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.
I agree that this is the way we are led to answer it - if we try to mesh all the various revelations of God in the OT and NT.
But we end up with a changing God, subject to pride, and we then we try to mesh it with a God who is perfect love.. we end up with things that do not mesh - a kind of schizophrenia results.
Scripture must be seen in unity not in combining. The OT through the light of the NT, not the OT AND the NT.
Am I at least communicating my point clearly?
AAAARG! I answered, even did so according to scripture. I’ll expand if you wish:
God was right the first time, wrong the second, right the third.
;)
So if you now sin willfully, the blood of Christ is not sufficient? Or if you sin willfully, you were not "born again"?
Again, we are leading to a difference in definition causing a difference in meaning of Christ's sacrifice being sufficient.
A spiritual realm.. maybe a "dimension".. for sure a kingdom..
Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has entered the metaphorical "heart" of man the things prepared.. This leaves engrams of mental images of enhanced and magnified feelings and senses.. ICor 2;9.. But not only feelings and senses but communication and dialog on a vastly higher scale.. Promising capabilities of ideas, concepts and quales not even possible currently..
True evolution as a lowly worm to a butterfly... from a state of needy desire to fully fulfilled spiritual reality.. My mind boggles at my meager attempt to imagine.. A re-created or remodeled heaven AND earth.. and their occupants remodeled as well..
To, NOT BE, a part of this would indeed be HELL.. even if hell was not so bad a place.. To miss the metamorphosis from worm to butterfly would be tragic on a grand scale.. And to think, SOME CHOSE THEIR OWN FATE.. by rejecting the architect.. and workmen.. Proving they were flawed building material... fit for the dump..
Please, Be merciful to me and the imaginations of a poor carpenter.. or wood butcher..
Amen!
"She is not afraid of the snow for her household: for all her household are clothed with scarlet." -- Proverbs 31:21
No, the "tip" does not pay for Heaven, Christ on the cross does.
If you do not have the indwelling Holy Spirit in order to be able to translate the oft convoluted passages, then you’re going to wind up with the 33000 or million or billion or whatever number of Protestants insist upon private interpretation.
Go ahead and use "billion", it seems popular so it must be true. But anyway, I have just learned that Apostolics are the keeper of the Holy Spirit, Who obeys Apostolics through their binding powers. Apparently, the men of the Church are the ones who install and seal the Holy Spirit into the individual. My goodness, that means that only Apostolics have the indwelling Holy Spirit. I suppose if I believed that my hierarchy controlled God for this purpose, then many of the views I have been exposed to would make much more sense. :)
If you ignore Matt 25: and most of the rest of the Bible, then you have a case for sola fide. And predestinarianism. I will grant you that.
I don't know what you mean by "most of the rest of the Bible", but if you want to have a verse-off on where the weight of scripture is concerning Sola Fide, I am ready. :)
lingua franca means any language that is widely used as a means of communication, like English today. Your statement “Not true thats why romance languages are true Patrois.. A mix of lingua franca(probably several dialects) and latin..” is a sine qua non
The Crusades were a series of military conflicts of a religious character waged by Christians during 1095–1291, most of which were sanctioned by the Pope in the name of Christendom.[1] The Crusades originally had the goal of recapturing Jerusalem and the sacred “Holy Land” from Muslim rule and were originally launched in response to a call from the Eastern Orthodox Byzantine Empire for help against the expansion of the Muslim Seljuq dynasty into Anatolia. This is ironic, as the crusades have now been compared to the Islamic jihad.[2][3]
The term is also used to describe contemporaneous and subsequent campaigns conducted through to the 16th century in territories outside the Levant[4], usually against pagans, those considered by the Catholic Church to be heretics, and peoples under the ban of excommunication[2] for a mixture of religious, economic, and political reasons.[5] Rivalries among both Christian and Muslim powers led also to alliances between religious factions against their opponents, such as the Christian alliance with the Sultanate of Rum during the Fifth Crusade. The traditional numbering scheme for the Crusades includes the nine major expeditions to the Holy Land during the 11th to 13th centuries. Other unnumbered “crusades” continued into the 16th century, lasting until the political and religious climate of Europe was significantly changed during the Renaissance and Reformation.
First Crusade 1096–1099
Main article: First Crusade
In March 1095 at the Council of Piacenza, ambassadors sent by Byzantine emperor Alexius I called for help with defending his empire against the Seljuk Turks. Later that year, at the Council of Clermont, Pope Urban II called upon all Christians to join a war against the Turks, promising those who died in the endeavor would receive immediate remission of their sins[9]. Crusader armies managed to defeat two substantial Turkish forces at Dorylaeum and at Antioch, finally marching to Jerusalem with only a fraction of their original forces. In 1099, they took Jerusalem by assault and massacred the population. As a result of the First Crusade, several small Crusader states were created, notably the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades
Jewish community
Main article: History of the Jews and the Crusades
1250 French Bible illustration depicts Jews (identifiable by Judenhut) being massacred by CrusadersThough the Muslims in power at the time tried to protect the Jews in The Holy Land, the Crusaders’ atrocities against them in the German and Hungarian towns, later also in those of France, England, and in the massacres of Jews in Palestine and Syria have become a significant part of the history of anti-Semitism, although no Crusade was ever declared against Jews. These attacks left behind for centuries strong feelings of ill will on both sides. The social position of the Jews in western Europe was distinctly worsened, and legal restrictions increased during and after the Crusades. They prepared the way for the anti-Jewish legislation of Pope Innocent III and formed the turning-point in medieval anti-Semitism.
The crusading period brought with it many narratives from Jewish sources. Among the better-known Jewish narratives are the chronicles of Solomon Bar Simson and Rabbi Eliezer bar Nathan, “The Narrative of the Old Persecutions,” by Mainz Anonymous, and “Sefer Zekhirah,” and “The Book of Remembrance,” by Rabbi Ephraim of Bonn.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades#Jewish_community
The achievement of preserving Christian Europe must not, however, ignore the eventual fall of the Christian Byzantine Empire, which was mostly caused by Fourth Crusade’s extreme aggression against Eastern Orthodox Christianity, largely at the instigation of the infamous Enrico Dandolo, the Doge of Venice and financial backer of the Fourth Crusade. The Byzantine lands had been a stable Christian state since the 4th century. After the Crusaders took Constantinople in 1204, the Byzantines never again had as large or strong a state and finally fell in 1453.
Taking into account the fall of the Byzantines, the Crusades could be portrayed as the defence of Roman Catholicism against the violent expansion of Islam, rather than the defence of Christianity as a whole against Islamic expansion. On the other hand, the Fourth Crusade could be presented as an anomaly. It is also possible to find a compromise between these two points of view, specifically that the Crusades were Roman Catholic campaigns which primarily sought to fight Islam to preserve Catholicism, and secondarily sought to thereby protect the rest of Christianity; in this context, the Fourth Crusade’s crusaders could have felt compelled to abandon the secondary aim in order to retain Dandolo’s logistical support in achieving the primary aim. Even so, the Fourth Crusade was condemned by the Pope of the time (Pope Innocent III) and is now generally remembered throughout Europe as a disgraceful failure.
Albigensian Crusade
Main article: Albigensian Crusade
The Albigensian Crusade was launched in 1209 to eliminate the heretical Cathars of Occitania (the south of modern-day France). It was a decades-long struggle that had much more to do with the concerns of northern France to extend its control southwards than it did with heresy. In the end, both the Cathars and the independence of southern France were exterminated.
Ditto. Many thanks for sharing this wonderful musing with me, hosepipe, on all the wonders that await us.
from a state of needy desire to fully fulfilled spiritual reality
The LORD is nigh unto all them that call upon him,hosepipe, you compared this Living Love that redeems and will transform us to the creative act of a butterfly appearing from its chrysalis having entered as a worm. Here is a clip that compares that miracle to the blossoming of a rose...from a seed...up from the earth...
to all that call upon him in truth.
He will fulfill the desire of them that fear him:
he also will hear their cry, and will save them.
~Psalm 145:18-19
God's love ~hesed~ to you all.
Perfect application!
Only if one did not read the doctrine and understand it -- and especially the limitations with respect to its applicability -- would one think that errors of Popes would cast doubt on the doctrine of Papal Infallibility. It gets my attention that it's hard to google up a clear succinct statement -- but that ought to be a clue that it probably ain't what we think it is. Anyway, here's as good a statement as any, I suppose, and better than some:
When the Pope (1) intends to teach (2) by virtue of his supreme authority (3) on a matter of faith and morals (4) to the whole Church, he is preserved by the Holy Spirit from error. His teaching act is therefore called "infallible" and the teaching which he articulates is termed "irreformable".
I don't know if you would remember when J2P2 spoke about the impossibility of ordaining women the the priesthood. I was intrigued to note the language around the statement. IIRC, it was something like "this should be regarded as infallible," which I found an interesting periphrasis. It was as if JP2 were reluctant to haul out the big stick.
It seems extremely unlikely to me that any Pope would intend to teach for the whole church on the practical, almost technical, matter of indulgences in response to donations.
Further, it seems to me that to talk about "buying indulgences", however much it may reflect that actual practice advocated by such leading lights of ecclesiastical ham-handed cupidity as the infamous Tetzel, is almost to preclude understanding not only of indulgences in general but of how careless moral and spiritual thought would lead to the abuses which we all decry. I don't think the dialogue needs or is advanced by articulations which attribute to the other side opinions which no one but a wicked fool would espouse.
So, hold the thought that "the intention specifies the act" - what distinguishes manslaughter for murder is mostly what's in the intention of the guy doing the killing. So, if I intend by giving you a gift, to meet some need of yours, then I have, uh, committed a work of mercy. And there may be consequences beneficial to the late Aunt Tillie, who knows?
If, on the other hand, I intend, by giving you the same money, to purchase some kind of remission of temporal penalty for Aunt Tillie, currently languishing, as I suppose, in Purgatory, then I have committed a purchase, or an attempted purchase. (And you, if you encouraged me to think I could buy what is not for sale, have committed at least some kind of negligent fraud!)
Cynics will say, "It all comes down to the same thing." But it doesn't, as our Lord suggests by his comment on charitable giving in the Sermon on the Mount. Some people give. Others buy. Giving is a good thing. Buying is neither here nor there but as circumstances determine.
I'm not arguing here that indulgences are true or false, right or wrong. I'm suggesting that the way indulgences (and Papal Infallibility) are described leads to misunderstanding.
Romanism didn't 'allow' anything, they just couldn't defeat them.
Ofcourse a person can know if he is saved or not, the scripture makes that very clear
1Jn.5:13
These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.
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