Posted on 11/23/2007 7:42:22 AM PST by NYer
A senior Vatican cardinal told a gathering of the world's top prelates Friday that the Roman Catholic Church had to examine what it is doing wrong in the battle for souls who are leaving the church to join Pentecostal and other evangelical groups.
Cardinal Walter Kasper, who heads the Vatican's office for relations with other Christians, told a meeting of more than 100 cardinals that the church must undergo a "self-critical pastoral examination of conscience" to confront the "exponential" rise of Pentecostal movements.
"We shouldn't begin by asking ourselves what is wrong with the Pentecostals, but what our own pastoral shortcomings are," Kasper told the gathering, noting that such evangelical and charismatic groups count some 400 million faithful around the world.
The Vatican has been increasingly lamenting the rise of Protestant evangelical communities, which the Vatican describes as "sects," in Latin America, Africa and elsewhere and the resulting flight of Catholics. In Brazil alone, Roman Catholics used to account for about 90 percent of the population in the 1960s; by 2005 it was down to 67 percent.
The meeting came on the eve of Saturday's ceremony to elevate 23 new cardinals. As he did during his first consistory in 2006, Pope Benedict XVI asked the world's cardinals to come to Rome early for a meeting to discuss pressing church issues before the ceremony.
This year, Kasper briefed the cardinals on the church's relations with other Christians, focusing on the church's relations with the Orthodox, Protestants and Pentecostal movements.
Kasper said the rise of independent, often "aggressive" evangelical movements in places such as Africa had complicated the church's ecumenical task and made it more confused. Nevertheless, Kasper told reporters after the morning session that "ecumenism is not an option but an obligation."
Kasper opened his remarks by updating the cardinals and cardinal-designates on an important new document approved by a Vatican-Orthodox theological commission that has been working to heal the 1,000-year schism between the Catholic and Orthodox churches.
In the document, Catholic and Orthodox representatives both agreed that the pope has primacy over all bishops — although they disagreed over just what authority that primacy gives him.
The development is significant since the Great Schism of 1054 — which split the Catholic and Orthodox churches — was precipitated largely by disagreements over the primacy of the pope.
Kasper told the cardinals that the document was an "important turning point," since it marked the first time that Orthodox churches had agreed that there is a universal level of the church, that it has a primate, and that according to ancient church practice, that primate is the bishop of Rome — the pope.
"All the participants realize that this is just a first step and that the path toward full ecclesial communion will be long and difficult," he said.
Orthodox scholars and officials have praised the document as positive but they also noted that the recognition of the pope's primacy over all other bishops is, in practical terms, moot since the schism remains.
Kasper said that the Vatican's relations with the Russian Orthodox Church, in particular, had become "significantly smoother" in recent years.
"We can say there's no longer a freeze but a thaw," Kasper said.
Tensions between the two churches have been strained over Orthodox accusations that the Vatican is seeking converts on traditionally Orthodox territories, particularly in eastern Europe — charges that Rome denies.
The strain has precluded a meeting between a pope and Patriarch Alexy II, long sought by Pope John Paul II and pursued by Benedict.
Kasper noted that Moscow had "never categorically excluded" such an encounter.
Kasper said a recent document from the Vatican had created a "certain discontent" among Protestants, Lutherans and other Christian denominations spawned by the 16th century reformation.
The document issued this past summer contained nothing doctrinally new but repeated church teaching that other Christian communities were either defective or not true churches.
Kasper said the criticism that erupted after the document was released was "unjustified" but said the Vatican should review the form, language and way of presenting similar documents in the future.
I’d say some of the problems are:
Watering down/selling out of the Faith after VII.
Horrid catechesis is another problem.
Trying to be hip and cool.
Liberalism
Feminism
Idiots
That may be the view of Catholics but it certainly is not the view of any Protestants I know...
* some bad bishops
* clergy sexual abuse crisis (no doubt related to the latter)
As Vicar of Christ on earth, he is mandated to follow the teachings of Christ who prayed to His Father 'that all may be one ... as we are one' (Jn 17:21-22)
Up until 1500 years ago, the Church was one.
As usual . . .
in both Protty and RC camps . . . it is a matter of the hideousness of
A FORM OF GODLINENESS BUT DENYING THE POWER THEREOF
. . . AS SCRIPTURE DECLARES.
That's because the Pentecostals are communicating in tongues. :-)
Because anyone who disagreed was murdered.
Tell a more interesting lie than this one the enxt time you post.
Tell a more interesting lie than this one the enxt time you post.
Hussites, Waldenses, Albigenses, Huguenots, Jews in 1492 Spain, Bartholomew Massacre at Paris, auto da fe, Calabria, Valleys of Piedmont etc. etc.
Guess not everyone went shopping or to work....
Your pope is not our Vicar...He belongs to you...
Up until 1500 years ago, the Church was one.
So you should dump your pope, your eucharist, your priests and pagan traditions and get back in line with our church...
We will welcome you as we have countless numbers of other Catholics...
Which denomination might that be? Do you have a link you can provide for the particular church you attend?
I see your problem is that you are bad at math, and cannot subtract 1500 from 2007.
So even though your are off by between 700 and 1000 years, I'll run down your list.
(1) Jan Hus was indeed executed. If you want to pretend that his execution was only about theology and not about his political role in the power struggle between Wenceslaus and Sigismund, fine. But then you'll have to acknowledge that the Hussites murdered Jan Nepomuc 22 years before Hus was executed.
(2) Some Waldenses died in the 1200s, mostly because of their political alignment with the House of Savoy and the Emperor. Of course, there is little discussion of the Guelfs who died at the hands of Savoyard armies containing Waldensian supporters.
I'll point out that the Savoyard monarch who protected the Waldensians from their political enemies was a devout Catholic who resigned his throne to become a Carthusian monk.
(3) The Albigenses were a warlike non-Christian cult who slaughtered hundreds of Catholics who refused to convert to their death cult - long before the king of France went to war with the Count of Toulouse and the Albigensians lost the war that they themselves had begun.
(4) The Jews of Spain were expelled from Spain as collaborators with the Muslim regime that the Christian people finally defeated after almost 700 years of resistance. While this was a manifestly unjust collective punishment that lumped the innocent in along with the guilty, it wasn't murder - it was theft.
(5) The Saint Bartholomew's Day massacre was widescale murder. However, the murderers were not "The Church" - they were the Medici family and their supporters targeting their political rivals to cement their power in France. Few people mention that Catholic supporters of the Bourbon family were killed along with Henry Of Navarre's largely Huguenot supporters that day.
(6) "auto da fe" and "Calabria" are too vague to address.
(7) The Piedmont Massacre - which was also indeed widescale murder - was, like the Bartholomew's Day Massacre, instigated by the Medici family for political purposes: eliminating opponents of Charles de Medici's plan to wage war on Genoa.
Funny, Titanites, but the more vocal/hostile/obnoxious of the anti-Catholics are afraid of self-identification...
...guess they know that their own cult of the dollar has numerous shortcomings that they’re afraid of having questioned.
The Albigensian Crusade or Cathar Crusade (1209–1229) was a 20-year Not everyone sees it your way, it was wholesale slaughter by Innocent III Albigensian Crusade
military campaign initiated by the Roman Catholic Church to eliminate
the heresy of the Cathars of Languedoc.
An estimated 200,000 people died during the crusade.
The Albigensian Crusade also had a role in the creation and
institutionalization of both the Dominican Order and the
Medieval Inquisition.
But John belongs to all of us.
Xenia, I see your knowledge of history has not gotten any better in the last few months.
You posted: “Not everyone sees it your way, it was wholesale slaughter by Innocent III.”
It is true not everyone sees it our way. Usually it is only those who know about history, have actually read books and can reason who see it our way. That suits me fine. Also, when you mentioned Innocent III, you failed to mention - imagine that - that he was responding to the murder of his legate by an Albigensian knight who worked for the Duke of Toulouse. The Duke paid lipservice to stamping out the Albigensian murderers - and yes, they were murderers, as their rite of endura, support for sodomy over marriage, encouragement of and outright launching of violence, show. Innocent III had had enough and called for a crusade. God for him. If he hadn’t France would not have survived.
I see no shame whatsoever in taking up weapons to suppress violent sodomite dualists who deny Christ, attack the Church, attack marriage, attacks oath-taking, murder themselves and their fellow members, and spread their filth under the guise of being the true faith.
There is nothing wrong with fighting evil minded people with weapons when then have weapons, run cities and aren’t afraid to fight by any means. Were their excesses? You bet. That happens in war and should be condemned when it does. Still, I would much rather have had the Albigensian crusade against those vicious murderers and sodomites then essentially defend them today as you are doing. What’s next? Will you stand up for Al Qaeda and complain about the Western crusade against them?
I can only discern from that statement that you are not a follower of the Christ, but a follower of man.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.