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

Progressive Theology ^ | July 07

[xzins]

Will the Pope's Pronouncement Set Ecumenism Back a Hundred Years?

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.

[irishtenor]

Whatever you are smoking, I suggest you put it out. Read what I posted. Did I say anywhere in there that the Father had hands? The Spirit? All I did was ask you how JESUS picked up the child. You idiotic suggestions as to my reasoning are getting tiresome.

I am through with you.

[irishtenor]

***Are we Christians or are we Paulines?***

One last time, I believe the whole Bible, not just the gospels are the word of God.Therefore, all of the Bible is worthy of study, and worthy of use. All of the scripture is EQUAL.

[HarleyD]

Here we go again, trumping Jesus’ words with passages from Paul. We are supposed to interpret Paul, and the others, from the prism of the Gospels

Are you Orthodox? I didn't realized that there were degrees of "inspired" writings.

In terms of the parable of the servant, repeated in the Gospels, the servant that incurs the wrath is the one who DOES nothing, not the one who IS nothing.

According to Paul, once again:
1Co 3:11-15 For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man's work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man's work. If any man's work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. If any man's work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.

If a man's work is burned up, he still will be saved. In the case of the parable of the servant, he was not saved.

The sheep are judged to be sheep BECAUSE of what they have done, not because they won the everlasting lottery. The goats are judged to be goats BECAUSE of what they have not done, not because they lost the everlasting lottery.

Let me ask you some rather personal questions and those I perfer you didn't answer. But what, according to your interpretation of Matthew 25, would you say to our Lord to allow you into heaven? What specific good works have you done that makes you feel you are worthy enough? How do you know that you will make it?

Don't those sound like important questions? They certainly would be if a person believed in God and they must please Him with their works. Should they sell their homes and move to Africa? Should they work in the hospitals or care for the infirm? The fact is no one cannot please God with anything they do. They can only be submissive to His will and allow Him to work through them. And even if they rebel like Jonah, God promises to bring us back.

I am sorry but we are not saved by our works. We are saved by grace through faith. This faith is a gift from God. Our works are a manifestation of Christ working through us and for most Christians they may not even recognize how God is working in their lives. Abraham was saved by faith and seventeen years later illustrated this faith by his willingness to sacrifice Isaac. The sheep and the goats were sorted on the right and the left before the judgment ever came.

As far as "winning" the everlasting lottery, everyone will be placed in heaven or hell exactly as they were designed to be. God loved Jacob and hated Esau. There are some who would rather reign in hell than serve in heaven.

[D-fendr]

Thanks for your post.

How then do you read this from the Westninster Confession of Faith:

“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..”

A different definition of passions?

[kosta50]

All I did was ask you how JESUS picked up the child.

Did I say anything about Jesus? Your answer was a clumsy way of obfuscating the fact that refreences to "God" in general as having hands and passions are anthropomiorphisms and should be read allegorically and not literally.

Take, for instance Exodus 24:11

Yet He did not stretch out His hand against the nobles of the sons of Israel; and they saw God, and they ate and drank.

Here, in fact, we have a double whamy: refrence to God's "hand" and "seeing" God, neither of which are to be understood literally.

You idiotic suggestions as to my reasoning are getting tiresome

So are your off the wall comments.

I am through with you.

Fine. Go in peace.

[kosta50]

D-fendr to Dr. E: How then do you read this from the Westninster Confession of Faith: “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.” A different definition of passions?

Ooops!

[kosta50]

Are you Orthodox? I didn't realized that there were degrees of "inspired" writings

No, but we won't hold it against you.

[Mad Dawg]

So, God's will and [H]is being are always united as one.

That's what I meant, yes.

No, to be immutable simple means that God's essence is always consistent and in harmony.

Mutor, mutari, mutatus -- I change. First conjugation deponent verb. (One of the about 3 that I remember from 7th grade.)"Mutation" is a modern cognate (See the 3rd principle part, mutatus). So immutable means unchangeable. SO I think we must be looking at the word differently.

Gen 1:31 doesn't say He enjoyed it. The relevant part says .... hummeda hummeda, Berishith, got it right here ...."And Elohim saw all that he had done/made and behold, very good." To say that that verse says He "enjoyed it" is to assume what's to be proved. All the text offers is an assessment of it.

I'm more or less fine with everything you say after the big chunk of my blather,but I"m not entirely sure of the relevance.

UNLESS you're saying that in your view God's passions are not unruly and so do not conflict with His will, which we would also say of Jesus. I would NOT say that the failure to experience a feeling of affection for one's spouse is a sin. It might be a sign of our fallen state, (passion out of sync with will) but it's not itself sinful, anymore than a headache or an itch is sinful in itself.

Look: I know I'm setting myself up for a huge brick wall down the road. Specifically I have no clue about how/whether the Incarnation changes the immutable God. But I'm pretty clear that outside of the period between the Nativity and the Resurrection things didn't "happen to" God.

It's a very fine question, because ti touches on so many very basic questions.

[kosta50]

I probably checked 5 online dictionaries, and they all had the same definition for 'dispassionate': "Devoid of or unaffected by passion, emotion, or bias." Love is an emotion. This would seem to paint the eastern Church into quite a corner.

D-fendr already quoted +John of Damascus, but that would mean nothing to you. However, being a Calvinist, D-fendr's other reference may:

Westminster Confession of Faith: “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.”

[fortheDeclaration]

[So, God's will and [H]is being are always united as one.]

That's what I meant, yes.

No, to be immutable simple means that God's essence is always consistent and in harmony. Mutor, mutari, mutatus -- I change. First conjugation deponent verb. (One of the about 3 that I remember from 7th grade.)"Mutation" is a modern cognate (See the 3rd principle part, mutatus). So immutable means unchangeable. SO I think we must be looking at the word differently.

Well, if you look at Websters 1828 you will see that it is also defined as 'the quality that renders change or alteration impossible', alteration is in turn defined as 'the act of making different or of varying in some particular.

So, God is immutable in that He doesn't change, that all of His attributes always act in full accord with one another, never deviating from their own particular perfections which are always absolute and infinite.

So, to be immutable for God is not to be immobile since Love is always active.

Gen 1:31 doesn't say He enjoyed it. The relevant part says .... hummeda hummeda, Berishith, got it right here ...."And Elohim saw all that he had done/made and behold, very good." To say that that verse says He "enjoyed it" is to assume what's to be proved. All the text offers is an assessment of it.

God gave an assessment of it and called it good.

God thus, was pleased with it.

God took pleasure in His Son (Mat.17:5).

He says that without faith it is impossible to please Him (Heb.11:6), so He is pleased by faith, as indicated by the listing of those names in that chapter.

I'm more or less fine with everything you say after the big chunk of my blather,but I"m not entirely sure of the relevance. UNLESS you're saying that in your view God's passions are not unruly and so do not conflict with His will, which we would also say of Jesus. I would NOT say that the failure to experience a feeling of affection for one's spouse is a sin. It might be a sign of our fallen state, (passion out of sync with will) but it's not itself sinful, anymore than a headache or an itch is sinful in itself.

Anytime a Christian is not bearing the fruits of the Spirit (Gal.5:22-23), he is sinning.

One is either in the Spirit or in the Flesh. (Rom.6)

Look: I know I'm setting myself up for a huge brick wall down the road. Specifically I have no clue about how/whether the Incarnation changes the immutable God. But I'm pretty clear that outside of the period between the Nativity and the Resurrection things didn't "happen to" God. It's a very fine question, because ti touches on so many very basic questions.

Nothing ever happens to God, God allows certain things to occur, but He always knows the end from the beginning and is always acting to complete His Plan, which is a perfect Universe without sin and death.

[kosta50]

Kosta, you continually try to equate all "knowing" with "gnosticism." And that is a mistake

I disagree. What we know may be from God, but we don't know. We may think we know, but none has God's caller ID that he or she can show.

saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them

But we also know that we don't know from the heart, do we? It's a figure of speech as much as writing is. The "heart" in the bible is a concept associated with feelings, notions, hunches, etc. Somehow we intrinsically "know" that mercy is good (because we want mercy for ourselves); even the animals know what "feels good" without understanding why.

What have the Greeks produced but a lot of question marks and an erroneous belief in a dispassionate, distant God?

God is distant but He is not impersonal. God is a mystery. We can think of Him as passionate, and physical, and emotional, but even your own Westminster Confession expresses the ancient Christian truth that He is simple, indivisible, unchanging, complete, lacking in nothing, and passionless.

[kosta50]

Here's your mistake. God is immutable...

That's not my mistake; I never said God changes; to the contrary! That which is perfect (i.e. complete) does not change.

Likewise, God's wrath is immutable regarding the chaff. He does not love the condemned

God gives equally to the righteous and the unrighteous. He is impartial. He loves the saved and the condemned equally. It is our spiritual state (of accepting or rejecting God) that is experienced either as His love or His wrath.

Those who love God experience it as blessings and those who hate Him as burning fire. Love is fire; some are warmed by it, others are burned; but the fire remains the same.

All men are sinners. Some men are acquitted of their sins by Christ on the cross, and some men remain condemned by them

That doesn't fit your double predestination theology, Dr. E, according to which mankind was either "acquitted" or "condemned" before mankind existed! And not only that, but since salvation or damnation is not work-based, or has anything to do with our free will, acquittal and condemnation become oxymorons.

[Forest Keeper]

I would categorize love as a decision. Those who would treat it as an emotion - as a result of something, rather than as a consciously made decision are often disappointed in marriage, especially. Anger and affection are emotions, not love.

Love, anger, and affection are all emotions AND decisions. For example, let's say that I wrote something very personal and offensive to you. One legitimate reaction by you would be anger, but just as legitimate would be to ignore it. It would be your choice. Three different posters could send me the exact same comment and I might legitimately have three completely different reactions, depending on the person. That's my choice. Therefore, emotion and decision can both be true at the same time.

[MHGinTN]

Thanx for the ping.

[Col Freeper]

I enjoyed your (previous) "post for consideration" and did not consider it to say that James was in error, but rather an attempt to say that James and Paul approached the issue(s) "from different focuses (not sure that's a word)".

I will look forward to your thoughtful posts in the future.

Oh yea, also, thanks for the Katrina help, it was appreciated, and all of those that came down to provide that help are still warmly talked about here.

[MHGinTN]

Thank you ... it keeps me writing, for what it’s worth. Thankful that you enjoyed the little ‘exegesis’ on ‘faithe’.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for sharing your insights!

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so very much for your beautiful essay-post and those glorious Scriptures!

[Alamo-Girl]

Christian "knowing" is God-given through Scripture; discerned via the work of the Holy Spirit; confirmed by a right-division of God's word through a presbytery of like-minded believers; and stands or falls in evidence by its fruits.

So very true!

Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither [can] a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. - Matt 7:15-20

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. - Gal 5:22-23

I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every [branch] that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye [are] the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. - John 15:1-5

To God be the glory!

[kosta50]

The insidious thing is that without Caller ID, one cannot know

I love it when they say "don't rely on your feelings; let God lead you..." The woman who drowned her five children also claimed God led her. It's a dangerous path, and all too often fraught with pathology.