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.

thanks for your reply.

You are welcome.

[ A passionless God would be a loveless God, which is the opposite of what the Scripture states God is. ]

I think it more accurate to say God is love according to the scriptures. If we say God sometimes loves and sometimes hates, we don't have an unchanging God which would violate other scriptures specifically and also those attesting to God's perfection and infiniteness.

God is Love, and that means that His feelings towards His creation are for good, not evil

But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies. For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men (Lam.3:32-33).

The negative emotions ascribed to God, such as hate, are rejection of his love, and his goodness, which God in his perfect righteousness must hate.

[ Immutability does not [mean] that God is either immovable or unfeeling, only that He never contradicts or violates any of His perfect attributes. [

Immutable means unchanging and incapable of being changed. Unless God is always angry/pleased, loving/hating, etc. all at the same time, how do see an unchanging God having these differing emotions? Particularly when He is outside time and change?

God doesn't change, mankind changes its relations with God.

God was not angry with Adam before the Fall, since there was no reason to be.

It was Adam that changed his relationship with God, and thus, faced the wrath of God's righteous indignation.

God, however never stopped loving Adam and made provision for him to be saved.

The Sun always shines, even though it is hidden behind the clouds.

St. John Damascene is my goto guy. If I had only one work of theology, his encyclopedia would be it.

I think we have a bit of kneejerk literalism from our Protestant friends on this one. Immutability of God is up there with the Trinity in "orthodox" Christianity, East and West and in between.

This is from a sermon in 1855, by Rev. C. H. Spurgeon, entitled "The Immutability of God."

"But God is perpetually the same. He is not composed of any substance or material, but is spirit—pure, essential, and ethereal spirit—and therefore he is immutable. He remains everlastingly the same. There are no furrows on his eternal brow. No age hath palsied him; no years have marked him with the mementoes of their flight; he sees ages pass, but with him it is ever now. He is the great I AM—the Great Unchangeable... He never has been changed in his essence, not even by his incarnation; he remains everlastingly, eternally, the one unchanging God, the Father of lights, with whom there is no variableness, neither the shadow of a change."

Now we're closing in on agreement.

God doesn't change, mankind changes its relations with God.

You vary from this later in your post a bit. However...

I think we're still somewhat at variance, but I hope this explains the position that we can view our perceived loss of God's uchanging love as hate, our perceived loss of his unchanging peace as anger.

FK: "THEN, the further interpretation must be made that these powers are transferable from person to person, at the will of the Church."

What do you make of the deal with Matthias? I think, under possible correction, we'd take that as precedent for the whole "passing on" thing.

Matthias was chosen by the casting of lots. I would hope that priests are chosen based on a little more than that. :) However, I did read that the Jews considered casting of lots as an appeal for God's guidance. But still, this does not appear to be a reliable method, especially without the indwelling Holy Spirit. :)

In any event, the replacement of Judas was much more than naming a new member of the clergy. For lack of a better way to say it, for "Jewish" purposes there was a special significance to there being not more and not less than 12 Apostles (see Luke 22:28-30, Rev. 21:10-14). Therefore, I wouldn't be able to make a comparison among choosing THE new Apostle, and Apostolic succession.

Never thought I'd be referencing this one, but FWIW:

From Chapter Two of THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION OF FAITH (1646)

Of God, and of the Holy Trinity.
I. There is but one only living and true God, who is infinite in being and perfection, a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions, immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, most wise, most holy, most free, most absolute, working all things according to the counsel of his own immutable and most righteous will, for his won glory, most loving, gracious, merciful, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin; the rewarder of them that diligently seek him; and withal most just and terrible in his judgments; hating all sin; and who will by no means clear the guilty.

It's no "Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith" but seems to agree on the without passions part anyway...

Thank you for the kind words, but the earthly credit really GOES to my FR Protestant brethren for showing me how all the scriptures work together toward one, unified message. :)

Where the Gospels speak; where the Lord speaks, that is the pinnacle of the Bible. Where St. Paul or the others speak, in apparent contradiction of the Gospel, since there is no Biblical contradiction, they must be interpreted in the light of the Gospels.

I would concur with giving very strong weight to the words of Jesus, and/or the Gospels. However, I need to know more about this idea of "interpreting in light of the Gospels" or "interpreting through the prism of the Gospels". How is that actually done? Earlier on this thread, I was given an explanation that I could not in good conscience agree with. :)

Sts. Peter and Paul are NOT our Saviours. Jesus is. And what He has to say is absolutely the most important.

I can agree to this, but (and I am not saying you are making this argument) I could not agree that what Jesus said was more true. Is that perhaps where part of the problem is?

And, regardless of personal theology or distaste, Matt 16:19, and Matt 18:18 exist and exist very clearly. We are commanded to do as He instructed us. If we do not, then we are not following His instructions and can hardly claim to be one of the elect hmmm?

Absolutely. But, this may be one of those times when we agree on the same words, but are thinking very different things. :)

FK: "When I sin I am obviously rejecting God. There will be consequences for this. There will be earthly punishment and discipline, and I will likely be hurting someone else, and certainly myself. Repentance and confession can certainly mitigate this. The closer I stay to God the more fulfilled my life will be here on earth. In addition, whatever "rewards in Heaven" means will be affected by the level of sin on earth by believers."

Please forgive me for continuing on in this vein, but I would really like to know more about earthly punishment for sins.

Oh, no problem. I'll "try" to answer almost anything. :) When I wrote that, I was sort of using "earthly punishment" and "discipline" interchangeably, but someone could make a case for a distinction, I suppose. In any event, I was thinking along these lines:

Heb 12:7-11 : 7 Endure hardship as discipline ; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? 8 If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline ), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. 9 Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! 10 Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. 11 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

I love this passage because it amazingly shows how God can turn the negative of sin into an actual positive. I have certainly made mistakes in the disciplining of my own children, but God never does.

So, by this passage, the practical effect "can" be anything that falls under the category of "hardship". Now, I do NOT think that all hardship is a result of being disciplined, i.e. Job, but it "can" be. Frankly, I'm not even sure that we can always tell the difference. However, the point is that there is indeed consequence for sin on earth even after we are saved. And, from the story of Job, and he wasn't even in trouble with God, we learn exactly to what lengths of hardship God is capable of arranging. :)

Therefore, even though I do not think my future sin will jeopardize my salvation, I still have practical reasons to not sin with abandon. :)

[MarkBsnr] also quotes from the Old Testament to show that it has been misinterpreted. And the author of Hebrews tells us that the Old Covenant has been rendered obsolete because Israel corrupted it.

But that doesn't make the Old Testament obsolete. If I quote from the OT, a valid response from you could be "that's no longer applicable because Jesus fulfilled it" (such as sacrificing animals). Outside of that, I would say that everything stands as is.

St. Paul's entire ministry is based on demonstrating the incomplete understanding of what saves (grace, not the law). No one is saying other parts are "wrong," FK.

As far as I can tell, you just did within the same thought. :) If Paul had an incomplete understanding and was personally taught everything he knew by Christ Himself, then he was either wrong, or Christ intentionally wanted Paul's writings to be incomplete. Neither makes any sense to me. If God's intended revelation to us was fully contained in the Gospels, then our Bibles today would consist of 4 books.

It is in the spirit of the Gospels that we must interpret the rest because the Gospels reflect Christ's full revelation of God to men in the divine economy.

But Jesus quotes liberally from the OT, thus affirming that it is still in force. He says:

Matt 22:29 : Jesus replied, "You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God.

Jesus, knowing that the NT is on the way, says that NOT knowing the OT leads to error.

Our Christian faith is meaningless without the Gospels. The Gospels define Christianity. The same cannot be said of any other section of the Bible. The Gospels are the mind and the heart of Jesus.

All true, BUT this does NOT mean that any other part of the Bible is "less" true. What you said makes the Gospels rightfully and critically important, but not to the exclusion of the fullness of God's revelation to us. Within the Bible, one CANNOT have the full and intended understanding of God by reading ONLY the Gospels.

FK: "If God still has use of me on earth, then the other option is that God causes me to change my ways and come back to Him."

Pure speculation on your part. You have no proof whatsoever that God has any use for you.

Then how do you explain this? :

Eph 2:10 : For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

If God prepared the works in advance for us to do, then we are here until we have done them all. Once we have completed every good work that He has prepared for us, then it is time to come home.

If we see God's "anger" and changing "emotions", etc. as our changing perception of an unchanging God, we can approach this question differently. God is the same. Likened to the difference when the same light either warms or burns. I think we're still somewhat at variance, but I hope this explains the position that we can view our perceived loss of God's uchanging love as hate, our perceived loss of his unchanging peace as anger.

Actually, it has to do which one of God's attribute you end up facing.

In sin, you face His Holiness, which will deal with you in righteous wrath.

If you confess your sin (1Jn.1:9), then you are dealt with as an erring child, in love.(Heb.13)

At the Great White Throne Judgement, those who are lost will not be dealing with God's Love, but His Justice, since they rejected His Love.

So, it is more then just perception, it is the reality of God's own Holiness that does indeed hate evil and sin, while His Love, loves His Creation.

"But God is perpetually the same. He is not composed of any substance or material, but is spirit—pure, essential, and ethereal spirit—and therefore he is immutable. He remains everlastingly the same. There are no furrows on his eternal brow. No age hath palsied him; no years have marked him with the mementoes of their flight; he sees ages pass, but with him it is ever now. He is the great I AM—the Great Unchangeable... He never has been changed in his essence, not even by his incarnation; he remains everlastingly, eternally, the one unchanging God, the Father of lights, with whom there is no variableness, neither the shadow of a change."

Ofcourse we would not disagree with that.

No attribute of God can ever change, be diminished or increased.

However, immutability does not mean immobility.

God is also a Person with feelings, who takes pleasure in His Creation.

The fact that God chose to create at all shows the dynamic nature of the Godhead, seeking to share their Love and Happiness with others and taking joy in doing so.

Is God, in His divine nature, subject to pleasure? Pain? Death? Sex? Something He cannot resist?

You're comparing love, hate, sex with human characteristics. Have you considered that God could have a different type of these same attributes? For example God can love us with a godly love but that would not necessarily be the same as our humanly love. We, in our failing, can only glimpse at what love, justice, mercy, etc. truly is but that's it. We cannot fully understand.

Is God not perfectly content?

Of course. That does not mean God does not love. He certainly loves the Son and the Son loves the Father. But God can still be content and still love. The real problem is that we don't understand God's attributes, especially true love. Certainly we can't understand God the Father sending His only Son to the cross.

I’d really like to know what confession means and of what use it is under non Catholic theology, especially to a Reformed.

Pre-salvation confession MUST happen before salvation happens within time. Post-salvation confession is part of the life long sanctification process. In confession, we agree with God that what we did WAS a sin concerning a certain matter, and we agree with God that we shouldn't do it again. We ask for forgiveness and receive it. Presumably, we have learned something and will be a better Christian in the future. Before such a confession, there is sometimes/often an internal struggle about whether to agree with God or not. This is where we learn and are sanctified. If the confession is true, then we are forced to first admit it to ourselves. IMO, in this is great value.

Is is yet another mechanical exercise, entirely without meaning, like prayer?

I'm surprised that an Apostolic would accuse us of mechanical prayer. I think you guys have pretty much cornered the market in Christianity there. :) In fact, in my church, there is exactly ONE "mechanical" prayer that we say. I don't think you could say that.

Now, I want you to look me in the metaphorical eye and tell me that the list of begettors in Genesis is of exactly equal value to Matt 25:

It was the custom to hop over generations of people when discussing genealogy. You will find that the list of begettors up to Abraham's time has holes and gaps as well as Matthew. Same with Luke who approached the genealogy in a different way. It doesn't make one right, wrong or better than the other. It was the author's prerogative.

I am sure Matthew knew what was in the book of Genesis. If he wanted to copy it exactly he wouldn't have had much problems-even without a word processor. If someone wished to forge the book of Matthew, then they didn't do a good job now did they? If the church fathers believed that there were problems with the Matthew genealogy then they would have tossed it in the garbage with all the rest of the gnostic writings. Fact is, there is nothing wrong with the Matthew genealogy.

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