Anti-Catholic Opinion Piece in CNN

[Jay74]

Some evangelicals and protestants were upset that the pope said they aren’t really christians, just as some catholics get upset when evangelicals and protestants say they aren’t really saved.

Some Catholics were upset with President Bush for addressing the pope as “sir” instead of “his holiness.” I suspect that if he would have called him “his holiness” some evangelicals and protestants would have been upset.

Bottom line: it’s not intolerant, and should not be considered offensive, to adhere to one’s doctrine. Such doctrine are pro-their-religion, not anti-anybody.

God bless.

 

[dwc]

I just don’t get it. This would be much the same thing as if a protestant leader were to issue a paper stating that only FAITH was required for salvation and no visible external action played any role.

Would catholics, wring their hands, express outrage at the provocation, proclaim the man to be a divise throwback itching for conflict? No. We’d think he was a normal protestant, believing protestant doctrine.

How sad that merely restating timeless catholic teaching can provoke outrage. That it does so now, seems IMO to say that we haven’t been doing so enough. The opponents of the faith had gotten used to trampling catholic teaching with nary a squeek in protest. They are none too happy with the idea of a pope who will actually proclaim the entire Good News!

This is the best commentary I’ve read on the topic.

 

[manualman]

Jay,

It is important to note that the pope (and CDF) did NOT say that protestants are not christians. Read it. He said that protestant ‘ecclesial communities’ are not CHURCHES. Big difference. Vatican II (which B16 and JP2 both participated in) clearly states that protestants are christians and that their baptism (when done in Trinitarian form with water) is a valide sacrament. Similarly, protestant marriages between baptised people are sacramental as well.

The point being made is that Jesus established ONE, holy, catholic and apostolic church (This was news 2,000 years ago, but should not be today). Those communities where the people have rejected the apostolic nature of church, as defined by Jesus and clarified by the apostles, can’t be called a CHURCH by people who know better. They are organizations and fellowships of believers, which might be the PROTESTANT definition of a church, but they fall short of the catholic definition. The document clarifies that the Eastern Orthodox CAN be called churches, because they have preserved the authentic apostolic succession willed by Christ, our differences with them are merely issues of authority and fine print theology.

And again, legitimate ecumenisn never requires us to deny genuine tenets of our faith.

 

[rpp]

Some evangelicals and protestants were upset that the pope said they aren’t really christians, just as some catholics get upset when evangelicals and protestants say they aren’t really saved.

Some Catholics were upset with President Bush for addressing the pope as “sir” instead of “his holiness.” I suspect that if he would have called him “his holiness” some evangelicals and protestants would have been upset.

Bottom line: it’s not intolerant, and should not be considered offensive, to adhere to one’s doctrine. Such doctrine are pro-their-religion, not anti-anybody.

God bless.

Jay, you are right that we should not be offended when someone sticks to their doctrine.

However, when they lie and misrepresent the doctrine of another then use the lies as the premise for an attack, that is quite different. If I said (and I do not believe this) that some Protestants teach that Jesus had two heads and then went on to excoriate them for such a silly belief, it would be right for Protestants to be offended because I lied and misrepresented what they teach.

That is what this article did. The premise was a lie. CNN was wrong to present this opinion piece because his premise is a lie and the article promotes hate and intolerance directed at the Catholic Church and the person of Pope Benedict XVI by misrepresenting Church Teachings and the document which had been released.