Posted on 06/27/2014 3:58:36 PM PDT by NYer
Two prominent Fort Worth-based Christian ministers led a delegation of Evangelical Christian leaders to Rome to meet privately with Pope Francis.
James and Betty Robison, co-hosts of the Life Today television program, and Kenneth Copeland, co-host of Believer’s Voice of Victory, met the Roman Pontiff at the Vatican on Tuesday. The meeting lasted almost three hours and included a private luncheon with Pope Francis.
Mr. Robison told the Fort Worth Star Telegram, “This meeting was a miracle…. This is something God has done. God wants his arms around the world. And he wants Christians to put his arms around the world by working together.”
Mr. Robison said he was impressed by Pope Francis’ humility and courtesy to the visiting delegation of Evangelical Protestant Christian leaders.
In a written statement, Mr. Robison said he believes “the prayers of earnest Christians helped lead to the choice of Pope Francis.” He described Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the Argentine Archbishop chosen as Pope, as “a humble man…filled with such love for the poor, downtrodden…”
In addition to Mrs. Betty Robison, the high-profile Protestant delegation included Kenneth Copeland, co-founder of Kenneth Copeland Ministries in Newark, TX; Reverend Geoff Tunnicliff, CEO of the World Evangelical Alliance; Rev. Brian Stiller and Rev. Thomas Schirrmacher, also from the World Evangelical Alliance; and Rev. John Arnott and his wife, Carol, co-founders of Partners for Harvest ministries in Toronto, Canada. Gloria Copeland did not travel to Rome because of a previously scheduled commitment.
The ecumenical meeting in Rome was organized by Episcopal Bishop Tony Palmer. Rev. Palmer is an ordained bishop in the Communion of Evangelical Episcopal Churches, a break-away alliance of charismatic Anglican-Episcopal churches. Bishop Palmer is also the Director of The Ark Community, an international interdenominational Convergent Church online community, and is a member of the Roman Catholic Ecumenical Delegation for Christian Unity and Reconciliation.
Bishop Palmer developed a friendship with Pope Francis when the future Roman Pontiff was a Catholic official in Argentina. Prior to becoming a CEEC bishop, Rev. Palmer was the director of the Kenneth Copeland Ministries’ office in South Africa. He is married to an Italian Roman Catholic woman. He later moved to Italy and began working to reconcile Roman Catholics and Protestants. Kenneth Copeland Ministries was one of Mr. Palmer’s first financial contributors over 10 years ago in support of his ecumenical work in Italy.
Earlier this year, Pope Francis called Bishop Palmer to invite him to his residence in Vatican City. During the meeting, Bishop Palmer suggested that the Pope record a personal greeting on Mr. Palmer’s iPhone to be delivered to Kenneth Copeland. Mr. Copeland showed the Papal video greeting to a conference of Protestant ministers who were meeting at Mr. Copeland’s Eagle Mountain International Church near Fort Worth, TX. In the video, Pope Francis expressed his desire for Christian unity with Protestants.
Later, James Robison telecasted the video on his daily TV program, Life Today. “The pope, in the video, expressed a desire for Protestants and Catholics to become what Jesus prayed for — that Christians would become family and not be divided,” Mr. Robison said the response to the video was very positive, and that Pope Francis asked Bishop Palmer whether a meeting could be arranged with Evangelical Protestants seeking Christian unity in the world.
In his written statement released after the Papal meeting, Mr. Robison said he was “blessed to be part of perhaps an unprecedented moment between evangelicals and the Catholic Pope.” He described the Protestant delegation’s private meeting with the leader of the Roman Catholic Church as “an intimate circle of prayerful discussion and lunch to discuss not only seeing Jesus’ prayer answered, but that every believer would become a bold, joy-filled witnesses for Christ.
In describing the ecumenical gathering as a miracle, Mr. Robison said, “This is something God has done. God wants his arms around the world. And he wants Christians to put his arms around the world by working together.”
During the luncheon on Tuesday, Mr. Robison got a high-five from Pope Francis after the Pope and Protestant guests talked about the need for all people to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. According to the Life Today host, the Roman Pontiff did not know what a high-five was until Bishop Palmer explained it to him in Italian. Mr. Robison said, “The Pope made it very clear that he wanted every believer to become Spirit-filled, joy-filled witnesses.”
Mr. Robison said Pope Francis had written recently, “Too many Catholics look like they’ve been to Lent with no Easter. It’s a mistake for them to look like they’ve been to a funeral” as he challenged Catholics to witness and never try to control the Holy Spirit, but yield to Him.
Mr. Robison said he received a divine call from God to seek Christian unity while he was hospitalized several years ago with a serious staph infection following hip surgery. Robison recalled, “[I] was so weak I could not lift a cup of water to my lips…God got my full attention…He spoke to me through Isaiah 58:6-12 and I saw the importance of living in freedom, touching the suffering, the hungry, poor, and downtrodden. I recognized the promise that our prayers would be answered quickly and we would become a free-flowing stream and a well-watered garden, restoring the foundations upon which we must build. During that time God instructed me to focus my attention on Jesus’ prayer and encouraging others to begin fulfilling it through us in our day.”
During that time, he said, he was impressed by a prayer of Jesus in John 17:21, pleading that all Christian believers be one. “We’ve tried to focus on being an answer to Jesus’ prayer,” Robison said. “We want to see Jesus’ prayer for unity answered in our day.”
Aware that the meeting with the Pope will be troublesome among staunch Protestants, Mr. Robison said he and the other visiting Evangelical Christian leaders talked about diversity and their belief that Roman Catholics and Protestants could work together without compromising their beliefs.
“The world is suffering,” said Robison. “We as Christians have too much love to share without fighting one another.”
Mr. Robison said he and other “respected Evangelical leaders and Spirit-filled Catholics began meeting together to pray for God’s will to be done and to bring true believers together in supernatural unity….We have been commanded to love God with all of our heart and our neighbors as ourselves. The enemy has kept many Christians from loving one another as Christ loves us and have failed to recognize the importance of supernatural unity even with all of the unique diversity.”
Mr. Robison, whose ministry digs water wells and supplies food for impoverished people in third-world nations, recounted that he was christened as a fatherless boy in an Episcopal Church. As an adult, he joined the Southern Baptist Church. In the 1980s, he became one of the first prominent Southern Baptist ministers to openly proclaim he had received the baptism o
I got mine at a used book sale for Right to Life for less than $7.00. It’s the old 1966-67 version! What a find!
Excellent links. Thank you.
To be honest, until much recent posts, NEVER heard of Mr. Copeland being into the prosperity Gospel, which I do in a very much despise. That type of Gospel is not what the general Christian community NEEDS or WANTS because it is a big distortion.
It would be worth your while to just peruse the links and see where he’s gone off the track.
Like most of the current Pentecostal/Charismatic crowd, he is big into prophecy and has made many predictions which have not come to pass. There is a real lack of discernment in that crowd and they are too quick to make prophecies without considering the implications when they are wrong.
Being a prophet is a serious calling and a prophet of God will never be wrong. It is not a calling I would want to jump on the band wagon for and yet, that is all the rage in the Pentecostal/Charismatic, name it and claim it crowd.
According to Scripture, his failed prophecies make him a false prophet and he should not be listened to. I would not want to be in his shoes when he stands before God.
FWIW, I have no use for the vast majority of that branch of Christianity. What I see is that they are experience junkies and that’s not what our Christian walk is to be based on.
In front of non-Catholics, both as a cardinal and as a pope, he has preached a different tune.
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I've said it before, unlike St. Thomas More, the Man for all Seasons, Pope Francis is a man for all religions.
The only protestants a pope should meet with are those that want to convert to Catholicism. End of story.
ebb tide:
Pope Benedict was my style of Pope, great theologian and one who had a great love for Liturgy. Pope Francis, a Jesuit, is a Pope who will meet with anyone, Jews, Palestinian-Muslims, Pentecostals, evangelicals, and of course with Eastern Orthodox. But one must look, the nature of the meetings are different depending on how Catholic Theology views those groups. With the Orthodox, their is almost full-communion without communion being shared. With evangelicals and Pentecostals, prayer and working together where we can work together, working against abortion, working to help struggling families, etc, and with the Jews and Palestinian-Muslims, a meeting for peace.
That is his pastoral style. Some like it some don’t. Despite that, Pope Francis has not uttered one statement that challenges fundamental Catholic Doctrine. So lets just look at this for what it is, a Pope meeting evangelical-Pentecostal American Christians. Meeting each other is not a bad thing, does not mean The Pope compromised Catholic Doctrine, because he did not.
Again, among Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict and Pope Francis, I would say Benedict’s style appealed to most, the Late John Paul II next, and Pope Francis the least among the three. Nevertheless, they are all Pope and I respect the office of the Bishop of Rome/Pope even if the current occupant might not fit my pastoral style. In that sense, true faith in Christ promise to Saint Peter that the gates of hell would not prevail over the Church still apply, even when Pope’s do foolish things are sinful things.
As One Cardinal told Napoleon after he conquered Europe when Napoleon stated something to the effect, now that I have conquered Europe, I will destroy the Church to which the Cardinal replied if we Bishops and Cardinals have not managed to do so in 1,800 years, what makes you think you can do so in your lifetime.
Pope Francis has challenged fundamental Catholic doctrine: raising and entertaining the sacrilegious notion that divorced and remarried might be able to receive Holy Communion. As a matter of fact, he used the Eastern Orthodox, whom you mentioned in your post as being in"almost full-communion" with Roman Catholic Church, as an example.
If any religion is compromising their beliefs, it's Pope Francis trying to do it to the Roman Catholic religion.
lol... I'm just funnin' with you. Teasing.
Now skipping to the last, to see if there can be a bit more wrung out;
Oh, I see, so that T.V. Pentecostal Copeland really IS part of The Church, for try as he might, he hasn't been able to destroy it sort-of from the inside any more than Bishops and Cardinals have.
Imagine that -- and that's an order.
Thank you for the compliment. Fortunately (?) I have a wife and children to remind me what little I know.
Having read the document, I can see your point. Clearly, Pius XI is speaking out against unity for unity’s sake. He is also speaking out against a “federation” of Christians, where there is no leader, a pan-Christianity.
Where we diverge, is in what gravity we apply to the prayer “event.” In my opinion, each man making his own appeal to the Father is a good thing. Should there been some other “global church” thing, that would have been a problem.
By inviting non-Catholics to Rome, I think Pope Francis is following the spirit of Pius XI, and going one step further, inviting them.
“You, Venerable Brethren, understand how much this question is in Our mind, and We desire that Our children should also know, not only those who belong to the Catholic community, but also those who are separated from Us: if these latter humbly beg light from heaven, there is no doubt but that they will recognize the one true Church of Jesus Christ and will, at last, enter it, being united with us in perfect charity.”
The truth as revealed by Jesus Christ to His apostles and past down through the centuries.
LOL, very good.
ebb tide:
With respect to the Eastern Orthodox, I am 48 years old and as long as I can remember, the Roman Missal has always stated that the Catholic Church does not forbid Orthodox Christians from partaking of the Eucharist in the Catholic Church. So the issue at hand is as follows: 1) A divorced and re-married Eastern Orthodox Christian could in theory and practice receive Communion in a Catholic Church. Now, under Eastern Theology with respect to the Sacrament of Marriage, I am no expert and my knowledge is limited but that Eastern Orthodox Christian who was married, divorced and remarried in the Orthodox Church could receive communion in a Catholic Eucharist.
2) A Catholic who is divorced and remarried can’t, unless the decree of annulment was granted with respect to the first marriage, which in theological terms [not civil, state, and federal law terms] states, the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony did not exist.
To be fair, Pope Francis has not challenged anything, theologians of various opinions have raised this issue that I mentioned above and if you stop and think about it, it does present an interesting dichotomy.
The Cardinal’s name was Consalvi. I think the substance of his statement was captured by what I wrote, although I don’t have the exact quote in front of me.
What a joke indeed. There is a day coming soon that those who followed the Catholic Church will rue the day.
You forgot your sarcasm tag! Those who abide in Heaven are outside of time and space, so no real problem there.
Our Brothers and Sisters in Heaven are glad to help us, as we are all part of the Mystical Body of Christ.
BlueDragon:
I am not a fan of Copeland and the prosperity Protestant groups whatsoever. So even if this was a misguided invitation, and I am not saying it is or was, my point was more to the note that Pope Francis sometimes does things off the cuff that make you go hmmmmmmmmmmm. Again, as a loyal Catholic, I sort of expected a different approach with Pope Francis given he is a Jesuit. The Doctrine of Infallibility is the guarantee of Christ to the Church that the Holy Spirit will not let the Church teach heresy. It does not prevent the Church and Popes from doing stupid things pastorally and administratively.
Same goes for Copeland.
I may be wrong, but I thought divorced/communion thing was Cardinal Kasper, and not the Pope himself. I am aware he has been called the “Pope’s theologian,” but wouldn’t necessarily hang it around his neck.
BlueDragon:
Well, it does depend on your perspective doesn’t it. I guess there might be some prosperity Gospel Protestants shaking their heads as to why Copeland would pay a visit to the Pope just as their are some Catholics shaking their heads as to how he got an invitation in the first place!!!
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