Posted on 01/24/2014 3:54:59 PM PST by ebb tide
What has intrigued me most about Pope Francis is not the way in which Catholics -- well, most of them, anyway -- have embraced him but the way in which countless Protestants have moved into his fan club.
More is at play here than simple celebrity in our overwrought pop culture. At least, I hope so.
The Protestant fascination with him hasn't broken down the many theological, liturgical and structural barriers that still exist between Protestantism and Catholicism, but it has softened them a bit and it has caused some Protestants to want to figure out what makes Francis tick, what Jesuit theology is all about and what ground we Protestants might share in common with Catholics.
My own congregation is a good example of this phenomenon. Our pastor, Paul Rock, recently began a sermon series he's calling "Jesus, the Pope and a Protestant Walk Into a Bar." His sermons, which started Sunday, can be found here [1].
To alert people to this series, he posted this short video [2] on our church's website [1]. As Paul says in the video, "This is a pope who has become the people's pope. ... The fact that Pope Francis has been an inspiration to both Catholics and Protestants I think provides us a unique opportunity to take a fresh look at this Catholic-Protestant divide."
I suspect that the intense Protestant interest in Francis is a sign that deep in our protesting marrow, there is a yearning for unity and a latent sense of regret that it had to come to all that division in Martin Luther's time and that the divide has never been healed.
For good and sufficient reasons back then, insistent Catholic reformers broke away from Rome in what became known as the Protestant Reformation, and although countless feelings were hurt and vicious charges traded, it was surely a reluctant parting. The Luthers, the Ulrich Zwinglis and the John Calvins of the time first sought to fix what they thought had gone wrong in the church. But failing that, they felt they had no choice but to leave.
So off they went in a huff while the Catholics they left behind mostly shouted after them not to let the door slam them in the butt on the way out. It was sad, though perhaps avoidable, but we can't rewrite that history now.
No divorce happens because of what just one of the partners does, thinks or says. It's always a group failure, as it was in this case. But it's also true that no divorce happens without some residual regret.
Some of that residual regret is helping to fuel the Protestant fascination with Francis. Whether it will mean anything in the way of reconciliation over the long haul is unknown. But it's certain that no reconciliation will be possible if both Protestants and Catholics continue to deny the regret they feel and their hope for a different future.
To Protestants, one of the most attractive things about Francis is his humility, his willingness not to rely on, defend and protect all aspects of the hierarchical system of polity that has marked the papacy, especially in the time since Pope John XXIII. That system, at least to Protestant eyes, seems to be in tension with the idea straight from the mouth of Jesus that true leaders must first be servants.
Now Francis not only is saying exactly that, he's acting as if he believes it.
Protestant polity usually is more decentralized and democratic than the Roman system of governance, but that doesn't mean some Protestant leaders don't also fall into the trap of being insufferable monarchists and worldly kingdom-builders.
Today, however, when Protestants set aside that nonsense and focus on humbly seeking to follow the God of love revealed in Jesus Christ, they find they have been joined by a fellow pilgrim, Francis. And we should welcome each other on the journey.
[Bill Tammeus, a Presbyterian elder and former award-winning faith columnist for The Kansas City Star, writes the daily "Faith Matters" blog [3] for the Star's website and a monthly column for The Presbyterian Outlook. His latest book, co-authored with Rabbi Jacques Cukierkorn, is They Were Just People: Stories of Rescue in Poland During the Holocaust [4]. Email him at wtammeus@gmail.com [5].]
There are more protestants in the country than Catholics.
Deal with it.
“The largest religion in the US is Christianity, claimed by the majority of the population (76% in 2008[2]). From those queried, roughly 51% of Americans are Protestants, 24% are Catholics”
Wikipedia.
So, using Wikipedia as your source, you're going to argue that 116 million Americans (more than 1/3 of the population) are weekly-church-attending Protestants, and we outnumber by more than two-to-one the 58 million weekly-church-attending Catholics, and there's another 54 million of some-other-kind-of weekly-church-attending Christians still out there?
Aren't you supposed to be in the kitchen, making me a sandwich?
When in the hell have I ever defended anyone for voting for Obama? If a Catholic voted for him, or a protestant, and call themselves Christian they are the biggest hypocrites in the world. My contention has always been that devout, Mass attending Catholics vote for conservatives, the exact same way protestants vote. Only the Catholic haters refuse to acknowledge that Obama and Romney basically split the Catholic vote, and if not for hispanics with an agenda voting for Obama, Catholics would have easily supported Romney.
How did the Lutheran denomination vote in 2012?
How did the Episcopalian vote go in 2012, how about the Presbyterian vote?
I don’t even know the names of the denominations that most blacks belong to, no one defends any democrat voting congregation here, except for the members of the left voting Catholic denomination.
It’ funny that all of the blacks, the gays, the Episcopalians, the un baptized Christians, the Christians who never set foot in a church and perhaps never have, are all combined under the umbrella “Protestant”, and yet the Protestant vote still always goes against the democrats.
When we look at denominations, we really see just how left the Catholic one is.
The Catholic denomination’s vote for abortion and homosexuality and leftism, is fought for and defended fiercely here, as we have to wade through endless defense of that denomination.
Look at your posts, is there any other pro-abortion, lefty voting denomination’s vote that has someone working as hard as you in it’s defense? Freepers working to make it disappear, to conceal it from politically active conservatives? Not at all, I don’t recall seeing even a little of what we are seeing on this thread in regards to any other lefty denomination.
“There are no ... no paternosters, ... in the Scriptures.”
And that claim shows just how stupid anti-Catholics are.
Sorry, folks. Any man that believes the doctrines of Rome, is not a “peoples pope” but a man believing errant theology. There are no 7 sacraments, no genuflecting, no paternosters, no “Roman Catholic Church” in the Scriptures.
“The Catholic denomination’s vote for abortion and homosexuality and leftism, is fought for and defended fiercely here, as we have to wade through endless defense of that denomination”
I defend no person that calls themselves Christian and votes for a democrat, be it Catholic or Protestant. I just say that roughly half the Catholics in the country voted for Romney and you still want to argue about it. The Morman almost won the Catholic vote. Without those Catholics voting for him he would have gotten killed in the general election.
But don’t worry, you will get your wish maybe this coming election. All it’s gonna take for a republican to get the hispanic vote (and 10 of the hispanic vote for Romney and he would won the overall Catholic vote) is for the republican nominee to cave on immigration, which they are certainly doing, and that hispanic vote will increase big time. And if the nominee is Rubio, who has already caved, I would be willingly to bet that Republicans will win the coveted hispanic vote in 2016. And with that the overall Catholic vote, that Romney almost won anyway.
Mark it down. I said it first.
I’m a member of that Church, and I don’t vote that way.
Your move.
I don't think you'll get an argument from either one of us on that.
My contention has always been that devout, Mass attending Catholics vote for conservatives, the exact same way protestants vote.
I've made that exact argument elsewhere, but that hasn't been your contention. No, your repeated contention on this thread has been that mass-attending Catholics vote differently than Protestants, because most Protestants voted for Obama, with FReepers "giving them a free pass" just because they're Protestant.
Only the Catholic haters refuse to acknowledge that Obama and Romney basically split the Catholic vote, and if not for hispanics with an agenda voting for Obama, Catholics would have easily supported Romney.
Oh, those wascally haters! Oh, those wascally Hispanics! Why won't the bishops just excommunicate the lot of them and let the white folks rule, as they rightfully should? But what's that you say? Catholics "basically split" the vote between Obama and Romney? When more than 40% of your best group still votes for Obama, I'd say you still have a split decision to deal with. Maybe the time's right to bring back the Inquisition!
Nice try: Wild imaginations apart, go check out the Church of 2000 years from Christ to the Rock of Peter to his successors, the martyrs, and saints that has spread to all four corners of the earth. There is the Catholic Church, its sheer beauty, and then there are the thousands of scattered mushrooms enough to make enough of an wild omelette with “rotten egg” scriptural interpretations from David Koresh to Rev. Wright to Joel Osteen thrown into the mix.
Yet these folks go by the authority of the Catholic Gregorian Calendar in celebrating their Christmas (Dec. 25) and Lent, and Good Friday and Easter. Catholics have the Mass and the Holy Eucharist the “Bread of Eternal Life,” while the rest go down to the beach for local “Easter Sunrise Services”- whatever that means. Now go get your couch, rug, and relax next to the fireplace you have imagined.
There are no Catholics down south to speak of and that’s why Santorum did well with protestants in the south. The Catholics in the northeast are liberals. He never stood a chance with them. He’s too conservative.
Sorry, I accidentally left the link empty. Here it is. NKP_Vet, you were still three months away from becoming a FReeper when that 2011 thread started, so I wouldn't expect that you knew about it before now.
“No, your repeated contention on this thread has been that mass-attending Catholics vote differently than Protestants, because most Protestants voted for Obama”
Wrong. I have never said most Protestants voted for Obama. I said he got more protestant votes than Catholic votes. There’s a hell of a lot more protestants in the country than Catholics.
LOL, the silliest post that I have seen in some time, thanks.
I’m amazed, but there is one lefty, pro-abortion voting denomination that has it’s defenders here, the Catholic one.
My wish, and the wish of (almost) all pro-lifers, is that the lefty voting Catholic denomination, vote like the Evangelical Christians.
No problem.
Confounding ridiculous, generalizing comments is something of a hobby of mine ;)
ping to 15...again.
Still got that same old graphic from the 90s.
ping to 15...or contact someone who reads.
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