Posted on 04/23/2003 7:51:54 PM PDT by Land of the Irish
A friend of mine recently (April 11-13, 2002) attended the 11th Annual Wheaton College Theology Conference, an event that featured addresses by such figures as J.I. Packer, Timothy George, William Shea, Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, and Francis Cardinal George. As a subscriber to First Things, and a big fan of Fr. Neuhaus, my friend was most excited and anxious for me to hear a tape of Fr. Neuhaus' address, "A Personal Retrospective on the Conversation between Evangelicals and Catholics." Having quite recently been engaged in several conversations with my Baptist father on the nature of justification, as understood and explained by the Council of Trent, and knowing that Fr. Neuhaus is one of the leaders of the ECT movement, I was interested to hear what he had to say.
I listened to the tape on a long Sunday drive to the nearest Traditional Mass, a drive which, because it is so long and inconvenient, always pushes the glaring differences between modern Catholicism and Traditional Catholicism to the front of my mind. "Why is it that I have to drive an hour to hear the Latin Mass said? Why is it, again, that I never feel quite at home at the New Mass? Is the current Vatican apparatus really defending the true faith, or were my Protestant friends right, that the Church I had read about during my conversion to Catholicism no longer exists in the modern world?" With these sorts of difficulties already at the forefront, I listened as Fr. Neuhaus, in his rich, sweet, contemplative baritone voice, reminded me again exactly why it is that I wonder, when I look at the Novus Ordo "storefront," if I've really left my Protestant background. What do I have to do to join the Roman Catholic Church? I don't know, but I have a feeling that if Fr. Neuhaus has his way, no one will ever be able to join the Roman Catholic Church again.
I was so shocked and disturbed by the message coming out of Fr. Neuhaus' mouth, I decided to transcribe it, write a critique of it, and put it in the public forum for all to behold. This sort of thing should be widely published, so that any Catholic who cares can discover what is the plan of the ECT, and what are the Church's hopes for the distant future. My dear friend, if you love your Catholic faith, and if the prospect of your children or grandchildren growing up in a "Civilization of Love" that is almost entirely devoid of shameless Catholicism frightens you, then please listen now: the plan of the ECT (which claims to have the full approval of the Vatican), with the help of other pan-denominational, pan-faith, pan-religious organizations, is to eliminate Catholicism in toto. Fr. Neuhaus admits as much in this address. I invite you to read the following citations from Fr. Neuhaus' address, along with my commentary, and then make a truly informed decision regarding what must be your response to the stated direction and goal of the ECT. Ladies and Gentlemen, Fr. Richard John Neuhaus…
"Thank you so very much, it's a great pleasure to be here at Wheaton once again… where we've been before. Actually, before, Chuck Colson and I got together in what is currently ECT (Evangelicals and Catholics Together), we had some meetings here at Wheaton, with - I remember very well, in the Billy Graham Center, just right next door here - Tim LaHaye. Tim LaHaye was there. And Tim says, "Do you jog?" And I said, "Sure, I jog." Tim jogged… oh! Next morning, about 6:00, "Let's go, Richard, let's go!" You know, running down the highway… I came back - the police brought me back, actually."
This should be the first red warning flag, especially for anyone who has come into the Catholic Church from a Fundamentalist Protestant background. For those of you who are fortunate enough to be cradle Catholics, allow me to fill you in: Tim LaHaye is deeply anti-Catholic. A graduate of Bob Jones University (no comment necessary), LaHaye has written repeatedly against the Catholic Church, most recently in his books Revelation Unveiled, and Are We Living in the End Times? He is a "theologian" whose major focus is prophecy and the "end times," and like most Fundamentalist prophecy buffs, he loves to identify the Whore of Babylon (see St. John's Apocalypse, Chapter 17) with Catholicism. LaHaye claims, in Are We Living in the End Times?, that Roman Catholicism is an "unholy mixture" of true religion and false religion, the latter of which, he says, evidences itself in such long-venerated devotions as praying for the dead, "worshipping" Mary, celebrating Mass, "worshipping" saints and angels, and even making the sign of the cross. What exactly is a man like this doing in an organization such as ECT? Does it comfort you to know that the ECT claims to have strong backing from the Vatican, that they could very well be influencing the Catholic Church's decisions on the future of Catholic-Protestant relations/unions, and that someone like Tim LaHaye is allowed to have a hand in it? Now, I don't know if LaHaye himself is working with ECT anymore, but honestly, what was he doing there to begin with?
"Anyway, so, Evangelicals and Catholics, mixing it up together in confused and sometimes edifying ways, it's been going on for a very, very long time. Let me suggest that there are several aspects in what has been billed as a "personal reflection": something, first of all, on the history of how ECT came about, with what kind of expectations and what kind of hopes; then, what in fact has been the product of the enterprise; and perhaps, a word on those who have been, how shall we say to put it gently, somewhat "critical" of the enterprise. And then, finally, perhaps some reflections on prospects, where, one can reasonably hope in the years and the decades, and - who knows? - in the centuries ahead, God may utilize this enterprise that has come to be called Evangelicals and Catholics Together."
Pay attention, folks, this is where the rubber meets the road. This is where we find out what are the "expectations," and the "hopes" of ECT. This is where we find out where this supposedly Vatican-endorsed "enterprise" hopes to take the Church in the generations to come.
"The beginning, the first meetings that Chuck Colson and I, who of course had been working together in a number of things over the years, and had said to one another, and had had other people say to us, in a kind of informal way, "Have you noticed that something is changing with respect to the relationship between Evangelical Protestants and Catholics in this country, and shouldn't somebody try to articulate precisely what it is that's changing and what it means, and perhaps also, what it does not, mean?" That was kind of the background, we had no illusion that we were launching something from square one, de novo, no, no. It was building on what already the Holy Spirit, we are confident, the Holy Spirit had been doing and continues to be doing among Christians in America."
I'm willing to concede that perhaps the Holy Spirit is working in the Protestant Churches in America, but the work is the work of conversion, not merely of peace-making. Notice the false premise: all denominational sects in America, Protestant, Liberal Protestant, Catholic, etc., have the Holy Spirit in their midst in equal measure, working amongst them. In this view, Catholicism is merely one option among many legitimate "communities of faith."
"In the pro-life movement, in the charismatic renewal, in all these ways, Evangelical Protestants and Roman Catholics were, in fact, encountering each other in a way that they could not, without sinning against the Holy Spirit, acknowledge was [not] an encounter as brothers and sisters in Christ. That's the reality. Then it's just up to the theologians, and church bureaucrats, and so forth, to get accustomed to that reality and try to understand it."
Are these other sects really our "brothers and sisters in Christ"? I fear that it is politically incorrect - perhaps even intolerable - to say otherwise. The time is coming, and perhaps is even now come, when the only sin that will be recognized is the sin of intolerance. I would submit to you that, yes, by virtue of their baptism, members of these sects are your brothers and sisters in Christ, but - and this is a key distinction - they are rebellious brothers and sisters who have run away from home. Have you ever dealt with a runaway child or sibling? I have, because I ran away from home myself once. I was forced to come home, but it was just that - forced. I lived in my parent's home for many months, rebellious and unrepentant, and let me tell you, "separated brethren" just doesn't do the situation justice. "Unrepentant rebel" better describes the reality (mea culpa). Another point of clarification: just because a Protestant was baptized does not mean they are joined to the Catholic Church (see the quotations from Pope Pius XI later in this critique). They may be, or once have been, a brother or sister in God's family, but they have rejected that. They have rejected the family structure (pope, hierarchy, Sacred Scripture in union with Sacred Tradition, interpreted by the Magisterium), they have rejected the house rules (the Eucharist, Confession, Confirmation, prohibitions against divorce and contraception), and they repeatedly spit in the face of their Mother (claiming Mary had sexual relations after Jesus' birth, claiming she sinned like everybody else, claiming her body is still entombed and rotting), but they want to keep the family name (the name of "Christian," the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost). What would one say about a child in the natural realm who did all of these things?
(Excerpt) Read more at catholicintl.com ...
Everytime I read screeds like this, I'm happy that I'm closer to Richard John Neuhaus than Jacob Michael.
"I was a devout Catholic for 35 years, went to the Catholic school, was taught by priests and nuns, then I got married, my husband was going to be a deacon, and all my children were in the Catholic school, and three years ago I was saved, and I was saved by the blood of Christ and what he shed 2,000 years ago, and because my husband was going to be a deacon, we have every Catholic document, all the canons, every canon law book, and according to the Catholic Church - and this is current - you say I am anathematized because I believe I'm saved by the grace of God, through my faith in Christ alone, not by any works, there's not one thing that I could do… so, my question to you is, do you agree that I am anathematized - and for any of you here that are not familiar with that term, that means I am damned to hell because I believe I'm saved by my faith in Christ alone, and I'm also anathematized and damned to hell because of my sin of assumption, and I do know that if I leave here tonight and get in a car accident, I will go to heaven because of the transaction that was made 2,000 years ago, Christ took my sin in exchange for his righteousness…"
Father responds:
"Right… look, no, I… I… I think that you're misreading, you're putting a particular interpretation, a very wide-spread, common interpretation on some statements of the Council of Trent.""What do I believe? I believe you were saved long before three years ago, which is to say you were saved in the Cross of Calvary and the Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ, but that moment of salvation for each one of us is when we are incorporated into the saving work of Jesus Christ, and I believe that you were born again as I was born again, when we were little babies and were baptized, and that all the rest of our lives is an ongoing process of conversion, and none of us are fully converted yet. None of us are fully participant in the justifying and sanctifying grace of Jesus Christ. And so I say to you, sister in Christ, God bless you, and may you continue to grow in grace, and someday, when, by the grace of God, we find our way to the visible expression of the unity that is ours, may we rejoice in it and celebrate it forever. Thank you."
Pretty amazing.
I have to laugh at trads and marginal trads who will embrace Neuhaus totally, except when they don't embrace him.
I'm not "anti-Papist." I'm anti-papal pronouncements that would have prolonged the brutal dictatorship of Saddam Hussein.
The Pope still hasn't acknowledged that the war did a very good thing. He just wants to make sure the UN gets its cut of the action.
It's a discipline. Disciplines can be changed, and frequently are.
Arguing against a discipline is perfectly OK, unless the Pope chooses to elevate mandatory celibacy to a doctrine.
Where did this idea come from that Catholics can't disagree with the Pope when he's not speaking infallibly?
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