact, the phrase "salvation by faith alone" has never been alien to Catholic theology. It was in fact always Catholic teaching that we can only be saved by Christ alone, that is is only God's unmerited, unmeritable grace that lifts us out of the state of sin and death into that of divine sonship, and that even the so-called "meritorious acts" which the redeemed perform in the state of justice are only "meritorious by grace," attributable, that is, the the love of Christ working in us and through us. Insofar as the justification of man is God's work alone, we could speak with Luther of "extrinsic" justice. It is indeed also interior and personal. Luther too, in that same commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, affirms that this extrinsic justice "dwells in us by faith and hope," that it is "in us" though it does not belong to us (in nobis est, non nostra), that it thus, according to the Council of Trent, "inheres" in justified men (atque ipsis inhaeret, sess, 6, cap. 7, can 11).
[Quoted in this truly exemplary site], full of good humor, wisdom, and piety, not to mention intelligence. (Please don't let's mention intelligence.)]
There's a problem. Yes there is. I really think that
Thanks for the account of ordination. The mainstream presbyterians are pretty much like the Episcopalians with the necessary substitutions.
In Hahn's case it was an "independent"(meaning no presbytery, no denomination...) 30-person (see above)Presbyterian church, which to denominational Presbyterians, is a lot like an "independent" Roman Catholic church, is to you...
I wonder if these groups clump into de facto presbyteries? Otherwise what's "presbyterian" about them in their minds?