Posted on 07/22/2007 7:40:38 PM PDT by xzins
Wednesday, 11 July 2007
Yesterday's Reuters headline: "The Vatican on Tuesday said Christian denominations outside the Roman Catholic Church were not full churches of Jesus Christ." The actual proclamation, posted on the official Vatican Web site, says that Protestant Churches are really "ecclesial communities" rather than Churches, because they lack apostolic succession, and therefore they "have not preserved the genuine and integral substance of the Eucharistic Mystery." Furthermore, not even the Eastern Orthodox Churches are real Churches, even though they were explicitly referred to as such in the Vatican document Unitatis Redintegratio (Decree on Ecumenism). The new document explains that they were only called Churches because "the Council wanted to adopt the traditional use of the term." This new clarification, issued officially by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, but in fact strongly supported by Pope Benedict XVI, manages to insult both Protestants and the Orthodox, and it may set ecumenism back a hundred years.
The new document, officially entitled "Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine on the Church," claims that the positions it takes do not reverse the intent of various Vatican II documents, especially Unitatis Redintegratio, but merely clarify them. In support of this contention, it cites other documents, all issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith: Mysterium Ecclesiae (1973), Communionis notio (1992), and Dominus Iesus (2000). The last two of these documents were issued while the current pope, as Cardinal Ratzinger, was prefect of the Congregation. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was born in 1542 with the name Sacred Congregation of the Universal Inquisition, and for centuries it has operated as an extremely conservative force with the Roman Catholic Church, opposing innovation and modernizing tendencies, suppressing dissent, and sometimes, in its first few centuries, persecuting those who believed differently. More recently, the congregation has engaged in the suppression of some of Catholicism's most innovative and committed thinkers, such as Yves Congar, Hans Küng, Charles Curran, Matthew Fox, and Jon Sobrino and other liberation theologians. In light of the history of the Congregation of the Faith, such conservative statements as those released this week are hardly surprising, though they are quite unwelcome.
It is natural for members of various Christian Churches to believe that the institutions to which they belong are the best representatives of Christ's body on earth--otherwise, why wouldn't they join a different Church? It is disingenuous, however, for the leader of a Church that has committed itself "irrevocably" (to use Pope John Paul II's word in Ut Unum Sint [That They May Be One] 3, emphasis original) to ecumenism to claim to be interested in unity while at the same time declaring that all other Christians belong to Churches that are in some way deficient. How different was the attitude of Benedict's predecessors, who wrote, "In subsequent centuries much more serious dissensions appeared and large communities became separated from full communion with the [Roman] Catholic Church--for which, often enough, men of both sides were to blame" (Unitatis Redintegratio 3). In Benedict's view, at various times in history groups of Christians wandered from the original, pure Roman Catholic Church, and any notion of Christian unity today is predicated on the idea of those groups abandoning their errors and returning to the Roman Catholic fold. The pope's problem seems to be that he is a theologian rather than a historian. Otherwise he could not possibly make such outrageous statements and think that they were compatible with the spirit of ecumenism that his immediate predecessors promoted.
One of the pope's most strident arguments against the validity of other Churches is that they can't trace their bishops' lineages back to the original apostles, as the bishops in the Roman Catholic Church can. There are three problems with this idea.
First, many Protestants deny the importance of apostolic succession as a guarantor of legitimacy. They would argue that faithfulness to the Bible and/or the teachings of Christ is a better measure of authentic Christian faith than the ability to trace one's spiritual ancestry through an ecclesiastical bureaucracy. A peripheral knowledge of the lives of some of the medieval and early modern popes (e.g., Stephen VI, Sergius III, Innocent VIII, Alexander VI) is enough to call the insistence on apostolic succession into serious question. Moreover, the Avignon Papacy and the divided lines of papal claimants in subsequent decades calls into serious question the legitimacy of the whole approach. Perhaps the strongest argument against the necessity of apostolic succession comes from the Apostle Paul, who was an acknowledged apostle despite not having been ordained by one of Jesus' original twelve disciples. In fact, Paul makes much of the fact that his authority came directly from Jesus Christ rather than from one of the apostles (Gal 1:11-12). Apostolic succession was a useful tool for combating incipient heresy and establishing the antiquity of the churches in particular locales, but merely stating that apostolic succession is a necessary prerequisite for being a true church does not make it so.
The second problem with the new document's insistence upon apostolic succession is the fact that at least three other Christian communions have apostolic succession claims that are as valid as that of the Roman Catholic Church. The Eastern Orthodox Churches, which split from the Roman Catholic Church in 1054, can trace their lineages back to the same apostles that the Roman Catholic Church can, a fact acknowledged by Unitatis Redintegratio 14. The Oriental Orthodox Churches, such as the Coptic and Ethiopic Orthodox Churches, split from the Roman Catholic Church several centuries earlier, but they too can trace their episcopal lineages back to the same apostles claimed by the Roman Catholic Church as its founders. Finally, the Anglican Church, which broke away from the Roman Catholic Church during the reign of King Henry VIII, can likewise trace the lineage of every bishop back through the first archbishop of Canterbury, Augustine. In addition to these three collections of Christian Churches, the Old Catholics and some Methodists also see value in the idea of apostolic succession, and they can trace their episcopal lineages just as far back as Catholic bishops can.
The third problem with the idea of apostolic succession is that the earliest bishops in certain places are simply unknown, and the lists produced in the third and fourth centuries that purported to identify every bishop back to the founding of the church in a particular area were often historically unreliable. Who was the founding bishop of Byzantium? Who brought the gospel to Alexandria? To Edessa? To Antioch? There are lists that give names (e.g., http://www.friesian.com/popes.htm), such as the Apostles Mark (Alexandria), Andrew (Byzantium), and Thaddeus (Armenia), but the association of the apostles with the founding of these churches is legendary, not historical. The most obvious breakdown of historicity in the realm of apostolic succession involves none other than the see occupied by the pope, the bishop of Rome. It is certain that Peter did make his way to Rome before the time of Nero, where he perished, apparently in the Neronian persecution following the Great Fire of Rome, but it is equally certain that the church in Rome predates Peter, as it also predates Paul's arrival there (Paul also apparently died during the Neronian persecution). The Roman Catholic Church may legitimately claim a close association with both Peter and Paul, but it may not legitimately claim that either was the founder of the church there. The fact of the matter is that the gospel reached Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, Edessa, and other early centers of Christianity in the hands of unknown, faithful Christians, not apostles, and the legitimacy of the churches established there did not suffer in the least because of it.
All the talk in the new document about apostolic succession is merely a smokescreen, however, for the main point that the Congregation of the Faith and the pope wanted to drive home: recognition of the absolute primacy of the pope. After playing with the words "subsists in" (Lumen Gentium [Dogmatic Constitution on the Church] 8) and "church" (Unitatis Redintegratio 14) in an effort to make them mean something other than what they originally meant, the document gets down to the nitty-gritty. "Since communion with the Catholic Church, the visible head of which is the Bishop of Rome and the Successor of Peter, is not some external complement to a particular Church but rather one of its internal constitutive principles, these venerable Christian communities lack something in their condition as particular churches." From an ecumenical standpoint, this position is a non-starter. Communion with Rome and acknowledging the authority of the pope as bishop of Rome is a far different matter from recognizing the pope as the "visible head" of the entire church, without peer. The pope is an intelligent man, and he knows that discussions with other Churches will make no progress on the basis of this prerequisite, so the only conclusion that can be drawn is that the pope, despite his protestations, has no interest in pursuing ecumenism. Trying to persuade other Christians to become Roman Catholics, which is evidently the pope's approach to other Churches, is not ecumenism, it's proselytism.
Fortunately, this document does not represent the viewpoint of all Catholics, either laypeople or scholars. Many ordinary Catholics would scoff at the idea that other denominations were not legitimate Churches, which just happen to have different ideas about certain topics and different ways of expressing a common Christianity. Similarly, many Catholic scholars are doing impressive work in areas such as theology, history, biblical study, and ethics, work that interacts with ideas produced by non-Catholic scholars. In the classroom and in publications, Catholics and non-Catholics learn from each other, challenge one another, and, perhaps most importantly, respect one another.
How does one define the Church? Christians have many different understandings of the term, and Catholics are divided among themselves, as are non-Catholics. The ecumenical movement is engaged in addressing this issue in thoughtful, meaningful, and respectful ways. Will the narrow-minded view expressed in "Responses" be the death-knell of the ecumenical movement? Hardly. Unity among Christians is too important an idea to be set aside. Will the document set back ecumenical efforts? Perhaps, but Christians committed to Christian unity--Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant alike--will get beyond it. The ecumenical movement is alive and well, and no intemperate pronouncement from the Congregation of the Faith, or the current pope, can restrain it for long. Even if ecumenism, at least as it involves the Roman Catholic Church's connection with other Churches, is temporarily set back a hundred years, that distance can be closed either by changes of heart or changes of leadership.
“If I do end up in hell, it will be because God wanted it. But it will be my fault.”
Interesting theology.
I think that you have posted before that you believe that you are of the elect and therefore will have everlasting life in heaven. Do you think believe in this theology because you believe that you are going to heaven and therefore going to hell is not an option for you?
Tertullian became a heretic over time. He gradually drifted from orthodoxy.
It’s not that he was ‘good’ only a portion of the time; for a long while he was within the Church and its teachings.
:::Hell is seldom preached in Protestant or Catholic quarters anymore. The closer a church is towards synergism, the less they believe in hell. FK statistics bear that out; more people believe in a God of love than hell. You hear this in many of the “God is love” crowd; “God wouldn’t punish those who never heard of Him.” Hell is done away with. We don’t like to talk about it or think about it because it doesn’t fit with the “God of Love” synergistic view.:::
The Catholic quarter that I hang out in very clearly spells out what hell is and how we can get there; and fairly frequently. It must be a different quarter than the one that you are referring to.
The Fatima Prayer (toward the conclusion of each Rosary):
O my Jesus;
Forgive us our sins,
save us from the fires of Hell,
and lead all souls to Heaven,
especially those most in need of thy mercy.
Amen.
Your pope Mike as an example of Catholicism? Nice job.
Why not label Fred Phelps as a good Baptist, if you’re going there?
So the Reformed need messengers to take their prayers to God? I thought that the Reformed sent their mechanically performed prayers directly to God through Jesus. I don’t see anything about that in Reformed doctrine anywhere - the direct method appears to be the preferred one. Is there a Catechism or other Reformed document that deals with this?
Rome’s fatal mistake? Only one? I guess that we haven’t been trying hard enough. The One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church began with Jesus Christ and His instructions. We didn’t begin with a man or men. We began with the Messiah. It’s ironic that you call Catholic doctrine ‘twisting’ when every Protestant individual or group of individuals believes that they have licence to cherry pick individual unrelated verses, string them together, create ludicrous, ridiculous and often dangerous doctrine, hang out a shingle and tithe the rubes.
You speak as one of the self identified elect, who don’t have to worry about a thing. Isn’t it nice?
:::Our Mediator is Christ, who we trust exclusively to have done everything neccessary for our Redemption upon the Cross to which we can add not one single thing, and Who clothes us in His Righteousness, as a Delightfully Robed Bride perfectly acceptable to the Father, not on account of any single thing we have done, but because of what Christ did on our behalf as our Kinsman Redeemer.:::
When are you going to demonstrate your water walking abilities?
:::MB: I suspect that that indwelling heartburn will turn out to be just that.
MLG: Au contraire, when Christ asks you: “Why should I allow YOU into My heaven?”, and you say, “I trusted the pope, I did good works, I finshed the work you began on the Cross, I ate your real, actual flesh and drank your real, actual blood...”, it will be sad indeed when you hear the words, “Wrong answer, away with you worker of iniquity, I never knew you.”:::
Amazing. I can only find it amazing that after the excellent instruction that you have received by better Catholics than I on these boards that you would write these words that are so completely wrong. Are you in advertising, by the way?
:::I do understand Roman Catholicism, which is precisely why I know it is apostate.:::
You must be in advertising. I am unable to fathom any real understanding of the Church based, of course, what I have read of your posts. You admit that you do not do much of what Jesus has instructed us to do; you seem proud of it. Yet you would have God Judge you to have everlasting life in Heaven. That is quite a theology to which you subscribe.
No he was not an antichrist. The Church is clear.
You are not supplying many examples of clear understanding of the Church, I’m afraid.
Try the Westminster Confession of Faith which calls the Pope the antichrist.
There are a few other post Reformation position papers which explicitly instruct.
:::We can escape now. While we can, let us lift ourselves from the fall: let us never despair of ourselves, if only we depart from evil. -St. Basil-To a Fallen Virgin
Sounds to me like St. Basil believed in hell.:::
Sounds to me that St. Basil believe that men can escape hell, too - by reaching out for God’s Grace. St. Basil is saying that it is men’s choice to depart from evil. I don’t think that this reads very well as Calvinist support.
:::No one has implied that God pre-ordained wickedness or sin. Quite the contrary, Lucifer’s and Adam’s sin did not take God by surprise, since God knew full well that both would rebel against Him, and in His knowledge of all things, determined to Redeem the Elect of humanity as an inheritance for the Son, as the supreme expression of the Love between the Father and Son, to be witnessed by man and angels alike.:::
Sounds like double talk. Under Reformed theology, nothing is done without Divine preordaining. So preordaining Adam to original sin in order to deprave humanity into wickedness and sin, with its consequences of everlasting hell means that God has preordained wickedness and sin.
Jesus only set up one Church.
You can follow whichever men or theology that you prefer, but we prefer Jesus.
:::And, as Marting Luther said of the devil, “Satan is God’s Satan”, meaning that Satan does nothing and can do nothing without God’s prior approval:::
Are you saying that satan is God’s agent? Are you saying that satan’s tempting and evil in the world is God’s doing?
:::Explain then how God is just in commanding the infanticide of innocent babies.
That’s a problem Calvinism has to answer. I think it goes with how God is just in creating innocent babies born reprobate - doomed as well.:::
I think that it is a logical extension of the self-determined elitism movement. If I am of the elite, so the logic might run, and the majority of people aren’t, and babies cannot be baptized because they are, well, babies, then dead babies go right to everlasting hellfire because God is just.
Catholics do not know the election status of babies. We believe that the Church can eventually know the status of saints.
And Peter had hope that he would attain everlasting life, not certainty. Faith, hope and charity. Not certainty.
:::You mistake the difference between “Reformers” and “Protestants”. You’ll find very little difference between a Reformed Baptist and a Reformed Presbyterian. Osteen is not Reformed.:::
But Dr. Schuller and his ordained son are.
None of the Reformed here on FR sound like they do.
I agree that not all of us are the some of us that the some of us are.
Yet we are exhorted throughout the Gospels to do. And we are informed that some will fall away who were previously believers. The only way to lose faith is to spurn that in which you have have previously had faith.
He was a true Pope, who wandered off into heresy.
Just as Augustine was a true Church Father who also wandered off into heresy. Origen might have been recognized as such if he had rejected and recanted his heresies. Augustine did and rightfully takes his place as a giant of the Church.
“”Hell is seldom preached in Protestant or Catholic quarters anymore.””
Harley, It is taught in the Catechism. We learn about it a very young age. We don’t have to have it constantly pounded into our heads when we are supposed to be spending our time loving one another
From the Catechism...
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P2O.HTM
IV. Hell
1033 We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him. But we cannot love God if we sin gravely against him, against our neighbor or against ourselves: “He who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.”610 Our Lord warns us that we shall be separated from him if we fail to meet the serious needs of the poor and the little ones who are his brethren.611 To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called “hell.”
1034 Jesus often speaks of “Gehenna” of “the unquenchable fire” reserved for those who to the end of their lives refuse to believe and be converted, where both soul and body can be lost.612 Jesus solemnly proclaims that he “will send his angels, and they will gather . . . all evil doers, and throw them into the furnace of fire,”613 and that he will pronounce the condemnation: “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire!”614
1035 The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, “eternal fire.”615 The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs.
1036 The affirmations of Sacred Scripture and the teachings of the Church on the subject of hell are a call to the responsibility incumbent upon man to make use of his freedom in view of his eternal destiny. They are at the same time an urgent call to conversion: “Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”616
Since we know neither the day nor the hour, we should follow the advice of the Lord and watch constantly so that, when the single course of our earthly life is completed, we may merit to enter with him into the marriage feast and be numbered among the blessed, and not, like the wicked and slothful servants, be ordered to depart into the eternal fire, into the outer darkness where “men will weep and gnash their teeth.”617
1037 God predestines no one to go to hell;618 for this, a willful turning away from God (a mortal sin) is necessary, and persistence in it until the end. In the Eucharistic liturgy and in the daily prayers of her faithful, the Church implores the mercy of God, who does not want “any to perish, but all to come to repentance”:619
Father, accept this offering
from your whole family.
Grant us your peace in this life,
save us from final damnation,
and count us among those you have chosen.620
This one is worth repeating...
“”1037 GOD PREDESTINES NO ONE TO GO TO HELL;618 for this, a willful turning away from God (a mortal sin) is necessary, and persistence in it until the end.””
That means NO ONE
:::All are born reprobate then? And then some elected?
I thought Calvinism taught the elect/reprobate were thus from birth?:::
Interesting point. I was under the same impression, as well.
God is all powerful, yet unable to save the lost;
Why would you think God, or anyone, who chooses not to do something is therefore unable to do it? Non sequitor.
Forced love is not love.
God is all knowing yet saves someone not knowing if that person will fall away,
Again, a confusion of foreknowing combined with the fallacy of OSAS.
God is all present except for the time that Adam took the fruit from Eve.
Huh?
There are a few other post Reformation position papers which explicitly instruct.
You make my point explicitly!
Every denomination at some point has had leader(s) who have done or said something that we NOW would not consider kosher, so to speak.
And the original poster was trying to heap all the sins of the past LDS squarely on Romney's shoulders, as if Romney is out there daily praising every single thing every Mormon ever said or did.
Consider: some segments of Catholic/Protestant Ireland even TODAY don't consider each other to be true Christians. Something we Americans find deplorable, I believe.
Billy Graham, who is considered an icon of Christain evangelism, at one time railed against Catholics as somehow betraying the New Testament.
Graham, and almost all evangelicals, have modified their attitudes toward other denominations -- and I believe Freepers should do the same for Romney.
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