Posted on 07/10/2007 6:55:28 PM PDT by indcons
Pope Benedict XVI declared yesterday that Christian denominations other than his own were not true churches and their holy orders have no value.
Protestant leaders immediately responded by saying the claims were offensive and would hurt efforts to promote ecumenism.
Roman Catholic- Anglican relations are already strained over the Church of England's plans to ordain homosexuals and women as bishops. The claims came in a document, from a Vatican watchdog which was approved by the Pope.
It said the branches of Christianity formed after the split with Rome at the Reformation could not be called churches "in the proper sense" because they broke with a succession of popes who dated back to St Peter.
As a result, it went on, Protestant churches have "no sacramental priesthood", effectively reaffirming the controversial Catholic position that Anglican holy orders are worthless.
The document claimed the Catholic church was the "one true church of Christ".
Pope Benedict's commitment to the hardline teaching comes days after he reinstated the Mass in Latin, which was sidelined in the 1960s in an attempt to modernise.
The timing of the announcement fuelled speculation that the pontiff - regarded as an arch-conservative before his election in 2005 - is finally beginning to impose his views on the Catholic Church.
The Vatican said it was restating the position set out by the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in 2000 in a document called Domine Jesus because theologians continued to misunderstand it.
At that time, Anglican leaders from around the world made their anger felt by snubbing an invitation to join Pope John Paul II as he proclaimed St Thomas More the patron saint of politicians.
Bishop Wolfgang Huber, head of the Evangelical Church in Germany, said the Vatican document effectively downgraded Protestant churches and would make ecumenical relations more difficult.
He said the pronouncement repeated the "offensive statements" of the 2000 document and was a "missed opportunity" to patch up relations with Protestants.
Belloc was an Englishman whose father was French. In fact, he stood for election to the British House of Commons at one point (not sure if he won).
I have no idea what a "Catholic supremacist" is. Is that a Catholic with the temerity and bad manners to actually believe that his faith is true? I'll proudly plead "guilty as charged" to that, then.
He contended that Protestantism and Muhammadanism are both just heretical deviations of the Truth.
Obviously, to a Catholic, Protestantism and Muhammadanism [sic] are both in error. Both also contain some elements of truth.
Vatican 2 speaks of ecclesiastical community. It goes to great measures (and Popes have stressed this latter) to say that other members of Christian communities are certainly Christian, although not totally unified. "Church" can mean many different things.
Regards
Great point, A-G! I wish I had thought of that!
And thank you for raising the issue of the “doctrines and traditions of men” – one of my favorite subjects. As you know, I personally reject all of the doctrines and traditions of men across the board – and this gives me yet another opportunity to explain why.
God didn’t make us with a “cookie cutter.” Peter was not like Paul who was not like John who was not like doubting Thomas. But Jesus chose each and every one of them. Likewise, in Revelation 2 and 3 – He accepts with commendations and rebukes seven different churches with very different circumstances and challenges.
The apostles themselves had disputes precisely because some of them tried to rationalize Christ to their Jewish traditions, what they reasoned to be “true” despite their being filled with the Holy Spirit. (Acts 15) In other words, there were moments when even the apostles trusted their own reasoning above the revelations of God. Likewise, they insinuated themselves into God’s blessing of the indwelling Holy Spirit and were astonished to see their error (Acts 10 and 11)
Surely no one would question the intent of the Apostles! It appears therefore to be an unfortunate tendency of mortal men to "anthropomorphize" God. Evidently aware of the risk, Paul did not immediately confer with men (Gal 1) but instead received the doctrine directly from God for three years before visiting Peter for 15 days.
Faith and reason are complimentary. But reason cannot substitute for faith.
To see what happens when man wanders beyond the words of God, rationalizing what he doesn’t understand – we need only compare the Talmud to the Tanakh (Torah, writings and prophets.) Or compare the dogma, doctrines and traditions of any Christian Church to Scriptures. No assembly of men is exempt from this tendency which God warns against:
Then the Pharisees and scribes asked him, Why walk not thy disciples according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashen hands? He answered and said unto them, Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with [their] lips, but their heart is far from me. Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching [for] doctrines the commandments of men. For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, [as] the washing of pots and cups: and many other such like things ye do. And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition. – Mark 7:5-9
I’ve taken a lot of guff around here - both from atheists and theists - specifically because I value Spiritual revelations above all other kinds of knowledge – including sensory perception and reason.
But how could I not? I’ve known Jesus personally for nigh onto a half century. I love Him, I believe Him, I trust Him. He is not a “hypothetical.” It’s no contest who I believe.
Nevertheless, I praise God for the assemblies of men – the churches (or sheep pens to follow the John 10 metaphor) – when they truly dedicate themselves to Jesus Christ! Some Christians – especially new Christians just beginning their walk with the Lord – do not know the Shepherd well enough yet to follow Him through the gate into the open field or whatever pen (assembly) He chooses for them.
At bottom, we are individual Christians according to His own will, like the Apostles were, each at a different point in our sanctification, each a different part of His body (I Cor 15), each having some – but not all – of the Truth He alone is revealing to us (John 14-17, Romans 8, I Cor 2.)
Therefore, I do not expect any other Christian to see things exactly the same way I do except for our core beliefs. Nor would I suggest that any individual Christian or assembly is at risk for having a different leading in the Spirit.
It is as if we are looking at the same seven-faceted diamond facing different facets. But it is the same diamond and the same Light.
To God be the glory!
And there it is! By todays standards there seems to be a position that no one sins anymore or once saved always saved regardless of ones sins. I too have asked myself how so many people go to holy communion by there are few and far between standing in a line for confession. And yes I like the term confession better.We have many churches today who go along with abortion and especially homosexuality. There is a serious problem among Christians today. Why is it after 911 more people have turned to Islam? Todays moral standard is a little low. All one has to do is turn on the television to see how the American people have just accepted low standards of just about anything. I mean homosexuality is so much part of any television show one would think one in two are homosexual today. But then I am coming from the Ozzie and Harriet crowd and I miss it.And it amazes me how profanity is part of everyday life for people in general and on TV and the movies.
Coded messages, like art, sometimes is in the eye of the beholder.
You state your belief on the foundation of Christ’s church, the Pope states that of his church.
They differ. I see more factual reason to believe the Pope and see your views as more in line with a Dan Brown methodology.
We differ. So be it.
Amen, x.
"One Mass is more fearful than if ten thousand armed enemies were landed in any part of the realm." -- John Knox.
But when it comes to denouncing idolatry and fable, we're poor fascimiles of those who went before us in history who faced more than internet rebukes; who suffered real injury and death to proclaim the Gospel in truth and Spirit.
From a magazine article by Edward Panosian on the life of John Knox...
In the wintry wind of that February day, the difficulty of lighting the fire and the need to re-light it several times prolonged the agony of Hamilton's death over six hours. Men later said that the smoke of his burning infected all on whom it blew. While men asked, "Wherefore was Patrick Hamilton burnt?" (as Knox later wrote), more young Scots visited Germany and Switzerland where the reformation was underway. More Lutheran books and more English New Testaments and Bibles, Tyndale's and Coverdale's, were bought and sold, in spite of repeated injunctions against them. Under the preaching of George Wishart, Knox was enlisted in the cause of the Gospel in which he was to spend his life. Wishart was a gentle preacher and teacher of the reformed faith. "Suspected of heresy because he read the Greek New Testament with his students," he had fled his native Scotland, studied in England at Cambridge, in Switzerland under the influence of Zwingli, and in Germany. He returned to effect reform--of church and state--at home. John Knox's first entrance on the stage of church history is as Wishart's literal bodyguard, carrying a sword because of an assassination attempt by a priest upon the preacher. Having preached the evangelical doctrine throughout Scotland, doctrine which according to his trial included salvation by faith, the Scriptures as the only test of truth, the denial of purgatory and confession to a priest, and the rejection of the Roman Catholic mass as blasphemous idolatry, Wishart was arrested by Cardinal Beaton (hated nephew of the archbishop who had burned Hamilton), tried, and burned on the eighteenth anniversary of Hamilton's death (1546). Knox was eager to accompany his noble friend, but the elder Wishart refused, saying, "One is sufficient for one sacrifice." Within a few weeks, Scottish nobles murdered the cardinal and, as refugees, took possession of Beaton's seaside castle of St. Andrews. Knox was invited to be their chaplain and continued to tutor his young students. In this strange parish Knox first preached. So vehement was his excoriation of the lives of his rebel "parishioners" and of the teachings and doctrines of the Roman church that after his first sermon his hearers declared: "Others snipped at the branches of popery; but he strikes at the roots, to destroy the whole." Now the Protestant rebels against an ecclesiastical government awaited help from England. But French ships arrived instead. French troops captured the castle and its defenders, and Knox began 19 months as a French galley slave under flogging and cursing, learning to be an apostle of liberty to his people. One incident during those months reveals something of the latent fire in the Scottish preacher, even while in chains. A picture of the Virgin Mary was brought on board, while the galley was in port, to be kissed by the slaves. When Knox refused, the picture was thrust into his face. Outraged, he flung the "accursed idol" into the river, saying "Let our Lady learn to swim." After his release, Knox went to England for five years. Now ruled (1549) by the protestant, Edward, England welcomed John Knox. He preached in a settled parish, learned much about reforming work, and became a royal chaplain. With the accession of the bloody queen, Mary Tudor, Knox became a Marian exile to avoid becoming a Marian martyr, and labored and learned at Frankfurt and in Calvin's Geneva. Those were retreats for preparation before advances for battle. In a letter to a friend, Knox wrote a sterling tribute to the moral quality of life in Geneva, calling it "the most perfect school of Christ that ever was in the earth since the days of the Apostles. In other places I confess Christ to be truly preached; but manners and religion to be so seriously reformed, I have not yet seen in any other place besides." Back in Scotland for several months, his preaching further strengthened the Protestant cause. As a result, many of the Scottish nobility banded together into a covenant in which they renounced "the congregation of Satan, with all the superstitious abomination and idolatry thereof" and affirmed the establishment of "the most blessed word of God and his congregation," and the defense of "the whole congregation of Christ, and every member thereof." These "Lords of the Congregation" became the political backbone of the remaking of a nation...""...The young Knox had known of the burning of the Scottish nobleman and humanist, Patrick Hamilton, in 1528. Hamilton, who had studied in Paris and learned the teachings of Luther at Marburg, had returned as a teacher to St. Andrews University. As a preacher of the new reformation views and doctrines, he offended the Archbishop, was tried for having taught "theological views deemed heretical," admitted them to be Biblical, and was condemned to the stake.
So, “thank you” to everyone who interpreted Pope Benedict’s remarks to mean that we who are not of the Roman Catholic Church are somehow, second class Christians!
= = =
I’ll stand by Christ’s Blood and His saving TO THE UTTERMOST . . .
His opinion, perspective is all that eternally matters, to me.
Not the traditions and opinions of man—especially those so rooted in so much fossilization of thought, form and ritual.
Sola scriptura is not to be found in the Bible either. Do you similarly discount it?
Isn't Matthew 16:19 pretty clear in the matter that Jesus is assigning the power of binding and loosing to Peter, i.e. including the appointment of successors as the Rock of the Church?
I think it's more magical that someone can utter "I accept Jesus as my personal savior" and be assured of salvation, irregardless of the sins they commit after that point,...
Amen, AG.
"Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head." -- Romans 12:20
There wasn't one. The closest you get to a "super" Apostle is James in Jerusalem, that's if you consider him an Apostle.
I never tire of reading your profession of faith, dear Sister in Christ.
To God be the Glory indeed! Sola de gloria
And what about all of the old testament prophets who prophesied of Christs coming? Mormon's believe that Christs gospel was on the earth at various times prior to his birth. When Christ brought the gospel it was in fact a restoration of what had been on earth before.
“That settles it! The Pope says that none of you are proper Christians”
Look, don’t worry about it. I issued an edict this morning nullifying whatever he said about us and affirmed the scriptures that say “believe on the Lord Jesus and you are saved”. As an added bonus I threw in Hebrews 12:18-24,
“For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest, And the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which voice they that heard intreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more: (For they could not endure that which was commanded, And if so much as a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned, or thrust through with a dart: And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake:) But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect,
And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel.”
No masses, perpetual sacrifices, relics, icons, prayers to saints, angels or dead humans, purgatory, prayers for the dead, absolution, indulgences, mantras or human mediators. It’s very simple, “Trust in the Lord and do good”!
Issue all the edicts you want, but coming from a false church, they aren't worth the paper they are written on.
Actually, the inspiration of scripture by God Himself is found in scripture.
The Bible says, "All scripture is inspired by God..."
And don't try to tell me that "sola scriptura" is other than synonymous language recognizing that scripture comes to us from Almighty God.
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