A point which your Church has consistently walked back since Vatican II, first with the Eastern Orthodox, then the Oriental Orthodox, Assyrians and Old Catholics, then with the Anglicans, now the Lutherans, so why not a Reformed?
If I am a “separated brethren” who is allowed under the Code of Canon Law of the Eastern Catholic Churches to receive the sacraments from your priests, then why not Hammster?
HIs church never even anathematized your church, whereas mine actually did (we mostly stopped doing this, aside from some old Calendarists, and your church stopped anathematizing us, but still).
* This all of course assumes Roman Catholic definitions of ecclesiology, which I disagree with anyway, and presumably so does my friend
@Hammster . I myself find the Eastern Orthodox apostolic succession ecclesiology based on the model of St. Cyprian of Carthage, the remarkably similar Lutheran qualitative ecclesiology, the Anglican Augustinian apostolic succession ecclesiology, the branch ecclesiology, particularly in its expressions by the Assyrian Church of the East and some Oriental Orthodox, and the Local Church ecclesiology, to be preferable to the “Invisible Church” ecclesiology insofar as they define a visible church while, in some models, providing explanations for schisms which are subsequently resolved, and retaining a Eucharistic unity.
The RC model does of course retain Eucharistic unity but connects it to the person and office of the Bishop of Rome which contradicts the canons and is absent from the Creeds of the Early Church, and then there is the whole issue of how the canons of the Council of Ephesus and Chalcedon prohibit modifying or replacing the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed of 381, and we know the Filioque was not part of the Creed at the time of those councils, but rather first appears at the Council of Toledo and perhaps originated in an attempt to quash the emergence of Adoptionism.
In opposition to one true Church of God, one is forced to ask, how many bodies of Christ are there? How many different truths does the Holy Spirit teach? Unity isn't singing kumbaya, sitting around a campfire roasting marshmallows, it’s nice, feels good, and I do love marshmallows. Unicity is not a vague camaraderie, a rooting team where Jesus becomes the feel-goodness of faith; the sort of thing where we say, I believe something, you believe something, I feel good, and you feel good therefore we are united with God. The concept of unity is not a superficial sense whereby one need only read some ‘feel good’ passage in the good book; thereby making Lutheran, Calvin, the Anglican, the Anabaptist, non-Denominational, Methodist, etc., etc., all sing-along to the words “Yes Jesus Loves Me”. The non-Catholic concept of unity is a certain bond based on passion or a certain bond based on the practice of worship; in some cases, rooting out all vestiges of ritual or religion. Obeying the “One Lord” for the non-Catholic becomes nasty restriction, interfering with the individual’s right to believe what he wills. Unity is not the vague agreement among non-Catholics to the right to believe what one wills. And within each of these sects is a relativistic spirit of different truths recognized as non-threatening. This form of unicity dissolves in a whiff as sovereignty over the individual’s will is in any way threatened.
Professing the same God is not the biblical unity in and of itself. Such concepts are faux unities with no objectivity in faith or truth - only sovereignty over the will to maintain a faux unity at any expense. In the non-Catholic the multitudinous varieties are celebrated above the objectivity of what is real. This is a negative unity agreeing only on the rights to maintain “natural, innate, and inalienable rights and liberty” subjecting oneself to no authority.
As such the non-Catholic sense of unity is the antithesis of a true unity. Catholics find True unity is embodied in the grace of justification. In Baptism and Confirmation, the grace received is the “rectitude-of-will kept for its own sake.” [St. Anselm, On Truth, 12]. Catholicism is to conform the heart, soul, and mind, not deform our faith to the legion of subjective beliefs. This is a confederated body conjoined but not consubstantial with Christ because each Christ is different, a stark silhouette of a faux unity. Conversely the true unity in Christ comes through the Church.
A person consists of body in union with the soul. The Church also consists of a body in union with its soul consisting of the Holy Spirit. It is a holy union of the faithful her individual members as the body in union with the soul, i.e. the Holy Spirit; the whole of which is the Body of Christ. This body and soul ‘communicate’ in her existence as the spirit which “subsists to the corporeal matter, out of which and the intellectual soul their results unity of existence; so that the existence of the whole composite is also the existence of the soul.” [St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I, 76, 1,5 In such unity of the faithful are of “one essence” or “of one nature”; all as if of one being, the Body of Christ, i.e. the Catholic Church. Therefore, Catholics hear “Union is good, but unity is better." (Bona est unio sed potior est unitas). [c. Sarda Y Salvany, Felix, Liberalism Is a Sin] as her member parts consubstantial (not conjoined) with Christ as Christ is with the Father. [Cf John 17:21]
"The Church is the entrance to life; all others are thieves and robbers. On this account we are bound to avoid them . . . . We hear it declared of the unbelieving and the blinded of this world that they shall not inherit the world of life which is to come . . . . Resist them in defense of the only true and life-giving faith, which the Church has received from the Apostles and imparted to her sons." St. Irenaeus, Book III, Chapter 4
If the Church is the bride of Christ, we must ask how many brides does Christ have? Is he polygamous? Then there is only One Church, One bride. Whether you excuse it, ignore it, or take pretense of others, there remains one.
Does he who does not hold this unity of the Church think that he holds the faith? Does he who strives against and resists the Church trust that he is in the Church, when moreover the blessed Apostle Paul teaches the same thing, and sets forth the sacrament of unity, saying, [
Ephesians 4:4][Cyprian of Carthage, Treatise 1, Source. Translated by Robert Ernest Wallis. From Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 5. Edited by Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1886.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. <
CHURCH FATHERS: Treatise 1 (Cyprian of Carthage)>.]
JoeT
