Reunification...

[gitlance]

Pope Benedict XVI outlined goals for his papacy Wednesday, including the unification of all Christians, continuing the reforms of the Second Vatican Council and reaching out to people of other faiths. "This successor of Peter knows he has been entrusted with the task of confirming his brothers ... with the intention of working to reconstitute the full and visible unity of all the followers of Christ," Benedict told cardinals gathered in the Sistine Chapel for his first Mass as pontiff.

There may be hope, yet...

 

[Cjwinnit]

Funky.

 

[PaladinValer]

Perhaps there is hope. This does make my perception of Benedict XVI a bit brighter and my hopes have become slightly more optimistic, but I am still too weary.

 

[Iron Sun 254]

Don't be fooled. Any reunification would involve us submitting to his authority.

 

[Jamme]

Don't be fooled. Any reunification would involve us submitting to his authority.

Sadly, I fear you are correct.
I have read some (though not all!) of Ratzinger's writing, and I would get the same impression as you.

However, his statements today have been encouraging so lets keep hoping and praying for a peaceful unification

 

[PaladinValer]

Highly, highly doubtful. There is no way an Anglican will accept Papal infallibility (speaking ex cathedra) as defined by Vatican I.

 

[Timothy]

Highly, highly doubtful. There is no way an Anglican will accept Papal infallibility (speaking ex cathedra) as defined by Vatican I.

Nor will our EO brethren.

Timothy

 

[pmcleanj]

Highly, highly doubtful. There is no way an Anglican will accept Papal infallibility (speaking ex cathedra) as defined by Vatican I.

I practice what I think of as "the Mohatma Ghandi" approach to reunification.

Ghandi peacefully and persistently encouraged people to act as though there were no more Raj. It wasn't so much "civil disobedience", as persisting in the belief that the Raj had no authority to which anyone needed to be obedient.


I persistently hold that there is only one Church, and that our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters are part of it. They are welcome at our Table, we recognize the fullness of their Christian experience, we consider their orders valid. What more reunification is needed?

True, they have hierarchies that purport to hold their flock apart from the rest of the Church. But since those hierarchies don't have the authority to divide the church, their opinion is irrelevant. Yes, I know it's a sophistry. But it's a sophistry that provides more hope for the unity of the church than does hoping for Rome to drop its authoritarian stance.

 

[Jamme]

Highly, highly doubtful. There is no way an Anglican will accept Papal infallibility (speaking ex cathedra) as defined by Vatican I.

Agree This is false ecumenicism.
Unity of the church is not the work of a man, but of the Holy Spirit.

 

[PaladinValer]

However, your church will not budge on it; the reason being that Papal infallibility is now a dogma in your church. If it were to drop it, it would have to recognize that it hasn't held Truth since Pentecost c. 33 ce.

Unfortunately, the chances of this (or its like in any church or denomination) anytime in my lifetime are so utterly remote that it is more likely that I were to be approached immediately after my PM class today with a check for $10,000,000,000.

Queen Mum, perhaps that is the best approach. I'll comment more later, although I do agree that our Vatican Catholic brothers and sisters are true fellow members of the Visible Church.

 

[Jamme]

Please don't refer to it as 'your church'
I am struggling with this issue right now and looking for solutions.

 

[Timothy]

Indeed. In fact for any ecumenalism to be anything more than words, the Roman/Vatican Catholic church has to admit that it is in error. Otherwise it is just an empty gesture.

Timothy

 

[Iron Sun 254]

We already see a unified church...the fact that Rome doesn't see it lies in their lack of vision.

 

[TomUK]

They are welcome at our Table, we recognize the fullness of their Christian experience, we consider their orders valid. What more reunification is needed?

We already see a unified church...the fact that Rome doesn't see it lies in their lack of vision.

 

[pmcleanj]

I am struggling with this issue right now ....

More than any other one thing, I would say that the struggle characterises honest Christian endeavour. The simple answers, whether they rest on biblical literalism to the one side, or on hierarchical clerical authoritarianism to the other side, both lead to extremes of error.

We call the Anglican way the "via media". Not "media" as in "mediocre" or average, but "media" as in being balanced on that middle ground in the tension between opposing fallacies. Like a hiker traversing a narrow ridge toward the mountain-peak, we cannot afford to back too far away from the "slippery slope" -- because the slippery slope exists on *both* sides.

The struggle to find the balance point *is* the experience of dealing honestly and fearlessly with a God who calls us to a relationship that is far beyond our experience or comprehension. The grace of God, is that when we fall off balance to either side, God is there to help us back up into the light.

 

[julian the apostate]

We already see a unified church...the fact that Rome doesn't see it lies in their lack of vision.

amen iron

 

[Albion]

They are welcome at our Table, we recognize the fullness of their Christian experience, we consider their orders valid. What more reunification is needed?

...an excellent point that everyone here should spend a little time thinking about.

 

[julian the apostate]

very good point pmcleanj

exactly how i feel,

only stated with normal punctuation

 

[pmcleanj]

only stated with normal punctuation

Well, you know me and that bucket of commas I carry around

 

[UberLutheran]

Considering: that after 30+ years of work between the RCC and the Lutheran World Federation on The Concordat of Agreement on the Doctrine of Justification by Faith, when Lutherans and Catholics finally reached an agreement that Christians are justified before God by grace through faith, and that works are a demonstration that justification has occurred...

...Joseph Ratzinger decided not even three months later that Lutheran churches are not properly "churches" (because that designation exists only for Roman Catholic churches) but "ecclesial unions" -- well, I'm not terribly optimistic.