Will the Pope's Pronouncement Set Ecumenism Back a Hundred Years? (Challenge to Apostolicity)

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.

Infallibility should be defined, as different groups understand the concept differently.

It should also be differentiated from inerrancy. Inerrancy is a lack of error, while infallibility is the incapability of error.

A parallel example is the word "saved." The difference between what we Orthodox consider "saved" and most if not all Protestants do, is like night and day.

Have either of you read C.S. Lewis, especially The Great Divorce? It may not be "Orthodox", but perhaps it might (if nothing else) show you something a little different than you're used to seeing from "the West". This is from the Preface:

Blake wrote the Marriage of Heaven and Hell. If I have written of their Divorce, this is not because I think myself a fit antagonist for so great a genius, nor even because I feel at all sure that I know what he meant. But in some sense or other the attempt to make that marriage is perennial. The attempt is based on the belief that reality never presents us with an absolutely unavoidable "either-or"; that, granted skill and patience and (above all) time enough, some way of embracing both alternatives can always be found; that mere development or adjustment or refinement will somehow turn evil into good without our being called on for a final and total rejection of anything we should like to retain. This belief I take to be a disastrous error. You cannot take all luggage with you on all journeys; on one journey even your right hand and your right eye may be among the things you have to leave behind. We are not living in a world where all roads are radii of a circle and where all, if followed long enough, will therefore draw gradually nearer and finally meet at the centre: rather in a world where every road after a few miles, forks into two, and each of those into two again, and at each fork you must make a decision. Even on the biological level life is not like a pool but like a tree. It does not move towards unity but away from it and the creatures grow further apart as they increase in perfection. Good, as it ripens, becomes continually more different not only from evil but from other good.

I do not think that all who choose wrong roads perish; but their rescue consists in being put back on the right road. A wrong sum can be put right: but only by going back till you find the error and working it afresh from that point, never by simply going on. Evil can be undone, but it cannot "develop" into good. Time does not heal it. The spell must be unwound, bit by bit, "with backward mutters of dissevering power"--or else not. It is still "either-or." If we insist on keeping Hell (or even earth) we shall not see Heaven: if we accept Heaven we shall not be able to retain even the smallest and most intimate souvenirs of Hell. I believe, to be sure, that any man who reaches Heaven will find that what he abandoned (even in plucking out his right eye) was precisely nothing: that the kernel of what he was really seeking even in his most depraved wishes will be there, beyond expectation, waiting for him in "the High Countries." In that sense it will be true for those who have completed the journey (and for no others) to say that good is everything and Heaven everywhere. But we, at this end of the road, must not try to anticipate that retrospective vision. If we do, we are likely to embrace the false and disastrous converse and fancy that everything is good and everywhere Heaven.

But what, you ask, of earth? Earth, I think, will not be found by anyone to be in the end a very distinct place. I think earth, if chosen instead of Heaven, will turn out to have been, all along, only a region in Hell: and earth, if put second to Heaven, to have been from the beginning a part of Heaven itself.

***

Kosta: It is utterly un-Orthodox to argue that if we discard or doubt something in the Bible it's not gonna be pretty.

First, I'm not Orthodox, so that doesn't exactly apply to me. :) Second (and more seriously and more importantly) I never said anything about doubt. Doubt can be a very useful thing, and is the basis of scientific inquiry. In fact, if taken seriously, it shows us just how little we actually know, and demonstrates the necessity of faith.

God—our Christian God—does not draw us by fear...

If that were true in full generality, then why did Christ speak of punishment at all? Why wasn't He gentler when He rebuked the Pharisees, when He told the parable of the talents, or when he talked about the goats and the sheep? Do you think that makes Him some sort of "divine terrorist"? Fear can be an attention-grabber. God does not force us to do anything, but there many ways in which He gets our attention.

...but through love.

Yes, always!

Kosta, this does not suffice as a PROOF. You've said before that "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs." That's incorrect. What Carl Sagan actually said was that "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." The difference is that between deduction (in the case of proofs) and inference (in the case of evidence). A proof is a proof, regardless of how "extraordinary" it might be.

If I see a building, it is evidence of a builder.

Yes it is.

If I look at the universe ("the Creation"), it is evidence of a Creator, based on our knowledge that all things are caused; it is cause and effect.

Now you begin to beg the question, by assuming that the universe was indeed created.

Something was the first step (the first cause) in a chain reaction that caused all this to exist, something that by necessity pre-existed the existence, something not of this world.

This is not a logical necessity at all. Why must there be a first? It is nothing more than an assumption that there is a first. In fact, when you state that "based on our knowledge that all things are caused", this can also be taken as evidence against a hypothetical "first cause".

That first cause is what we call God.

Yes we do. But unfortunately your argument failed to prove its existance.

It really takes a very special person to deny that something caused all this to exist, or to claim that a house just built itself from ground up!

But it does not take a "very special person" to see the difference between Creation (which God made ex nihilo) and construction, which is simply a rearrangement of things that are already here!

It is impossible logically to PROVE God's existance. Think about it: How can God be "deduced"? Deduction works from general to specific (the opposite direction of inference). There is no set of axioms that can circumscribe God, and if there were He wouldn't be God! So we have to work from inference.

The Creation was created to procreate based on created physical laws, perpetuum mobile (perpetual motion), a self-generating and re- generating mechanism.

The laws were created? Ah, but this is where it gets interesting! We can observe things like the motions of planets or the interactions of atoms and, through empirical evidence, predict with confidence how these things might behave. So there seems to be a sort of natural order, or law that governs these things. Now if we really are to speak of a "first cause", then wouldn't that be the Law itself? But I don't mean the mathematical relations we use to describe the behavior of things, but the very essence of the Law itself which surpasses all understanding:

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made." (John 1:1-3)

We are subject to God's Logos, not He to ours.

“Have either of you read C.S. Lewis, especially The Great Divorce?”

Yup

“It may not be “Orthodox”, but perhaps it might (if nothing else) show you something a little different than you’re used to seeing from “the West”. This is from the Preface:”

Well, you are right. Its not Orthodox in the sense that an Orthodox probably wouldn’t put it that way, but ultimately Lewis is speaking of dying to the self and theosis which of course is thoroughly Orthodox.

I have noted elsewhere on these threads that Anglicans are the nearest in mindset of all the Western Christians to Orthodoxy and Lewis of course was the best sort of Anglican gentleman. The finest introduction I have ever read to On the Incarnation was written by Lewis. Some truly magnificent modern Orthodox spiritual writings have come from a monastic who lived in England for forty years at the end of the 20th century. Although the Elder Sophrony was Russian by birth and spent years at Mount Athos, his writings from the 1950s on show the influence of English thought and manner of thinking. When one reads the tracts of +J.C. Ryle, it is often, if not always, as if one of the Greek Fathers was dropped into Victorian England with a complete command of the English language.

That an Anglican would demonstrate something akin to an Orthodox mindset and thus write things which sound like “English Orthodoxy” is not a surprise, ZS.

Inerrancy is a lack of error, while infallibility is the incapability of error.

When we speak of infallibility there is no need to differentiate the two, since infallibility—by necessity—encompasses inerrancy. That which is infallible (incapable of error) is also inerrant (free from any error).

As Kolo observed, it is a western way of conveying what "dying unto oneself" is, forsaking the world and all its riches which we cannot take with us. I would also agree with Kolo vis-a-vis his comment about Anglicans being the closest (spiritually) to the Orthodox, although some Catholic monastics are too.

Thanks for sharing that. I always enjoy reading Lewis, as I find in him a very recognizable mind set expressed in a "foreign" language. :)

In fact, if taken seriously, it [doubt] shows us just how little we actually know, and demonstrates the necessity of faith

No, it doesn't follow that doubt demonstrates the necessity of faith. Faith and doubt are mutually exclusive.

If that were true in full generality, then why did Christ speak of punishment at all? Why wasn't He gentler when He rebuked the Pharisees, when He told the parable of the talents, or when he talked about the goats and the sheep?

He threatened and rebuked ordinary, insignificant Pharisees, and small money changers. Why didn't He threaten Ponitus Pilate and the Sanhendrin? Do you think God would engage in small talk with local zealots? And where is "love those who hate you" in "your father is the devil," or "you don't know the scripture and the power of God?" Where is compassion? Is it really plausible that this is one and the same Jesus speaking? I doubt it.

+Mark is not a witness, but a follower of +Peter. He is re-telling what he heard. +Matthew and +Luke copy from +Mark, chapter by chapter, verbatim in most cases, and sometimes adding to them their own details (remember that +Luke is also not a witness, but a follower of +Paul, neither of whom knew Christ personally). +Matthew and +Luke also share what they borrowed from another source (the "Q"), which are narratives (popular myths) about Jesus' ministry.

So, when Christ is quoted as saying something, the quotes are not necessarily His words. We have no way of knowing what was said and what was made up and filled in 40 years after Christ's death by the writers of the Synoptic Gospels.

We can judge, however, the behavior of the Church in the earliest days and we realize that it completely rejected any violence, even self-defense. Christians who were in the army had to lay down their arms and get out. The nascent Church was as pacifist as it gets, imitating Christ's final days. If the core of their belief was on Christ making threats, they would have followed His example by imitating that behavior. The complete absence of any violence or resistance among early Christians indicates that the early Gospels did not teach a threatening Christ, but a humble one.

Now you begin to beg the question, by assuming that the universe was indeed created

Either it was created or it existed from all eternity. However, just like a building, everything in nature is a complex structure and despite violence quite orderly, and that suggests a builder. I did not propose an intelligent builder; I simply said that something caused all this to exist, and just as parents pre-exist the child, so does this something pre-exist the creation.

If we assume that the universe existed eternally, then we must assume that organized structures existed eternally, and our experience tells us otherwise. For the pre-existence of the universe to hold any water, some organized structure (matter, black holes, etc.) along with physical laws had to exist in order to create the rest of this world. In which case the first cause, again, pre-existed the rest—except that it is not outside of nature, but its "primordial" first element. Which presupposed the eternal existence of "nature" (whatever that means). There are Eastern religions that subscribe to that belief.

Kosta: That first cause is what we call God.

ZS: Yes we do. But unfortunately your argument failed to prove its existence.

God is simply the name we give to that which gave rise to the universe, which by necessity had to pre-exist it. The existents of a building is evidence of a builder. The other alternative is to say that a building is evidence that it always existed and was never built. Which one if more "sufficient evidence?"

Apparently, when it comes to God, Christians believe (without sufficient evidence) that He is not only the First Cause, but that He was never "built" or "made" by something else. Moreover, God is taught to be simple and indivisible, that He is eternal and never changes. You, as a Christian, must believe that, yet you tell me that I offer insufficient evidence!?

And my claim is modest, without making inferences into God's simplicity, eternity or lack of change (perfection), never mind the biblical details! So, if my evidence fails as "sufficient evidence" what are to say about the Bible, Christianity or any other so-called "holy books" and religions?

But it does not take a "very special person" to see the difference between Creation (which God made ex nihilo) and construction, which is simply a rearrangement of things that are already here!

Creation ex nihilo is a giant leap of faith. Nothing can not give rise to something. Creation is, by definition, rearrangement of things "that are already here," the building blocks. But the blocks have to exist before any building takes place.

We can observe things like the motions of planets or the interactions of atoms and, through empirical evidence, predict with confidence how these things might behave. So there seems to be a sort of natural order, or law that governs these things.

Because of the properties of the physical world which are inherent in matter, namely gravity. We don't know why it exists, or what it is, but we can measure it and predict it to be proportional to the mass. We just know that gravity exists.

Now if we really are to speak of a "first cause", then wouldn't that be the Law itself?

Why? The stew tastes good not because the chef adds flavor but from the ingredients inherent in the elements of the stew. God simply provided energy, and the rest is simply a consequence. If I make a hammer, that hammer can do best what hammers can do. It can't paint a picture! The "law" is in the nature of things, how they are, in their essence. A house does not fly, but airplanes do. You are presupposing that God necessarily decided what properties the matter and energy will have. I don't see why.

the very essence of the Law itself which surpasses all understanding:

I am not sure what you mean by "essence of the law itself."

We are subject to God's Logos, not He to ours

Logos is not "the Law." Nowhere in the Bible is it translated as "the Law."

We are subject to the physical world. We can be destroyed by forces that we cannot control. Whether God controls these or not is a speculation.

One thing seems certain: the earth is an oasis in a sea of hostile universe, literally a speck of dust which, by comparison to the outside world is a miraculous microcosm and potential cornucopia of endless blessings for its creatures.

If humanity follow what Christ taught us (love those who hate you, forgive so that we may be forgiven, mercy, loving your neighbor as yourself, etc.) we could have a paradise on earth, free of wars, crime, fear, hunger, unnecessary suffering, insecurity, greed, injustice, etc.

We are capable of that (because we have the dominion on earth in the image of God, and a potential for mercy in His likeness), and we have been blessed all these centuries since Christ to know the message, and have done absolutely nothing to come even an inch closer to making that a reality.

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