So sayeth the Pope:
{Of us protestants} According to Catholic doctrine, these Communities do not enjoy apostolic succession in the sacrament of Orders, and are, therefore, deprived of a constitutive element of the Church. These ecclesial Communities which, specifically because of the absence of the sacramental priesthood, have not preserved the genuine and integral substance of the Eucharistic Mystery cannot, according to Catholic doctrine, be called “Churches†in the proper sense.
{Of Chris} The Council wanted to adopt the traditional use of the term. “Because these Churches, although separated, have true sacraments and above all – because of the apostolic succession – the priesthood and the Eucharist, by means of which they remain linked to us by very close bondsâ€, they merit the title of “particular or local Churchesâ€, and are called sister Churches of the particular Catholic Churches.
And so many protestants are outraged. The Pope says we are not church. How dare he. Since when did protestants care what the Pope sayeth? Well I think I can answer that. When we all started buying into the ecumenical movement and included the Catholic church in the mix. When protestants lied and said we agreed with Catholics on Justification. When we all wanted to attend the catholic potluck and feel good about it.
I am proud of the Pope. He spoke the truth as he believes it. What a refreshing thing. How great that a church leader would speak the truth instead of pleasantries. Enough of the baptist shaking the Father’s hand in ministerial alliance and then telling their members that they are going to hell. Enough of holding hands in prayer and then wondering how those Lutherans can baptize babies and believe it does something. Enough of Lutherans sharing fellowship with the Methodists and then telling their fellow brethren that the Methodist church stands for nothing.
Perhaps the Pope being honest will lead to broader honesty in the church bodies of the world. This was not a new teaching, just one finally stated without the cleansing of political correctness.
In this one case, may we follow the Pope’s lead.
And yet, Phil, the Pope didn’t speak the truth. He was honest about what he believed but that didn’t make it true or right. Yet are we to be honest even though our honesty may be quite wrong, or incomplete, or hurtful, or whatever? Or should it be that we temper our honesty with love, humility, grace, an attitude that reflects ‘i don’t believe you are right on this issue but i don’t have all truth or knowledge myself and i may be wrong in some areas but i am willing to learn, engage and dialogue with you about these things.’
I’m not convinced yet (perhaps you will persaude me), that following the pope’s lead by speaking honestly yet untruthfully is the way any of us should go.
Thoughts? Angry, uncontrollable, four letter outbursts?
I would prefer that all honestly speak what they believe, even if it is wrong, else no real dialog happens, we just talk past each other. and I may get slaughtered for this statement, but I do believe that on what my church teaches, we do hold the truth…that is why I am in this church with its confessions. That is not to say I know it all. But I do know by grace many things that I am convinced of as truth, and those I should speak. In love? yes…but in love means truthfully and not tempered with deceit to not step on fingers. We must be ready to learn, but I do not think that means never being convinced of anything. I am tired…hopefully when I read this in the morning it makes sense…perhaps an important point is that I do not believe my beliefs are just “mine”, I believe they are the belief handed to my by the Church…
This is where I am somewhat confused by your post. To speak truthfully is different than to speak honestly. You were praising the pope because of his honesty and not his truthfulness. Hopefully truth flows from our honesty but obviously that doesn’t always happen. My point was that honesty is good to have but first must be tempered by love, grace, humility and willingness to learn. If I don’t have those things but have honesty I don’t believe that true dialogue can or will happen…because we are just saying what we want and think we should say.
And you are right, and I hope that I didn’t imply, that be willing to learn doesn’t mean being convinced of anything. For me a willingness to learn, grace, humility, etc. is to ‘hold loosely’ those areas that aren’t essential to the faith. This is where I can learn from others, adjust my beliefs, sharpen my thoughts. And even those areas that are essential to the faith I can still with humility, love and grace learn from people, dialogue with them, speak truthfully and yet be very convinced of those ‘truths’ to which I hold.
Back to your post, the pope’s honesty didn’t create an environment to dialogue with each other…it just created anger and hard feelings. And you are right, the Catholic church has always believed what the Pope came out and said but he hasn’t spoken truthfully. Honestly? Yes. Truthfully? No. And his statements weren’t conditioned by love, grace, or humility…which, obviously didn’t create an atmosphere to dialogue. My point is that unless our statements are first characterized by grace, love, humility, a ‘willingness to learn’ it won’t matter if we are honest or not (even if our honesty is truthful), and if they are not characterized first, by those same things (grace, love, etc.) then we may truly forget about any sort of real and lasting dialogue with people.
Thoughts? They can even be honest without be truthful thoughts!! 🙂
So what is essential to the faith? That is the question? My tradition holds much more as essential than yours I do believe. So what is essential?
And I am not sure that the Pope’s comments have not led to dialogue. I bet some of those in various levels of fellowship with them are talking about it with them. They may be tense discussion, but at least they are dealing with real issues.
Perhaps I have becomes so sick of the ecumenical movement’s to breed unity by not dialoguing about issues we do not agree on, and clinging to the few words, if not ideas, that we all use. I long for the days when people were truly contending for truth rather than just paying lip service to it…
Yes, it is true that your tradition holds to be more essential than mine. And to be honest we are both making assumptions: mine is that the pope’s comments didn’t create an atmosphere to dialogue; and yours is that true and honest dialogue wasn’t going on before his little ‘tirade’.
Yes, I agree that we should honestly (with truthfulness in humility, love, etc) talk about the issues that divide us…and as much as I have some issues with the ecumenical movement I believe that it has done the kingdom of God a good service by helping us to see those areas in which there is agreement. Helping us to see that the kingdom of God is bigger than my denomination.
But again I go back to: what are we to emulate by the actions of the pope? Honesty over truth? Do I want people in my conversations with them to show me honesty? Sure. But honesty without truth (expressed in love, grace, humility, willingness to learn) is, in my opinion, not something to copy.
I know (because I have done it myself) that honesty without truthfulness happens all the time…yet, especially, as leaders in local communities of faith we should be displaying honesty that is bathed in truthful statements.
I appreciate your comments and thoughts…
I’ve got to say I agree with Phil on this one, even though my presiding bishop was one of those who express dismay. I would heartily recommend Albert Mohler’s comments at http://www.albertmohler.com/blog.php.
Southern Baptist Mohler says he is heartened that the Pope takes salvation so seriously, just as he takes the Pope’s salvation seriously. This is not a playground game, but serious stuff!
Finally, I think the Pope spoke honestly, and truthfully INSOFAR AS HE UNDERSTANDS THE TRUTH. In other words, I certainly think he meant to speak the truth, however much some of us may disagree.
I like what Tony Jones said over at Jim Wallis’ blogsite. Paraphrasing – the pope said to one billion Catholics – that one billion people who don’t follow apostolic succession aren’t the true church. Seems harmless. Yet, when you consider that, “This is tied to the concept that only those clergymen who stand in a direct line from the apostles can rightly administer the sacraments, and the sacraments, being the primary vehicle for salvation, are pretty darn important. Why the pope felt the need to restate what had been already restated by his predecessor in 2000 has been the subject of much conjecture.”
I agree with you Jim that he is “speaking truth” insofar as he understands it. But yet was this good tact by him? Again, there seemed to be no grace, love, humility, etc. So let me clarify: yes, I can appreciate his honesty…and yes, I can appreciate his ‘truthfulness’ in so much as he understands it, and yet billions of people across the globe know that his honesty was not truthful and that it was ungracious (no matter if he wants to say that we are in ecclesial communities).
My point is still, I don’t think he did any real service for the kingdom of God by his statements, nor is honesty with truth (yet we know without truth really) completely devoid of grace, humility and a willingness to learn something to emulate and follow.
I like the dialogue. I’m probably wrong, but I enjoy it nonetheless! 🙂
On a slightly different note, it is my hope that the Pope continues to state their doctrine plainly because there is no better way to make Catholics consider another church than finding out their own churches teaching. Now if we can get the Mormons to do the same…
or the baptists!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂
I just deleted a long diatribe I had written. In the end I must agree more with Tom than with Phil: it must be better to be nice than to be honest.
Jim,
I hesitated to respond to your post for fear of misreading your comment in the sense that: was this just humor knowing that I do not really espouse what you were joking about, or was this humor a sarcastic jab at what you think I truly believe?
If from my posts you assumed that being ‘nice’ was better than being honest then I do truly apologize for that is not my belief at all. What I thought I was communicating was that: truthful statements should flow from our honesty and that our truthful statements should be covered in grace, humility, and openness to see where we can learn, grow, understand and yes, even at times, change our viewpoint. And while I certainly wouldn’t place being nice above honesty I am not sure I would place it below it either. If we are not speaking with love, kindness, grace, respect, a healthy and proper tolerance, humility chances are we aren’t being heard by anyone and probably not doing a great job either of reflecting Jesus to those around us.
So I hope that this clarifies where I may have misrepresented myself.
The Pope can say whatever he wants. That’s his job description as successor to St. Peter; he’s infallible remember?
I don’t care whether the Pope considers me part of the Church or not. It’s not his job to care for me. I have my own Priest, Bishop, Metropolitan and Patriarch to worry about that enough. Nor do I care about whether he finds our sacraments valid, which is a strange instance of having your cake and eating it, too. If we’re not part of the Church and since Rome’s ecclesiology demands that valid sacraments can only occur under the auspicies of the Pope, you can’t say that our Eucharist, Baptism etc. are all valid or true.
In fact, starting with Paul VI and continuing through JP II, the Roman Catholic Church has insisted that faithful Roman Catholics may take of the Eucharist in Orthodox Churches when necessary. Of course, the popes didn’t feel the need to consult the Orthodox on this one and many, like myself, feel that this statement was another way of the popes trying to assert their supremacy over the Orthodox through the back door.
The Orthodox have always maintained that the Bishop of Rome is first among equals in honor, never in primacy. That means he gets the good seat at Red Lobster!
A couple of Orthodox hierarchs have blasted the Pope for his statement such as Patriarch +TEOCTIST but most have ignored him or, as Metropolitan +KIRILL of the Moscow Patriarchate, have thanked the Pope for being honest.
Thus in conclusion, so what? I never understood why Lutherans in particular take such an interest in what the Pope says about them. It’s even more peculiar especially when Lutherans adopt liturgies in deference to Rome (e.g. 3 year lectionary, calendar of saints, etc.).
Tom, rest easy. My comment was just flippant and probably as unhelpful as the diatribe I deleted. I try not to write on these blogs because I cannot seem to react without passion.
I would write more, but I would probably only dig my hole deeper.