There is a classic scene in “Life of Brian” where they say: “Why do you keep going on about women, Stan?” and Stan (after a moment’s hesitation) says: “I want to be one.”
PE wants to know why, in conversation with Protestants, we keep on going on about “the Catholic Church, the Catholic Church, the Catholic Church.” He says that this tendancy proves we Catholics make a “God” out of the Church. It all ends up with “sola ecclesia”.
Why DO we keep going on about the Catholic Church? The reason is very simple. Let’s try an analogy.
Imagine a Lutheran in conversation with a Calvinist. The Calvinist and the Lutheran will both agree on many things. They will certainly agree that justification is by faith alone and that the bible is the sole source and norm of all Christian doctrine. They might even agree on infant baptism. But they will part company on a crucial issue–the same crucial issue that Zwingli and Luther parted company on back in 1529, namely: the Lord’s Supper.
As Martin Luther did then, so today. In dispute with a Calvinist (or any other species of Reformed Christian) the real presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper, that is, the insistance that when Christ said “This is my body” he meant that the bread of the Lord’s Supper is his true body born of the Virgin Mary etc., will be the crucial issue. Unless the Reformed/Calvinist can assent to this, they cannot be in communion with the Lutherans.
As Zwingli did then, the Calvinist/Reformed Christian will today say to the Lutheran: Why do you keep going on about the Real Presence? “The Real Presence, the Real Presence, the Real Presence.” Don’t you think that you might not be making a “God” out of the Real Presence? Aren’t you making this “sola the Real Presence”?
To which, in reply, the Lutheran can only shake his head and say “My Calvinist friend doesn’t get it. How can he say that I am “making a god” out of the Real Presence when the Real Presence IS my God in flesh and blood? How can I conceive of a Christianity without the Lord’s Supper? Without the Real Presence of Christ’s body and blood in the Lord’s Supper there is no church.”
So you see? In the Lutheran view (Catholic too, but that is irrelevant here), the Real Presence is essential to the Christian faith. But the Calvinist/Reformed Christian denies this essential element. Therefore, in the dialogue with one another, this will be the chief issue between Reformed and Lutheran Christians.
The analogy is this: in the dialogue between Catholic and Protestant Christians, the necessity of the Catholic Church per se is the point of contention. We go on and on about “the Catholic Church, the Catholic Church, the Catholic Church” because it is the point on which we differ. We could go on about “The Holy Trinity, the Holy Trinity, the Holy Trinity”, or “Baptism, baptism, baptism”, or “faith, faith, faith”, or “Christ, Christ, Christ”, but the essential necessity of these for our faith is not in dispute between us.
The essential neccesity of the Church IS. And that is why we keep banging on about it.
No my friend, it doesn’t fit, “it” being the analogy. Then again, nothing is ever what it is in Catholicism, it is always analogy on top of analogy on top of doctrinal development on top of ressoucement on top of … well, whatever.
The church is an essential necessity. We do not go on about “the Missouri Synod, the Missouri Synod, the Missouri Synod”.
You have elevated your church body to an article of faith itself. We don’t.
Very simple answer to this.
The Reformed have taken away from the deposit of faith.
Catholics have added to it what should not be there.
There, you see? Very simple.
Christine,
I have lent somebody my copy of Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Church, but in the preface he talks about how from an Orthodox perspective Western Christianity can be represented by the alegabraic formula “b”. Roman Catholicism might be “b+” and Protestantism might be “b-“. But the common denominator for theological reflection is “b”. Orthodoxy on the other hand has a different common denominator “a”. In other words, it is not a debate about this doctrine or that doctrine which divides East and West, but a different “mind” (for want of a better word) by which the faith is confessed and lived.
For the Orthodox “a” is an inheritance from apostolic church, a gift preserved in Tradition (which includes the Scriptures). Which reminds me of the old joke:
A Roman Catholic priest, a Lutheran minister and an Orthodox priest were debating which of their churches Jesus would join today.
The Roman Catholic was sure that he would join the Roman Catholic Church. The Lutheran was sure that he would join the Lutheran Church. The Orthodox priest was confused: “Why would he change?”
Simplicity indeed!
Succinctly put, Christine..and right to the Key of this issue.
(always beware of someone who says “it’s simple” and then runs straight to analogy.)
erakin Family mistakes
I agree that the question of ecclesiology is the key issue between Protestants and Catholics. I can also see where Protestants may disagree with this being the key issue since it is not particularly an issue that Protestants tend to focus on (unless, of course, the focus is on protesting against the Church). Yet, for most Protestants, it may not even be a matter of “protest” but knowing on the one hand, that we are supposed to be anti-Catholic, and on the other hand, not knowing or appreciating many of the ecclesiological questions involved. Thus the protest of today, unlike that of the 16th century, is that there is no one issue that everyone would agree on or rally behind but simply a aspect here and there that Protestants do not like about the Catholic Church. So the Protestant protest today may be complex and multi-faceted but it fails to appreciate the underlying ecclesiological unity that a Catholic could see and accept. In short, by its nature Protestantism cannot appreciate “Church”, and the Roman Catholic Church in particular. Yet neither is anti-Catholicism acceptable. But I still end up with ecclesiology being the central difference even if I, as a Lutheran, am not supposed to understand and appreciate this. I appreciate your well-stated analogy.
I disagree. Did not the Catholic Church teach and do, at the point in time of the Reformation and still today since Vatican II with even greater spiritual violence, both add to and subtract from the apostolic faith of the catholic church, there would be no question of ecclesiology. IOW, the dispute re ecclesiology is an effect of the matters under dispute, Rome and not we making it an ecclesiastical dispute by placing outside of “the church”, ie themselves, all who do not submit to its additions and omissions, especially regarding itself.
That is why liberals will be tolerated forever while those who teach what “the church” once taught are immediately stomped on, or lately, in the most outrageous lie of the new century, allowed to exist as a museum piece as long as they ackowledge that what “the church” now teaches is true too — the former insist they are Catholic and in the Catholic Church, which is the ONLY thing that matters to the Catholic Church, that the Catholic Church must matter and you must be in it.
It is a religion about itself, nothing more than spiritual autism.
PE,
What you describe, a divide between liberalism and the apostolic faith, is true and visible in all churches and communions. In this sense, singling out the Catholic Church, in general terms, is somewhat counter-productive. Any Church, in their official teachings, that claims to be “the Church” has the right and freedom to make such a claim (ie, witness the writings of the first Missouri Synod president and those of Loehe.) Yes, the burden then lies with defending such a claim. Still, “additions” and “omissions” are found everywhere and do not, in themselve, prove or disprove any church’s official teaching.
I don’t think the divide between liberalism and the apostolic faith is what I describe. The divide is between the Catholic Church’s official teaching and the apostolic faith. The presence in any church body of those who hold to neither that body’s teaching nor the apostolic faith, whether they are the same or not aside, I completely agree is found in all church bodies, including our own, and is a separate issue from whether that body’s official teachings and the apostolic faith are the same.
I may have misunderstood, but I do not think at any point it would be argued that our synod is the “true church” in the sense the RCC claims to be, or that the true church cannot be found within the RCC.
The first president of the synod wrote an essay called “The Evangelical Lutheran Church: The True Visible Church of God Upon Earth.” (October 31, 1866, St. Louis, MO) This president would agree that the true church may be found “within” the Catholic Church but that the Evangelical Lutheran Church is the “True Visible Church” on earth. I do not know the status of this essay in terms of “official teaching” but even throughout the 20th c. this thinking was alive and well (and still is). What I find interesting is that with the emphasis we hear on “invisible” and “hidden” that the essay speaks of a true “visible” church “on earth.” I defer to the synod’s scholars and historians since this is only an observation on my part.
One more thing. It is no mistake that the liberal wing of Lutheranism chose the name “Evangelical Lutheran Church” in the latter years of the 20th c.
To state the obvious (from a Lutheran perspective): Lutherans do not at all dispute with Rome the essential necessity of the church; we dispute that Rome alone (or the East alone) constitutes that Church of which no man can call God Father of which she is not the Mother.
This is fair coming from the Lutheran perspective just as each Church’s claim (West, East or other) to be the Church is fair. The specifics of such claims are more difficult to decipher and hash out. These questions will be disputed till the end of time (as they should be). Still, as a Lutheran, I think it is possible to agree with a Catholic that the key question between the Lutherans (or even the Protestants) and the Catholic Church is an ecclesiological question. (This is definitely not an assertion that all Lutherans or Protestants would agree with me as that is not likely here. It is simply a conclusion I have reached based on my reading and study in recent years.)
What is of interest though, Fr. Timothy, is that it doesn’t seem to have been THE question at the start of the Reformation between the old believers and the Reformers, does it?
By the bye, David, a fine Lutheran analysis of the compulsion to throw yourself into a body of water and swim somewhere was offered by Dr. Hein some while back. I posted it on my blog here, and you might find it of interest (or not):
http://weedon.blogspot.com/2007/02/interesting-piece-from-dr-steven-hein.html
FWIW
Yes, that was not the question then.
Fr Timothy:
Yet, for most Protestants, it may not even be a matter of “protest” but knowing on the one hand, that we are supposed to be anti-Catholic, and on the other hand, not knowing or appreciating many of the ecclesiological questions involved.
What a strange presumption.
Most Protestants I talk with wouldn’t spend a Moment a Month considering their position vis a vis the Catholic Church. They live their faith within the confines of thier particular denomination -all members of the creedal(?) catholic Church. As and when the Catholic Church (members therof) live as members of the same Church, said Protestants would be heartily PRO, not anti.
IMV.
This is certainly a protestant position and understanding today (“they live their faith within the confines of their particular denomination – all members of the creedal(?) catholic Church”) However, not all protestants are “creedal” and would attack the creeds as Catholic. Also, the reality of the splintering since the Reformation has created thousands of “denominations” so that some have reacted by beginning “non-denominational” groups. This reality, arising out of the Reformation, reflects and raises ecclesiological questions and concerns. However, while Protestants may “be heartily PRO” and not anti (something we can applaud) this is not the same as being a member of the Catholic Church. In other words, one may be pro-Catholic from a protestant perspective but that does not make one an actual member of the Catholic Church. My words above are another way of saying that talking with Catholics or Orthodox does not make one Catholic or Orthodox nor should being “Protestant” have to equate with being “anti-Catholic.” Still, as much as I mention the word “Protestant” my understanding of where I am as a Lutheran would not really fit me in any popular understanding of that nomenclature. Hope this is somewhat clearer (?)
I don’t think it is so much as we (Lutherans) deny visibility in the church as that we deny visibility as Rome defines it, namely, itself.
For example, “The Learned Opinion of Dr William Tighe”, nailed on the door, so to speak, of this blog as a final refutation of me, is an instance of an argument I have heard many times before and once would have advanced myself, which then became the sort of thing my Catholic professors at a Catholic university described as mediaeval triumphalism, the sort of thing from which the church (of course meaning the Roman Catholic Church) has “moved on” into a “different place”, to use our host’s terms, with Vatican II.
“Protestant” to-day has a meaning quite different than when the term was first used. Originally it meant a protest not against the Catholic Church but the Second Diet of Speyer, a function of the Holy Roman Empire, which decreed in 1529 contra earlier indications in 1526 that Roman Catholicism was to be the religion followed in all the churches of all the states of the Holy Roman Empire.
Point being, “Protestant” was a term applied to a protest against an action of the state, not the Catholic Church, whose state church it was. It was not the intent of the Lutheran Reformers to found another church but reform the church that was, which at the time existed as a state religion.
Not at all the situation now, which resulted from Rome’s and the state’s refusal to allow the reform, and when reform came at Trent, to allow any reform but that.
Another way to put what I have “protesting” for — the prefix in the word being pro, not anti — is that the kind of visibility Christ intended for his church does not correspond to the visibility it attained over centuries of its existence as a state religion, first in the Roman Empire East and West and then in the Holy Roman Empire in the West, which the church then dogmatised along with other accretions to the apostolic faith, all of which the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox churches seek to maintain in the modern world minus the states in which they arose.
The beef then is not with or about “the church” so much as the faith which “the church” had seriously modified to suit its interests and to which it refused, and refuses, to be recalled.
PE continues to believe in a catholic church which doesn’t really eist anywhere in particular. It seems not to be visible anywhere, because somehow the Holy Spirit wasn’t powerful enough to ensure that it remain visible.
And “pro” isn’t good *if* it happens to be in favour of error. Which I only mention because “pro” is not inherently good. So protest all you like, but I won’t see it as inherently positive.
eist = exist (I’m having trouble with some of my keys atm).
stoutgal: depressing when even the word verification starts insulting me!
Not at all. The catholic church exists quite well at 7033 L Street, Omaha NE 68127.
Have I been understood? (Nietzschean dance: he used to say this all the time after a non-prosaic type of statement.)
The catholic church exists quite well at 7033 L Street, Omaha NE 68127.
Who says?
E.g. does it exist at the Salvation Army down the road, when they don’t even believe in baptism?
Have I been understood?
Who says who says?
Point is, you are trying to find the catholic church in the same way one would find 7033 L Street, Omaha NE 68127.
To anticipate:
I would have said at one time that “who says” is who always has said — one finds a parish of a local church headed by a bishop in succession from the apostles in communion with the successor of Peter the apostle. IOW, one finds the nearest Catholic church.
Problem is, that church began to do and say things in many ways substantially different than what it had taught me to do and say, things expressed in theologians many of whom before it began to do and say as it does now were forbidden to teach such things as Catholic, and if one continues to do and say what one was formerly taught one will be harrassed no end by the very church that taught you to do and say so, and if you are a bishop of that church trying to do that the plug will not be pulled since you are an old man and will die soon, but ordain bishops to continue to do and say what the church taught you instead of what they teach you to do and say now and it excommunicates you.
So when you show up at your neighbourhood Catholic Church you do not find what the Catholic Church taught you, and are lucky if you find what the Catholic Church says now. All you find for sure is a church with the name Catholic over the door in which you will not find what used to be there. And if such a double talking farce of a lying church is proven to be the authentic church of Jesus, then he was not the Christ, as Christ did not found a lying double talking farce for a church.
Tony,
If I may, a little example. A coworker of mine was raised Eastern Orthodox. She married a Roman Catholic guy (the usual, attended parochial schools all his life).
Her Eastern Orthodox mother matained “Oh the Catholics are always changing everything.” After my coworker converted to Catholicism after her marriage she would ask her husband “Why do Catholics do this or that?” He would reply “Gee, I don’t know,”
They have two daughters who were uncomfortable with EO services because they seemed so “frozen” — of course, they’ve been raised in the novus ordo and know nothing else.
I investigated EO before becoming Catholic. Pretty much the same thing with an eastern flair except for issues such as the papacy, etc.
Here’s one of the problems with the RC. Even after ten years I was never comfortable with many of the Marian doctrines. On the books the RC teaches that they are “private” revelations not binding on the faithful. But when an RC parish is named for “Our Lady” of Fatima, Lourdes, whatever, and statuary and icons are plopped in the church building and out front it pretty much removes the “private” schema and makes it seem very mainstream.
To deny that the Lutheran Church doesn’t accept a visible church is ludicrous. When my mother’s Lutheran ancestors were kicked out of Salzburg, Austria centuries ago because the RC Archbishop told them “Convert or leave” they were very much aware of being part of a visible, continuing community of Christians.
What we deny is that the Catholic church is the sum of the catholic church.
I have also had ten years of experience of exactly what PE descibes. Dissent in the Catholic church is not addressed while those struggling to remain authentically Catholic are given a hard way to go.
The noxious organization FutureChurch operated with impunity out of a parish property for over ten years in Cleveland and the bishop at the time did absolutely nothing about it. Instead of taking the position that this heterodox organization could not occupy space on any parish property he kept silent.
But the social justice crowd were his darlings.
Man, am I glad to be away from that.
I would also add that the Catholic church from the inside is different from the Catholic church one sees from the outside.
One of my motivations in converting was to try to get my cradle Catholic husband back into the Catholic church. I’m a bit dense sometimes and took a while to realize that his insistence that he wants no part of it was just what he meant.
Qui tacet consentit.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church: The True Visible Church of God Upon Earth.
LOL.
Look, the analogy is interesting but entirely pointless. The only reason Catholics refer to “the Catholic Church” is that there are now so many other “churches” and all of them (along with the Catholic Church, of which they are the wounded and separated smithereens) are sometimes loosely thrown together in popular discourse as “the Church.” So there is a need for specificity in conversation etc. Sadly, we have to speak of what “the Catholic Church” believes and teaches because it’s by no means guaranteed that certain constituent “churches” of “the Church” even believe in the divinity of Christ or the Resurrection.
Catholics hope and pray for the day when a reference to “the Church” is understood to mean what it already does mean, has always meant and always will mean: the Catholic Church under the successor of Pope Peter which is the same Catholic Church of the Creed established by Christ Himself.
Yeah, right, I bought that line for years myself. Until the “Catholic Church” ran afoul of Galatians 1:6-9 in the 1960s.
And I kept buying that line right into unbelief. Until I found out it was actually ran afoul of Scripture in the 1960s, again!
One of the sad things that is patently obvious to those of us who look on Rome from the outside, is that the manner in which Rome has come to treat the primacy of Peter is probably the biggest single cause of division with Christendom. That which was to be an expression of unity, when it came to be abused, brought about the fracturing of the visible Church which we all deplore.
C.L., that’s a lovely thought in theory. Doesn’t work in practice.
I’m so glad that at Divine Service this morning I heard the clear word of Scripture about salvation in Christ Jesus.
As a Catholic I heard a lot about canon law, the teachings of the magisterium and what the pope says.
Not all of which necessarily correspond with the teachings of Christ.
The disunity in faith and practice, even with the supposed “unity” of the papacy, is all too obvious to anyone who has spent any length of time under Rome’s umbrella.
I am reading this discussion and understand that all of you are defending the historic Christian faith. Never having grown up with a formal ecclesiology-pastors were the nearest we got to ,and elders and deacons were elected from the congregation- we believed in the priesthood of all believers and the position was the same as Christine’s Divine Service experience ” the clear word of Scripture about salvation in Christ Jesus.” Life is short,eternity is long and heaven and hell are realities .No matter which Church we attend ,which ecclesiology in place,as long as the Gospel of Jesus Christ is preached faithfully -obviously not in the ELCA or UCA as a whole- these are the things that unite us.
And if such a double talking farce of a lying church is proven to be the authentic church of Jesus, then he was not the Christ, as Christ did not found a lying double talking farce for a church.
For some reason I am reminded of the Corinthians.
I’m so glad that at Divine Service this morning I heard the clear word of Scripture about salvation in Christ Jesus.
That’s nice. I heard a dreadful, heretical, secularist piece of agitprop for the homily, which was devoid of both scripture and tradition and even common sense.
However, God turned up as usual.
I’m still left wondering who decides which baptisms are valid.
And I repeat, I respect everyone here, but you would all be hopeless in a real crisis.
WWAD?
St Athanasius, pray for us.
Not really Louise, faith in Christ is the thing.Being washed in His Blood ie realising that we are all sinners and need a Saviour not a bishop or parson but the Great Prophet ,Priest and King.”The Son of God Who loved me and gave HImself for me” . With that as the old hymn says ‘we have an Anchor that keeps our soul,grounded and firm whilst the sea billows role”
I think, Louise, even according to your jurisdiction our baptisms are judged valid. And that’s the very point we’re making: joined to Christ through the washing of rebirth, given the gift of His Spirit, and living in His forgiveness, we are “church” as the NT understands and speaks of it.
even according to your jurisdiction our baptisms are judged valid.
Certainly they are. I don’t dispute this. But how do some Christians come to the conclusion that my baptism is not valid, because I was an infant at the time? They are reading Scripture too, aren’t they?
Being washed in His Blood ie realising that we are all sinners and need a Saviour not a bishop or parson but the Great Prophet ,Priest and King.
Of course we need Christ, but the Arians claimed He was only a man and not God.
Athanaius “alone” stood for the truth that He is God and Man.
Louise,
They apparently AREN’T reading where St. Peter exhorted: “Repent and be baptized everyone of you in the name of the Lord Jesus for the forgiveness of sins and you will receive the gift of the Spirit. The promise is for you AND YOUR CHILDREN…”
P.S. Although it is the habit of some Roman Catholics to lump all Protestants together, it is probably worth noting that there is a significant divide between the Reformed and the Lutherans, the Lutherans insisting that Scripture is chiefly the rule and norm, so that what is CONTRARY to Scripture must be reformed; the Reformed insisting that Scripture is sole source, so that whatever is not explicit in the Scripture must be given up. You can readily see where the two – both saying “sola Scriptura!” – would then end up on two entirely different pages…
That’s a very important point Pastor makes, and one which, coming from Roman Catholicism, struck me right away.
I too thought all “Protestants” were more or less the same really, the earlier ones keeping more of the smells and bells than the later ones.
It amazed me when reading the Book of Concord, the collection of the doctrinal confessions of Lutheranism, that they equally reject the errors of most of what now travels under the name Protestant as the do the errors of Rome.
Not just Athanasius Louise ,who’s declaration on why he believd in God was explained with great clarity by my Religious Studies lecturer in first year-he was a Hindu.
Pastor Weedon and PE you have summed up for me the differences between those who adhere to the Augsburg Confession and those who adhere to the Reformed’s Westminister Confession of Faith ,the Canons of Dort,and the Belgic Confession-take your pick in the latter. Alexander Sutherland Neill -founder of Summerhill School -once said that Calvinism turned Scotland from a nation of God Lovers into a nation of God fearers.
Rather Luther and his lord Catie than a dour Calvinist parson saying ‘though cannst not kick yonder football on the Sabbath have you porridge”
In reference to Christine’s comment about what she heard at the Lutheran homily versus what she would hear in a Catholic homily, I think one important point is that the Church (sans qualification) is the Church is the Church and can be shown to be such, precisely because she is broad enough to contain such corrupt members, however transitorily. I am yet to meet a perfect worshipping community, and if I do I would look at it with a great deal of suspicion before I accept that it is the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic.
copper: Just what it says.
Although I am Lutheran and not Orthodox, I very much appreciated what the orthodox catechism (*The Living God*) had to say about the Church:
It is the same with the Church: its true nature is defined by what
God calls it to be. The pettiness and sins of the Christian people
pass away in the course of history, but the Word of God remains and
never ceases to be heard in the sermons and the church services. The
Word of God is the permanent element in the life of the Church,
defining its form and directing its development, despite the
mediocrity of its members. God Himself expresses this idea through
the mouth of the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 55:10-11 is cited). To know
what the Church really is, we should not describe the way it appears
in some particular parish, diocese, or country, or at some particular
time in history; rather, we must study the way in which its Creator
describes it. Through the constant action of the Holy Spirit, the
Word of God continues to be creative in spite of the obstacles raised
by man’s sinfulness which delay the realization of God’s plan.
(The Living God: A Catechism: vol. 2, pp. 265, 266)
Perfect church, Kiran?
Not this side of eternity while it is made up of imperfect human beings like me.
But how ironic that the historic Lutheran liturgy is more “catholic” than the novus ordo now used by Rome.
I am edified at the Lutheran Divine Service that the pastor and people both face God together during various parts of the liturgy.
Our collects are still structured using the reverent language that is owed when addressing the Holy.
Our hymns speak of the glory of the Holy Trinity and the fathomless mercy of the One who died so that we would live.
It’s more than just the sermon, although that is very important also.
The catholic Church can still be found in the Catholic Church. But sometimes one must peel away several layers.
The point Christine is that the Catholic Church cannot be found anywhere else. If you search the Fathers, the Church is visible, united and whole. If Lutherans are Catholic, then the obvious conclusion is not just that Catholics aren’t, but that no one else is, even the orthodox. The Church, whatever else she may possibly be, is not a coalition of those of good-will. She is whole and entire. To cite Newman (keeping in mind that he is using “protestant” here to include such as the High Anglicans):
My stronghold was Antiquity; now here, in the middle of the fifth century, I found, as it seemed to me, Christendom of the sixteenth and the nineteenth centuries reflected. I saw my face in that mirror, and I was a Monophysite. The Church of the Via Media was in the position of the Oriental communion, Rome was where she now is; and the Protestants were the Eutychians. Of all passages of history, since history has been, who would have thought of going to the sayings and doings of old Eutyches, that delirus senex, as (I think) Petavius calls {115} him, and to the enormities of the unprincipled Dioscorus, in order to be converted to Rome!
Now let it be simply understood that I am not writing controversially, but with the one object of relating things as they happened to me in the course of my conversion. With this view I will quote a passage from the account, which I gave in 1850, of my reasonings and feelings in 1839:
“It was difficult to make out how the Eutychians or Monophysites were heretics, unless Protestants and Anglicans were heretics also; difficult to find arguments against the Tridentine Fathers, which did not tell against the Fathers of Chalcedon; difficult to condemn the Popes of the sixteenth century, without condemning the Popes of the fifth. The drama of religion, and the combat of truth and error, were ever one and the same. The principles and proceedings of the Church now, were those of the Church then; the principles and proceedings of heretics then, were those of Protestants now. I found it so,—almost fearfully; there was an awful similitude, more awful, because so silent and unimpassioned, between the dead records of the past and the feverish chronicle of the present. The shadow of the fifth century was on the sixteenth. It was like a spirit rising from the troubled waters of the old world, with the shape and lineaments of the new. The Church then, as now, might be called peremptory and stern, resolute, overbearing, and relentless; and heretics were shifting, changeable, reserved, and deceitful, ever courting civil power, and never agreeing together, except by its aid; and the civil power was ever aiming at comprehensions, trying to put the invisible out of view, and substituting expediency for faith. What was the use of continuing the controversy, or defending my position, if, after all, I was forging arguments for Arius or Eutyches, and turning devil’s advocate against the much-enduring {116} Athanasius and the majestic Leo? Be my soul with the Saints! and shall I lift up my hand against them? Sooner may my right hand forget her cunning, and wither outright, as his who once stretched it out against a prophet of God! anathema to a whole tribe of Cranmers, Ridleys, Latimers, and Jewels! perish the names of Bramhall, Ussher, Taylor, Stillingfleet, and Barrow from the face of the earth, ere I should do aught but fall at their feet in love and in worship, whose image was continually before my eyes, and whose musical words were ever in my ears and on my tongue!”
The Donatist controversy was known to me for some years, as has appeared already. The case was not parallel to that of the Anglican Church. St. Augustine in Africa wrote against the Donatists in Africa. They were a furious party who made a schism within the African Church, and not beyond its limits. It was a case of Altar against Altar, of two occupants of the same See, as that between the Non-jurors in England and the Established Church; not the case of one Church against another, as of Rome against the Oriental Monophysites. But my friend, an anxiously religious man, now, as then, very dear to me, a Protestant still, pointed out the palmary words of St. Augustine, which were contained in one of the extracts made in the Review, and which had escaped my observation. “Securus judicat orbis terrarum.” He repeated these words again and again, and, when he was gone, they kept ringing in my ears. “Securus judicat orbis {117} terrarum;” they were words which went beyond the occasion of the Donatists: they applied to that of the Monophysites. They gave a cogency to the Article, which had escaped me at first. They decided ecclesiastical questions on a simpler rule than that of Antiquity; nay, St. Augustine was one of the prime oracles of Antiquity; here then Antiquity was deciding against itself.
(Apologia, Ch. 3)
blater: One who bleats mistakenly.
What Christine said — except when we’re imitating Willow Creek or Vatican II instead.
If I hear doctrinal error glossed over as moral lapse another time I will imperfectly puke in the imperfect aisle of the imperfect church then be imperfectly helped to the imperfect men’s room to imperfectly hurl again.
Great Judas converting 30 pieces of silver to USD, I once heard the entire Reformation explained as a doctrinal over-reaction to moral lapse.
God bless me sideways, if a perfectly behaving communion of perfect people is the characteristic of the church, my synod will not make it out the starting gate, and on any given day the reason may be me.
The point at issue is what Pastor May above referred to as “official teaching” of a church, not whether one finds perfect instancing of that teaching in this or that location of it.
Flying Judas in the forum, the preconciliar Catholic Church was as filled with moral lapse as the conciliar — there was as much a “spirit of Trent” in somewhere between excess and contradiction to Trent itself as there is now a “spirit of Vatican II” in the same relation to Vatican II.
Judas leaping to Lebanon, it isn’t only or even mainly the distance between what a church officially teaches and does as distinct from what it actually teaches and does, it’s what it officially teaches and does.
Great Judas in the chancel.
uptois: the patois of the upscale.
OMG Newman. More sola historia.
One of the earliest whose desire to be Protestant and feel better about it by being Catholic led to the Catholic Church becoming just that at Vatican II instead of remaining the Catholic Church.
Like we said during the Council, a whole lot of time and ink could have been saved by promulgating three words, Luther Was Right, and going home. Except, except of course it still must be the Catholic Church, the Catholic Church, the Catholic Church — “dialogue partners”, take note, there is no partnership, you will be assimilated.
What an utter scam.
PE, do you have an argument to make? Then make it. Don’t hide behind feeble attempts at humour and smokescreens about Vatican II What official teaching?
At any rate, you are reacting not against Newman, but against Augustine and Cyprian, and the fathers prior to them (leaving the medievals aside).