Our loss of this vision is clouding our ecumenical efforts with the Catholic Church of both East and West and they are now quite confused as to who they are to speak with now as a result of our recent decisions and indecision. Is the Anglican Communion Catholic or Protestant. Cardinal Kasper writes about our confusing decisions to further cloud the answer to this question.
As I stated when addressing the Church of England’s House of Bishops in 2006, for us this decision to ordain women implies a turning away from the common position of all churches of the first millennium, that is, not only the Catholic Church but also the Oriental Orthodox and the Orthodox churches. We would see the Anglican Communion as moving a considerable distance closer to the side of the Protestant churches of the 16th century, and to a position they adopted only during the second half of the 20th century.
Since it is currently the situation that 28 Anglican provinces ordain women to the priesthood, and while only 4 provinces have ordained women to the episcopate, an additional 13 provinces have passed legislation authorising women bishops, the Catholic Church must now take account of the reality that the ordination of women to the priesthood and the episcopate is not only a matter of isolated provinces, but that this is increasingly the stance of the Communion. It will continue to have bishops, as set forth in the Lambeth Quadrilateral (1888); but as with bishops within some Protestant churches, the older churches of East and West will recognise therein much less of what they understand to be the character and ministry of the bishop in the sense understood by the early church and continuing through the ages.
I have already addressed the ecclesiological problem when bishops do not recognize other’s episcopal ordination within the one and same church, now I must be clear about the new situation which has been created in our ecumenical relations. While our dialogue has led to significant agreement on the understanding of ministry, the ordination of women to the episcopate effectively and definitively blocks a possible recognition of Anglican Orders by the Catholic Church.
Who does Rome talk to now? That is the question they are asking. The penultimate paragraph comes in Cardinal Kasper’s conclusion as the framework for taking a New Oxford Movement to the table where real conversations for ecumenical dialogue and visible unity can be discussed again with the utmost seriousness and trust that we all want the same thing–that we may all be one as He is one. It is not a secret that the goal and hopes of this movement will be full reunion with the Catholic Church where the people of this great land of England can look and see that the Church is one and come to believe. That is our mission and that is the goal of Christ’s call to spread his love, mercy, grace and glory throughout the world. His promise is that he will never leave us nor forsake us so we take up the plough and do not look back.
If the Anglican Communion forsakes it Anglo-Catholic aspect then it becomes nothing more than one more Protestant church.
Fr. Steele asks…
[blockquote] Who does Rome talk to now?[/blockquote]
However that question has already been answered by H. E. Archbishop William Cardinal Levada Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for Doctrine and and the Faith. Rome is talking to the Traditional Anglican Communion. And I expect to hear something concrete on that subject by the end of the year, if not perhaps sooner. Cardinal Kasper’s diplomatic prod is a dollar short and a day late. Pope Benedict XVI has written the AC off and is moving on.
ICXC NIKA
[url=http://ad-orientem.blogspot.com/]John[/url]
Reunion with Rome is still a terrible idea. It simply doesn’t make sense to leave one heretical group for another heretical group, especially an authoritarian one.
-Vincent
Vincent, would you be specific as to how thr RCC is heretical?
I may disagree with some RC theology, but I would never call them heretical. In fact I am putting less and less stock in Churchmanship, much like CS Lewis.
Vincent #3 Please……….
Did not our Lord pray that we would be one as He and the Father are one? OK. Reunion with Rome and I assume with EO is not your cuppa but do you have to refer to our brothers and sisters as heretical? Give it up!!!
I am not sure why people get so upset with the term heresy. I am Orthodox and am not in any way disturbed by people who think I am a heretic. If they did not then my next question would be why aren’t you Orthodox? Do i agree with him? Of course not. I think Protestantism is intellectually bankrupt and does not withstand even a cursory knowledge of the history of the early Church and the Fathers. But at least he has some beliefs, unlike TEC.
ICXC NIKA
[url=http://ad-orientem.blogspot.com/]John[/url]
Ad Orientem,
Comments like Vincent’s bother me on a number of levels. Not the least is that the Church has more then enough external enemies. We just don’t need this kind of nonsense amoungst ourselves.
I do admit that the RCC leadership can occasionally make theologically correct statements. Cardinal Casper made some very good points, however the bad far outweighs the good of the Roman church. There are three major reasons why the RCC is heretical. 1) The universal jurisdiction the Bishop of Rome over the Church. 2) The political fornication of the Roman Church. 3) Claimed authority to change and create church doctrines/traditions. These are the three reasons I believe the RCC is heretical and no discussions of reunification should occur UNTIL they repent from the error of their ways. IMHO, it should be the Orthodox Church that we should have unification discussions.
For a more detailed overview of the RCC apostasy, you should read these two statements from synods in the Orthodox Church concerning Rome.
The Reply of the Orthodox Patriarchs to Pope Pius the Ninth (1848) http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/ecumenism/encyc_1848.aspx
The Reply of the Synod of Constantinople to Pope Leo the Thirteenth (1895)
http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/ecumenism/encyc_1895.aspx
-Vincent
Ad Orientam, I think it’s important to distinguish between, on the one hand, errors and flaws and, on the other, heresy. I think the Orthodox are wrong when they say they are [i]the[/i] Church, and I think the RCC is wrong it its views about Magisterial teaching and the role of Mary in the economy of salvation. But these are debates within orthodoxy.
Obviously, correct doctrine and practice are of absolute importance. We shuld not be in communion with or have table fellowship with anyone with whom we are not in 100% agreement on even the smallest detail.
Re # 9
Vincent,
I concur with your points 1 & 3. However point 2 seems to be more a matter of human failing than doctrine. Thus I don’t count that as heresy. There are not many churches (including some of the Orthodox jurisdictions) which have at times fallen into a too close relationship with secular power structures.
ICXC NIKA
[url=http://ad-orientem.blogspot.com/]John[/url]
Re # 11
Br. Michael,
While there is certainly room for disagreement in matters of theologumena such does not exist where actual doctrine is concerned. The position which you state with obvious sarcasm is in fact the consistent teaching of the Fathers and the OEcumenical Councils.
ICXC NIKA
[url=http://ad-orientem.blogspot.com/]John[/url]
ad orientem, I would not consider either the Orthodox Church or the Catholic churtch to be heretical, yet that does not mean that I believe everything they do. As a Protestant, of very Catholic/Orthodox leanings, I could not in good conscience convert to a church that required me to believe what I don’t. Thus, having serious doubts about papal infallibility I could not become Catholic without crossing my fingers, so to speak, and that is something I find unethical. Likewise, I disbelieve in the Orthodox belief in the infallibility of its Tradition. The same would keep me from becoming an Orthodox Presbyterian if that meant I had to accept the Westminster Confession, about which I have serious disagreement when it comes to Predestination and Free Will. But I don’t regard Presbyterians any more than Catholics or Orthodox as heretics. That word I reserve for those whose erroneous ideas distort the nature of God and Salvation.
Arianism is a hersey. Universalism is a heresy. Premillenialism, as much as I disagree with it and wouldn’t be part of a church that required it, isn’t a heresy.
Take your pick, Vincent. You haven’t convinced me nor have your references. Rome has a valid claim to authority and is exercising it. We, the AC, do not. And neither does any other Protestant evolution/Reformation.
Mr. Lerins is correct is one obvious way re:heresy. The RC Church has obviously assigned Mary divinity, and the result is that they are worshiping what is patently an idol. This can hardly be disputed, and is obviously heresy. Nothing, but nothing, in scripture justifies this assignation. Is worshipping idols heretical? Larry
To Chris Hathaway :
Orthodox Presbyterians do not require that its non-ordained members accept the Westminster Confession. Its ordained officers (their Ministers (our Bishops), their presbyters (our priests) and deacons) must however subscribe to the system of doctrine taught therein.
#14: As a Protestant, of very Catholic/Orthodox leanings, I could not in good conscience convert to a church that required me to believe what I don’t.
And the Catholic Church would not want you to do so. Every Protestant convert to the Catholic Church is required to confess: “I believe and profess all that the holy Catholic Church believes, teaches, and proclaims to be revealed by God.” The critical point is not that one has figured out everything oneself but that one ultimately trusts the Holy Spirit, through the Catholic Church, to lead one into the truth.
In the words of J. H. Newman:
‘There is but one rule of faith for all; and it would be a greater difficulty to allow of an uncertain rule of faith, than (if that was the alternative, as it is not), to impose upon uneducated minds a profession which they cannot understand. But it is not the necessary result of unity of profession, nor is it the fact, that the Church imposes dogmatic statements on the interior assent of those who cannot apprehend them. The difficulty is removed by the dogma of the Church’s infallibility, and of the consequent duty of “implicit faith” in her word. The “One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church” is an article of the Creed, and an article, which, inclusive of her infallibility, all men, high and low, can easily master and accept with a real and operative assent. It stands in the place of all abstruse propositions in a Catholic’s mind, for to believe in her word is virtually to believe in them all. Even what he cannot understand, at least he can believe to be true; and he believes it to be true because he believes in the Church.’
#16: The RC Church has obviously assigned Mary divinity, and the result is that they are worshiping what is patently an idol. This can hardly be disputed, and is obviously heresy. Nothing, but nothing, in scripture justifies this assignation. Is worshipping idols heretical?
This is patently false. The Catholic Church does not teach and never has taught the divinity of the Blessed Virgin. It would be easy enough to prove that she does not. A retraction here is due.
What I seem to find on this blog and thread is an intolerance of those who don’t want the AC to merge with Rome. There are VERY large numbers of evangelical Bible believing Anglicans which would be quite resistant to such a union.
For one, such a reunion would require Anglicans to profess complete obeisance to the Pope as the supreme Bishop of the church.
All of its traditions and its living magisterium would have to be accepted as having the same authority as Holy Scripture. Other points of contention would be: 1) Mariology 2) Transubstantiation 3)The canon of Scripture, just to name a few.
I come to this blog as neither an RC or an Anglican, though I have had more extensive involvement with Anglicanism than I have with Roman Catholicism.
If the two institutions were essentially that close, it would seem that such a reunion would have occurred a long time ago. It hasn’t, and it wont. As the AC collapses, the majority of Anglo Caths will probably go to Rome. GAFCON seems to be largely-notice I didn’t say only-made up of, shall we say, lower churchmen. A good relationship with Rome would be desirable to most. A merging with, and in the process, an insubordination to Rome, which would essentially stamp out its Anglican identity, would be out of the question.
In the end, I think the notion of unification with Rome makes for some nice, ecumenical talk, but I don’t see it happening.
Ad Orientem, good for you. Christians need to be very selective with whom they associate. Correct doctrine, is of course, absolutely paramount, as you point out. Of course scripture sets out in minute detail how the Church is to be organized and set up. It probably even describes how to fold the corporal and set the altar linens.
Fr. Kimel, I think, (if I may be so bold) for a goodly number of Anglicans, the difficulty with the sort of reasoning expressed in your quote of Newman is the implicit assumption (stated rather explicitly therein) that those who don’t understand *or* accept RC dogma have uneducated minds, and cannot understand these dogma. One other sticking point is the dogma of the Church’s infallibility. If I understand, those not subscribing see the Church as the Body of Christ, but also a human work instituted by Him, and therefore subject to human fallibility. The dogmatic view is that, as His Body, it is by definition infallible? (I don’t know my way around Roman dogma very well….)
Re #22: Thank you, cmsigler, for your observation. Newman would be the first to clarify the understandable misunderstanding that you note. For Newman the dogma of ecclesial infallibility allows all to give their assent to the de fide teaching of the Church, regardless of individual intelligence and understanding. Consider the citation in its wider context:
If it is the duty of the Church to act as “the pillar and ground of the Truth,” she is manifestly obliged from time to time, and to the end of time, to denounce opinions incompatible with that truth, whenever able and subtle minds in her communion venture to publish such opinions. Suppose certain Bishops and priests at this day began to teach that Islamism or Buddhism was a direct and immediate revelation from God, she would be bound to use the authority which God has given her to declare that such a proposition will not stand with Christianity, and that those who hold it are none of hers; and she would be bound to impose such a declaration on that very knot of persons who had committed themselves to the novel proposition, in order that, if they would not recant, they might be separated from her communion, as they were separate from her faith. In such a case, her masses of population would either not hear of the controversy, or they would at once take part with her, and without effort take any test, which secured the exclusion of the innovators; and she on the other hand would feel that what is a rule for some Catholics must be a rule for all. Who is to draw the line between who are to acknowledge that rule, and who are not? It is plain, there cannot be two rules of faith in the same communion, or rather, as the case really would be, an endless variety of rules, coming into force according to the multiplication of heretical theories, and to the degrees of knowledge and varieties of sentiment in individual Catholics. There is but one rule of faith for all; and it would be a greater difficulty to allow of an uncertain rule of faith, than (if that was the alternative, as it is not), to impose upon uneducated minds a profession which they cannot understand.
‘But it is not the necessary result of unity of profession, nor is it the fact, that the Church imposes dogmatic statements on the interior assent of those who cannot apprehend them. The difficulty is removed by the dogma of the Church’s infallibility, and of the consequent duty of “implicit faith” in her word. The “One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church” is an article of the Creed, and an article, which, inclusive of her infallibility, all men, high and low, can easily master and accept with a real and operative assent. It stands in the place of all abstruse propositions in a Catholic’s mind, for to believe in her word is virtually to believe in them all. Even what he cannot understand, at least he can believe to be true; and he believes it to be true because he believes in the Church.
‘The rationale of this provision for unlearned devotion is as follows:—It stands to reason that all of us, learned and unlearned, are bound to believe the whole revealed doctrine in all its parts and in all that it implies according as portion after portion is brought home to our consciousness as belonging to it; and it also stands to reason, that a doctrine, so deep and so various, as the revealed depositum of faith, cannot be brought home to us and made our own all at once. No mind, however large, however penetrating, can directly and fully by one act understand any one truth, however simple. What can be more intelligible than that “Alexander conquered Asia,” or that “Veracity is a duty”? but what a multitude of propositions is included under either of these theses! still, if we profess either, we profess all that it includes. Thus, as regards the Catholic Creed, if we really believe that our Lord is God, we believe all that is meant by such a belief; or, else, we are not in earnest, when we profess to believe the proposition. In the act of believing it at all, we forthwith commit ourselves by anticipation to believe truths which at present we do not believe, because they have never come before us;—we limit henceforth the range of our private judgment in prospect by the conditions, whatever they are, of that dogma. Thus the Arians said that they believed in our Lord’s divinity, but when they were pressed to confess His eternity, they denied it: thereby showing in fact that they never had believed in His divinity at all. In other words, a man who really believes in our Lord’s proper divinity, believes implicitè in His eternity.
‘And so, in like manner, of the whole depositum of faith, or the revealed word:—If we believe in the revelation, we believe in what is revealed, in all that is revealed, however it may be brought home to us, by reasoning or in any other way. He who believes that Christ is the Truth, and that the Evangelists are truthful, believes all that He has said through them, though he has only read St. Matthew and has not read St. John. He who believes in the depositum of Revelation, believes in all the doctrines of the depositum; and since he cannot know them all at once, he knows some doctrines, and does not know others; he may know only the Creed, nay, perhaps only the chief portions of the Creed; but, whether he knows little or much, he has the intention of believing all that there is to believe whenever and as soon as it is brought home to him, if he believes in Revelation at all. All that he knows now as revealed, and all that he shall know, and all that there is to know, he embraces it all in his intention by one act of faith; otherwise, it is but an accident that he believes this or that, not because it is a revelation. This virtual, interpretative, or prospective belief is called a believing implicitè; and it follows from this, that, granting that the Canons of Councils and the other ecclesiastical documents and confessions, to which I have referred, are really involved in the depositum or revealed word, every Catholic, in accepting the depositum, does implicitè accept those dogmatic decisions.
‘I say, “granting these various propositions are virtually contained in the revealed word,” for this is the only question left; and that it is to be answered in the affirmative, is clear at once to the Catholic, from the fact that the Church declares that they really belong to it. To her is committed the care and the interpretation of the revelation. The word of the Church is the word of the revelation. That the Church is the infallible oracle of truth is the fundamental dogma of the Catholic religion; and “I believe what the Church proposes to be believed” is an act of real assent, including all particular assents, notional and real; and, while it is possible for unlearned as well as learned, it is imperative on learned as well as unlearned. And thus it is, that by believing the word of the Church implicitè, that is, by believing all that that word does or shall declare itself to contain, every Catholic, according to his intellectual capacity, supplements the shortcomings of his knowledge without blunting his real assent to what is elementary, and takes upon himself from the first the whole truth of revelation, progressing from one apprehension of it to another according to his opportunities of doing so.’
LOL My post #20 read “insubordination” rather than “subordination” (I actually meant complete subordination). Ahem…
Too many protestants view Mary as just incidental. Why?
All of the humanity of our lord was from her.
#16 There are some prejudices about the Catholic Church that appear over and over again, though they are utterly and demonstrably untrue. That Mary is a goddess is an old chestnut, hardly worth the trouble of refuting, were it not so insistently repeated.
But I fear no level of rational rebuttal will change minds, since the
distaste for “papistry” is ingrained at some pre-rational level. This is the kind of cultural division that arises out of schism that makes ecumenical work so difficult. Once one already believes that those dreadful people do or believe a certain thing, the emotional ground is set. Argument and facts become a cause of annoyance.
Generations of Europeans believed Jews killed little Christian children for passover bread. The legend began in the 12th century and is probably still believed in some places. It is not true, it never was true, but the aura of dislike and distrust lingers. Violently anti-Catholic Anglicans are infected with a similar intellectual virus.
[blockquote]The RC Church has obviously assigned Mary divinity, and the result is that they are worshiping what is patently an idol. This can hardly be disputed, and is obviously heresy.[/blockquote]
That is absolutely false. Nowhere has Mary EVER been assigned divinity in Catholic teachings. You can read the whole Catechism and nowhere will you find that. No Catholic worships Mary. THis is an old falsehood that is so often repeated that people think it must be true… however you can not support it with any Catholic teachings.
#3 Vincent: Thanks for your good and Godly witness! There seem many folk today who have a rather romanticized view of the Bishop of Rom and his spiritual progeny! If one adores history, well, you may be happy with Rome, as long as you ignore their worst mistakes in our era: 1. Prohibition of ‘artificial’ birth control (on second thought, we don’t see the Vatican excommunicating the wealthy USA church with its plunging birthrate because the educated families choose to have one or two children, do we? Oh my, how SPIRITUAL!) and 2. Fascination with the totally unbiblical Virgin of Mary cult….this has been demonstrated again and again, raising the BVM from Sweet Maid to some sort of ‘Co-Redemptrix’ ….and the Hispanics going nuts over her ‘image’ in slightly Indian/Meztec guise (a la Guadaluple)…this is WEIRD stuff, and most of us can’t imagine how an Anglican could accept it (even if their sturdy CPF pension was in peril!)
Of course, it is ‘Bishop of Rome’…
[i]Sola scriptura[/i] strikes again.
Christians who refuse to accept the Papacy do so largely because it is an unscriptural innovation, not because they are irrational, ignorant, or “violently” anything.
GDP98, nice job, again! Anyone who yearns to join with Rome, go for it! But don’t bother the rest of us as we peruse the Holy Scriptures! 🙂
I have to say that I am discouraged that this thread has devolved into a consideration of an entirely different thread than Fr. Steele was considering.
If I take leave aside the nasty things people say about Catholics, the beliefs imputed to them by others, and read carefully what the Catholic delegation actually said at Lambeth, I see a remarkably refreshing, bold gospel witness. Why can’t we aim for common ground with such a strong stand? What I also saw was a profoundly respectful reaching out from brothers in Christ — not political maneuvering, nor attempts to control or subsume the Anglican church.
I am not Roman Catholic, nor am I quite ready to go that way, despite the troubles within our church. Yet I think that this uncomfortable road towards some institutional unity must be pursued. For some of this, this means shedding a certain part of our cultural identity that may have been formed around being non-catholic. But look (prayerfully) where we are, and consider whether non-Christians see more of the light of Christ through our division and accusations.
I think for me a key is that if you join the Roman Catholic Church, you go in with your eyes open, knowing pretty much where it stands and pretty much that it’s not likely to change too dramatically in your lifetime. What is so disappointing about the Episcopal Church is that you thought you knew what it stood for, but in fact you did not. Nobody bothered to share this with you. There are no guarantees or assurances, but you don’t even know that. In fact, you are led to believe otherwise by the sleight of hand that is the reciting of the creeds, etc.
Ad Orientem, do you have reasons other than hopes to think that the Vatican will respond positively to the TAC by the end of this year? I read Levada’s recent letter as a polite “don’t call us, we’ll call you.” It seems to me that with the status of FiF/UK in serious doubt because of the recent Synod vote, Rome might very well be considering seriously with whom it should be dealing.
[blockquote]#14: As a Protestant, of very Catholic/Orthodox leanings, I could not in good conscience convert to a church that required me to believe what I don’t. [/blockquote]
And the Catholic Church would not want you to do so. Every Protestant convert to the Catholic Church is required to confess: “I believe and profess all that the holy Catholic Church believes, teaches, and proclaims to be revealed by God.†The critical point is not that one has figured out everything oneself but that one ultimately trusts the Holy Spirit, through the Catholic Church, to lead one into the truth.
Fr. Kimel, you misiderstood my point. Since I don’t believe in Papal infallibility I cannot in good conscience claim to believe “all” that the Catholic church teaches. Is not the doctrine of Papal infallibility now one of those things included?
If I believed Papal infallibilty I would be compelled to become catholic. Since I actively disbelieve it I am prevented from converting. I don’t see a way around this.
#36, Chris, I can definitely empathize with you, having been there! My thought process wound up like this: I thought about all the great ‘Anglican’ Saints that I loved and respected like St Thomas Becket, St Anselm, St Edward Confessor and what they believed. Was it what I believed? Was I really in communion with these Saints, or would they have seen me as a heretic? Heck, Calvin and Luther would probably see most Protestant denominations today as greatly anemic belief-wise. In the end, I couldn’t buy into my own infallibility. I’m not smart enough, holy enough, or most importantly protected by the Holy Spirit enough to decide for myself what I want Scripture to say. If the Church is right about all these things believed by so many Saints throughout time, I thought, who am I to stand outside her and apart from those Saints?
I know this isn’t a systematic theological argument for the primacy of Rome or anything, but I just wanted to share my past thoughts.
I couldn’t buy into my own infallibility. I’m not smart enough, holy enough, or most importantly protected by the Holy Spirit enough to decide for myself what I want Scripture to say. not the ecclesiological view of either Rome or the East. Yet I am not in either of those churches, so their belief can not be for me authoritative unless I decide to recognize it as such. To join either of those churches I would have to make a private judgment that my church was wrong in its ecclesiology. I believe that this is essentially the intelectual path taken by Fr. Kimel and J. H. Newman. They concluded that there must be a visible infallible church and concluded on historical grounds that Rome was the best one that fit the bill. They then submitted their own private judgment to that of the church, but not before they excercized it by deciding the argument in favor of Rome in the first place.
So, I am stuck. I must use my own judgment to leave my church. But that same judgment prevents me from accepting the idea of ecclesistical infallibility that would be required of me by the two churches that would otherwise seem a good destination.
Unhappy me, trapped by my own logic, and no logical argument can seem to penetrate or rescue me.
But God is above logic, as He created it, as well as my mind which seeks to be ruled by it. So I am sure He can, if He wills, convince me of what I can’t be convinced through human reason. But I am sure, if that happens, I won’t then be able to explain it logically to any one else who is in my present position. 🙂
#36: Chris, I did not misunderstand and apologize for giving that impression. I simply threw in the Newman citation to help others understand that for those wrestling with the Roman claims, it is the dogma of infallibility they need to focus on. If one can get through this, then all the other “problem” doctrines fall into place, as you have rightly noted.
When inquirers contacted him about Catholicism, Newman commended to them the following prayer:
“O my God, I confess that Thou canst enlighten my darkness–confess that Though only canst. I wish my darkness to be enlightened. I do not know whether Thou wilt; but that Thou canst, and that I wish, are sufficient reasons for me to ask, what Thou at least has not forbidden my asking. I hereby promise Thee that, by Thy grace which I am seeking, I will embrace whatever I at length feel certain is the truth, if ever I come to be certain. And by Thy grace I will guard against all self-deceit which may lead me to take what nature would have, rather than what reason approves.”
May I add that Peter, when he came to a tumultuous time in the lives of the twelve, faced that very dilemma: “Because of what Jesus said, many of his disciples turned their backs on Him and stopped following Him. Jesus then asked his twelve disciples if they were going to leave Him. Simon Peter answered, “Lord, there is no one else that we can go to! Your words give eternal life. We have faith in you, and we are sure that you are God’s Holy One.” (John 6:69) And so, many here ponder-Where and how to worship? Come to Jesus; for so we are bidden by the Holy Spirit through writer of Hebrews: “Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” (Hebrews 4:14-16)
Re 35
Katherine,
There are no guarantees with respect to timetables on anything.. This is especially true in Rome these days where a running joke is that any day now the Holy See will issue its calendar for 2007. Pope Benedict’s Vatican moves at a pace that is often glacial. Having made the aforementioned caveat I remain cautiously optimistic that something is coming, likely by the end of the year. My optimism is based on information which has been published and also some which is moving through the rumor mill (but being passed along by generally reputable sources). And yes, I have been privileged with a little inside information which I have been asked to keep to myself for now.
Pope Benedict is favorably disposed towards the TAC. The most immediate evidence of this is that the TAC’s petition is being handled by the CDF and not the Roman dicasterie which is normally charged with handling inter-religious discussion. Remember the CDF does not normally handle this sort of thing. And remember that the CDF is the department that the former Card. Ratzinger ran before his promotion and name change. The TAC is being treated very seriously in Rome.
ICXC NIKA
[url=http://ad-orientem.blogspot.com/]John[/url]
You are totally ingnorants about the GIFT OF INFALLIBILITY, The Pope doesn’t have that gift, who has it is THE CHURCH, when a Holy Father turn something a DOGMA(essential beleave) means that THE CHURCH has accepted IT as TRUTH. If the Pope decides by himself tomorow that WO is ok, be sure that he would be fired.
Adair, most of us understand the idea that the Pope is not held to be personally ifallible. But he is the one who speaks for the church. Your idea that he would be fired made me laugh. I can’t think of a single way in which the church could or would do such a thing. It would just wait untill he died and elect a new one.
Adair,
I am not Roman Catholic, but I once was. And with all due respect I would encourage you to double check your facts before making those kinds of statements. No one has authority to fire the Pope. Papal Infallibility is not dependent upon the ascent of the entire church. I refer you the decrees of Vatican I. In the Roman Catholic Church there is no appeal from the Pope. His word is final.
As an Orthodox Christian I do in fact agree with your statement that infallibility does not reside with one person but rather with the Church as a whole. However that is not the teaching of the Roman Church.
ICXC NIKA
[url=http://ad-orientem.blogspot.com/]John[/url]
The teaching of the Vatican I and II is that the Pope is infalliable because of the Church (the body of Christ which is animated by the Holy Spirit) being infalliable, not the other way around. So if the Pope tries to proclaim something that is contra to the faith he would be declared a hertic and the Church would elect a new pope. Good Pope John was threaten with being declared a hertic on the eve of Vatican II. Also when he declares something as true, it is because it is, much like the assumption of Mary, he is recognizing a fact that has been taught by the church in some form or fashion since the beginning. Not making something up like WO.
Not every utterance by a pope can be considered infallible. There are criteria by which a pronounement by a Pope can be decreed [i]infallible[/i]:
[blockquote]Vatican I therefore carefully enumerated the conditions under which the Pope was in fact infallible — the same conditions which logic demands, which Scripture suggests, and which tradition shows us in action down through the centuries.
When the Pope (1) intends to teach (2) by virtue of his supreme authority (3) on a matter of faith and morals (4) to the whole Church, he is preserved by the Holy Spirit from error. His teaching act is therefore called “infallible” and the teaching which he articulates is termed “irreformable”.[/blockquote]
That’s from the [url=http://www.ewtn.com/faith/teachings/papac2.htm]EWTN[/rul] website, by the way.
oops, messed up my closing bracket on the URL. 🙄
Jim Elliott <><
Re # 45
jsurm04,
You are correct in your assertion regarding the teaching of the relationship of the Pope to the Church (from the RCC pov). The general theory being that while a Pope may be privately heretical he can not teach ex cathedra heresy. It is believed that the Holy Spirit would prevent this. However no one in the RCC has the power to declare the Pope to be a heretic or to depose him. Vatican I is quite clear that there is no authority this side of the pearly gates to which the Pope is answerable.
ICXC NIKA
[url=http://ad-orientem.blogspot.com/]John[/url]
Re #43 & 44:
I think I need to side with Adair on the question of the Pope’s authority and infallibility. For one thing, the Pope cannot do anything he wants. He is bound to the apostolic revelation; he is bound to the tradition; he is bound to the Church. He does not have the authority to change revealed truth. He does not have the authority to call into being a “new” Church. As Cardinal Ratzinger puts it in his book God and the World, the office of the Pope exists to protect the Church from doing whatever she likes.
Hence Adair, I think, is quite right that if the Pope were to one morning declare that women’s ordination is okay, he would be “fired.” Of course, no mechanism exists to terminate his employment; but this question has long been seriously discussed and debated by Catholic theologians. St Robert Bellarmine, for example, held that if a Pope were to ever fall into manifest heresy, he would immediately cease to be the Pope, “in the same way as he ceases to be a Christian and a member of the body of the Church; and for this reason he can be judged and punished by the Church.” Traditionalist Catholics who believe that the most recent Popes have been heretics love to cite Bellarmine precisely on this question. Catholics, of course, believe that God will never allow a bishop of Rome to impose heresy on the Church, but they generally acknowledge that some past Popes have believed and even taught heretical opinions–Honorius being the most famous.
I also agree with Adair that the infallibility of the Pope is grounded on the infallibility of the Church. This is a common Catholic opinion, shared, if I read them rightly, by Cardinals Newman and Ratzinger.
This is a complex subject, way beyond my pay-scale, but it may be said that the mainstream Catholic understanding of papal infallibility is nuanced and limited. For example, following Vatican I and against Gallicanism, Catholics insist that an infallible dogmatic declaration by the Pope is not dependent upon the assent of the Church. This all seems straight-forward. But if we ask the question, What if the Church does not finally gives its assent to the papal declaration? then we must consider the possibility that that the conditions for an authentic infallible declaration were not in fact met–at least this is the view of Avery Cardinal Dulles (see his article “A Moderate Infallibilism,” in A Church to Believe In). This comes very close to the Orthodox understanding of reception.
Things are sometimes not as simple as they may sometimes seem.
Fr. Kimel,
There is a short but interesting essay written by the late Michael Davies which touches on this subject, albeit from the perspective of a Traditionalist who was once highly sympathetic to the Lefebvrist movement. The essay appears to me to be a refutation of the more radical Traditionalists and so called sede vecantists. If you have not read it you might find it worth a glance.
http://tinyurl.com/5f5vjf
Trusting you and yours are well, I remain yours very cordially…
In ICXC
John
Hi FrKimel,
When you cite Bellarmine as saying that if a Pope were to ever fall into manifest heresy, he would immediately cease to be the Pope, “in the same way as he ceases to be a Christian and a member of the body of the Church; and for this reason he can be judged and punished by the Church†would you then say that Honorius ceased to be the Pope?
I’m sorry, but the Papacy is simply not biblical. The papacy isn’t even of Christian origin. It is the continuation of the pagan Roman religious function of the Pontifex Maximus. I suggest everyone to research the origins and function of the Pontifex Maximus and his curia. You will learn that the Roman pontiff is the continuation of that office, except with “Christian†dressing.
It’s amusing to me that people will spend time quoting later church writers to support and/or clarify their claims on the papacy and other Roman Catholic doctrines. However, there is NO support whatsoever neither in the New Testament Scriptures nor in the earliest church fathers for the papacy and much of the Roman Church’s doctrine. As the real Vincent Lerins stated that the Church should hold only what has been believed everywhere (universality), always (antiquity) and by all (consent). The idea of the papacy and supporting doctrines like transubstantiation and papal infallibility fail on all three counts!
I suggest that Anglicans should seek reuniting with the Eastern Orthodox Churches because they have kept more of the fullness of the apostolic deposit than the Roman Church. The Roman Church has distorted much of Christian teaching and its descendants (Protestant churches) have inherited many of those errors as well.
Furthermore, what is distressing about all of this is that the Roman Church doesn’t recognize Anglican orders, yet we are kissing up to the Roman Church???!!!! Secondly, many people have died to free us from the tyranny of the Roman Church, yet we seek to reunite with the same church which holds to the SAME beliefs when our spiritual ancestors sought to free us from the errors of that church.
-Vincent
The papacy is continuation of the pagan Roman religious function of the Pontifex Maximus
Wow. Were the bishops meeting at Chalcedon in 451 aware of this when Leo’s tome was submitted?
C’mon Vincent. Come up with a more credible argument. Rome would not have been accorded the respect it clearly had in the early church if it was perpetuating a pagan office.
#51: Sara, I do not have an opinion. I have not studied the question and my opinion would be worthless.
Re: #7
“… would you then say that Honorius ceased to be the Pope?”
That assumes that Honorius actually taught heresy, whereas those whom the Council of Constantinople (680) condemned included both explicit advocates of Monothelitism, and those (like Honorius) thought the question an unimportant one.
As the most subtle Anglican historian of the papacy, Trevor Jalland, wrote in his *The Church and the Papacy: an Historical Study* (1944): “If Honorius was to blame, it was not so much for his supposed ‘monothelitism’, which stated no more than was held by all who believed in the reality of our Lord’s human experience, but rather for his too ready acquiescence in the dogmatic promptings of Sergius and for his failure to examine the matter with sufficient thoroughness. In fact, it was on the latter ground that he was censured by his successor Leo II, when the new pope justified Honorius’ condemnation together with that of other Easterns by saying, ‘So far from quenching the flames of heretical doctrine, as befitted apostolic authority, he actually fed them by sheer negligence’.”
Let us hypothesize that a future pope finds that the only way to deal with this nonsense
http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/206091?eng=y
is by making a formal ex cathedra pronouncement of the impossibility and invalidity of WO; would it then be appropriate, or even intelligible, to condemn John Paul II or Benedict XVI as heretics for not having done so earlier — and yet that is essentially the basis for Honorius’ condemnation? Still, it may have been a good thing, for all that, pour encourager les autres. Honorius seems to have been less of a tergiversator than the hapless Vigilius, on the one hand, and to have sailed less close to betraying orthodoxy, on the other, than Liberius, but Liberius managed to outlive his difficulties, and Vigilius died just in time to avoid facing the music.
As to #52, what a tissue of ill-digested lucubrations. “The papacy isn’t even of Christian origin. It is the continuation of the pagan Roman religious function of the Pontifex Maximus.” The religious function of the PM in the Roman State cult was primarily to supervise all aspects of that cult, decree observances and the like. Insofar as the pope’s function was to “supervise all aspects of the Church and the Christian cult” there is a parallel, I suppose, but not much of a one; and in any case it was the ministry of any episkopos in his paroicheia from at least the time of Clement and Ignatius, so to draw a parallel with the PM is as fine an example of swallowing camels and straining at gnats as I’ve ever seen. The generic Roman term for “religious functionaries” was “pontifices” (that for those who exercised purely ritual functions was “flamina” [plural of “flamen”]) and it is no wonder that beginning after the establishment of Catholic Christianity and the suppression of the pagan State Cult (between 379 and 394) that Roman imperial legislation begins to refer to bishops generally, and especially prominent ones as “pontifices,” since from the point of view of the Roman State was to exercise a supervisory function, as well as a ritual one. But, riddle me ree, who was the first pope to assume the title of “Pontifex Maximus” and in what year did he do it?
“I suggest that Anglicans should seek reuniting with the Eastern Orthodox Churches because they have kept more of the fullness of the apostolic deposit than the Roman Church.”
I am particularly pleased that the Orthodox share with Catholics an exuberant devotion to the BVM, belief in her perpetual virginity, the practice of invoking the saints, venerating relics, an uncompromising insistence on the conversion of the bread and wine of the Eucharist into the body and blood of Christ, as well as on the vivibility and indivisibility of the Church. Whazzat? That wasn’t what you had in mind? Sorry, my mistake.
“Furthermore, what is distressing about all of this is that the Roman Church doesn’t recognize Anglican orders, yet we are kissing up to the Roman Church???!!!!”
And the Orthodox recognize “Anglican Orders?”
“Secondly, many people have died to free us from the tyranny of the Roman Church, yet we seek to reunite with the same church which holds to the SAME beliefs when our spiritual ancestors sought to free us from the errors of that church.”
Blessed be Henry; blessed be his Holy Name. Blessed be Cranmer, rogue, liar and martyr. (Others can continue the litany.)
I think it quite revealing that the great doctor of the church, the apostle Paul, shares NONE of the “exuberant devotion to the BVM”. Neither did Christ Himself, or the apostle John, the apostle James, the apostle Peter, or Jude.
Oh, wait. The Apostle Paul does make ONE mention of Mary. It is found in his letter to the Galatians: “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons”. (Gal. 4:4-5)
“a woman.”
Thats it, folks.
The gospel writers and apostles were not shorted by the Holy Spirit in content or wisdom while being the living instruments through whom the scriptures came. We are told everything that is necessary and truthful about Miriam [Mary] in the gospel accounts. After that, Luke in Acts merely mentions that she was in Jerusalem with the apostles and the other closest intimates of Christ, waiting for “the promise of the Father”.
Clearly some of the posters in here have been keeping up on the Jack Chick reading material.
ICXC NIKA
[url=http://ad-orientem.blogspot.com/]John[/url]
That’s okay, John — some of the posters are fulfilling all the Chick stereotypes as well! ; > )
[blockquote]Neither did Christ Himself[/blockquote]
If you don’t think Jesus was devoted to his mother, I submit you don’t know many Jewish men. 😉