Category: Are the CTCers Paying Attention?

The Fullness of Sausage

Published on by D. G. Hart59 Comments

Mark Shea may fault with Rod Dreher for selectivity in reading the Christian past, but has he looked in the mirror lately? As I’ve written before, Protestants do not have the problem of history that Roman Catholics do for one because we don’t have all the history (and baggage) and for another because we don’t promote tradition the way Rome does, and for one more we don’t believe utterances from the past by church authorities are infallible (unless they are part of the canon). So complaints about the way Roman Catholics use and abuse history are inherently self-serving for Protestants.

Still, that does not explain why Roman Catholics keep appealing to the past as leverage against Protestants. Not only do Roman Catholic apologists have a lot of explaining to do about coziness with emperors, the politics of the curia and Rome’s powerful families, or the Crusades, for instance, but they also need to make past decrees square with contemporary ones. And development of doctrine just isn’t working when it comes to worrying about heretics and infidels leading the faithful to hell compared to praying with heretics and infidels.

Consider Shea’s recent celebratory post about religious freedom in the greatest nation on God’s green earth and whether Roman Catholics should embrace such freedom for non-Christians:

. . . the casual description of all non-Abrahamic religion as “satan worship” vastly over-simplifies things, just as the easy willingness to lump all expressions of Judaism and all expressions of Christianity together (presumably consigning Muslims to paganism and illegality) is tremendously simplistic. One pernicious lie embraced by many Catholics since 9/11 is to imagine that Muslims “worship another god” despite the obvious teaching of the Church:

841 The Church’s relationship with the Muslims. “The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind’s judge on the last day.”

Many Reactionary Catholics protest this teaching of the Church and try to pretend that God and Allah are “two different Gods”. . . . Here’s reality: Allah is just the Arabic word for the Deity, as Dieu is the French and Gott the German and Deus the Latin. Some will claim that because Muslims are non-Trinitarian, they don’t worship the same God as Christians. The problem is, Jews also reject the deity of Jesus, yet are mysteriously given a pass, as your friends demonstrate. That’s because such Christians are willing to recognize that you can worship God while having an incomplete understanding of him–if you are a Jew. But because of anger of 9/11 and other Muslim crimes, they refuse to cut Muslims the same slack–and wind up talking as though there are multiple gods and not one God who is understood in various levels of knowledge.

The Church’s habit is always to affirm what can be affirmed in common with any religious tradition while, of course, noting the differences as well. Thus, St. Thomas could find much of value in the thought of both the pagan Aristotle and the Muslim Averroes. But the Church has historically gone much further even with paganism. So we find Paul affirming what can be affirmed with pagans in Acts 17 as he speaks to Greek pagans on the Areopagus. Likewise, the Fathers made all kinds of use of Plato In our culture of polarization however, many find this very hard. Outlawing other religions would only massively exacerbate that–in addition to being both wrong and foolish.

Aside from a theologically weak defense of Islam and Judaism, can Shea really say with a straight face that the church has “always” affirmed what it has in common with “any” traditional religion. How did that work for the Council of Trent in its verdict on Christians who affirmed the Nicene Creed? Or what does that affirmative impulse do to the history of banning books and movies? As one of Shea’s astute readers noted, nineteenth century popes (a few steps above Shea’s pay grade) would not have described the church as Shea does:

We consider another abundant source of the evils with which the Church is afflicted at present: indifferentism. This perverse opinion is spread on all sides by the fraud of the wicked who claim that it is possible to obtain the eternal salvation of the soul by the profession of any kind of religion, as long as morality is maintained. Surely, in so clear a matter, you will drive this deadly error far from the people committed to your care. With the admonition of the apostle that “there is one God, one faith, one baptism” may those fear who contrive the notion that the safe harbor of salvation is open to persons of any religion whatever. They should consider the testimony of Christ Himself that “those who are not with Christ are against Him,” and that they disperse unhappily who do not gather with Him. Therefore “without a doubt, they will perish forever, unless they hold the Catholic faith whole and inviolate.” Let them hear Jerome who, while the Church was torn into three parts by schism, tells us that whenever someone tried to persuade him to join his group he always exclaimed: “He who is for the See of Peter is for me.” A schismatic flatters himself falsely if he asserts that he, too, has been washed in the waters of regeneration. Indeed Augustine would reply to such a man: “The branch has the same form when it has been cut off from the vine; but of what profit for it is the form, if it does not live from the root?”

This shameful font of indifferentism gives rise to that absurd and erroneous proposition which claims that liberty of conscience must be maintained for everyone. It spreads ruin in sacred and civil affairs, though some repeat over and over again with the greatest impudence that some advantage accrues to religion from it. “But the death of the soul is worse than freedom of error,” as Augustine was wont to say. (Encyclical on Indifferentism and Liberalism by Pope Gregory XVI)

Accounting for history is hard. And the recent dust up between Bryan Cross and Brandon Addison proves the point. In a debate about apostolic succession and the rise of the Holy See (Rome), Addison pushed Cross to brand as heretical those who deny that the Bishop of Rome was a first-century historical reality:

. . . when Brandon in comment #23, says, “I wanted to point out that Catholics of good repute and in full communion with the Church share my rejection of traditional Catholic claims,” if the “traditional Catholic claims” he has in mind are or include either the claim that St. Peter was not appointed by Christ as prince of all the Apostles, or that it is not by the institution of Christ Himself that St. Peter has perpetual successors in the primacy over the whole Church, or that the papal office did not come from Christ through St. Peter, then such a Catholic is at least in material heresy, and is thus in that respect not in full communion with the Catholic Church. So for any Catholic scholar Brandon cites, if that Catholic is in [at least] material heresy regarding the aforementioned doctrines, then he or she is not in full communion. If, however, that Catholic is in full communion with the Catholic Church, then that Catholic disagrees with Brandon on these points. (footnote 8)

To which Addison responds with a logic that should have pleased Bryan:

Is this a claim that the following men are material heretics:

– Eamon Duffy
– Raymond Brown (and is Thomas Boland guilty of placing his Imprimatur on a work in which a material heretic is explicating his views which are tantamount to material heresy? What does that say about Boland?)
– Patrick Burke
– Bernad Dupay
– Francis Sullivan
– Klaus Schatz
– Allen Brent
– J.P. Meier

These men (among a litany of others) have published their views widely that they do not believe,

“that Christ appointed St. Peter to be the prince of all the apostles, and visible head of the whole Church militant, and that Christ gave to him primacy of jurisdiction.”

This is a point that I have tried to make with Bryan but Brandon makes it much more effectively. Whenever I’ve tried to point out that Jason and the Callers are out of sync with the dominant contemporary Roman Catholic historiography about their communion and its novelty after Vatican II, all I’ve gotten is “you haven’t proved anything.”

So what does Bryan say in response? Surprisingly, his logic goes squishy:

The purpose of our article was not to determine whether or demonstrate that any particular person’s position is material heresy. Rather, our purpose was to evaluate the argument presented in your essay, and present an alternative paradigm in which to understand the historical data.

So rather than comment on the implication of his comment for almost the entire field of Roman Catholic history, Bryan packs up his weapons and chooses a Protestant to critique.

Meanwhile, we hear of another Protestant convert to Roman Catholicism. Why is it that conversion narratives are so common among recent Roman Catholics? Could it be a carry over of the evangelical devotional practice of giving one’s testimony? That wouldn’t be very traditional.

It was difficult to explain my decision to become Catholic to many of my friends and family, most of whom were Protestant. Some of my friends who knew me during college weren’t surprised, since they had seen the progression of my journey and could see that I was heading in the direction of Rome. Other friends and family were surprised by my decision, and couldn’t understand my reasons for it. Many people assumed that it was a matter of taste or preference — as if I chose to become Catholic for the music, the liturgy, the incense, or the hats. But it was only because I was convinced of the truth of her teachings, and for no other reason, that I decided to come fully into communion with the Catholic Church.

Whatever the explanation for the rise of Roman Catholic testimonies, this woman’s sense of having arrived at the fullness of truth sure does not square with the forms of real historical denial in which Roman Catholic apologists must engage before eating the sausage.

Speaking of Celebrity Pastors

Published on by D. G. Hart8 Comments

I don’t know how many times I’ve read Roman Catholic authors complain about Pope Francis’ treatment in the press. Here‘s one of the latest:

Following Jesus without deviating will get you smeared every time.

I think it’s a rule of some sort, written by Satan a couple of thousand years ago.

It even happened to Jesus Himself when He walked this earth.

So … if somebody calls you names for following Him, say thank you. It’s always nice when someone notices your fidelity to Christ and pays it the ultimate compliment.

Pope Francis, who has been following right down the line on this Jesus thing, has drawn the usual verbal lightning down his own head by doing it. Just this morning, I read an article calling him, once again, a Communist for speaking out on behalf of the poor.

I believe this particular article accused him of “following Lenin” in response to the Holy Father’s linkage of economics and war. Because, you know, war has nothing to do with economics. By this logic President Dwight Eisenhower followed Lenin, too. . . .

At the other end of the wing nut comedian scale, we have a writer over at Salon who wastes a lot of band-width on her angst at learning that Pope Francis is Catholic. You know: pro life, pro traditional marriage and family; that kind of Catholic.

This author goes, alongside her right-wing-nut buddies, right past common sense and lands splat in a big barrel of mud. Instead of saying that the Vicar of Christ is in cahoots with Lenin, she informs us — with rageful venom that almost leaps through the screen and scorches the reader — that the pope is … ummmm … you know … a bigot, sexist, oppressor who supports pedophilia.

Nice shot, that last. And one that’s beginning to weary. I’ve been and will continue to be as outspoken as anybody about the failure of bishops to protect children from predatory priests. But there are pedophile protectors in just about every nook and cranny of this world of ours. We actually help victimize kids more by using this issue as a club to beat the Church with and ignoring everyone else.

In fact, I’m beginning to come to the conclusion that at least some of this outrage is just Catholic hating. The reason? I’ll give you two: Woody Allen and Roman Polanski. You need another reason? Go read Coreyography. Try the defense in trendy circles of egg harvesters who prey on young girls barely out of their teens. Or, consider the easy way the media pushed the baby-bodies-in-the-septic tank hoax. I could go on, but the examples rapidly get so ugly that I don’t want to talk about them.

If you want a pastor with universal jurisdiction to speak on all the problems in the world, do you really also think that he’ll get universal adoration? Not even “loyal” Roman Catholics give that kind of devotion to the pope. If Francis did not speak up so much or make himself so accessible to the press, he could avoid the cheap shots. But he would then be suspect for being too parochial or too spiritual.

Every celebrity is subject to scrutiny by the press. Look at Joe Paterno. You don’t like the limelight, get out off the stage.

Then again, in the world of Protestant celebrity pastors, the press doesn’t care and no one is asking hard questions. Rebecca Hamilton should be grateful that the pope is getting some scrutiny. Celebrity Protestant pastors hardly get any.

What Changed?

Published on by D. G. Hart18 Comments

In 1965, Calvin, David Hume, Thomas Hobbes, and Montaigne were all on the list of books banned by Rome’s Sacred Congregation of the Index (until 1917 when it became the Holy Office). Then in 1966 that list went away. Calvin was no more a problem for Roman Catholic souls than Hobbes. What happened?

Did Calvin change his views? Did Hobbes? Stupid questions. Both being dead, they could have hardly changed their texts. So that leaves the agent of change to be the magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church. If the church changed so that Calvin was once banned and went to being acceptable, does that mean that the magisterium erred in banning Calvin, Hobbes, Hume and Montaigne (for starters)? But of course, Rome cannot err.

So what is an inquiring mind to do? Don’t read Jason and the Callers (who have lots of ‘splainin’ to do even if it is above their pay grade), but do check out this piece for some background:

The idea of censoring heretical writings dates back to the early centuries of the church but was not formalized as a papal power until Pope Leo X did so in 1515, during the Fifth Lateran Council. Two years later, Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church door in Wittenberg. Within weeks, they were printed in Leipzig, Nuremberg and Basel and distributed widely.

The first Index, as one might expect, published in 1559, banned all books by Luther, Calvin and other Protestant reformers. Since translating the Bible into vernacular tongues was a Protestant specialty, all Bibles but the Latin Vulgate were banned. The Talmud and the Koran were also taboo. But the Index didn’t stop there. It also drew up lists of books that should be purged of passages that conflicted with church teaching. Classical writersincluding Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Virgil, Homer, Euclid, Hippocrates, Thucydides and otherswere put on the expurgatio list because they reflected pagan beliefs. Books translated by Protestants had to be filtered for offending passages. In some cases, a book only had to be printed in a Protestant city to earn a place on the list of objectionable works. The Index originally planned to produce purged editions of about 300 books. They only managed to do about 50, Wolf said.

After this confusing start, the Vatican decided to aim just at books denounced to it as dangerous. The Index Congregation met three or four times a year in Rome. Two consultors were named for each book being surveyed, and their findings were discussed at a meeting of the cardinals in the congregation. The congregation’s decision was then brought to the pope for approval. This produced a vast accumulation of files, written in Latin or Italian and divided into the Diarii, which recorded the congregation’s sessions, and the Protocolli, with all sorts of other papers. The Inquisition congregation met weekly but handled only 2 or 3 percent of the censorship cases, usually theology books.

Over the centuries, the Index managed to condemn a large number of writings that eventually became classics of European culture. Banned philosophy books included works by Descartes, Spinoza, Locke, Hume, Rousseau, Voltaire, Pascal, Kant and Mill. Among the novelists listed were Balzac, Flaubert, Hugo, Zola, D’Annunzio and Moravia. Books by Defoe and Swift were blacklisted, as were Casanova’s memoirs. The censors’ zeal varied over the years and lost steam as the 20th century wore on. One of their last targets was Sartre, whose complete works were banned as early as 1948.

Wolf and his researchers are also writing up short biographies of the consultors to reveal the intellectual influences at play. They were all priests; and in many cases their education, travel and language skills have been recorded. The Jesuits and Dominicans dominated their ranks, and each order tried to make sure it was not outnumbered by the other. Certain patterns emerge, Wolf said: The Dominicans tended to take their men from a certain province in Italy. The Jesuits have their world-wide system, and they tended to move people around.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Perhaps the biggest surprise in the archives is the large number of books that secretly passed muster. Authors were not informed that their works were being reviewed or invited to defend them. Until now, we only knew which books were banned, Wolf told me. Nobody knew about the books that passed the review.

The treatment of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) revealed the censors’ narrow cultural focus. Uncle Tom’s Cabin was not reviewed as long as it was only available in English. You see, English was a barbarian language; only Protestants spoke it and they were lost for the faith anyway, Wolf recounted with a laugh. But as soon as it appeared in a proper Catholic’ language Italian, French or Spanish it became dangerous. An Italian translation turned up in the Papal States and was denounced to the Index because Stowe was a Quaker and thus presumably spreading the Protestant poison, as the denunciatory letter put it.

Where Would Christian Europe be without the Emperor?

Published on by D. G. Hart8 Comments

That’s what Peter Heather makes readers ask in The Restoration of Rome:

Thanks to Charlemagne’s attentions, the papacy was enriched, visited, courted and paid enormous respect, but all these gains came with a price tag. The emperor’s respect for the papacy was genuine, but he was equally convinced. . . that he had his own hotline to the Almighty. No mere vassal of St. Peter, he had no hesitation in making use of the papacy for his own purposes . . . for this too was God’s will. Nor was Charlemagne afraid actually to disagree with the Pope — even on matters of doctrine. The example par excellence is the Council of Frankfurt. There and to the Pope’s face (at least, to those of his legates) Charlemagne had his churchmen declare that Pope Hadrian’s acceptance of Constantinople’s new teaching on icons was in fact mistaken. A second, less charged example is provided by the famous filioque clause. . . .

As such, we can place [Charlemagne] firmly in a tradition which stretched back for the best part of half a millennium. From the time of Constantine onwards, overarching responsibility even for the identification of correct doctrine had been part of the Christian ruler’s job description, and Charlemagne’s attitude to Rome was nothing more than its direct continuation. Indeed, it would be extremely easy at this point to go through the same checklist we have used before, and come to the inescapable conclusion that Charlemagne was undoubtedly the head of the Church within his domains. He appointed all the leading churchmen, he called all the major councils and authorized most of the rest, and great tranches of legal directions on the practicalities of both clerical and lay piety were drawn up in his name. (332-33)

So much for that audacious papacy. Turns out the Pope would not have been the official he turned out to be without the audacity of the emperor. In fact, transformers of culture, Roman Catholic or Protestant, will never see their hopes for a Christian society realized until the ruler embraces the faith and enforces it. Not even Boniface VIII in all his pomp and show could make Europe Christian. It took emperors, kings, princes, and magistrates.

Luther-like?

Published on by D. G. Hart368 Comments

Somewhere during the past few weeks I recall reading something about the origins of the episcopate and Ambrose’s contention that obedience to the bishop was of the essence of episcopacy. (That may generate titters from those in the Episcopal Church or the Reformed Episcopal Church, but it still goes with the territory of a universal bishop who has access to the relics of Peter.) Here is one account of the obedience that bishops require (though it might carry more weight actually coming from a bishop):

. . . most of us encounter bishops not only by instruction in the faith, but in practical judgments that have no assurance of divine guidance: appointment or removal of a priest, refusal of a legitimate request, closing of a church or school. Here obedience – along with charity and patience – is truly tested. This instance requires two further clarifications.

On the one hand, according the will of Christ the apostles and their successors the bishops have legitimate authority in all ecclesial matters down to the most mundane dealings. By virtue of the duties incurred by the great gift of our baptisms, we must obey the juridical decisions of bishops, even if we disagree.

On the other hand, our duty of obedience does not mean we cannot communicate our opinions, ideas, and reservations to our bishops, in private or public. But because of bishops’ ecclesial dignity, we must do so charitably and with deference. We can seek recourse to the Apostolic See if we believe a bishop has decided contrary to canon law, but we must never seek to embarrass or insult him in the process – doing so only further disturbs the whole flock.

“A bishop is bound to belong to all, to bear the burden of all,” writes Chrysostom. As members of the same Body of Christ, we must help our bishops bear the burden of souls by bearing our burden of obedience to them. Obedience never has been easy, and it never will be. But like all things truly Catholic, obedience is worth the sacrifice.

So far, so good (if you’re not a presbyterian or congregationalist).

Then along comes this diatribe that might have given Luther pause:

America’s bishops are confusing Catholics by using doublespeak, being indecisive, and being politically correct. Their posturing has, and is, causing great harm to the Church in America.

A case in point: In June 2012, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) unanimously stated that the contraception-sterilization-abortifacients regulation of the Obama administration’s Affordable Care Act was an “unjust and illegal mandate and a violation of personal civil rights.” Following the National Prayer Breakfast in May, Sean Cardinal O’Malley, OFM Cap., the archbishop of Boston and chair of the USCCB’s Committee on Pro-Life Activities, was asked if this regulation violates God’s law. He responded, “The regulation that imposes abortion and sterilization, this is a violation of God’s law.”

So far, so good; here is the rest of the story. In a letter to Congress, the American bishops wrote, “Those who help provide health care, and those who need such care for themselves and their families, should not be forced to choose between preserving their religious and moral integrity and participating in our health-care system.”

However, when Cardinal O’Malley was asked whether American Catholics should obey laws that violate God’s law, he responded, “The question is complicated.” He went on to further confuse the issue: “This is a very complicated issue, and it’s something the Church is struggling with right now, and trying to come up with a moral analysis in order to be able to allow people to form their consciences and to go forward.”

As I Catholic, I do not wish to engage in calumny, particularly involving a cardinal or bishop of the Church I love. I do not believe my comments are such. I believe that the Catholic hierarchy is obligated to be clear and concise when it comes to defining God’s law. I believe that the hierarchy has a duty, as difficult as it may be, to “uncomplicate” the issues that Catholics face when it comes to their faith and how we should live as Catholics in our secular society. Cardinal O’Malley has failed to meet this obligation.

This is the sort of blast that might have actually led to excommunication and the start of a new church if bishops still expected obedience — enforcing it might be another matter. But episcopacy is not what it used to be and I don’t think Jason and the Callers have noticed.

Apostolic Succession without Success

Published on by D. G. Hart13 Comments

It used to be that the claims of a Cardinal in the church might be above the paygrade of an ordinary university theologian, but in sectors where papal supremacy is still audacious, a bishop’s links to the apostles doesn’t count much any more. Timothy Cardinal Dolan’s op-ed for the Wall St. Journal has not pleased a bevy of Roman Catholic theologians and ethicists:

Jesuit Fr. John Langan, who holds the Cardinal Bernardin Chair of Catholic Social Thought at Georgetown University, faults Dolan for crediting all the positive accomplishments of the economy “to the private sector, while exempting it from serious criticism for the actual defects of our system, the problems of ‘real existing capitalism.'”

“Virtuous American capitalism,” Langan argues, “is an abstraction. The key question is whether the notion is being used to prick or to lull our consciences.”

For Langan, “The real arguments which need to be faced have to do with achieving the right balance of private initiative, redistributive programs, fair regulations, opportunities for the young and for the previously excluded, equitable and realistic taxation, a style of management that treats workers with dignity and respects the environment.”

Unfortunately, he says, “far too many of the friends of American capitalism devote their energies to denouncing, defunding, and otherwise restricting efforts to face the immensely complex set of problems that confront us. They are devoted to a powerful but incomplete method of economic thinking that marginalizes important human needs and values that Catholic teaching is committed to proclaiming and defending.”

What especially caught the ire of the theologians was Cardinal Dolan’s focus on personal morality and virtue while excluding structural issues.

“Cardinal Dolan’s stress on personal virtue as the solution to issues of economic injustice does not give sufficient attention to the structural causes of poverty,” Hollenbach complains.

“These structural issues have long been a major emphasis in Catholic social teaching, especially since Pius XI placed high stress on social justice as a reality that goes beyond the justice of individuals,” he says. “Pope Francis is clearly aware of these structural issues when he argues that markets do not lead to justice by ‘trickle down.’ The Pope’s critique is another way of calling for structural change.”

Dolan’s column “reflects a heavily individualistic understanding of morality,” says Professor Mark Allman, chair of Religious & Theological Studies Department at Merrimack College.

“He seems to reduce the bad behavior of the financial districts to individual choices, which ignores John Paul II’s teaching on ‘social sin’ as ‘institutionalized evil,'” Allman says. “Granted John Paul said all sin is traced back to individual choices, nevertheless there are structural and cultural practices that contribute to a culture or status quo that can be inhumane.” But in Dolan’s piece, “There’s no mention of the need for structural change.”

Then again, the Cardinal wasn’t resting simply on his own ecclesiastical authority, perhaps because economics is an aspect of human interaction that resists divinely revealed categories. Dolan, it turns out, needed the help of Larry Kudlow to yield an opinion with the weight of apostolic authority:

Larry Kudlow of CNBC tweeted that he worked with Cardinal Dolan on the piece. On his show back in August, after quoting the pope’s tweet that people are “unemployed, often as a result of a self-centered mindset bent on profit at any cost,” Kudlow commented, “That doesn’t sound like much of a free market message to me.”

Many of the themes in Dolan’s column can be heard in Kudlow’s show. “I hope sincerely that the pope does not believe that his native Argentina was an example of capitalism,” Kudlow said. “That was state-run fascism, and that was cronyism and stealing.”

He argued that what Pope Francis is saying is, “businesses, politicians, and everybody, we all have to have a conscience. As we go about our business in this system, we must have a conscience and we must not forget those who are less fortunate.” Kudlow said he believes that “Judeo-Christian values, meritocracy values, that is where the rising tide lifts all boats.” He acknowledged, “That does not mean poverty ends, but that is where the rising tide comes from.”

In contrast, Kudlow said “Pope John Paul II had a much more market-friendly approach to all this” because he lived under Soviet Communist rule. “He understood that the socialist systems or even the quasi-socialist systems have no freedom,” he opined. “I am not sure this pope really understands that.”

So the next time Jason and the Callers want to lecture Protestants about our poorly governed ideas and communions, they may want to consider the incoherence in their own seemingly well-ordered circles.

How Is this Conservative?

Published on by D. G. Hart21 Comments

The Catholic News Service (via Dwight Longenecker courtesy of our mid-western correspondent) explains how we are supposed to understand a Muslim prayer being offered in the Vatican:

When leaders of different religions come together and pray for a common cause, they are not only appealing to God, they also are showing the world they believe that followers of different religions are still brothers and sisters before the one who created them.

That is not the same as ignoring religious differences or pretending those differences do not matter.
“It should be evident to all who participate that these occasions are moments of being ‘together for prayer, but not prayer together,’” said guidelines for interreligious dialogue published in late May by the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue.

“Being able to pray in common requires a shared understanding of who God is,” the document said. “Since religions differ in their understanding of God, ‘interreligious prayer’ — meaning the joining together in common prayer by followers of various religions — is to be avoided.”

The distinction between praying together and praying at the same time is one Vatican officials have found increasingly necessary to emphasize as popes have led more and more interfaith gatherings for peace.

That sounds about as clear as the distinction between praying to Mary and praying to God through Christ.

But John Paul II may have established the pattern in his catechism:

841 The Church’s relationship with the Muslims. “The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind’s judge on the last day.”

These are clearly Roman Catholic matters and I am not in a position (even if writing from Rome) to tell Roman Catholics how to interpret the Bible or their tradition. But I am befuddled, to put it mildly, that formerly conservative, strict-subscriptionist, inerrantist Presbyterians can switch sides and then tell us with a straight face that they have entered a communion that is more conservative than even the PCA.

BTW, I wonder if those team-switchers notice a resemblance between Called to Communion and this.

The European Roots of American Christianity

Published on by D. G. Hart184 Comments

As I walked around Rome this morning I could well understand the appeal of Roman Catholicism to Christians in the U.S. who desire a faith more profound than James Dobson’s or even Tim Keller’s. (TKNY’s historical vibe does not seem to be any older than 1990s New York, despite the comparisons of him to C. S. Lewis.) Heck, part of the appeal to me of Reformed Protestantism was that it situated me in a set of debates and a system of Christian reflection and ministry that went well beyond 1938 — the year my parents’ Baptist congregation started (we had no clue about Roger William and Rhode Island). So with Zwingli and Bucer I get almost five hundred years of tradition (or records, anyway). And for a U.S. Presbyterian who just spent a week in Edinburgh, arguably one of the most beautiful cities in the world with a population of less than 600,000, to walk through the streets and read through the archives and be reminded of arguments and assertions that still hold sway in some American communions sure beats following a trail that ends in some recent odd American locale.

Even so, with Rome, you get a lot more and a lot more grandeur, and if you are simply in the who’s-got-the-oldest-church-cornerstone mode, Rome beats Geneva and Edinburgh (though the latter has more polish than Rome which seems to suffer, along with Istanbul, from being too old; when you get used to having ruins around, you may also become accustomed to a place being a tad disheveled). Still, I’m not sure how Rome beats Jerusalem or Antakya except that western Europe has more cultural cache in the U.S. than Asia Minor (Turkey).

Amid these reflections on Europhilia, David Robertson came to the rescue to keep European Christianity real:

Put any group of Christians together and you will get a wide variety of opinions – some of them contradictory. That is particularly true when we are trying to assess the state of the Church in Europe today. On the one hand there are the doom and gloom merchants, the Jeremiahs, full of facts and figures about numbers and visions of the past, pointing out that the church is dying and we are all “doomed, doomed”. On the other there are the “God is doing a new and greater thing” brigade, the revivalists who are also full of facts and figures but their visions are visions of the future. They assure us on the basis of what is happening in a couple of churches, and a dream that they had that victory is just around the corner, revival is on its way and all we have to do is help their ministry. Isn’t it strange how both the “realists” and the “revivalists” seem to be able to justify their own ministeries because of their prophecies? We are told that we need to support the realists because only in that way will the remnant hang on until the Lord returns. On the other hand we had better support the revivalists because we don’t want to miss out on the revival.

So maybe European Christianity isn’t all that we Europhilic Christians in the U.S. make it out to be. It sure has more history, better architecture, and civilizational presence. But freed from all the baggage of Christendom, perhaps Christianity is better off. That’s not an expression of American Christian exceptionalism. Nor is it an assertion that American Christianity is somehow independent from Europe’s churches. Unmoored from Europe’s tragedies and buoyed by America’s can-do (Pelagian) spirit, mixed with a blasphemous belief in the nation’s divine purpose, American Christianity (Protestant and Roman Catholic) has no room to gloat (even though we usually gloat in spades). At the same time, returning to Europe and its Christian ways won’t do either.

Giving New Meaning to Evangelicals and Catholics Together (or to the Call)

Published on by D. G. Hart5 Comments

One way of finding this meaning is to look at the increase of calls to a communion called the Evangelical Catholic Church.

In the wake of media coverage of Fr. James Radloff’s recent highly public departure from the Roman Catholic Church to seek incardination into the Evangelical Catholic Church as an active priest, the little known denomination had received 80 inquiries from former and current Catholic priests about reaffiliation as of May 6.
According to ECC spokesman William Morton, ECC Bishop James Wilkowski also “has in hand 19 inquiries from Roman Catholic women who have earned their Masters of Divinity Degrees and are considering their options with us.”

Formed in 1997, the ECC allows single or married male and female deacons, priests and bishops; grants “marital dissolution”; encourages divorced or remarried Catholics to return to “the full sacramental life of Catholicism”; recognizes same-sex marriages; and accepts birth control.

This sounds like the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of the Roman Catholic world.

(Thanks to John Fea) Then there is news that evangelical Protestants affirm Roman Catholic teaching more than Roman Catholics do. And this has implications for the so-called Religious Right and the ecumenism in the trenches of which ECTers are fond of invoking:

The 2007 Pew Poll found that 42% of Catholics expressed support for same-sex marriage versus 36% of the population as a whole. In terms of trends, 40% of Catholics supported same-sex marriage in 2001 with that number increasing to nearly 60% by 2014. By contrast, only 13% of Evangelicals favored same-sex marriage in 2001 and just 23% approve of it today.

Writing in The Atlantic, PRRI’s Robert Jones gets at the truth behind these numbers: “there is more support for official Roman Catholic Church positions among white evangelical Protestants than among Catholics.” But, as he notes, this isn’t a new trend; it’s the result of a two-decade long effort to cultivate “a new evangelical flock to compensate for the loss of lay Catholic support on cultural issues like abortion and same-sex marriage.”

The real Catholic-Evangelical convergence is between the Republican leadership, the Catholic bishops, right-wing Catholics, and rank-and-file Evangelicals, a coalition that was cemented by Karl Rove with his aggressive outreach to “conservative” Catholics during the Bush administration. But the fact that a big chunk of moderate and progressive Catholics are missing from this coalition continues to be lost on many in the media. It’s as if as long as the bishops are vocal in their objections to progressive polices and someone in the public is making noise, there’s a tendency to attribute it to “Catholics.” How else to explain the PPRI number that only 37% of Catholics oppose the contraception mandate in the Affordable Care Act, when the widespread perception that Catholics were broadly disapproving of it helped gin up early and critical opposition?

I’m sure Jason and the Callers have already factored these numbers into their call.