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 had a feeling that was coming...LDS call on His name too...are you one of them?
6,812 posted on 09/20/2007 8:00:52 PM MDT by kosta50
I am a follower of the Christ; a Messianic. Calling on the Name of Yah'shua is not in the plan of salvation for the Mormons.
shalom b'shem Yah'shua
Then why are you baptized?
Really? I quote from a Mormon site
The same site states:
Have you any evidence to back up your claim? Apparently the LDS think Christ is central to their salvation. They call on His name. By your formula that is enough to "save" them.
Baptism is adoption into the Church. We do not walk around with a cross branded on our forehead as an external sign of such acceptance. God knows if you are His in your heart.
There are so many errors in that one sentence I think perhaps you intended to mislead people.
Extraordinary.
It's going to take some time before I'm able to read another post of yours and not see this one.
1) The Swiss Reformer Zwingli believed in infant baptism and was an opponent of the Anabaptists.
2) Presbyterians did not "come out of the Wesleyan movement." Presbyterianism as a denomination was founded in Scotland by John Knox (who studied under Calvin in Geneva) 200 years before John Wesley.
John Wesley may be had his disagreements with reformed theology, but John Calvin is most closely aligned with the Presbyterian Church.
The trinity is acceptable doctrine because it is biblical. It is not acceptable because it was formulated. THAT is precisely why Purgatory is not acceptable.
Protestants are pretty easy to understand if you get that point.
K5 - I had a feeling that was coming...LDS call on His name too...are you one of them?
Rom 10:13 - for whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Has nothing to do with being LDS, which I know xenia not to be. It has to do with being biblical and knowing St Paul.
Paul is a Christian.
2 Mac is known to be fallacious and is not scripture.
2 Mac is also too much to eat and not my favorite sandwich at all.
So, no matter how you cut it, something less than good is going on. It is about the events in 160's BC, but isn't written until, according to Jewish scholars, the period immediately preceding Christ's birth, well over a hundred years later.
The only presbyterian I can think of who came out of John Wesley was George Whitefield -- and he didn't know he was one. )
So we continue to claim him.
And you all pillory him so badly that I've taken him as my Patron Methodist. :>
Amen! Single mindedness. No abandon. No fear. No over analysis. Pure bliss. :)
Every Christian (well almost) understand one must repent. What the scriptures tells us is that God must be the author of bringing us to repentance. The fact that all men do not come to repentance's is another indication that God does not bring all men to repentance.
As Augustine stated; "Command what you will, and grant what you command." God has commanded all men to repent. God must also grant men the ability to repent.
People fail to understand that it is God's will that drives everything. As James stated:
Kosta: "The ancient Jews don't believe in the devil, PM. The idea of the devil is a latter-day occurrence in Judaism, influenced by Zoroastrianism and accepted by apocalyptic Jewish groups. The NT references to the devil come from "Apocrypha" which you Protestants reject. I have unanswered questions regarding the devil. I think there is one in every one of us."
Well, apparently the Orthodox Church has no problem with the concept of the devil being a real and distinct entity. Here is the introduction to an article about Exorcism in the Orthodox Church by Rev. George C. Papademetriou, Ph.D. I feel like I've posted this before, but no matter :) :
"The Doctrine of Evil -- To understand the Orthodox view and practice of exorcism, one must know the Orthodox presuppositions of evil and its doctrine of Satan. The patristic evidence points to the fact that the cause of evil in the world is the devil. The devil was created by God as an angel, who was free, and as a free agent chose to oppose the plan of God. That is, the devil is a fallen angel. Satan is not evil by nature, but by will and action. In Satan there is no truth whatsoever; he is absolute falsehood and deception. Satan is not just a negation or deprivation of good, but a positive force with free will that always chooses evil. The devil has the ability to recognize divine power, as in the incident of recognizing Christ as the Son of God (Matt. 4:1-11; Luke 4:1-3). Satan has under his leadership legions and invisible powers, with their own "satanic teachings." The devil and evil spirits know that God exists and recognize true and devoted Christians, but pious Christians discern the plans of the devil. The devil, however, constantly employs every method of deception to enslave man to satanic forces and causes rebellion against God. He is the cause of corruption and disorder, a parasitic power in the world that will ultimately be destroyed by the power of God in the "last days." Because there is no compromise between God and the devil, the struggle will continue until the end.
The Orthodox doctrine of God is that He is eternal, uncreated and incorporeal. All other creatures, both visible and invisible, were created by God as free. The power of the devil will ultimately be destroyed by the resurrection of the dead and the renewal of creation. Salvation from all evil will be attained by obedience to God and His plan. This world is a battleground between the acceptance of good and evil. It must be pointed out that the world as the creation of God is not evil. What is evil is the satanic power, destroyed by the power of the cross and the resurrection of Christ.
Dr. Papademetriou is apparently authorized to represent the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America. He clearly disagrees with the ancient Jews you were referencing. In addition, he would agree with you that there is a "devil" inside all humans, but they are exorcised at Baptism, according to him:
"The demonic possession of individuals and even of objects, has been accepted by the Orthodox Church today in the Sacrament of Baptism, in exorcising satanic powers in the case of the evil eye (vaskania), and in exorcising the devil in the case of a possessed person. In the early Church exorcisms were performed by a person especially trained and appointed to pray to drive out evil from those about to be baptized."
This is pretty weird sounding to me, but if you'd like to comment ... :)
Smart Dad. ;O)
This, coming from a guy who says that man is so important that he determines his own eternal destiny, thus overruling God's declared wishes in most cases? Now fair is fair... :) WE never say that man can overrule God. Who REALLY thinks that man is more important?
Kosta: "You mean to wipe my sins clean so that I can go around sinning all I want 'cause God paid my bill for all times? LOL!"
This is not the answer of one who has done so. My best guess is that you would say that this is taken care of through infant baptism, and the maintenance of confession and absolution by priests. Therefore, there is no need to go directly to Christ in prayer and ask for forgiveness and salvation. That is what the Church is for.
Some of our Presbyterian friends view baptism in much the same way as the Catholics. Baptists believe baptism should be left to those who wish to portray their new life in Christ, following the Lord in His ordiance. We don't baptize infants but we do have a dedication ceremony for them where we dedicate them to the Lord similar to your baptism. I'm pinging my fellow Baptist wmfight to this to ensure I have accurately stated this. While I disagree with baptizing infants, I find nothing wildly wrong with the concept.
What I do find interesting is that you do not consider yourself part of the "elect". The New Testament uses this word 17 times in reference to Christians.
Now, now. Let's not forget there are more Calvinistic Methodists than Whitefield. I suspect they're still around but they've gone into hiding. ;O)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.