Posted on 01/22/2013 1:41:25 PM PST by NYer
PARIS (Reuters) - Two leading Lutheran clerics have rejected suggestions from the Vatican that it could create a subdivision for converted Lutherans similar to its structures for Anglicans who join the Roman Catholic Church.
The dispute, concerning tiny numbers of believers but major issues in ecumenical relations, comes as the churches mark the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity this week.
Rev Martin Junge, the Chilean-born secretary general of the World Lutheran Federation (WLF), said in a statement that the suggestion caused great concern and would "send wrong signals to LWF member churches around the world."
Bishop Friedrich Weber, the German Lutheran liaison with the Catholic Church, said the idea was unthinkable and amounted to "an unecumenical incitement to switch sides."
The Vatican announced special structures for disaffected Anglicans in 2009, creating a so-called ordinariate so conservatives opposed to female and homosexual bishops could become Catholic while retaining some of their traditions.
Several thousand Anglicans, including dozens of priests and a few bishops, have joined ordinariates established in England, Australia and Canada. Married clergy are exempted from the obligatory celibacy of the Catholic priesthood.
Relations among Christian churches have improved greatly since the 1962-1965 Second Vatican Council and most now see each other more as partners than as competitors. A Catholic bishop attended an ecumenical service Weber celebrated last Sunday.
But this Vatican welcome has raised suspicions among some Protestants that the Catholic Church, which makes up half the world's 2.2 billion Christians, now wants to woo away believers from smaller churches torn by internal debate.
While the Vatican's opening to Anglicans followed years of bitter public splits in that church, few of the world's 75 million Lutherans seem interested in reunification with Rome.
Cardinal Kurt Koch, head of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, said the Vatican would consider creating an ordinariate if Lutherans asked for one.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
They all can do whatever they want--it has no effect on me at all.
Our last pastor taught Bible classes using the Greek Bible. God blessed me enormously to bring me to this Luteran Church Missouri Synod from the ELCA.
WOW!! You’ve nailed it.
Thanks for the ping, but no thanks. They can have the ECLA as far as I am concerned. I prefer to stay in the LCMS.
As discussed on the other thread, if I was an orthodox Catholic I would be very worried about this.
Kind of like I get worried when someone from Illinois moves next door. They left to get out of the cesspool, but they want to recreate it in their new home.
I have family stuck in the ELCA that may view this as a good option. They view the LCMS as to “orthodox/conservative”, and the Catholic church as liberal enough to suit their taste, without all the gay worship.
Think about that. They won’t got to the Missouri Synod because of its orthodoxy, but have no trouble with the Catholic church.
Thank Luther.
Do those many Lutherans who seem uninterested in reunification with "Rome" wish to stand in the way of the few that do? Are those many attempting to impose their interpretation of Scripture on the few?
I caught that too. Guess is the same thing like the majority of the people in our country being against 0 bummercare, but we got that shoved down our throats anyway. Just bend over and enjoy the same thing a few people want and don't gripe.
See #27, 30, 34
When Jesus said that Peter would be the rock on which his church was built, I really don't think he intended it to be the Mother of All Bureacracies!
Ok, it is decided then - we'll let the Unitarians have the ELCA.
What have you got against Unitarians?
Considering that the LCMS statement on the Pope is that he is an anti-Christ, I’d say there’s a bit of negotiating that may not go so well.
I can only agree with you on that, Cronos.
Regarding the presence of Christ among us in the sacrament, it is this simple for me. Jesus promised to be with us until the end of time itself, Matthew 28:20, the last word, as it were, of the first book of the New Testament. That promise is predicated on that which immediately precedes it. He promises to be with those who are baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and who have been taught to observe those things which He commanded. Well, the last thing He commanded - His last will and testament as it were - before His death was to “do this in remembrance of Me,” that is, to speak His words in His stead as He had just done over bread and wine and then eat and drink them in the assurance that they are just what He said of them: “Take, eat, this is My body,” and “drink of it all of you, this cup is the new testament in My blood.” The purpose of this eating and drinking according to Him is for the forgiveness of our sins, something that He would accomplish in less than 24 hours.
If these two things, His command(s) at the conclusion of Matthew’s gospel and His command(s) at the conclusion of His earthly ministry are divorced one from the other, it will be left to human speculation, and therefore mischief, as to how He will be present in our midst and for what purpose, how He will be with us until the end of time for each of us, after which we will face Him as Judge of all. Those denominations that like the moniker Protestant reflexively divorce these two things and then refuse to take His words at their face value, that is, for what they plainly say.
To deny the presence of Christ, God and man, among us in the sacrament, that is to say, His real presence among us, is for me an immediate sign of a person’s not dealing seriously with (or having been unwittingly misled in the use of) the Holy Scriptures and their plain meaning.
So.
Thanks for the picture of the Church of the Holy Trinity. I saved the .jpg (though better resolution would be nice). As for the German woman who taught you Polish there, good for her that she could do so, bad for her that she imagined that she could be a minister/pastor of Christ. For there also the Holy Scriptures speak very clearly. And their answer is, NO.
It defies reason, admittedly not always a reliable guide, to contemplate that Jesus might build His church on any person. Even human reason, and some appreciation for the innate fallibility of man, should compel us to know that Jesus intended/intends to build His church on the truth of Peter’s perceptive confession.
For those that believe any mortal man is the foundation of the Christian church, I pray for your conversion.
LOL, why not?
As a Lutheran who left the ELCA I do not appreciate being grouped together with them. I am a member of a Lutheran Church affiliated with the NALC and LCMC. I still do not want to be Catholic. Thought about it for a while though. Decided that I can confess my sins to G_d.
Well, the problem is that we should not over-simplify or just take a journalist word for it. the LCMS position, while not "Oh, yay Pope!" is neither "Bene has horns"
From their website -- www.lcms.org/Document.fdoc?src=lcm&id -- they say "The LCMS does not teach, nor has it ever taught, that any individual Pope as a person, is to be identified with the Antichrist. we affirm the Lutheran Confessions' identification of the Antichrist with the office of the papacy whose official claims continue to correspond to the Scriptural marks listed above. It is important, however, that we observe the distinction which the Lutheran Confessors made between the office of the pope (papacy) and the individual men who fill that office. The latter could be Christians themselves. We do not presume to judge any person's heart."
Note -- I am Catholic and I don't like the "we identify this with the office...", but that's their opinion and it's not a simplified 'Bene is the anti-Christ'.
Cold comfort, but there you have it, we're not in unity, but we can work together to better understand each other and as the LCMS themselves that they would re-evaluate, it's not a fixed deal.
Thanks for the thoughtful discussion.
Heh, yeah, I said that kind of as a bit of a joke. Seems the LCMS has changed their online statement on the Pope/anti-Christ thing since I read it years ago. I did ask my LCMS pastor about it not long after I read it. Based on his explanation, which pretty much fell in line with what the LCMS website now says, I don’t see how the LCMS could ever come into agreement with the Catholic church. The Pope thing seems to be such a large part of the Catholic church and all.
To the point that most people seemed to have a problem with, I don’t think Luther would like us being called Lutherans. I say it’s just a word to easily distinguish a group; like fat, skinny, black, etc. Of course people complain about those words too.
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