Posted on 05/24/2013 6:25:25 AM PDT by Gamecock
In his Wednesday Mass homily this week, Pope Francis attracted considerable media attention. According to reports, the message drew on Mark 9:40, where Jesus says, He who is not against us is for us. Like the disciples, we can be intolerant of the good that others can doeven atheists. Because were all created in Gods image, there is still a possibility of doing good. So far, nothing particularly controversial in terms of classical Christian teaching. The most ardent evangelical would affirm that although our works are so corrupted by sin that they cannot justify us before God, they can help our neighbors.
However, the pontiff added, The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone! Father, the atheists? Even the atheists. Everyone! We must meet one another doing good. But I dont believe, Father, I am an atheist! But do good: we will meet one another there.
Reports from major outlets, including the Huffington Post, express astonishment at the popes comments. What is this strange new teaching? Of course, its not new at all. It has been an emphasis ever since the Second Vatican Council, where the previously shunned speculations of Karl Rahner, S. J., became official teaching. There is no way to reconcile the previous councils and papal pronouncements depriving non-Roman Catholics of salvation with the idea of the anonymous Christian. Nevertheless, there it is. Not the development of dogma, as Cardinal Newman formulated, but the flat contradiction of dogma.
Before Vatican II, the standard teaching was that ordinarily no one can be saved who does not submit to the magisterium and papal authority in particular. Especially in trouble were those who had been reared Roman Catholic and yet explicitly rejected the popes headship. Although they were consigned to everlasting punishment by papal decrees, the Protestant Reformers never applied the same rule to their Roman Catholic opponents. Calvin even said that although Rome has excommunicated itself according to the criterion of Galatians 1:8-9, There is a true church among her.
What has changed? We keep hearing from Protestants that, given the Vatican II reforms, if Luther and Calvin were alive today theyd renew their Roman Catholic membership cards. I doubt it. Not even the craziness of contemporary Protestantism could push them to make that move against a Scripture-bound conscience.
What has changed is that Rome has carried its incipient Semi-Pelagianism to its logical conclusion. I know, Karl Rahner and Vatican II repeatedly condemn Pelagianism and extol grace as the fundamental basis for salvation. Yet that has always been Romes teaching. It is by grace alone that we are empowered to cooperate in meriting further grace and, one hopes, final justification.
The Reformers never accused the medieval church of embracing outright Pelagianism, but of that subtler form of works-righteousness that invokes grace as no more than assistance for our attainment of Gods favor. Maybe Protestants dont get that because this is essentially the same tendency at work in many mainline and evangelical churches.
There is a certain truth, then, to the idea of development, at least from the sixteenth-century Council of Trent and the twentieth-century Second Vatican Council. Various seeds have come to full flower: Collapsing special revelation into general revelation, and therefore the gospel into the law, Rome maintains that Scripture provides a higher revelationgreater illumination. The gospel is simply the new laweasier than the old covenantwith Christ as a new Moses. Collapsing our works into Christs, the familiar slogan of the medieval church was God will not deny his grace to those who do what lies within them. It is this slogan that is official dogma, according to Vatican II and the current Catechism of the Catholic Church. The Council of Trent anathematized the view that we are so thoroughly bound by sin that we cannot cooperate with Gods grace by our own free will. The new dogma simply extends this logic to conclude that everyone is in Christ, infused with saving grace, and capable of attaining final justification by grace-empowered works. The medieval dogma of implicit faith was a way of demanding absolute obedience to everything taught by the pope and magisterium, which Calvin described as ignorance disguised as humility. Now, implicit faith is invoked to support the idea that even atheists evidence an openness to divinity by their good works. They may not have explicit faith in Christor even in any transcendent Creator, but it lies buried in their sub-consciousness nevertheless.
Whats different is this: where the older view denied that faith was sufficient for justification, the new view denies that faithat least the explicit faith in Christ everywhere assumed in Scriptureis even necessary. In other words, good works not only now supplement faith in justifying sinners but replace faith entirely.
Its no wonder that the media is welcoming this Wednesday homily with such glee. Aside from some major social problems, the world, after all, is not as in need of being rescued as we thought. We just need a little direction to get back on the road, some encouragement to be more tolerant and attentive to the plight of others. Somehow Jesus Christ has made it possible for all of us to wind up in heaven (purgatory, etc., left to the fine print).
But is this a gospelgood news? Perhaps it is to good people who could be a little better, but not to the ungodly who need to be justified before a holy God. Whats so amazing is that the popes message is treated as kinder and freer, even though it replaces faith in Christ with our own acts of charity. For anyone who knows what God counts as true loveand therefore good works, this can only provoke deeper guilt and fear.
Although the surprise expressed by the Huffington Post report cited above reveals unfamiliarity with official teaching, it does get one important thing right in its conclusion: Of course, not all Christians believe that those who dont believe will be redeemed, and the Popes words may spark memories of the deep divisions from the Protestant reformation over the belief in redemption through grace versus redemption through works. Anyone who thinks that the Reformation is over doesnt realize just how much further from the gospel Rome has moved in recent decades.
What non=Catholics are you talking about?
Christ may have died for everyone, but not all will accept him and be saved. There were 2 thieves on the cross with Jesus, but only one saw Christ in Paradise.
The Pope has not only stated that everyone is included in redemption, but that it's not a matter of faith. It's a matter of duty to do good. Do good things and we'll all meet around the Crystal Sea.
It's refreshing to hear the Pope honestly preach the Catholic doctrine.
P.S. ,,, and NOT when I got infant-baptized, communioned or confirmed.
1 Peter 1:23 "Being born again not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible, by the word of God who liveth and remaineth for ever."
Douay-Rheims 1899
Good answer.
ROTFL! Welcome to my world!
Christ did Redeem all, but all will not be Saved. Before Christ died we were all condemned to hell, not necessarily because we had actually done wrong but because Heaven was barred to us. Redemption means Heaven is no longer barred. It does not mean we can be sure of our admission.
So his speech had nothing to do with who shall be Saved.
If I understand correctly, yes. It has a lot to do with who can be saved, but as for who will be saved, no.
I would hope you are exactly correct in what you (and CatholicVote.org) believe that the Pope was really saying. But isnt it somewhat baffling as to why the Pope would, first, even put out there a statement that is so ambiguous as to be misinterpreted by so many decent people, including many faithful Catholics; but more even more puzzling is why hes just letting it hang there! Do not the faithful Catholics of the world deserve some sort of a clarification, at least? Even if the clarification came from one of his underlings, it would go a long way to clear up what you and some others believe to be a misunderstanding.
If you then change your mind to agree with thge first Catholic another Catholic will come along and tell you you are still wrong.
That's so true.......
hehe
Keyboard Catholics are frequently more Catholic than the Pope.
Ours??? Yours??? How about God's??? (which is the same as ours, btw.)
No one outside the body of Christ is redeemed...And to be more precise, the 'new man' and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the believer is the 'earnest money, the down payment of the future redemption of the believer...No atheists of muzlims have redemption without a trust in Jesus Christ as the Savior...
I'd guess he probably read it...But the bible doesn't jive with Catholic theology so he's certainly not going to quote much of it...
Completely untrue...And that's why so many Christians and Catholics are up in arms over the false teaching...
Christ’s Church has always taught that salvation is possible for non-Christians.
How can this be possible if Christ’s atoning death makes our salvation possible?
If anyone is saved, it is through Christ.
Faith in Christ is one condition of salvation. True faith requires, and is reflected in, good works.
“But I say, ‘How can you show me your faith if you don’t have good deeds? I will show you my faith by my good deeds.’”
An atheist who does good for its own sake demonstrates an implicit faith in, and love of, God, who is Goodness Itself.
Similarly, if an atheist pursues truth to the best of his ability, then he pursues God, who is Truth Itself. If the atheist does not realize an explicit Faith, through no fault of his own, his salvation is still possible.
Nevertheless, explicit faith in Christ, and union with His Church, is the normative and most sure means of salvation. Atheism is obviously a dangerous road to travel.
I agree that we should show love to everyone, even people who don’t believe. I just am not going to lie to them about the truth.
Nor will I. And neither will the Pope.
What were the good works of those crucified with Jesus?
I have been attending a messianic congregation for some time, and for the first time in my adult life, I have a semblance of an organized religion.
I saw some of this organized religion when I was a young Methodist.
However, as a evangelical, we don’t observe religious practices, and that is where I was for the past 15 years or so.
SO- that being said. I do understand that the organized religion can bring comfort, (which is what my Catholic friends tell me is what they like about their Catholicism). They like the order, the routine. I can’t say that I blame them for that.
My concern for Catholics is that they do not study the Bible for themselves, they are not open to revelation, and they do not understand the ministry of the Holy Spirit, from what I have seen.
Therefore they do not understand the victory they have over darkness, while we are here in this place called the world.
You know! Link to heaven, please. (And not to your Babble, God doesn't read.)
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