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.
Paul was NOT a Roman Catholic... or from Apollos or Cephas(Peter).. You know Cephas don't you?..
I accept all the scripture, but not as some of you do.
I think some of it was written by lawyers. :)
We will all be judged for our deeds, but by our words we will be acquitted! (cf. Mat 12:37) In other words, all the lawyers can still hope they can talk their way out of hell! LOL!
But to answer your question, 1 Tim 2:3-4 and 2 Pet 3:9 say that God doesn't want us to go to hell; Prov 16:4 (MarkBsnr take not of this OT verse because it suggests God created the reprobate just for hell), John 12:40, Rom 9:18 (Dr. E's favorite), and Thes 2:11-12 seem to suggest otherwise!
The Good who wants all man saved "loses" by 2:4.
The eternal lake of fire God prepared only for the devil and his angels (cf Mat 25:41) is "burning sulfur" in case you wanted to know (Rev 19:20, and 20:10). So, somewhere in the eternal never-never land is a lake of burning sulfur, and that's where all the demons will end up...
True the church did develop a clergy much too soon.. However they were not Roman Clergy.. they had their own churchs.. The Body of Christ is Universal(catholic) however it is not ROMAN CATHOLIC.. The church is SO catholic even I am a member..
Jesus had mostly non levitical Jews(no gentiles).. Jewish priests were Levites.. The deciples were NO priests.. BUT around the diciples were priests.. pagan priests.. many of them.. Mostly ROMAN.. from ROMAN Gods.. Priests were then and are NOW cultic and pagan..
Obviously you don't believe there was any other literature besides the Bible. Everything was written in Latin. All the universities in Europe used latin as thre academic language, and all scholastic works were written in Latin. The republic of Ragusa (modern day Dubrovnik) on Crioatian cost used Latin as vernacular up to its capture by Napoleon. The Croatian Parliament, for example, used Latin well into the 19th century.
You are making historical statements not based on historical facts. Stop it.
Not so.. Some christians are loyal to "the Church"(or clergy) or even to "Mary".. some particular "saint".. or other minutia and they do not even KNOW THE HOLY SPIRIT.. except in conversation..
You need to get out more..
The Church being a building is an oxymoron and a heresy..
A religion is a cult in every iteration.. the church is a family..
This Love was freely given(NOT Forced) and Paul did not have to accept it any more than the Blessed Mother did not have to accept to be the Mother of Christ. They both had a choice and made Free Will decisions !
You "seem" to be reducing human love to what happens in the Animal kingdom. Human Love is not the same because Man is the only creature that God created for Himself ,He created us so that we may in turn Love Him back through a clear "Free Will" decision on our part.
Again, using Paul as an example, do you suppose the “thorn” that Paul writes about was not given by God to tame Paul’s superiority complex?
No one knows for sure what Paul meant when he spoke of the thorn in his flesh. Some have said that he referred to carnal temptations others say it was spiritual.
Either way,God "allowed" this particular weakness and these weaknesses are usually brought on by our unwillingness to follow God's will. Most of our weakness is what we selfishly attach ourselves to that hinders us like "thorns" to completely die to Christ.
This said...He still uses our weakness and will supply enough Grace to overcome it when humble ourselves to allow Christ to completely abide in us. When this happens our weaknesses become our greatest strength's very often.
Saint Irenaues said this so wonderfully...
""The power and glory of God shine forth in the weakness of human flesh, as He will render our body a participator of the resurrection and of immortality, although He has formed it from the dust of the earth; He will also bestow upon it the enjoyment of immortality, just as He grants it this short life in common with the soul.""
I wish you a Blessed Day!
Those languages were Patois of several sources... as was English.. much as Haitian is not French(but a mix) but sounds French but isn’t.. so ALSO in Europe where hardly anybody understood “latin” and couldn’t read anyway the Bible was effectivly STOLEN from them.. Since even most/many priests even didn’t understand latin either.. The roman church wanted to keep most of the people DUMB..
Only among Romans; the local Patois was the language spoken by the oppressed locals.. always was in any part of the world.. Alaexander had influence almost to India..
“This Love was freely given(NOT Forced) and Paul did not have to accept it any more than the Blessed Mother did not have to accept to be the Mother of Christ. They both had a choice and made Free Will decisions !”
The scriptures say differently:
Act 9:3-7, “And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven: And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?
And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: [it is] hard for thee to kick against the pricks.
And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord [said] unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do.
And the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man.”
The roman catholic church is still today keeping their people in the DARK.. Its a control issue.. To wrest control from the Holy Spirit.. They control by magic rites and historical revision.. rewriting history..
There is some good scholarly church history out there you must not be aware of it..
Cronos: Sorry, that's not correct. The various Churches within the Roman Empire and in the Parthian and Axum Empire were always in communication with each other, right from the times of the apostles. Take Paul's travels for example, there was regular communiques. Read www.newadvent.com or check on wikipedia or even just google it up
hosepipe: Paul was NOT a Roman Catholic... or from Apollos or Cephas(Peter).. You know Cephas don't you?..
3 John indicates that at least some of the early local churches - or individuals - considered themselves in control:
We can clearly see control being asserted (and manuscripts being destroyed) even a tad earlier under the Papacy of Damasus I (circa 366) in this document, The “Decretum Gelasianum de Libris Recipiendis et non Recipiendis”:
the works of Tertullian...
These and those similar ones, which Simon Magus, Nicolaus, Cerinthus, Marcion, Basilides, Ebion, Paul of Samosata, Photinus and Bonosus, who suffered from similar error, also Montanus with his obscene followers, Apollinaris, Valentinus the Manichaean, Faustus the African, Sabellius, Arius, Macedonius, Eunomius, Novatus, Sabbatius, Calistus, Donatus, Eustasius, Jovianus, Pelagius, Julian of Eclanum, Caelestius, Maximian, Priscillian from Spain, Nestorius of Constantinople, Maximus the Cynic, Lampetius, Dioscorus, Eutyches, Peter and the other Peter, of whom one disgraced Alexandria and the other Antioch, Acacius of Constantinople with his associates, and what also all disciples of heresy and of the heretics and schismatics, whose names we have scarcely preserved, have taught or compiled, we acknowledge is to be not merely rejected but eliminated from the whole Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church and with their authors and the followers of its authors to be damned in the inextricable shackles of anathema forever.
BTW, I consider the control of information to be most effective. So I would pinpoint the time of effective control to when the Church went through its phase of "book burning." OTOH, that practice puts a mighty argument in the hands of the Protestants - because when a Catholic or Orthodox claims "the Church has always believed thus and so" - they could respond "How would you know?"
To God be the glory!
I do not deny the roman catholic church assumed civil power and forced priests into civil power..
Thats is part of "the PROBLEM".. wars were fought over these things.. The roman catholic church forceing pagan ritual on people.. Much malfeance can happen when roman catholic priests are also the POLICE.. manipulating governments.. Nothing good can come from that, and hasn't..
"And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make [you that ye shall] neither [be] barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. – 2 Peter 1:5-8
AMEN! "For if these things be in you..."
This is Peter explaining the proof, the evidence of God's grace. "If we believe; if we acknowledge Christ as Lord and Savior; if our lives reflect the gift of God's glory; if our hearts have been reborn to His word; and most importantly of all as Paul told us, if He has indeed risen from the cross, then praise God, it is all true.
So who can actually believe that a man died and yet rose into heaven bodily? Who can accept this astounding impossibility as truth since there isn't really any rational evidence for this fact? None saw Him rise into glory. We have only the words of the Apostles and a few others who say they saw Christ after His death. How can we really believe this to be true if we didn't witness it ourselves?
Scripture tells us we believe by the supernatural gift of God to rebirth us and to open our eyes and ears to the spiritual truth which isn't comprehended by logic or reasoning, but by faith alone.
And the really amazing part is that this faith itself is not illogical nor unreasonable. Why? Because since we have lived our lives according to this faith, we know firsthand the real and tangible effects of this faith -- our lives are happier; we endure hardships without despair; we are more productive and directed; our families are more secure; and most of all, our hearts are rightly turned from our own impoverished ego toward gratitude. Gratitude for God's grace, protection, abiding care and confidence in our future with Him in glory. Gratitude, the glue that holds our lives together and rightly aligns our hearts to Him.
Now perhaps someone like Kosta would say some potent illegal drug could give us this same confident high. To which I would reply that no drug, no other belief, no man nor other god on the face of the earth can give what Christianity gives --
"And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." -- Philippians 4:7
So there comes a point when our faculties are not equipped to prove it all true, even as Kosta demands. That's when faith is given and we believe by the power of the Holy Spirit to change our doubts and fears into the peace of God.
Everything has been unfolding from the beginning according to God's will. The Final Cause is the new family Christ establishes in the new heaven and the new earth. (last two chapters of Revelation)
Amen! And what a relief to know this is true.
"Be not afraid; only believe." -- Mark 5:36.
The first clause in that verse is nearly as important as the second clause.
When Kosta says "No one could imagine that God is gentle and humble," he is only half right. Of course God is gentle, more gentle than the softest touch, more loving than any new mother, more generous than any proud father.
But why would God, the creator of heaven and earth and all things for all time, be "humble?" Who is He humbling Himself before?
Christ, His Son, humbled Himself to God by becoming a man and suffering for our sins so that believers would be saved. But that's the only "humility" contained in the Godhead. Christ was made shame for us; not by us. Do you presume that God humbles Himself before you, Kosta?
Maybe you do.
But that's not Biblically-correct. Every citation in Scripture speaking the word "humble" references men, not God.
"LORD, thou hast heard the desire of the humble: thou wilt prepare their heart, thou wilt cause thine ear to hear" -- Psalm 10:17
Oh! well... What a beautiful day.. Carpe Diem..
It is indeed a beautiful day!
While I forget the original question, I like how you extend Christianity back to Plato or beyond. It might be noted that ancient belief in the efficacy of magic, astrology, alchemy, spiritualism, etc. did not end until recently, and in fact has still not ended in large portions of earth’s populations, especially in certain hot, dusty, oil-rich regions. Plotinus wrote how magic works. No question that it still did at his time. Read John against Plotinus. Might be interesting.
He was certainly leaned on mighty heavily, but He still COULD have rejected God’s will.
He asked “ Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?”
This was not preprogrammed into Paul like he was some kind of robot !
He still had a choice and freely accepted our Lord
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