In his written response issued July 11, [ELCA Presiding Bishop Mark] Hanson said that while the Vatican’s statement doesn’t change any existing statement “it does, however, restate known positions in provocative ways” that are under discussion in the current U.S. dialogue.
“It is no surprise that the Roman Catholic Church asserts that in it subsists the Church of Christ; surely every Christian church body makes the same assertion, for it is only because Christ’s Church survives in and lives through the community we call ‘Church’ that we preserve and promote the apostolic faith,” Hanson wrote. “However troubling such exclusive claims may be, we recall the Second Vatican Council’s ‘Decree on Ecumenism’ which affirmed that the separated churches and ecclesial communities are used by the Spirit of Christ ‘as means of salvation.'”
Hanson pointed out that the ELCA upholds the “Augsburg Confession,” a 16th century foundational document which states that the Church is the “assembly of saints in which the Gospel is taught and the sacraments are administered rightly.” He wrote that the Church is “wounded by the division that exists among Christians.” However, Hanson stated that the ELCA is not deficient in its self-understanding as ‘Church.’
The “anguished response of Christians” throughout the world to the Vatican’s statement shows that what may have been meant to clarify has caused pain, Hanson wrote.
Well deep offence does seem to have been caused. I wonder what is going on. Cardinal Kester has been in favour of ecumenicism but one commentator has suggested that even he has lost heart with what is going on the Anglican Communion.
I hadn’t realised before that the Prefect (Head) of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is an American, William Joseph Cardinal Levada. If his Wikipedia entry is to be believed, the CDF statement is absolutely in line with the views he has promoted. The Wikipedia entry also claims the following:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Joseph_Levada
1. He was Archbishop of Portland and of San Francisco where he permitted some controversial services Gay and Lesbian services in the Castro district of the Archdiocese.
3. In 2000 he became bishop co-chair of the Anglican-Roman Catholic dialogue in the United States.
4. Criticism has been made of him on his record of dealing with priest child-abuse cases. Portland apparently faced severe problems if not bankruptcy.
5. It is suggested that he was appointed Prefect inter-alia so that a US bishop could deal with fallout from the way they had deal (or not dealt) with abuse cases.
It is possible that this church also has “defects”?
“Anguished response of Christians” indeed. The RCs have always declared they were the only road. Who is harmed by it? For a church to say, “We are but one way, and all the other ways are equally good,” is to say that THIS church is dead in the water.
For a religion, to believe is to exclude or it has no identity. Mercy! When will we all get simply too too tired of inclusivity, which is a con game and a fraud.
Leave that to TEC which is defining itself out of existence. Say, “I belong” with some spirit, for Heaven’s sake, and admit that in saying it, you are also saying, “There are some – many – who don’t.”
Can we possibly have a little less wimpishness here?
LM
My mistake Cardinal Kaspar it should read.
I am sure you are shocked by allegations of episcopal wrongdoing, but we have the example of the first Supreme Pontiff to very forcefully remind us that infallibility is not indefectibility.
What “anguished response of Christians”? I see the anguished response of progressives who had hoped for further blurriness and vagueness of identity, but I’m not anguished in the least. Roman Catholicism has believed this about itself for ages, and wouldn’t be Roman Catholicism without it.
I am certainly not suprised that the ELCA Presiding Bishop would be anguished though. ; > )
Actually, Ed, I believe the indefectability and infallibility are more or less synonymous, the former applyed to the Church, the latter to the office of Rome’s bishop. What is lacking is moral perfection in too many bishops (and in priests, deacons, and layfolk).
In the matter of dealing with predatory sexual behavior, OTOH, it might be well to not cast stones. We all live in glass houses on this matter.
There has been similar response on the HoB/D listserv, with debate between Tobias Haller and Christopher Wells as to the actual meaning of the statement. I must echo Sarah, though, in noting that I am not surprised at the statement, and am somewhat reassured that at least the RCC is not becoming squishier about its doctrine; at least if you are RC you know where you stand, unlike main-stream protestantism(with the possible exception of LCMS).
For some humor:
http://www.slate.com/id/2170248/
The RCs have always declared they were the only road.
Roman Catholicism has believed this about itself for ages, and wouldn’t be Roman Catholicism without it.
If this position is so clear and Vatican II did not expand it to include all Christians, then why the need for clarification? ++Benedict XVI is setting about to dismantle everything done from the inception of Vatican II forward:
-relations with the Jewish Community
-ecumenism
-access to worship
Who knows what will be next.
It is not correct to say that the RC Church contends that it is the “only road”. It would be more accurate is characterize the RC position as the “best or most complete” road. The Vatican position is :
“It follows that these separated churches and Communities, though we believe they suffer from defects, are deprived neither of significance nor importance in the mystery of salvation. In fact the Spirit of Christ has not refrained from using them as instruments of salvation, whose value derives from that fullness of grace and of truth which has been entrusted to the Catholic Church”[12].
RE: “If this position is so clear and Vatican II did not expand it to include all Christians, then why the need for clarification?”
For that matter — why the need for “clarification” about anything at all, ever, from any institution? Why not simply state something once, for all time, and leave it at that? ; > )
But as we all know . . . people wish to slowly change and devolve things away from what was clearly stated. Hence the need to “refresh everyone’s memories”.
No, I suspect that Pope Benedict is just making crystal clear what exactly orthodox Roman Catholicism is. To the consternation of those who do not wish for their to be any such clarity at all. ; > )
There seems to be certain confusion here amongst non-Catholics. Let me clarify, the statement by CDF does not say that the Church of Christ subsists in the “Roman” Catholic Church. It says it subsists in the Catholic Church ie. all those paticular churches which are in communion with Rome. The Roman or Latin church is one amongst 23 particular churches in communion with Rome.
One should note the Eastern Orthodox Churches consider themselves as the true catholic churches having excommunicated the Roman church about 1,000 years ago.
RE: “There seems to be certain confusion here amongst non-Catholics. Let me clarify, the statement by CDF does not say that the Church of Christ subsists in the “Roman†Catholic Church. It says it subsists in the Catholic Church ie. all those paticular churches which are in communion with Rome.”
LOL.
No confusion at all, Conor. As I am a Protestant, I do not believe the Roman Catholic church — filled as it is with error — is “catholic” and thus it is always correct for a Protestant to distinguish in names the “Roman Catholic church” from Christian catholicity.
Of course, Roman Catholics believe differently about catholicity and the nature of their church. They name themselves the one true church and thus “catholic” . . . Which is why we have Protestants — who disagree — and Roman Catholics today.
#13
That’s a pretty pointless statement. The mutual excommunications were rescinded by Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras I of Constantinople in the 1960s.
#14
Why bother responding to my comment if you aren’t even addressing it’s content. I was talking about the content of the CDF document, in which the term Roman Catholic Church does not appear because this is not the only Church in communion with the Pope of Rome, there are 22 others eg. Maronite, Melkite, Ukrainian Greek Catholic etc, etc,.
What I was not doing was engaging in Catholic vs Protestant polemic which you seem intent on doing. I’m a Catholic thus believe what the Catholic Church teaches, I do however recognise that many saintly and devout people hold to Protestant Christianity and are far better Christians than I could ever hope to be – Frere Roger of Taize and Billy Graham spring to mind. Please troll somewhere else.
Actually, Sarah, what I learned in my Church History class, taught by a full-bore Anglican (a Calvinist, by her own admission), is that “catholic” orginally meant those Christian communities which remained in Communion with Peter – Rome – as opposed to various groups which (from the very beginning) split away from Peter.
I, personally, have no objections to the term “Roman Catholic”, but technically, you don’t refer to, say, Maronite Catholics as RC, nor Byzantine Catholics, and so on. The Latin Rite, alone, is, properly “Roman Catholic”.
Of course, you are certainly free to use whatever terms you like, as is Conor, or myself, presuming we have our definitions straight.
One point causing a lot of confusion is the understanding about what the Ecumenical movement is. The one’s most upset at the Vatican document approved by the pope seem to be those who think the movement was to bring relativism into the precincts of the Catholic Church. And one word “subsists” used in a Vatican II document seems to be part of the reason for the misunderstanding–a misunderstanding promoted by relatrivists inside and outside the Catholic Church. So the pope, who was at Vatican II, set out to put the record straight.
That some people think that somehow there is an equality between churches on faith and morals when some churches endorse abortion, homosexual behaviour, frequent divorce, etc. etc. is patently absurd.
For example, either those churches which have adopted the New Morality- in whole or in part- have the “fullness of Truth” or the Catholic Church does in defending Traditional Christian Morality.
Thank God we not only have a pope who is Catholic, but also has a backbone. And thank God he is not going to be the plaything of the relativists and the diversity hounds who can’t stand real diversity if it interferes with their relativistic ideology.
“The ELCA is not deficient in its self-understanding as “Church.”
Unfortunately, if the ELCA continues along its present path, and if the revisionists in its midst manage to effect changes in its definition of marriage and ministry at the August Churchwide Assembly, the ELCA will indeed be “deficient”, for it will no longer be “Church,” either Christian or catholic, no matter what its “self-understanding/delusion might be.
NEWS FROM THE HOLY SEE
Office of Information and Public Affairs
Vatican City, Rome
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Vatican Recall Hotline: (800) ASK-RATZ
July 10, 2007
VATICAN CITY—Pope Benedict XVI today announced a voluntary recall of the following consumer products. Consumers should stop using recalled products immediately unless otherwise instructed.
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Name of Products: Albanian Orthodox, Bulgarian Orthodox, Coptic Orthodox, Czech Orthodox, Cypriot Orthodox, Estonian Orthodox, Finnish Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Latvian Orthodox, Macedonian Orthodox, Montenegrin Orthodox, Polish Orthodox, Romanian Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Serbian Orthodox, Slovak Orthodox, and Ukranian Orthodox sects (frequently labeled “Eastern” or “Oriental” Orthodox).
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Remedy: Consumers should desist adherence to the abovementioned sects, now proven unreliable, and transmit their souls to the Catholic Church of Romeâ„¢. United States residents may use this Catholic Church locator. For those who are already deceased, and therefore ineligible for salvation, the Church has commenced discussions about reopening Limbo, which the Vatican decommissioned in April.
Just returned to this thread.
There seems to be some confusion as to my terms. When I said “Roman Catholic” I meant Rome and the Pope at Rome — exactly what I said, in fact.
I was not intending to refer to Byzantine Catholics, I was intending to refer to Roman Catholics. I’m fully aware that there are other churches in communion with Rome. And when I wish to refer to them I will refer to them by their names, as in Melkite Catholic.
And as I also made clear, just as Conor believes that “I’m a Catholic thus believe what the Catholic Church teaches” so do I, Conor — so do I.
I just don’t believe what the Roman Catholic church teaches [nor incidentally and just to make myself perfectly clear, all those other churches in communion with the Pope at Rome].
That’s not “trolling” Conor — that’s merely responding to this statement right here by you — “Let me clarify, the statement by CDF does not say that the Church of Christ subsists in the “Roman†Catholic Church” — with a clear NEGATION and ASSERTION of my belief which is that you don’t own the word “catholic”.
Hence . . . I will continue to carefully describe what churches I am speaking of by my use of the words “Roman Catholic”, “Ukrainian Greek Catholic” and any other specificities that *modify* the word “Catholic”.
The fact that certain non-Protestants do not like my use of this language tells me that I’m being pretty clear about my beliefs, and that they simply do not like those beliefs.
That dislike, however, does not make me a troll. It makes me a Protestant.