Posted on 01/27/2020 5:32:50 PM PST by ebb tide
January 27, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – Cardinal Kurt Koch, the President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, gave an interview to Vatican News in which he in part contradicts a German ecumenical document calling for intercommunion.
While also seeing the good parts of the German document, Koch says that the document is based on an “assumption” which he cannot share, “namely: that the Catholic Eucharistic celebration and the Protestant Last Supper are identical.” According to the Austrian website Kath.net, Vatican News, in its report on the interview, first called this statement by Koch a mere “thesis,” but it later changed its wording.
Speaking to Vatican News after Holy Mass in Manoppello, Italy, Cardinal Koch was asked about the German Ecumenical Working Group of Protestant and Catholic Theologians (Ökumenischer Arbeitskreis evangelischer und katholischer Theologen) which published, in September of 2019, a paper calling for intercommunion. The journalist requested from Koch that he comment on the statement of the Protestant theologian Professor Volker Leppin who argues that this September 2019 paper has such broad biblical and academic foundations that “he who wishes to argue against intercommunion, is in need of very strong arguments.”
While Koch praises some parts of the paper that deal with the “history of the development,” he objects to another part of it. He says that the paper is based on one “assumption, which I cannot share this way, namely: that the Catholic Eucharistic celebration and the Protestant Last Supper are identical.” He goes on to explain that this document always “speaks of Last Supper/Eucharist,” which implies that “everything is already clear. And that I cannot share.”
“There are many open questions with regard to the understanding of the Eucharist,” the Swiss cardinal continues, “for example, the thought of the Sacrifice does not even occur.” He also mentions that the “question of the office [ministry]” has not been clarified, since he sees a “contradiction” between that which is written in the text and the “practice” of the Evangelical Church itself.
“In Germany, for example,” Koch continues, “in the text which the EKD [Evangelical Church of Germany] issued on the occasion of the remembrance of the Reformation [in 2017], it says: the Reformation has introduced a completely new understanding of church. The new aspect is that now every baptized person can administer the sacraments. He is to be ordained only for the sake of external order.” Koch sees here a difference as to what this new September 2019 theological paper states and means. “I believe we still have to discuss these open questions.”
The September 2019 paper of the ecumenical working group – which is titled “Gemeinsam am Tisch des Herrn” (“Together at the Lord's Table”) – claims that, in the theological debates of the last decades, the differences of opinion that stem from the 16th century have been sufficiently discussed and clarified and that there is now “agreement” with regard to the “theological meaning of the Eucharist/Last Supper,” and that, “on that foundation, the diversity of liturgical traditions is being valued.” Therefore, the authors explain, the goal of this document is “to recognize and support all efforts which strengthen the theological meaning and which, on this basis, share the intention to celebrate the Last Supper/Eucharist together.” At the end, they conclude, “there is a vote for an opening of the different confessional celebrations of the Last Supper for Christians (male and female) of other traditions.”
The head of the German section of the official Vatican news service Vatican News, Stefan von Kempis, praised this 57-page-long document, pointing out that the document does not omit to mention the differences – such as the question of the “mutual acceptance of the offices [ministries]” – but adding that an agreement on the understanding of Baptism is already now “stronger than the differences with regard to the question of the office,” in the specific words of the document. Von Kempis also stressed the argument presented in the paper that Jesus had “promised to be present” among those who come “together in His name.” For this, there is no need to create a unified ceremony or liturgy, but, rather, it is important in the eyes of the ecumenical theologians to accept that the “fullness” of what Jesus has “instituted” is not to be found only “in one single form.”
Concludes von Kempis: “This is a sentence at which a Catholic first has to gulp. Nevertheless: an inspiring paper that leads us to further considerations! It has the potential to lead us to a closer unity. The Vatican will take attentive note of it, even if it might well abstain from making public comments.”
While the Vatican might not officially issue a commentary, the President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, Cardinal Koch, has now commented on this new document of last September.
But the comments by von Kempis might actually lie closer to the heart of Pope Francis who recently met with the Lutheran pastor of the Evangelical Church in Rome, Reverend Michael Jonas. At that meeting, Pope Francis has told Jonas, according to comments made by Jonas to LifeSiteNews, that “Catholics and Protestants are very close to one another in what they do in their public worship [Gottesdienst].” Pope Francis is also said to have mentioned that he knew of a case where a Catholic priest helped out a Protestant minister when he could not himself preside over his Lutheran liturgy of the word.
Moreover, in 2015, Pope Francis made comments to a Protestant wife of a Catholic, which appeared to “suggest,” in the words of National Catholic Register Rome correspondent Edward Pentin, “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.”
This ecumenical working group which issued the September 2019 document on intercommunion was jointly founded in 1946 by a Protestant and a Catholic bishop. Today, the group is presided over by Catholic Bishop Georg Bätzing (Limburg) and the Protestant former Bishop Martin Hein.
One of the two academic leaders of this Ecumenical Working Group of Protestant and Catholic Theologians who are calling for intercommunion is the Catholic theologian Professor Dorothea Sattler who has been appointed to be the head of the “Synodal Path's” discussion forum on women's access to Church ministries as organized by the German Bishops’ Conference. The second academic leader is the above-mentioned Protestant theologian Professor Volker Leppin.
One of the two academic leaders of this Ecumenical Working Group of Protestant and Catholic Theologians who are calling for intercommunion is the Catholic theologian Professor Dorothea Sattler who has been appointed to be the head of the “Synodal Path's” discussion forum on women's access to Church ministries as organized by the German Bishops’ Conference. The second academic leader is the above-mentioned Protestant theologian Professor Volker Leppin.
Ping
I was raised Catholic and became a born again Christian when I was 18, so I know a bit about both.
I’ve never heard it referred to as the Last Supper. Most believers refer to it as The Lord’s Supper.
Catholics believe that the bread and wine transubstantiate and become the literal body and blood of Jesus Christ.
Born again believers understand that the bread and wine is a symbol of Christ’s sacrificial bodily death on the cross, an incredibly painful execution done ultimately to pay the penalty for our sins.
So, if these guys can’t even use the correct terminology, I suspect they didn’t do a whole lot of actual biblical research before publishing.
As a conservative lutheran in LCMS, it certainly is not.
As a fellow LCMS elder, their Eucharist and ours may be close enough for government work, but not for confessional unity. The Catholic’s own G.K. Chesterton said that the difference between truth and error can be as slender as a hair, and such is the difference between transubstantiation and the Real Presence. We can stand together on any number of issues, as we did last weekend in the March to Life, but sadly intercommunion is not one of them.
Religiosity
Jesus would be/is embarrassed/ashamed.
“Get behind me, Satan!
Matthew 16:23
“Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.””
It is tragic that you left the Faith at such a young age before you were able to acquire an adult understanding of the Church's teaching.
"Catholics believe that the bread and wine transubstantiate and become the literal body and blood of Jesus Christ."
The bread and wine don't "transubstantiate". The Catholic Church does not teach that the bread and wine "literally" become the body and blood of Christ (otherwise it would become an exact copy of Christ's flesh as it was when he walked the earth), but that the bread and wine cease to become bread and wine in everything but appearance and become really and in substance his Body and Blood. This change is what is called transubstantiation.
"Born again believers understand that the bread and wine is a symbol of Christ’s sacrificial bodily death on the cross, an incredibly painful execution done ultimately to pay the penalty for our sins."
Born again Catholic believers also believe it is a symbol, but not JUST a symbol.
This born again believer understands that when Jesus says, "This is my body," He meant it--and I learned that as a Methodist, studying what Wesley wrote about the Eucharist, which led in part to my eventually joining the LCMS.
Well when you can’t even agree on what grace is and how it works...
You mean at the words of consecration by an validly ordained Catholic priest (only) unleavened (only) wheat bread (only) and fermented wine (only) from the juice of grapes (only) cease to exist, having become the "true body" and blood of Christ, "being corporeally present whole and entire in His physical 'reality'” in each and every particle down to the smallest visible (emphasis on visible) one. Consequently,eating and drinking are to be understood of the actual partaking of Christ in person, hence literally” though via "a supernatural mode of existence."
Until that it, the non-existent bread or wine respectively, manifests (emphasis on visibility) decay/corruption, at which point the Eucharistic christ also ceases to exist under that form, thus nothing exists.
Sources and more in refutation , by the grace of God.
My, My, how very sad that Christians must be in conflict with each other when all of this is not much more than a political/historical issue created by men and not God. Get out of your church buildings and start inviting non-believers to know Christ. Build your churches, not in brick and mortar, but in sharing Christian acts. Become fishers of men before this nation collapses in its sin. As a protestant, I lived for twenty years in a region with only catholic churches. I took communion more than twice a week as some of you would judge, illegitimately, but my focus was on a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, not the host or the wine, not the liturgy or the trappings of the church. It worked for me and if it polluted the church, they never knew it.
Neither is sacrifice found in a Passover meal.
(Unless you count the lamb.)
"Behold; the Lamb of GOD, which takes away the sin of the world."
4 It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
5 Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said:
“Sacrifice and offering you did not desire,
but a body you prepared for me;
6 with burnt offerings and sin offerings
you were not pleased.
7 Then I said, ‘Here I am—it is written about me in the scroll—
I have come to do your will, my God.’”[a]
8 First he said, “Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them”—though they were offered in accordance with the law. 9 Then he said, “Here I am, I have come to do your will.” He sets aside the first to establish the second. 10 And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
Boy!
I am sure glad you cleared THAT up!!
THIS born again believer understands that when Jesus says, "You brood of vipers," He DIDN'T mean it-
The basic difference is that the RCC teaches the sacrifice of Christ is a perpetual event that never ceases. Protestants generally believe that the sacrifice was a single event that transcended time, past, present, and future.
Rather, all of this IS much more than a political/historical issue created by men, for it flow from doctrine created by men, of distinctive Catholic teachings are not manifest in the only wholly inspired substantive authoritative record of what the NT church believed (which is Scripture, especially Acts thru Revelation. and which best shows how the NT church understood the OT and gospels).
. Get out of your church buildings and start inviting non-believers to know Christ. Build your churches, not in brick and mortar, but in sharing Christian acts
Although you mean well with your reproof, the reality is that when a org. teaches that their particular church is the one true church, to whom all are to submit, despite it being the single most manifest deformation of the NT church, then just as in dealing with elitist cults, then what they preach becomes in issue in the interest of saving souls.
Meaning,
Yet not as a body "sensible, visible, tangible, or extended, although it is such in heaven, but under a "new mode of being." " (John A. Hardon, S.J., Doctrine of the Real Presence in the Encyclical "Mediator Dei") Thus "If you took the consecrated host to a laboratory it would be chemically shown to be bread, not human flesh." (Dwight Longenecker, "Explaining Transubstantiation") Thus persons with celiac disease can suffer adverse effects to the non-existent gluten in the non-existent bread, and one could get drunk on the wine if consumed in sufficient quantity).
Which metaphysical interpretation (transubstantiation) is simply nowhere taught in Scripture but which was contrived in order to explain the inability of Catholic priests to actually effect what would be a purely literal understanding of the words Catholicism uses to justify her false Eucharistic christ.
And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. (1 Corinthians 11:24)
I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world . (John 6:51)
For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. (Matthew 26:28)
For taken literally, and with the stress that both the New Testament as well as RC Eucharistic theology places upon appearance in ascertaining the true Christ, then taken literally such words would mean that what the apostles consumed at the last supper was manifestly the same manifestly physical incarnated, crucified Christ (which would scientifically test to be human) that the NT emphasizes, including in contrasting the Christ of Scripture to a christ whose appearance did not correspond to what His body materially was (as is the case with the Eucharistic christ):
Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have. (Luke 24:39)
"That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life," (1 John 1:1)
"This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth." (1 John 5:6)
"Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world." (1 John 4:2-3)
Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing. (John 20:27)
Yet Catholics imagine (blind faith alone) that non-existent bread and wine, which would scientifically test to be bread and wine, is really the body and blood of Christ, "the very body which he gave up for us on the cross, the very blood which he "poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins,"(CCC 1365) with His human body and human soul, with His bodily organs and limbs and with His human mind, will and feelings. (John A. Hardon, S.J., Part I: Eucharistic Doctrine on the Real Presence)
And for those who invoke purported "Eucharistic miracles" for support, these are not consistent with what the Real Presence via transubstantiation means. Francis Clark, S.J. states that Thomas Aquinas (a "doctor of the church"), considered the issue of such purported miraculous manifestations of the physical flesh of Christ in the hosts, and explained that what appeared on those occasions,
could not be the real flesh and blood of Christ, for such a possibility was excluded by the nature of transubstantiation and of Christ’s sacramental presence ; but they were miraculous representations produced by divine power as tokens to direct men’s thoughts to, and to strengthen their belief in, the true flesh and blood of Christ invisibly present under the Eucharistic species. When Catholic theologians today discuss such miracles they are rightly very cautious about the question of fact, which, they point out, must be examined with rigorous canons of historical criticism in each particular instance ; on the doctrinal question they teach that in any such apparitions it is not the true blood or tissue of Christ that appears, but, as St Thomas held, a representative sign caused by divine power ('Bleeding hosts' and Eucharistic theology, Francis Clark, S.J., p. 219-20,22)
Also, besides the fact that nowhere is conducting the Lord's supper shown or taught to be a unique function of unscripturalCatholic priests or NT pastors, or the Lord's supper being described as being a sacrifice for sins, it is also nowhere shown or taught in Acts thru Revelation (which are interpretive of the gospels) to be spiritual food, nor is spiritual life to be obtained by literally physically consuming anything.
In-stead, spiritual life is obtained by hearing the gospel and truly believing the gospel message. (Acts 2:38; 10:43-47; 15:7-9; Eph. 1:13)
And it is by preaching the word of grace that pastors foster growing in grace, by receiving "the sincere milk of the word," (1 Pt. 2:2) and ingesting its "meat," (1Co. 3:2; Heb. 5:12,13) being "nourished" (1Tim. 4:6) and built up by the word, (Acts 20:32) and with feeding the flock thereby being the primary active function of pastors. (Acts 20:32)
As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby: (1 Peter 2:2)
I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able. (1 Corinthians 3:2)
Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. (Acts 20:28)
And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified. (Acts 20:32)
If thou put the brethren in remembrance of these things, thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine, whereunto thou hast attained. (1 Timothy 4:6)
Thus those who seek to impose Catholic Eucharistic theology upon the NT church should be asked:
Where in all of Scripture did Jesus Christ appear as an inanimate object, which by all tests of physicality would be just that? 0
Where in Scripture is the manifest physicality of Christ emphasized as establishing who the real Christ was, in contrast to one whose bodily appearance did not correspond to what He physically was? (Is. 53; Lk. 24:39; John 20:27; 1 John 4:2; 5:6,8)
Where in all of Scripture did the words of the Lord's supper necessarily teach that the body that "is broken" and the blood that is shed, appeared as bread and wine, rather than literally appearing as the manifestly physical flesh and blood that was bruised and shed? 0
Where in Scripture is actual water referred to as blood, and thus poured out unto the Lord, and bread referred to as bread for the people of God, and the body of Christ as the church being bread? (2 Samuel 23:16-17; Num. 14:9)
Where in all of Scripture is spiritual life obtained by literally physically consuming anything? 0
Where in Acts and the apostles teaching in the NT (these being interpretive of the gospels) is spiritual life obtained by hearing and effectually believing the gospel of the grace of God? Acts 10:43; 15:7-9; Eph. 1:13)
Where from Acts onward in the NT is communion/partakers with the object of religious feasts and each other realized by literally consuming the flesh of the object of worship? 0
Where from Acts onward in the NT is communion/partakers with the object of religious feasts and each other realized by sharing a meal together ("feast of charity") in a way that effectually evidences remembrance? (1 Cor. 10,11 )
Where are distinctive Greek word for a separate class of sacerdotal believers (hiereus; archiereus; hieráteuma) distinctively used for NT pastors? 0
Where is a distinctive Greek word (hieráteuma) for a separate class of sacerdotal believers used for all believers? (1Pt. 2:5,9; Re 1:6; 5:10; 20:6).
Where from Acts onward in the NT are church pastors charged with or exampled uniquely conducting the Lord's supper and offering it up as a sacrifice for sins and dispensing it to the people as spiritual food? 0
Where from Acts onward in the NT are church pastors charged with or exampled as preaching the Word and feeding the flock with the Word which is called spiritual food ("milk," "meat") by which they are nourished? (Acts 20:28; 1Pt. 5:2 ;1Co. 3:22; 1Pt. 1:22; Heb. 5:12-14; 1 Timothy 4:6; Acts 20:32
Much more by the grace of God. Only the metaphorical understanding easily conforms to Scripture overall.
Okay, here is a question for you and any other Catholic who wants to answer.
What God-given satisfaction and enjoyment do you believe you get out of your beliefs on the Lord’s Supper? Include whatever you believe faithful Protestants don’t get.
I know I get great joy and satisfaction out of participating in the Lord’s Supper and part of that comes from recognizing that it’s all the most amazing work of the Lord. Like man is God’s crown on Creation, the sacrifice of God’s Son on the Cross after He became one of us and was put to death by us, yet He loves us regardless, is God’s crowning work.
So the Lord’s Supper, in which we remember this work of supreme divine love for us who are so unworthy is very meaningful to me, and I believe it to be a symbol but also more than that, in that it’s spiritual and in some way we’re partaking of God’s divine nature as spirit.
But the Catholic beliefs on the Lord’s Supper (what Paul called it) don’t have that appeal to me. I judge them to be religious, and the beliefs themselves and the experience not to carry the same joy and satisfaction of how the Lord’s Supper is celebrated in faithful Protestant churches.
And what I mean by joy and satisfaction here is clear in the Gospel and the promises of God as revealed in His Word. His Word itself is deeply and uniquely and supremely enjoyable and satisfying and inspiring to believers, while hardened unbelievers can hear the Gospel their whole lives and read the Bible, even be “biblical scholars” for decades, but still completely miss the joy and satisfaction because of the stubborn unbelief in their hearts that causes them to always reject Christ.
So think of all the enjoyable and satisfying knowledge of God and all things that He’s given us through His Word, which also instructs us on becoming more intimate with Him, and brings us awe and such spiritual wonder. Imagine if we were without knowledge of the Gospel and didn’t have the Bible, as some peoples are still today. We’re blessed beyond measure by what God has given to us and continues to give us through them, and He gives us incomparable enjoyment and satisfaction through them, providing the food for our spiritual hunger.
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