Posted on 01/06/2017 8:06:18 AM PST by ebb tide
A newly released document from the Vaticans Pontifical Council for Christian Unity promotes the upcoming January 18-25 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity with the theme Reconciliation: The love of Christ compels us. Encouraging commemorations in all dioceses of the world, the Pontifical Council notes the theme is drawn from the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. In 2017, it says, Lutheran and Catholic Christians will for the first time commemorate together the beginning of the Reformation. The text also states that Catholics are now able to hear Luthers challenge for the Church of today, recognizing him as a witness to the gospel.
The announcement follows on the heels of Pope Francis controversial trip to Lund, Sweden, where he joined in the launch of the 500th year anniversary of the most devastating split in Christianity in its history. The Lutheran Church of Sweden to which Pope Francis went for the celebration accepts contraception, abortion, homosexuality, and female clergy, all of which are strictly and unalterably forbidden in the Catholic Church.
Nevertheless, the Vatican is pushing the joint celebration of the Reformation focusing on the common element of Jesus Christ and his work of reconciliation as the center of Christian faith.
The theme of the week of Christian unity has Vatican watchers wondering if the Pope may announce that in certain limited cases intercommunion for Protestants might be possible. The Pope suggested such previously in an informal talk at a Lutheran parish in Rome where in November 2015 he told a Lutheran woman asking about receiving Communion with her Catholic husband to go forward guided by individual conscience.
That suspicion was given momentum last month when Cardinal Walter Kasper, one of the Popes closest advisors, said he hoped that the Popes next declaration opens the way for shared Eucharistic communion in special cases.
Eucharistic intercommunion is the main desire for Lutheran and Catholic leaders involved in the Papal participation in the Lutheran commemoration. Swedish Professor Dr. Clemens Cavallin in an essay on Sweden and the 500-year reformation anamnesis notes that the Church of Sweden webpage states explicitly about the popes visit: What we foremost wish is that the common celebration of the Eucharist will be officially possible. This is especially important for families where members belong to different denominations.
The severity of the change, if implemented, was stressed by Monsignor Nicola Bux, a former consulter to the Vaticans Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith. If the Church were to change its rules on shared Eucharistic Communion, it would go against Revelation and the Magisterium, leading Christians to commit blasphemy and sacrilege, Bux told Ed Pentin of the National Catholic Register.
Regarding the Eucharist, Lutherans have a fundamentally different faith from Catholics, who believe that during the consecration at Mass the bread used becomes the body and blood of Jesus Christ while still looking like bread. Lutherans believe in a fleeting presence that while Christ is present in the bread during the service, it is just normal bread again outside the service.
The approach of Pope Francis to a joint commemoration of the Reformation is partially based on a naïve understanding of the theological dialogue between Lutherans and Catholics, according to former Anglican, now Catholic priest Fr. Dwight Longenecker. Fr. Longenecker points to this statement of Pope Francis about Martin Luther as problematic: Today, Lutherans and Catholics, Protestants, all of us agree on the doctrine of justification. On this point, which is very important, he did not err.
Pope Francis draws his enthusiasm for this agreement on a Joint Declaration between Catholics and Lutherans on the Doctrine of Justification. However, Fr. Longenecker points out that the Vatican issued a detailed official clarification document wherein Pope Benedict (while still serving as Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith) pointed out that there was not a consensus between Catholics and Lutherans on the understanding of justification. The level of agreement is high, but it does not yet allow us to affirm that all the differences separating Catholics and Lutherans in the doctrine concerning justification are simply a question of emphasis or language, said the document. Some of these differences concern aspects of substance and are therefore not all mutually compatible.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but anti-Judaism is the beating heart of all traditional Christianity.
The ELCA’s statement was in conjunction with the Lutheran World Federation. Just as the LWF does not represent every Lutheran group, there is also no all-encompassing Jewish group that could accept the hypothetical universal apology.
Most secular Jews seems to appreciate the effort.
And not a word from “The Dubia Four”.....
Two things:
(1) Anti-Judaism is not the same thing as anti-Semitism. And yes, the Church has traditionally been anti-Judaism. Although individual Catholics may have traditionally taken it to the level of anti-Semitism, those two things are very different. The Church has never taught that anti-Semitism is allowed and I can find a papal quote before Vatican II that specifically speaks against it.
(2) Although anti-Judaism is an important aspect of traditional Christianity, I'm not sure I would say it was/is "the beating heart". Why do you say this?
Since Pius XII all successors have been bad popes. A new religion was formed that has little to do with Jesus Christ and much to do with secular humanism.
The Catholic Church, that is the one that’s headquartered in the Vatican is NOT catholic, nor is it holy. Holiness went out the window with the tenets and rubrics.
My point was that a man who purports to be pope and teaches heresy to the Universal Church isn’t a “bad” pope. He isn’t pope at all. I wasn’t clear...
Bergoglio is like Obama. He is not legitimate. There were quite a few that preceded him that were likewise illegitimate.
Duh... Maybe it was because Luther was so wrong. Did you ever think of that?
Yeah, right. The RCC made the changes it did because Luther was wrong.
Intellect is not required of catholicism I see.
He, for instance, took a strong opposition to Catholic doctrine which adds onto this doctrine and basically believed being a member of the Catholic Church saved with it's many false doctrines added onto absolute forever salvation through Jesus Christ and Him alone, apart from any need to do works and be a good member of any Church, including the Catholic Church.
Some Jews did convert and were absorbed into true Christianity. Those Jews went to heaven, as well often as some of their progeny. It is so much better for them than for those who continued in not believing in The true and living Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. ML may have taken a hard line against their unbelief but through it some are in heaven today rather than in hell forever.
http://novusordowatch.org/2017/01/vatican-luther-witness-to-gospel/
which includes the Catholic Church’s and the proper response to Martin Luther:
http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Leo10/l10decet.htm
You aren't seriously contending that ML wrote this "plan" for the Nazis to use four HUNDRED years after he died, do you? And do you have ANY evidence that Luther's followers actually carried out any of his "plan"?
You bring this up frequently enough that I think you ought to explain what is your real reason for doing so. It's not so that Lutherans should be forced to change the name of their denomination, is it? If you want to discredit ALL Lutherans and, by association, ALL "Protestants", based upon the late-in-life frustrations of one man who was a part of the great Reformation, then be honest and say so. But when you bring up Luther's admittedly wrong-headed and long ago discredited anti-Semitism whenever the man's name is mentioned while you brush off the very real actions and fiercer proclamations against Jews of the Roman Catholic church up to and beyond Luther's time, it smacks of hypocrisy and willful blindness. I won't even get into the fact that NO Protestant ever saw Luther as their infallible POPE.
So, what do you expect to be the result of your blanket condemnation of Luther? Can the man come back from the dead to apologize and recant his words on this topic? Isn't it enough that NO official statements of faith of ANY Lutheran or other Protestant denomination includes anti-Semitic tenets and these views were long ago disavowed? What do you want?
Meant to ping you, too.
I am not a Lutheran, though I know ML’s great, great... Granddaughter, who is also closely related to Bonhoeffer.
I have a friend who is Jewish and went to Milwaukee Synagogues with him. I love Jews, but was totally blown away for the utter contempt some of them held for Christianity. If I were a Muslim they likely would have opened their arms to me to show how unbiased they were, but for me it was sharp, hateful contempt.
Many Jews believe that Jesus was a blasphemous, lying, horrible person, turned into an idol. To be consistent with their rejection of Him as their Messiah, they actually cannot be blamed for their utter contempt for Him. If they were right about Him, which they are not, they should hate the very mention of His name.
I, loving Jews was completely shocked and very hurt when I became aware of some of them having a hatred and mistrust of me because I am a Christian, though I can actually somewhat understand it. If Jews of Luther’s time expressed their foul hatred and distain for Jesus, as there is an underbelly of Jews who do today, maybe the friction between the two groups is more understandable.
That being said, in the times he lived in hatred and mistrust of other conflicting religious groups was the rule. To judge him from the perspective of our times may not be fair, as it isn’t fair to dispise some of founders because they owned some slaves, as it was the accepted norm of their day. They are all mere men, apart from direct illumination from God’s Holy Word.
After terrible treatment by some Jews in their Synagogue I studied the net and found a fair amount of shocking and detestable vitriol against Jesus, laced with many really, really nasty twisted lies being spread about Him.
Someday soon Jews will greatly mourn for the One they have pierced. They will be in grief and shock when they see Him and realize that it is after all Jesus who is their very own Messiah. (zechariah 12:10-14)
Some Jews were also exceptionally nice to me. I love and pray for Jews regularly.
My friend was not and isn't a Christian. He wanted to go to Church with us and loved Milwaukee Synagogues and wanted us to experience them.
I fully expected to be treated civilly. One Synagogue treated us very friendly and this is what I would have expected and will choose to remember and cherish.
But, I also remember going with him to an important one. At the door they became very upset that we wore crosses. They let him know that they wanted us to take our crosses off. It went down hill from there.
The really fantastic thing is that the leader's sermon was all about showing tolerance and he went on and on in very flowery language about how you are suppose to treat others who are different than yourself.
We didn't say one word about Jesus, because we wouldn't go into their meeting and behave disrespectfully concerning their beliefs. When introduced to him he was rude and made it apparent that he was snubbing us. Afterwards there was a meal and our friend, a member, wanted for us to participate. We were rudely and physically barred by several people. We made no attempt at going in because they had already told our friend that we were not welcomed. The physical display was uncalled for and totally not necessary.
Our friend was embarrassed. Later he wanted us to come again to give them another chance. We said no thank you, we aren't going to set ourselves up to be treated so disrespectfully again.
Once again, we did absolutely nothing to deserve such humiliating treatment, except to wear crosses that we did not take off when they told our friend to have us take them off, which was very strange, paranoid, controlling and rude.
This Western Christianity’s version of the US Civil War Centennial.
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