“An Eastern Orthodox, an American Baptist (or a member of any other reformed confession), and a Roman Catholic are to my way of thinking and believing all members of the One Body of Christ. While we revere the particular traditions to which we belong, we are finally all united in Christ.”
Did you learn this in an American Roman Catholic Church?
No. Mainly I learned it from the Gospel of Saint John:
I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine.I particularly desire to draw your attention to verse 16.As the Father knoweth me, even so I know the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep.
And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd. -- John 10:14–16
Also recently I have had inspiration along ecumenical lines from Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI....
My take on Dominus Iesus And on the Catechism is that Baptism (intention to baptize + water + trinitarian words) is the ordinary means of becoming a member of the Church. It is "ordinarily necessary" — but not absolutely necessary.
But there are "degrees" of membership of the church, and words like "bene" and "plene" ("well" and "fully") are often used in an attempt to characterize those degrees.
So I have no conceptual difficulty in calling all the Baptized brothers and sister, and I will try to be alert for those who were grafted in by extraordinary means. (In this connection, the word about turning the other cheek includes the protasis,"If your brother strikes you ... .")
And I would also distinguish between "heresy" and "error", even though I would immediately say that we may never see either in the "pure" form. Most heresy probably has some inadvertent "misbelief" in it and most error, I'd guess, has its willful aspect. Certainly, I am rife with error (and not just those errors which lead me to be a Papist rather than Orthodox, brother K.)
Coming at it from another POV, since Alamo-Girl says that when she speaks as the Spirit leads her she does not necessarily abide by the strictures of logic, then the conversation with her must be of a particular kind, or, at least, cannot be of a particular kind.
I mean that once someone says, "In this discourse I will ignore the law of non-contradiction," then garden variety dialectics won't apply. What must follow (I think) will be less of a dialogue and more like a "poetry slam." in which inspired utterance is met with inspired utterance.
Or, if we stipulate the inspiration of A-G's discourse, then possibly, following the Corinthian model, we could hope for an interpreter.. If not, then Regensberg goes out the window and we are left with contending mantic proclamations at which those of us whose gift (or burden) if of the more analytic kind can only gaze in respectful silence - or turn away.
"No one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit." But does this mean that every subsequent utterance is similarly inspired? That can hardly be so.
We have all been encouraged, and most have succumbed, to be temporally and culturally provincial, even chauvinist. We have difficulty imagining the poverty of Europe and of the Mediterranean littoral after the dissolution of the Empire and before the rise of cities. This is one reason the ancient Churches are so misunderstood and despised. We have little understanding of being a person to whom it was not only natural but joyful to say to a human ruler, "Have mercy on us!" because we have been largely spared the chaos and slaughter and ignorance of an age when waking every morning was a blessing, when surviving a meal was an uncertain gift, when making it to nightfall without having one's home burned and one's family slaughtered by thugs calling themselves knights or by barbarians from the sea was bit at all taken for granted. And so the idea of a "saving" war-lord is almost unthinkable to us.
Consequently, in our ignorance and in this solipsistic culture it is not surprising that many cannot imagine that allegiance to the cumbersome "edifice" of Catholicism or the ancient glory of Orthodoxy would seem not so much repellent and repugnant as simply unthinkable.
Yes, there is pride in there, I think. But it is, I'd suggest, a pride of which the one so prideful can scarcely be aware, since it seems so much like "common sense."
A-G, this may seem unbearably condescending of me. I don't know what to do about that except to ask God to amend what can be amended and to redeem what cannot. But I think if you were ever to become a Catholic or to join an Orthodox body, you would shine like the sun and know a joy that would almost eclipse the joy you already show so clearly.
But, though there is this huge and important difference in our thought, I am already happy to think of you as one to whom I am blessed to be a brother.
Just remember, I am a former WASP AND a former Episcopalian, and I don't DO emotion. It isn't decent and leads to crimes and disgraces like confusing the salad fork with the dinner fork.