Posted on 05/17/2005 6:16:45 AM PDT by marshmallow
SEATTLE (AP) - A group of Roman Catholic and Anglican leaders studying the role of Mary, the mother of Jesus, said Monday that after years of talks they have agreed that Catholic teachings on the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of Mary into heaven are consistent with Anglican interpretations of the Bible.
The two sides issued a joint document, ``Mary: Grace and Hope in Christ,'' which will now be examined by the Vatican and the Anglican Communion.
If the terms of the new accord are eventually accepted by top church officials - by no means a certainty - it would overcome one of the major doctrinal disagreements dividing the world's 77 million Anglicans and more than 1 billion Roman Catholics.
Historically, the Anglican Communion has opposed the papal teachings because there is no direct account of them in the Bible.
Immaculate Conception refers to the mandatory Catholic dogma, pronounced in 1854, that Mary was born free of ``original sin.'' The Assumption refers to the belief required since 1950 that Mary was directly received, body and soul, into heaven at the end of her life. Anglicans have neither teaching.
Both Catholicism and Anglicanism officially agree, however, on the virginal conception, meaning that Mary was a virgin when Jesus was born.
Anglican Archbishop Peter Carnley of Perth, Australia, co-chairman of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission, said the Catholic dogmas concerning Mary are ``consonant'' with biblical teachings about hope and grace.
The remaining question between the faiths is the authority on which those dogmas are based, he said - a question to be tackled in future discussions.
``For Anglicans, that old complaint that these dogmas were not provable by scripture will disappear,'' Carnley said during a news conference with Seattle's Catholic Archbishop, Alexander Brunett.
The commission spent five years developing the 81-page booklet, in a process sponsored by the Anglican Consultative Council and the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.
The document's release was also significant because it follows tensions between Catholicism and Anglicanism over actions by the Episcopal Church, the Anglicans' U.S. branch.
Presiding Episcopal Bishop Frank Griswold, who for a time chaired the commission studying Mary, resigned from the panel after he oversaw the consecration of gay Bishop V. Gene Robinson in New Hampshire. As recently as last month, the Vatican said Robinson's consecration and same-sex blessings by Canadian Anglicans ``created new obstacles'' for relations between the churches.
Though Griswold did not attend the news conference, he was in town Monday to have lunch and attend vespers with Brunett and Carnley.
Bob Chapman, a reporter for the independent Episcopal weekly The Living Church, said there is a long Anglican tradition of honoring Mary - there is even a shrine to her in Walsingham, England - but the degree of devotion varies greatly within the faith.
``I can name a couple of parishes here in Seattle that have better Marian devotion than some Roman Catholic parishes,'' he said, but to other Anglicans, the notion of honoring her is ``anathema.''
The accord announced Monday is aimed at bridging those extremes, he said.
``There are churches that look with suspicion on people who do these things, and yet we all live together under the same umbrella,'' Chapman said.
There is nothing accretionist about the Church. Public revelation is closed. The enhanced understanding of those revelations with continue until the end of time, however.
You really sell God short on His ability to create the greatest piece of literature ever. The way you interpret the Bible, Jackie Collins could have written it. There are endless treasures beneath the surface, which are waiting for discovery.
So far as 'man-made' goes, I suppose that applies to the canon of the Bible, too? I mean, talk about man-made! Forty or so Gospels whiddled down to four? Are you sure the men who entered the Synod of Hippo were acting at the behest of the Holy Spirit? Could be they were just acting as "men"? Hmmm.
Protestants do the same thing, all the time. Study up on the history of premillenial dispensationalism sometime.
Incidentally, Catholicism can only expand on what the Apostles taught us and what the Church has always believed. We cannot contradict it.
BTTT.
Well stated.
You really think so? Other than parishes with Tridentine Masses, there are no other Catholic churches in the U.S. other than the Anglican Use where the priest says the Mass ad orientem (with his back to the congregation), and where their new churches are built in a traditional style. What are your reasons for your opinion?
>Are you suggesting that the canonized New Testament, in the form we have today, floated down from heaven and was not made by men?<
This is how Peter would answer your Question.
2Pe 1:20 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.
2Pe 1:21 For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake [as they were] moved by the Holy Ghost.
Rapture
and
Protestants do the same thing, all the time. Study up on the history of premillenial dispensationalism sometime.
We don't all, by any means, buy the whole complex dispensationalist model, with it's multiple ressurections, multiple judgement days, and multiple returns of Christ (visible and invisible) scattered over a thousand plus years.
What the heck kind of statement is that? Not dividing? So are the Protestants now believers in Our Lady's intercession? Are we going to sell her out as we have done at Vatican II and not call her the mediatrix?
I have been reading that the Pope not taking the Papal Oath any longer (as he as well as the Priests are just "presiders"), the liberalization of the seminaries, ordination of homosexual liberal Candidates was all so the Catolic's church insistance on Participation in the WCC and the issues have been the Pope and woman ordination and Mary. Now that Vatican II and the aftermath of has sold out all on these issues-what is stopping the unification and one world religion?
Most Anglican services are more reverent that the Novus Ordo services anyway.
Traditional catholicism for my and my family forever. Cant tolerate weakness and compromise of Our Lord and his church and his mother for anyone
>If private individuals aren't meant to interpret the Scriptures on their own, who is?<
The point Peter was making is that scripture is not a production of the human mind as you implied but is "God breathed". The Greek word translated interpretation is better translated origin in this passage when put into context with verses 19 and 21.
Num 16:28 And Moses said, Hereby ye shall know that the LORD hath sent me to do all these works; for [I have] not [done them] of mine own mind.
Of course not, but the claim that Protestant theology (what kind?) is some sort of crystalline, unchanging monolith totally and perfectly predicated on Scripture is just ridiculous. Y'all argue among yourselves on all sorts of things, and practically none of you agree with the original Reformers (meaning your theology has evolved quite a bit since their time), so claiming that only Catholic or Mormon theology evolves or adds anything to Scripture, while Protestant theology of any stripe doesn't, is patently and obviously false.
They do NOT use "contemporary Anglican language" - they use the old prayerbook (I don't know for sure if it's the 1928 or an earlier version, but I think it's actually the 1559 which was the most Catholic of the early BCPs), with the Words of Consecration translated from the Latin in use in England just before the Reformation. The service is as High as I have ever seen -- full vestments, incense, celebrated ad orientem with the greatest reverence -- just about as far from happy-clappy liberal Catholic services as you can get.
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" ... Now I, John, saw and heard these things. And when I heard and saw, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel who showed me these things.
Then he said to me, "See that you do not do that. For I am your fellow servant, and of your brethren the prophets, and of those who keep the words of this book. Worship God."
Revelation 22:8-9
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Nobody on Earth
knows exactly what "worship"
means. Obviously
John was true to God,
yet still the angel told John
not to kneel by him . . .
When people kneel down
at statues of Mary and
pray "to" her, it looks
pretty similar
to what John was gonna do
when the angel balked.
Almost certainly
what matters is in our heart.
On the other hand,
I'd worry about
this Scripture if I wanted
to pray "to" Mary.
Here is the liturgy of one Anglican-Use Parish in Houston for your review:
http://walsingham-church.org/mass.htm
John was attempting to do more than just kneel, though that's what you limited it to. The verse says he was going to "worship" the angel. The angel stopped him, and rightly so. I'll repeat what the others have said, we Catholics do NOT worship Mary, nor any other saint. They are NOT deities. There is one God, in Trinity. That IS Catholic Doctrine. Period.
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