Posted on 10/31/2014 4:56:55 PM PDT by Gamecock
Full Title: Pope Francis 'called us his brother bishops,' says Protestant pastor from Mobile, who lunched, swapped caps with the pontiff
MOBILE, Alabama - First, the pope does not want his ring kissed. And he prefers to be called Father Francis rather than Your Holiness.
Those were some of the marching orders given to Rev. Henry W. Roberts II of Mobile and other bishops with the Communion of Evangelical Episcopal Churches, who met with Pope Francis at the Vatican Oct. 10. The CEEC is an international ecumenical network that strives for unity among all Christians.
"He looks like one of the fellas. He's so down to earth," said Roberts, describing a photo he took with the pope during the visit. Roberts is founding pastor of Word of Life Community Church, an interdenominational congregation of 1,500 with locations in Chickasaw and Whistler. A graduate of McGill-Toolen Catholic School, he has been a bishop with the CEEC network since 2007.
Roberts said one of the bishops asked the pontiff if he would bless them to go and proclaim the miracle of unity. "He said, 'I can't really bless you, because we're brother bishops.' He actually called us his brother bishops," he said.
Roberts said the group met with Pope Francis for more than an hour and shared lunch in his private dining room at Casa Santa Marta, his Vatican residence. The main topics at the meeting, which occurred during the recent Synod, were family and Christian unity.
"He said, No. 1, that we as believers, as Christians, have to stop talking bad about each other and being condescending," Roberts recalled. "No. 2, we need to find a good Catholic that we can just fellowship with and develop a relationship with."
Roberts also exchanged a skull cap called a zucchetto with the pontiff. He had purchased the white hat made especially for Francis in Rome to make the swap. "I loved his personality, and I could feel his heart and compassion for people and his love for people," he said. "I know he's sincere about seeing people come together."
The meeting with the CEEC bishops, which was videoed and is on YouTube, shows the pope speaking through an interpreter about the need for unity. "We're always concentrating on the differences," the pope told the group. "We all have the same baptism, and the same baptism is more important than our differences. We all believe in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit."
The CEEC, considered part of the "convergence movement," drew media attention this year because of a longtime friendship between the pope and CEEC Bishop Tony Palmer of South Africa. Palmer, a Protestant who considered Francis his spiritual father, organized the October meeting before he was killed in a motorcycle accident in August.
The pope famously recorded a seven-minute video on Palmer's iPhone for the bishop to present to a conference by U.S. evangelist Rev. Kenneth Copeland. In the video, which went viral on YouTube, the Pope Francis urges "the miracle of unity" between Protestants and Catholics.
So serious question: Can he be impeached or recalled or disposed or something?
Nope.
The handwringing of many Catholics is going to continue as they watch that religion increasingly join hands with all other religions.
They can all be "brother bishops" in one world religion! temple of the faceless god and all that fun stuff.
There is no procedure whatsoever for the removal or involuntary retiring of a Pope.
If a Pope were to become incontrovertibly insane, the only protection for the Church would be that everyone around him would refuse to obey his orders. But he could never be declared “retired” or “resigned.”
If Bergoglio, after the 2015 Synod, declares what he clearly wants to declare, that adulterous and gay couples can receive Communion, bishops around the world will simply have to defy him.
Curious...
As a non- Catholic, I cannot take communion at a Catholic Church even though I am a believer in Christ and saved by His blood atonement...
After all Christ died for me, not a Catholic priest or any living or dead soul in the CC...
I was unaware the Catholic Church cannot do that...
What possible reason would the CC do that?
So how does this fit in with the claim that the Holy Spirit led the cardinals in picking him as the next pope?
I understand that it has to be a majority vote.
How is one to know if the MINORITY weren’t the ones who were correct all along?
Considering the questionable character of some of the Catholic higher-ups, how can they be sure they’re actually hearing the voice of the Holy Spirit?
"Claim" by whom? Not the Church.
There is absolutely no claim in the teaching of the Catholic Church that the Cardinals are guided by the Holy Spirit. The selection of a Pope by the conclave has precisely NOTHING to do with the Magisterium (teaching function) of the Church. It enjoys absolutely no guarantee of inerrancy. For one thing: Whether they picked the "right" man is absolutely unverifiable and unfalsifiable--even in hindsight--because who the "right" man is absolutely no part of the Deposit of Faith.
Perhaps the election of this totally unqualified man of questionable intelligence and orthodoxy will help put to rest the superstitious belief that the College of Cardinals enjoys some kind of supernatural guidance, or protection from error.
In the Catholic Church, there are three “sacraments of initiation”: Baptism, Confirmation, the Eucharist.
As the Catholic Church understands it, receiving the Eucharist in Communion is a sign of full incorporation into the Catholic Church.
It is not a statement about the state of the soul of anybody, or the genuineness of anyone’s faith in Christ.
Interesting that “sacraments of initiation” have nothing about a confession of faith in the atonement of the blood of Christ...
As the Catholic Church understands it, receiving the Eucharist in Communion is a sign of full incorporation into the Catholic Church.
So I am to assume taking communion at a Catholic Church would make me a Catholic so I am not allowed to since I'm not ?
Sounds very legalistic to me ...
“Sounds very legalistic to me ...”
Im not Catholic, but the answer is not complicated.
If you want a sacrament in their church you have to understand what it means in the context of their teachings. It’s important to them. It’s not so much an exclus ion from a sacrament, rather it is an exclusion until you understand what it means. Children in Catholic and some Protestant faiths do not receive the eucharist until they are educated and old enough to understand it’s meaning.
take no offense.
This is an assumption on your part. And it's false. The ritual of Baptism includes a profession of faith--the Apostles' Creed, as well as the Baptismal Promises.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baptism#Roman_Catholicism
Reception of Communion in a Catholic Church would not make you a member of the Catholic Church. Only when a person has the intention of being incorporated into the Catholic Church does the sacrament have that significance and effect.
The only reason you see legalism is that you make false assumptions about these matters, rather than inquiring.
Correct me if I am wrong, being born into a Catholic family you are baptized as an infant...?
Infants don't give a profession of faith...
Maybe I watched the Godfather one too many times...
Well said, and appreciated.
The parents and godparents make the profession of faith, and promise to bring up the child in the faith.
The practice of infant baptism helps to highlight the Christian belief that the theological virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity are GIFTS. They are not earned. They do not result from our own efforts. Everyone is able to see this truth in the case of the infant who is baptized.
When baptism is delayed, a person is without the theological virtues, and is still in the state of original sin. He is left to negotiate the pitfalls and temptations of life—especially puberty!—without sanctifying grace. Nothing could be more dangerous.
Well, I guess that does put it on the level of casting lots, then doesn't it?
And yet you're expected to be in submission to the pope for what reason exactly?
If the college of cardinals is not guided by the Holy Spirit in the selection of the new pope, then just what guides it?
There aren't a lot of options left.
The Catholic Church has laws.
In the antinomian age we live in, this is often CALLED “legalism.”
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