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Posted on 01/21/2020 6:21:48 PM PST by ebb tide
January 21, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – On January 10, Pope Francis granted a private audience to Reverend Michael Jonas, pastor of the Lutheran Evangelical Community in Rome. In a subsequent interview with the official website of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), evangelisch.de, Jonas reports on his conversation with the Pope, saying that the Pope “stressed” that “Catholics and Protestants are very close to one another in what they do in their public worship [Gottesdienst].”
He also reported that the Pope then referred to an incident where a Catholic priest helped a Lutheran minister in celebrating a liturgy of the word for his Lutheran community.
This interview with evangelisch.de had sparked interest both in German-speaking and English-speaking outlets.
The minister’s claim that the Pope told him that the Catholic Mass and a Lutheran worship service are very similar is causing a stir in some Catholic circles. The Catholic Church teaches that Jesus Christ is truly present in the Holy Eucharist and that during Mass there takes place an unbloody sacrifice of Our Lord. Lutherans, in general, however, do not believe in the Real Presence of Our Lord, nor in His unbloody sacrifice at Mass. Lutherans also do not pray for the Pope and the bishops of the Catholic Church, nor do they invoke the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mother and of all the saints during their worship ceremony.
LifeSiteNews reached out to Reverend Jonas, asking him for confirmation of this earlier Evangelisch.de interview and for clarification concerning a passage of the evangelisch.de interview which seems to indicate that it was the Pope himself who had once helped out with the public worship of a Lutheran pastor in the north of Europe.
However, in response to LifeSite's request, Dr. Jonas clarified that the Pope told him that “he experienced [in the Baltics] that, from the side of the Catholics, one helped out Lutherans with their liturgy of the word.” That is to say, a Catholic priest helped out a Lutheran minister by presiding over a Lutheran liturgy of the word.
As the comments by Dr. Jonas indicate, this comment was made by Pope Francis in a positive sense and with respect to the closeness of Lutherans and Catholics in their public worship, rather than in a negative sense. The Pope has not “explicitly” said that he himself had once replaced a Lutheran minister, Jonas explained to LifeSiteNews, thereby correcting his earlier Evangelisch.de interview. Jonas says now from the way the Pope talked about this incident, it was not clear whether he himself performed that Lutheran liturgy of the word or, rather, another Catholic priest.
Dr. Jonas is the pastor of the same Lutheran Evangelical Community which Pope Francis had visited in November of 2015. During that visit, Pope Francis caused “controversy by appearing to suggest that a Lutheran wife of a Catholic husband could receive Holy Communion based on the fact that she is baptized and in accordance with her conscience,” in the words of Rome Correspondent Edward Pentin.
During a question and answer session at that meeting, a Lutheran woman had told the Pope that her husband and she cannot receive together Holy Communion because she is not Catholic. The Pope first answered with the words: “It’s a problem each must answer, but a pastor-friend once told me: 'We believe that the Lord is present there, he is present. You all believe that the Lord is present. And so what’s the difference?' — 'Eh, there are explanations, interpretations.' Life is bigger than explanations and interpretations. Always refer back to your baptism. 'One faith, one baptism, one Lord.' This is what Paul tells us, and then take the consequences from there. I wouldn’t ever dare to allow this, because it’s not my competence. One baptism, one Lord, one faith. Talk to the Lord and then go forward. I don’t dare to say anything more.”
Not long after this incident, in January of 2016, a group of Finnish Lutherans received Holy Communion at St. Peter's Basilica. They had come to a Holy Mass with their bishop, Samuel Salmi, who had had a private audience that day with Pope Francis. During that Mass, after the Lutherans had approached the communion rail with their arms crossed in order to ask for a blessing, the priest insisted on giving them Holy Communion. The Finnish bishop later told Kotimaa 24 that “I myself accepted it [Holy Communion],” adding that “this was not a coincidence,” and that is was not a coincidence either when, two months earlier, the Pope had seemed to accept the idea of a Lutheran woman receiving communion with her Catholic husband.
Reverend Jonas, when meeting with Pope Francis on January 10, also spoke about the refugee crisis in Europe, the importance of ecumenism, and the loss of faith in Europe. This he told Vatican News. Speaking about the rising secularism in Europe, the Pope said that it was important to learn to proclaim the Gospel in “very elementary forms,” Jonas explains and then continues: “He [the Pope] also made this for me very impressive statement: 'The danger of the churches is the empty moralism.' That we tell people how one should do things and that we erect big moral edifices of thought but then are defective when it comes to the concrete implementation and the witness. Here, we should perhaps return to simple signals of mercy that are understandable for all.”
When Jonas invited Pope Francis to come and visit the Lutheran Evangelical community in Rome again, the Pope answered: “I am always available to you!”
Ping
Patently, false considering the three main branches of the Lutheran church.
Francis might benefit from some defenders on this thread.
No thanks. He’s a heretic in my mind, and I can’t wait for him to be gone!
Not so much actually. The Lutheran Divine Service is based on the Catholic pre-Tridentine Mass.
Are you cross threading or just stalking us?
And it’s quite ironic that someone is accusing us of defending the pope whose tagline says that they would drink to the pope.
I’m guessing that would be enlightening to Henry the 8th.
The confessional Lutheran Church does believe Christ is truly present in His Supper but does not believe in transubstantiation, does not worship the elements or believe in an ongoing sacrifice of Christ. The confessional Lutheran Church would have nothing to do with sharing altars or pulpits with the Roman Church. The Lutherans being referred to here are the apostate liberal denominations.
“Stalking”?
ROTFLOL
You will not find prayers to Mary or saints or adoration of the elements of communion in any conservative Lutheran service
The old Lutheran service was essentially a generic catholic.
I grew up as a Lutheran and left when they started down the leftist road.
I also went to many catholic services via weddings, and they were nearly identical except for the kneeling.
Wrong. Missouri Synod Lutherans teach the Real Presence because Jesus says, “This is my body,” and “This is my blood.”
I think there are some insurmountable differences, but at the same time, I do think Christian denominations should focus more on their similarities than their differences in the modern world - we have to hold the line against an increasingly non-religious society and there are many times we should be friends and allies to each other.
Ummm.. No. Not so much. I know us Baptists have a Jim and Tammy Faye Baker show up once in a while, but they do are NOT the norm, nor the standard. The heart of the Baptist church (not the Southern Baptist Convention, mind you) aligns itself with the reformation and reformation teaching. Indeed, there are many Presbyterian churches that recognize the reformation (See: R.C. Sproul). Accurate theological teaching is out there if one looks for it.
I may not be terribly fond of Francis, but he hasn’t been enough to turn me into a Baptist. So I can still drink to him.
For what it is worth, the tagline is a quote from now St. John Henry Newman in his famous letter to the Duke of Norfolk, where he attempts to articulate how far respect for the Pope should go.
From Pius IX through Benedict XVI was, on the whole, an incredible run from many perspectives, which may have led people to become comfortable with a somewhat abnormal ecclesiology. Whatever Francis other virtues, he certainly has caused people to think more carefully in these areas.
And the Catholic Church ain’t it. Not even close.
This is the result of the poison fruit of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), the goal of which was to conform the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church to the teachings and doctrines and ecclesiology of mainline Protestantism. That is why VC-II is also known as the Satan Council.
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