Ecumenism

[Rhamiel]

I keep having doubts over the way the Church has seemed to drastically changed the teachings about ecumenism over the last 200 years or so.

 

[Tallguy88]

Could you narrow down what you mean by ecumenism?

 

[Rhamiel]

well from Unam Sanctam untill the early 1900's (and latter)
it was generally understood that there was no salvation outside the Church
now those words are twisted up so much that they have lost almost all meaning

I am not a Feeneyist
Feeney did not even believe in Salvation by desire, or hope of Salvation for those who were ignorant of the Gospels

but the idea that those who willingly reject the Church are outside the Church... seems like common sense.

 

[Tallguy88]

I guess for me it's about those terms "willingly reject the church."

How many people truly believe the church is what it claims and still reject it?

 

[Memento Mori]

Yes, it has drastically changed, but it seems to be primarily a prudential change, not one of doctrine. The goal has always been to draw all men into the one Catholic fold; the modern ecumenical impulse is to be more gentle and less confrontational, but the goal of Catholic unity is still there (i.e., inviting the world to consider the Church).

Certainly some people have tried to impose new theological (mis)understandings, like saying the Church is not necessary for salvation, but the teaching has never changed. Rhamiel, you might be consoled by reading Dominus Iesus (2000), which affirmed the constant teaching of the Church in light of popular error.

 

[Rhamiel]

I guess for me it's about those terms "willingly reject the church."

How many people truly believe the church is what it claims and still reject it?

well the Pharisees did not believe that Jesus was the Christ
so were they "unwilling" in their rejection of our Lord?

 

[Rhamiel]

UNAM SANCTAM
Unam Sanctam
short
easy to read
and seems to be consistently taught from 1302-19**

 

[Fantine]

Good job. It only took an archival search of 800 years to find an archaic document you agree with.

 

[fhansen]

UNAM SANCTAM
Unam Sanctam
short
easy to read
and seems to be consistently taught from 1302-19**

Unam sanctum is true because it lays down a principle: God established one Church for the salvation of men and He desires all to be subjugated to the authority of that Church for no other reason than that she possesses the truth regarding His will for mankind. Salvation is meant to come through that Church and we know of no other means that it comes because no other means has been revealed.

At the same time the Church recognizes, understands, and emphasizes better than ever God's mercy as well as His ultimate sovereignty which allows Him to act outside of any formal means He's provided and also the role that ignorance plays in mitigating individual culpability, not that these concepts have ever been excluded from her doctrine.

 

[Fantine]

Hmmm.....

What's the last word from the Catholic Church? Unam Sanctam, written when the Church thought the world was flat and even excommunicated scientists who dared suggest otherwise and knew nothing of any other possible planets, universes, or galaxies in God's creation?

Or Lumen Gentium?

Finally, those who have not yet received the Gospel are related in various ways to the people of God. In the first place we must recall the people to whom the testament and the promises were given and from whom Christ was born according to the flesh. On account of their fathers this people remains most dear to God, for God does not repent of the gifts He makes nor of the calls He issues.(126); But the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator. In the first place amongst these there are the Mohamedans, who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind. Nor is God far distant from those who in shadows and images seek the unknown God, for it is He who gives to all men life and breath and all things,and as Saviour wills that all men be saved.Those also can attain to salvation who through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church, yet sincerely seek God and moved by grace strive by their deeds to do His will as it is known to them through the dictates of conscience.Nor does Divine Providence deny the helps necessary for salvation to those who, without blame on their part, have not yet arrived at an explicit knowledge of God and with His grace strive to live a good life.
—Lumen gentium 16

The answer seems obvious.

From its very limited global perspective, the fourteenth century Church did the best it could.

 

[Cjwinnit]

Good job. It only took an archival search of 800 years to find an archaic document you agree with.

I'm an Anglican and even I've heard of unam sanctam. Old? Perhaps. Irrelevant and obscure? Not really.

By the way, if you have such a distain for old documents I take it you won't be quoting the Bible anytime soon?

 

[QuantaCura]

well from Unam Sanctam untill the early 1900's (and latter)
it was generally understood that there was no salvation outside the Church
now those words are twisted up so much that they have lost almost all meaning

I am not a Feeneyist
Feeney did not even believe in Salvation by desire, or hope of Salvation for those who were ignorant of the Gospels

but the idea that those who willingly reject the Church are outside the Church... seems like common sense.

First, I think you're confusing the term "ecumenism." In the context of the Catholic Church, that terms refers to the Church's mission to reconcile all the baptized into Catholic unity (the unity of faith and hierarchical government), and means that can be used to achieve that--it also tends to have a more corporate emphasis, than the word evangelization.

What you seem to thinking of is the idea that those may be saved who are not explicitly Catholic. There was no radical change in the 20th century--it was a very consistent development over many centuries. As you mention, the ideas concerning salvation through desire are not new--they are found in the Fathers. The Church, however, began to more explicitly develop this idea around the Council of Trent, for a few reasons. One, the discovery of the new world and whole masses of people who never received the Gospel was used by some Calvinists to prove that God did not offer salvation to all. Likewise, a great many of the poor and ignorant were led away by heretics, which raised grave questions about their salvation. This is why St. Robert Bellermine developed the distinction between two types of membership in the Church, in re and in voto.

This diversity in cult in many ways provided an obstacle to discovering the truth, especially when one was raised throughout life to view the Catholic Church as a betrayal of Christ. This is why we see even broader treatments of this topic in the 19th and 20th centuries. The development has been consistent: there was no radical change at some point in the 20th century as you imply.

You can find tracts saying the same as today all the way back to Trent--they are rarer before that because such innocent separation was more difficult to justify when the Catholic Church was the only Church there was or that anyone had ever known. But they are even known then. Around that same time period (a little before actually), Pope Innocent IV wrote a commentary about implicit faith. He taught that if someone innocently believed that what they held to was the faith of Christ's Church, even if they erred against the actual faith of the Catholic Church, then they had the faith of the Church implicity, saying "in that case, the faith of the Church replaces his opinion, though his opinion is false, it is not his faith, but his faith is the faith of the Church." (Commentaria in quinque libros decretalia, Ad liber I). This was written at the time of the Albigensians and Cathars, who went around deceiving many. As a result, the policy of Jacques Fournier, one of the more strict Inquisitors at the time, made it a point to target only "true Cathars" and to leave the confused rabble alone.

Shortly after that, St. Bridge of Sweden wrote about the salvation of good pagans and Jews, contrasting them to the damnation of bad Christians. Far from having her writings burned, they were a major factor in her canonization.

After Trent, this question became more and more prevalent for the reasons mentioned earlier, and therefore more precise explanations of it were developed. Opposition to the Jansenists helped to develop additional theogical inquiry in One important work in the 1700s was by Fr. John Carroll, who became the first bishop in the U.S. He was tasked with repsonding to Charles Henry Wharton, an ex-Jesuit who wrote a book against Catholicism. One claim Wharton focused on was what he saw as the idea that only Catholics can be saved. Carroll went into great depth in refuting Wharton and demonstrating especially the reasons why those outside might not be charged with the sin of separation.

In the next century, Bl. Pius IX taught more extenively about this doctrine, noting that given the circumstances of the day, no one could place bounds on when ignorance was innocent:

For, it must be held by faith that outside the Apostolic Roman Church, no one can be saved; that this is the only ark of salvation; that he who shall not have entered therein will perish in the flood; but, on the other hand, it is necessary to hold for certain that they who labor in ignorance of the true religion, if this ignorance is invincible, are not stained by any guilt in this matter in the eyes of God. Now, in truth, who would arrogate so much to himself as to mark the limits of such an ignorance, because of the nature and variety of peoples, regions, innate dispositions, and of so many other things?

A few decades later, the Catholic Encylopdia (good evidence of common Catholic teaching in 1910) explained these circumstances:

We have seen how heresy originates and how it spreads; we must now answer the question why it persists, or why so many persevere in heresy. Once heresy is in possession, it tightens its grip by the thousand subtle and often unconscious influences which mould a man's life. A child is born in heretical surroundings: before it is able to think for itself its mind has been filled and fashioned by home, school, and church teachings, the authority of which it never doubted. When, at a riper age, doubts arise, the truth of Catholicism is seldom apprehended as it is. Innate prejudices, educational bias, historical distortions stand in the way and frequently make approach impossible. The state of conscience technically termed bona fides, good faith, is thus produced. It implies inculpable belief in error, a mistake morally unavoidable and therefore always excusable, sometimes even laudable.

Fast forward to the present for a moment, Bl. John Paul II taught the same thing as Bl. Pius IX about this ignorance:

What I have said above, however, does not justify the relativistic position of those who maintain that a way of salvation can be found in any religion, even independently of faith in Christ the Redeemer, and that interreligious dialogue must be based on this ambiguous idea. That solution to the problem of the salvation of those who do not profess the Christian creed is not in conformity with the Gospel. Rather, we must maintain that the way of salvation always passes through Christ, and therefore the Church and her missionaries have the task of making him known and loved in every time, place and culture. Apart from Christ "there is no salvation." As Peter proclaimed before the Sanhedrin at the very start of the apostolic preaching: "There is no other name in the whole world given to men by which we are to be saved" (Acts 4:12).

For those too who through no fault of their own do not know Christ and are not recognized as Christians, the divine plan has provided a way of salvation. As we read in the Council's Decree Ad Gentes, we believe that "God in ways known to himself can lead those inculpably ignorant of the Gospel" to the faith necessary for salvation (AG 7). Certainly, the condition "inculpably ignorant" cannot be verified nor weighed by human evaluation, but must be left to the divine judgment alone.

[this whole audience is a good read on this topic, explicitly referencing the definition in Unam Sanctam and the other two EENS definitions as being part of Tradition]

Now, it sometimes may seem that nowadays we are more likely to presume innocence, especially amongst other Christians, but being born and baptized into a separated Christian group has always been seen as a major factor mitigating culpability--and the more remote the person is from the original separation, the less and less likely that the person would be guilty of that sin.

This of course is nothing new:

But though the doctrine which men hold be false and perverse, if they do not maintain it with passionate obstinacy, especially when they have not devised it by the rashness of their own presumption, but have accepted it from parents who had been misguided and had fallen into error, and if they are with anxiety seeking the truth, and are prepared to be set right when they have found it, such men are not to be counted heretics.

St. Augustine would apply this same principle when affirming a partial communion of the separated baptized with the Church:

And so others could receive from them, while they still had not joined our society, what they themselves had not lost by severance from our society. And hence it is clear that they are guilty of impiety who endeavor to rebaptize those who are in Catholic unity; and we act rightly who do not dare to repudiate God's sacraments, even when administered in schism. For in all points in which they think with us, they also are in communion with us, and only are severed from us in those points in which they dissent from us.
----
But if they observe some of the same things, in respect of these they have not severed themselves; and so far they are still a part of the framework of the Church, while in all other respects they are cut off from it. Accordingly, any one whom they have associated with themselves is united to the Church in all those points in which they are not separated from it. And therefore, if he wish to come over to the Church, he is made sound in those points in which he was unsound and went astray; but where he was sound in union with the Church, he is not cured, but recognized—lest in desiring to cure what is sound we should rather inflict a wound.

In th 19th century, Cardinal Manning, when discussing the possibility of salvation for Anglicans, explained how culpability is lessened:

The [Catholic] Church teaches that men may be inculpably out of its pale. Now they are inculpably out of it who are, and have always been, either physically or morally unable to see their obligation to submit to it. And they only are culpably out of it who are both physically and morally able to know that it is God's will they should submit to the Church; and either knowing it will not obey that knowledge, or, not knowing it, are culpable for that ignorance. I will say, then, that we hopefully apply this benign law of our Divine Master as far as possible to the English people.

First, it is applicable in the letter to the whole multitude of those baptised persons who are under the age of reason. Secondly, to all who are in good faith, of whatsoever age they be: such as a great many of the poor and unlettered, to whom it is often physically, and very often morally, impossible to judge which is the true revelation or the true Church of God.

I say physically, because in these three hundred years the Catholic Church has been so swept off the face of England that nine or ten generations of men have lived and died without the Faith being so much as proposed to them, or the Church ever visible to them; and I say morally, because the great majority of the poor, from lifelong prejudice, are often incapable of judging in questions so removed from the primary truths of conscience and Christianity. Of such simple persons it may be said that infantibus cequiparanttir, they are to be classed morally with infants. Again, to these may be added the unlearned in all classes, among whom many have no contact with the Catholic Church, or with Catholic books. Under this head will come a great number of wives and daughters, whose freedom of religious inquiry and religious thought is unjustly limited or suspended by the authority of parents and husbands. Add, lastly, the large class who have been studiously brought up, with all the dominant authority of the English tradition of three hundred years, to believe sincerely, and without a doubt, that the Catholic Church is corrupt, has changed the doctrines of the Faith, and that the author of the Reformation is the Spirit of holiness and truth. It may seem incredible to some that such an illusion exists. But it is credible to me, because for nearly forty years of my life I was fully possessed by this erroneous belief.

To all such persons it is morally difficult in no small degree to discover the falsehood of this illusion. All the better parts of their nature are engaged in its support: dutifulness, self-mistrust, submission, respect for others older, better, more learned than themselves, all combine to form a false conscience, and the duty to refuse to hear anything against "the religion of their fathers," "the Church of their baptism," or to read anything which could unsettle them. Such people are told that it is their duty to extinguish a doubt against the Church of England, as they would extinguish a temptation against their virtue. A conscience so subdued and held in subjection exercises true virtues upon a false object, and renders to a human authority the submissive trust which is due only to the Divine voice of the Church of God.

Still further, I believe that the people of England were not all guilty of the first acts of heresy and schism by which they were separated from the Catholic unity and faith. They were robbed of it. In many places they rose in arms for it. The children, the poor, the unlearned at that time, were certainly innocent: much more the next generation. They were born into a state of privation. They knew no better. No choice was before them. They made no perverse act of the will in remaining where they were born. Every successive generation was still less culpable, in proportion as they were born into a greater privation, and under the dominion of a tradition of error already grown strong. For three centuries they have been born further and further out of the truth, and their culpability is perpetually diminishing; and as they were passively borne onward in the course of the English separation, the moral responsibility for the past is proportionately less.

Move ahead a century and a half, and such culpabaility will be even less according to Manning's reasoning.


Anyway, in sum, this is nothing new, nor is the approach a radical change, but part of a consistent development since the time of the Fathers.

 

[Rhamiel]

Carroll went into great depth in refuting Wharton and demonstrating especially the reasons why those outside might not be charged with the sin of separation.

interesting, what are these writtings called? was it collected in a book?

I understand that ignorance lessens the culpability of sin...
it is just, people do not even talk about it like it is a sin anymore!
and instead of invincible ignorance being treated like a possibility, it is treated like the accepted norm, the default setting

 

[Fantine]

I'm an Anglican and even I've heard of unam sanctam. Old? Perhaps. Irrelevant and obscure? Not really.

By the way, if you have such a distain for old documents I take it you won't be quoting the Bible anytime soon?

I did say that given that they lived in a homogeneous society, thought the world was flat, and had no knowledge of the solar system and galaxies, they did a good job with Unam Sanctam. It was sort of like trying to cross the ocean in a rowboat after all (but of course they never would have crossed the ocean because they would have believed they'd fall off the edge of the earth.)

Sociologically and culturally interesting, I'm sure.

There has been quite a bit of Biblical scholarship since 1302 as well. Not only do we see and interpret the Bible differently than medieval minds did, we also have access to it.

Until the invention of the printing press, Bibles were painstakingly hand-copied. There probably wasn't even one per village. Archeologists have discovered new documents and scrolls that they didn't have access to.

The Douay-Rheims Bible for which many of you profess a fondness wasn't even translated from original documents--it was translated from the Latin Vulgate....sort of like playing telephone if you ask me.

BTW, I read the Bible--but do I gain scientific knowledge about creation from it? No way. Do I believe that Methusaleh lived 969 years? Not unless each year was about 5% as long as it is currently.
Do I believe Moses was 80 when he saw the burning bush? Uh-uh.

I bring my twenty-first century self to my reading the Bible (as people have done for centuries) and look for timeless wisdom rather than historical Old Testament accuracy.

I am sure that Unam Sanctam was considered in the writing of Lumen Gentium.

 

[Cjwinnit]

It was sort of like trying to cross the ocean in a rowboat after all

Nothing like a challenge!

James Cracknell Atlantic Row Video Clip - YouTube

 

[MKJ]

If you are going to be an educated Catholic, you really have to find a way to understand how doctrines develop in the CC. Because they do, there are much bigger examples than the teaching on ecumenism.

If you cannot, you will be in crises all the time trying to figure out how to fit it all together, or you will end up as one of those unfortunate people who just reflexively deny the history of the Church to preserve their own illusions.

 

[QuantaCura]

interesting, what are these writtings called? was it collected in a book?

The one by Carroll is called "An Address to the Roman Catholics of the United States of North America". Wharton's is called "A letter to the Roman Catholics of the city of Worcester." They have been reprinted in some old books, but I don't think they are in any still in print, unfortunately.

I understand that ignorance lessens the culpability of sin...
it is just, people do not even talk about it like it is a sin anymore!
and instead of invincible ignorance being treated like a possibility, it is treated like the accepted norm, the default setting

I understand where you're coming from. Given the reasons enunciated by Manning above, the Church has decided not to accuse them of the sin of separtion (see CCC 818). That doesn't mean we don't see such innocent separation as itself an important defect that needs to be remedied--if we didn't, there would be no point to ecumenism. Everyone could be separated and it would be fine.

As a practical matter, impugning the sincerity of another's faith tends more to harden hearts, than to enlighten them--the same with passing judgment on another person's sins. It seems reasonable and charitable to give someone the benefit of the doubt in matters that can only be known through faith unless they demonstrate a blatant disregard for truth--provided we ourselves do not neglect the call to gather all His sheep in one fold or to help others turn from their sins. This is what St. Peter Damien said of all sins:

"For yourself consider sin to be mortally dangerous, but in others see it as a sign of their weakness." Letter 44

 

[ebia]

If you are going to be an educated Catholic, you really have to find a way to understand how doctrines develop in the CC. Because they do, there are much bigger examples than the teaching on ecumenism.

If you cannot, you will be in crises all the time trying to figure out how to fit it all together, or you will end up as one of those unfortunate people who just reflexively deny the history of the Church to preserve their own illusions.

... or deny the current reality of the church...

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

It's funny how many Catholics fear ecumenism. Same thing is true in Orthodoxy. Most of my friends and fellow parishoners look at the idea of any ecumenical talks with the Catholic Church to be beyond anathema!

 

[Rhamiel]

I did say that given that they lived in a homogeneous society, thought the world was flat, and had no knowledge of the solar system and galaxies, they did a good job with Unam Sanctam. It was sort of like trying to cross the ocean in a rowboat after all (but of course they never would have crossed the ocean because they would have believed they'd fall off the edge of the earth.)

Sociologically and culturally interesting, I'm sure.

There has been quite a bit of Biblical scholarship since 1302 as well. Not only do we see and interpret the Bible differently than medieval minds did, we also have access to it.

Until the invention of the printing press, Bibles were painstakingly hand-copied. There probably wasn't even one per village. Archeologists have discovered new documents and scrolls that they didn't have access to.

The Douay-Rheims Bible for which many of you profess a fondness wasn't even translated from original documents--it was translated from the Latin Vulgate....sort of like playing telephone if you ask me.

BTW, I read the Bible--but do I gain scientific knowledge about creation from it? No way. Do I believe that Methusaleh lived 969 years? Not unless each year was about 5% as long as it is currently.
Do I believe Moses was 80 when he saw the burning bush? Uh-uh.

I bring my twenty-first century self to my reading the Bible (as people have done for centuries) and look for timeless wisdom rather than historical Old Testament accuracy.

I am sure that Unam Sanctam was considered in the writing of Lumen Gentium.

I do not know why you are brining up this flat earth stuff...
I am not looking for information on science, but rather on theology
My mechanic can not explain the workings of String Theory, or even Advanced Game Theory, that does not mean he is dumb, far from it, he is a very bright man with an eye for detail, but his knowledge is about cars, and cooking, we have traded recipes but that is beside the point
yes, not every village had a copy of the bible... but we are not talking about the musings of illiterate serfs, we are talking about the writings of a Pope

it is insulting to talk down on our ancestors, the medieval mind was not dense. the surviving works of art, the architecture, the advances to developing legal systems and theology, even the secular writtings of that time show some very sharp minds

If you are going to be an educated Catholic, you really have to find a way to understand how doctrines develop in the CC. Because they do, there are much bigger examples than the teaching on ecumenism.

If you cannot, you will be in crises all the time trying to figure out how to fit it all together, or you will end up as one of those unfortunate people who just reflexively deny the history of the Church to preserve their own illusions.

thank you, as always you have a wonderful way of explaining things
understanding doctrinal development has never been a strong suit of mine
I have always looked at the Faith as something handed down, to be preserved

but perhaps I need to reevaluate my thinking