Are Lutherans next? Lutherans seek full communion with Catholic Church

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IAGladfelter said:
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The Reformation was a horrible mistake of immense proportions which has gone on 500 years too long! It is time to “undo” the Reformation, heal those cruel, needless wounds inflicted on the Church in the 1500’s, so that one day, we will all be in one Church under one shepherd, Christ, led on earth by His Vicar, the Successor to St. Peter.

Please pray for the reunion of the Church. Deus le veult! Ut unum sint!
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Thank you Irl for the very informative reply. The result of the Reformation, caused by men on both sides, has been very unfortunate. May God bless you and the ALCC in your work of reunification.
 
jbravo71 said:
probly the one’s opposed to women & openly gay pastors :amen:🤷
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Well, no.

Just looking at the United States, two of the three major Lutheran denominations (Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod and the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod) reject the things you mention. Only one of the Lutheran denominations (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) accepts them. And even it seems to be spawning a new denomination which rejects the gay pastors, but accepts female clergy.

The movement to re-join the Catholic Church seems confined to the relatively small denomination of the Anglo-Lutheran Catholic Church. This is not to dismiss that change, just to point out that it doesn’t seem to be part of something larger.
 
Dale_M said:
The movement to re-join the Catholic Church seems confined to the relatively small denomination of the Anglo-Lutheran Catholic Church. This is not to dismiss that change, just to point out that it doesn’t seem to be part of something larger.
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There is more to this movement than just the Anglo-Lutheran Catholic Church. Here is a link to an article on this subject in the Blog of the National Catholic Register: ncregister.com/blog/the-lutheran-landslide .

Blessings,
Irl
 
IAGladfelter said:
There is more to this movement than just the Anglo-Lutheran Catholic Church. Here is a link to an article on this subject in the Blog of the National Catholic Register
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Perhaps I am being particularly dense, but as far as I can tell the article mentions a handful of theologians plus the small denomination of the Anglo-Lutheran Catholic Church. I apologize if I am unfairly minimizing the article, but I guess I don’t see anything in it which justifies the headline of “Lutheran Landslide.”
 
I was raised in the Catholic Church, went to Catholic schools, etc. I am now a member of a LCMS congregation. My present church seems more Catholic than the Catholic churches are today. The Catholic churches I’ve attended in recent years now have lay persons doing the reading, women ushering, women distributing Communion, etc. None of this was allowed when I was young. In my present church, the pastor does all the reading and he and an elder (male) distribute Communion. Also, only men are ushers. I feel more at home in my Missouri Synod Lutheran Church than in the Catholic churches of today. It’s a shame that the Catholic Church seems to be moving so far away from what it used to be.
 
Well, Dale, the funny thing about landslides is that they start off very small, with movements that are almost imperceptible; then only a few pebbles move downhill. But they increase in size and speed as they go downhill, eventually taking much of the slope - if not all of it - with it.

In this case, first an individual Lutheran returns, then more and more individuals, then a small Church, (the ALCC,) and Lutheran landslide which began decades ago is now picking up speed; and larger Lutheran groups will inevitably follow. There are even rumors from Rome hinting of a possible future Lutheran Ordinariate.

Father John Richard Neuhaus once wrote something to the effect that he did not see many Lutherans returning to the Roman Catholic Church for awhile, but eventually one Lutheran Church (he did not say whether that Church would be large of very small, just that it would make a breakthrough,) and nothing would ever be the same again. With the help of God, we are seeing that happening today.

Please pray for the reunion of Christ’s Church. Ut Unum Sint!

Blessings,
Irl
 
pigtown said:
I was raised in the Catholic Church, went to Catholic schools, etc. I am now a member of a LCMS congregation. My present church seems more Catholic than the Catholic churches are today. The Catholic churches I’ve attended in recent years now have lay persons doing the reading, women ushering, women distributing Communion, etc. None of this was allowed when I was young. In my present church, the pastor does all the reading and he and an elder (male) distribute Communion. Also, only men are ushers. I feel more at home in my Missouri Synod Lutheran Church than in the Catholic churches of today. It’s a shame that the Catholic Church seems to be moving so far away from what it used to be.
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None of those things have anything to do with being Catholic.

It’s about truth, not feelings or being contemporvant.
 
1holycatholic said:
None of those things have anything to do with being Catholic.

It’s about truth, not feelings or being contemporvant.
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I’m sorry. I was simply stating the changes that I’ve found in the Catholic Church. I will admit that it would be nice if both Lutherans and Catholics could agree more on doctrine. After all, we are all Christians and trying to live as Christ would want.
 
pigtown said:
I’m sorry. I was simply stating the changes that I’ve found in the Catholic Church. I will admit that it would be nice if both Lutherans and Catholics could agree more on doctrine. After all, we are all Christians and trying to live as Christ would want.
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None of those things are doctrine.

The Church cannot change doctrine.
 
Dale_M said:
Well, no.

Just looking at the United States, two of the three major Lutheran denominations (Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod and the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod) reject the things you mention. Only one of the Lutheran denominations (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) accepts them. And even it seems to be spawning a new denomination which rejects the gay pastors, but accepts female clergy.

The movement to re-join the Catholic Church seems confined to the relatively small denomination of the Anglo-Lutheran Catholic Church. This is not to dismiss that change, just to point out that it doesn’t seem to be part of something larger.
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Thank’s for sharing this i was refering to the E.L.C.A … i used to belong to an lcms church but it closed in 91 & i became catholic in 92
 
IAGladfelter said:
The WELS (Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod) does not let other Lutherans commune; nor does the WELS even allow its own members to communion anywhere except in their home parish because only their pastor knows whether or not an individual is a sinner who may not receive communion even in his or her own parish.
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This may not be relevant to the conversation, but this statement is not true. As a WELS member, I am free to commune at any WELS church, as long as I speak to the pastor beforehand. In this way, closed communion is not violated.
 
JaredM said:
Feels good to be a member of the tolerant and modern Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.😃
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Sorry, but it feels even better to be a member of a conservative denomination that doesn’t sway in accordance with worldly opinions.
 
here_i_stand said:
Sorry, but it feels even better to be a member of a conservative denomination that doesn’t sway in accordance with worldly opinions.
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:hmmm:
All Lutheran denominations condemned artificial contraception as gravely sinful less than a century ago. I was unaware that there was a Lutheran denomination that didn’t change it’s doctrine with the zeitgeist. Which Lutheran group are you with that still condemns the intrinsic evil of artificial contraception?
 
here_i_stand said:
Sorry, but it feels even better to be a member of a conservative denomination that doesn’t sway in accordance with worldly opinions.
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Sorry, but it feels even better to be a member of the Church founded by Jesus Christ
 
Dale_M said:
That was my question too. The most conservative branches of the Lutheran church in the US tend to have stronger traditions of anti-Catholicism. But I suppose persons leaving the more liberal wing of the Lutherans would make sense - they would have greater discomfort. I don’t know enough about the particulars of ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, by far the largest Lutheran group in the US) vs LCMS (Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod) to know how common it is to jump from one to the other. I would think this would more common than jumping from the moderate ELCA to the Catholic Church.

I’m disappointed that the article wasn’t able to give us a clearer picture of how large the shift from Lutheran to Catholic is. It only mentions two examples of priests who had been Lutheran ministers, and an Lutheran Catholic church structure which is working with the Holy See to cross the Tiber. However, there are only 13 individual churches in that Lutheran Catholic organization. Certainly its a start, but it doesn’t convince me that the movement from Lutheran to Catholic is particularly sizable.

Perhaps information on the size of Lutheran to Catholic conversion is hard to find. A quickie Google search doesn’t yield relevant information. 🤷
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A couple of my good friends are LCMS - It tends to be a conservative branch of Lutheranism - with a strong history of anti-Catholic sentiment. ELCA is the more liberal branch: woman pastors, allowing abortions, and so forth. Wisconsin Synod is a third branch, but even more conservative than LCMS. I’ve played for services at both LCMS, and ElCA - as a church musician - but I was not allowed to play for a friend’s wedding at a Wisconsin Synod Luthern Church as I was Catholic.
 
MusicforMovies said:
I’ve played for services at both LCMS, and ElCA - as a church musician - but I was not allowed to play for a friend’s wedding at a Wisconsin Synod Luthern Church as I was Catholic.
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Oh, yes. I remember back in 1978, when I was considering becoming Catholic, that WELS voted, as a denomination, to reaffirm their traditional teaching that the Catholic Church was the Whore of Babylon. I remembered being shocked that educated people still believed such a thing.

I think they try to downplay that now, but they still aren’t accepting of Catholics as anything but needing to be saved.
 
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