So is your position that - since only Catholic sacraments are valid (leaving aside Orthodox for this purpose) - only Catholics are validly married? The wedding of two Presbyterians, two Baptists, two Lutherans (assuming neither of the parties was Baptized Catholic) are invalid and thus an occasion for scandal should a Catholic attend?I’m not stating anything. The Church is stating there are occasions in the other faiths that are invalid or not sacraments as we define them as Catholics, and thus we should not attend such events. We should not attend a Lutheran First Communion any more than we should attend a Lutheran ordination. There are baptisms in other faiths we should not attend either, Jehovah Witnesses being one of them.
Here is one link that explains such situations further: catholic.com/quickquestions/as-a-catholic-may-i-witness-my-grandsons-lutheran-first-communion
But the Church is very clear that it is NOT only Catholic marriages, or even Christian marriages, that are valid. Otherwise it would not bother investigating marriages undertaken in other faiths by converts to Catholicism but would automatically grant decrees of nullity to all.So is your position that - since only Catholic sacraments are valid (leaving aside Orthodox for this purpose) - only Catholics are validly married? The wedding of two Presbyterians, two Baptists, two Lutherans (assuming neither of the parties was Baptized Catholic) are invalid and thus an occasion for scandal should a Catholic attend?
Again, NOT my own personal position. And the Church does recognize marriages in other denominations as valid, same with baptisms in some denominations, but not ALL denominations.So is your position that - since only Catholic sacraments are valid (leaving aside Orthodox for this purpose) - only Catholics are validly married? The wedding of two Presbyterians, two Baptists, two Lutherans (assuming neither of the parties was Baptized Catholic) are invalid and thus an occasion for scandal should a Catholic attend?
The Church does not say that Catholics cannot attend a religious service, including “ordination” of a mainline protestant Church.Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy at the Regina Apostolorum university.
ewtn.com/library/liturgy/zlitur131.htm
Oh, I see. You are defining “sacrament” solely in the Catholic context.I’m not stating anything. The Church is stating there are occasions in the other faiths that are invalid or not sacraments as we define them as Catholics, and thus we should not attend such events. We should not attend a Lutheran First Communion any more than we should attend a Lutheran ordination. There are baptisms in other faiths we should not attend either, Jehovah Witnesses being one of them.
Here is one link that explains such situations further: catholic.com/quickquestions/as-a-catholic-may-i-witness-my-grandsons-lutheran-first-communion
Read my post number 39. The ministers of marriage are actually the couple themselves. Not the priest, who is more by nature of being a witness.Oh, I see. You are defining “sacrament” solely in the Catholic context.
When actually, in general, a sacrament is “a religious ceremony or act of the Christian Church that is regarded as an outward and visible sign of divine grace, in particular.”
So this ordination would follow under the definition of sacrament in a Christian church, it seems…but just not to a Catholic.
BUT…let’s say this woman the OP speaks of gets ordained, but the OP does not go to the ordination because it is not a “valid” sacrament to those in her church.
And then…she is invited to a wedding…of which this priest/pastor/minister is performing.
She is allowed to go to the wedding?
When it is performed by a minister whom her church tells her is not valid?
But then…how is that wedding considered valid to the church, and it’s okay for the OP to attend, if the minister is considered not?
It is still and ordination, regardless of its validity in the Roman Catholic Church. It is not a valid ordination in the RCC would be a correct way to state it.Since there is not “protestant ordination” it cannot be invalid. They dont wanna be Catholic priests. They have a different concept of what a church leader is.
Beg to differ. Three of us Catholic friends attended the ordination of our (fourth) mutual friend in the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church. All of us caught the reference to the pope in his vows (something about not acknowledging his authority), and we all discussed it afterward. Not a single one of us, the newly ordained friend, implied it as an equivalence to Roman Catholic ordination.No - attending something that simulates a valid sacrament (and anything calling itself an ‘ordination’ surely does so at least to an extent) causes scandal.
By attending you are giving the impression that you believe it to be the equivalent (not exactly the same, but the equivalent) of the Catholic sacrament of Holy Orders.
In exactly the same manner as by receiving communion in another denomination you are causing scandal by giving the impression that you believe that other denomination’s communion to be the equivalent of ours.
It doesn’t matter that that other denomination only sees a symbolic value to their communion, or has other different beliefs about it, whereas Catholics see much more in ours. The fact is by receiving you are implying an equivalence. So it also doesn’t matter that that other denomination doesn’t hold the same beliefs about their rite of ordination as Catholics do about ours, you shouldn’t attend.
Attending ceremonies of other religions is, at least in some circumstances, a different matter. Christianity really has no similar ceremony to, say, the Bar Mitzvah or the bris of Judaism. So there is less possibility of scandal or of anyone reading an implication of equivalence into your attendance.
I will address the question of validity only here.
A marriage between two baptized Protestant unmarried persons of the opposite gender (if unbaptized then it would be a natural marriage) – is presumed to be valid.
Marriage and Baptism are two Sacraments that exist validly among many Protestants.
Ordination is a Sacrament that requires a Bishop with valid orders himself…(and a male…not female canidate) …such as exist in the Orthodox Churches --but not in the Protestant Communities (though some excepts can exist in terms of involvement of a Bishop with valid Orders and intention etc).
See the answers from the Catholic Ans. Apologist above forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=9318364&postcount=4
Yep. As well as pray for an eccumenical understanding and eventual “coming home” .The Church does not say that Catholics cannot attend a religious service, including “ordination” of a mainline protestant Church.
The experts do not say we cannot either.
We cannot receive any “sacraments” or things that look like sacraments or participate in sacramental actions - so we can’t receive communion, or confirmation, or if we are a priest say an “ecumenical mass” with protestant ministers.
We can attend an event where a friend gets ordained, sanctified, blessed, consecrated or whatever you want to call it as a minster in that denomination.
Catholic ordinations, as best I recall, make no mention of the Pope either, only the bishop.It is still and ordination, regardless of its validity in the Roman Catholic Church. It is not a valid ordination in the RCC would be a correct way to state it.
Beg to differ. Three of us Catholic friends attended the ordination of our (fourth) mutual friend in the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church. All of us caught the reference to the pope in his vows (something about not acknowledging his authority), and we all discussed it afterward. Not a single one of us, the newly ordained friend, implied it as an equivalence to Roman Catholic ordination.
I’ll start off by saying plenty of highly credentialed priests and teachers have been prudential my very wrong at times, and even downright heretical and schismatic. Not saying that there’s any issue of heresy or schism here of course, just of imprudence. And equally impressively credentialed and highly orthodox people arguing the other side too.LilyM I think here’s the nub.
My attendance as a layperson and friend would give the message that I think this ordination is valid for him.
It doesn’t say that it’s valid for me though does it.
If I went to a “communion” service by that newly ordained friend, however, then I am saying by my action that his ordination IS valid for me as a Catholic.
Anyway a very well credentialed priest and liturgy professor teaching at a pontifical institute in Rome that trains clergy to be leaders in the Church in accordance with the magisterium believes it is OK to go to a protestant friend’s ordination, so why are we still doubting?
No one else has shown anything other than personal opinion on this subject.
I wouldn’t be happy pretending to someone having hamburger that it was filet mignon, or to someone wearing cheap paste jewellery that it was valuable diamonds. Not when I know the real thing is so easy for them to obtain.I don’t think anyone has argued that protestant ordinations are equal at all.
I don’t believe that a lay person going to a friend’s protestant ordination screams to the world that the Catholic Church believes they are equal.
I don’t believe there are any more official teachings “out there” that would say we shouldn’t go.
Right now there are competing values: the value you are supporting is that you don’t want anyone to think that the Church is approving of protestant ordination.
The value I’m defending is the right to support a friend trying to live according to the call they are hearing through their own Church.
I just don’t think that avoiding an important moment in my friend’s life to prove I am Catholic would be very Christian.
If I was wearing a mitre my answer would be different.
So…if the couple themselves are the ministers of their own marriage…then, if a Catholic couple gets married in a protestant church–or barefoot on the beach in Bali, saying their own vows, for that matter–it is valid sacrament to the Catholic church?Read my post number 39. The ministers of marriage are actually the couple themselves. Not the priest, who is more by nature of being a witness.
By the way, even the ministers of the sacrament of marriage cannot confer it validly wherever and whenever they want. They cannot marry multiple people at once, or close relatives, or people of the same gender. Such marriages are indeed invalid sacraments, and should not be attended.
This is very saddening to me, what you say here.I wouldn’t be happy pretending to someone having hamburger that it was filet mignon, or to someone wearing cheap paste jewellery that it was valuable diamonds. Not when I know the real thing is so easy for them to obtain.
I don’t think it’s at all friendly, loving or Christian to be satisfied for someone I care about to be in possession of partial truth, partial grace or imperfectly fulfilling God’s plan for them. And that’s the best that can ever happen for any person in your friend’s situation.
The idea that they were being being called to ordination as a Lutheran priest is like imagining that Picasso was being called to be a house painter. And I hope any good friend would know better than to encourage a Picasso to settle for painting houses when he could be creating masterpieces!
What your friend was and is being called to is what all of us are called to. Firstly Catholicism, and secondly Catholic priesthood (if that is a possibility).
There aren’t any official teachings. People just like to pretend there are. Its a strong argument to say: “Church agrees with me, case closed”.I don’t think anyone has argued that protestant ordinations are equal at all.
I don’t believe that a lay person going to a friend’s protestant ordination screams to the world that the Catholic Church believes they are equal.
I don’t believe there are any more official teachings “out there” that would say we shouldn’t go.
Right now there are competing values: the value you are supporting is that you don’t want anyone to think that the Church is approving of protestant ordination.
The value I’m defending is the right to support a friend trying to live according to the call they are hearing through their own Church.
I just don’t think that avoiding an important moment in my friend’s life to prove I am Catholic would be very Christian.
If I was wearing a mitre my answer would be different.
No minister of any sacrament is ever free to do so in literally any fashion they wish. Priests and Bishops have rules about how they go about administering the sacrament of confession, how they say Mass, how priests are ordained etc. And so Catholics have rules about how their marriages are to occur.So…if the couple themselves are the ministers of their own marriage…then, if a Catholic couple gets married in a protestant church–or barefoot on the beach in Bali, saying their own vows, for that matter–it is valid sacrament to the Catholic church?
Of course. And I have attended baptisms and weddings. I wouldn’t dream of attending an ordination though, any more than I would dream of receiving Communion at their services. Yes, some would be offended by my not attending, just as some would be offended by my not receiving communion, but if I place offense to others that far ahead of living truth as I see it, then it doesn’t say much about my integrity or how solid my faith is.This is very saddening to me, what you say here.
Do you not have a variety of friends, from many different world religions?
I never said there were any hard and fast rules or church teaching, and do not believe that there are. I have expressed my views, which are shared by several eminent priests. You have expressed yours, same. We are both free to think and act according to our lights on this matter.There aren’t any official teachings. People just like to pretend there are. Its a strong argument to say: “Church agrees with me, case closed”.
But in this case people here are wish-thinking and they want us all to live according to their subjective laws instead of in the freedom of the Lord.
I am absolutely sure that people are called by God to all kinds of ministries as leaders, healers, teachers and prophets within other Christians Churches. I have spent most of my life attending noncatholic congregations and I neither can nor will deny that God was working in and with these people, sometimes even more effectively than what I witness with many of my Catholic aquaintances.
I know some Lutheran people who are pastors like a job, and others who treat as a life vocation through a calling from Jesus Christ. When people tell me stories of how Jesus called them I do not doubt them, unless their fruit is bad (their life style) or they live in open rebellion to the Catholic Church (in that they were ex-catholics).
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I never said there were any hard and fast rules or church teaching, and do not believe that there are. I have expressed my views, which are shared by several eminent priests. You have expressed yours, same. We are both free to think and act according to our lights on this matter.
**Well, your oppinion has surely been expressed as though there was no other way to see the matter. But the Church leaves much more room than your interpretation of events. **
My view is this. We Catholics all profess to believe in ONE HOLY CATHOLIC and APOSTOLIC Church. Not just for ourselves, but for everyone - truth is not relative nor applicable only to some.
**Indeed. Your failure to understand that this is not in question, is where I take issue. I do not think at all that I do not profess to believe in the Catholic Apostolic Church or that I promote relativism. Your accusation is a very serious one. I have grown up Lutheran and have attended many weddings, baptisms, confirmations and ordinations there and have many pentecostal and messianic friends and have been present when they have their rites of passage too. To some of them I am a stranger and they dont think I cause scandal for they dont know me. For my friends in these fellowships I have been a bridge opening them up for the Catholic Church. By showing that I respect them and have reverence for their love of Christ and the good things they do in accordance with their understaning of Scripture and conscience, I do not say all things are equal. They know me well. I have met severel protestants who went with me into the Catholic masses or even prayed with me infront of the blessed sacrament AFTER the fact that I had befriended them and shown them I spoke their language, knew what they meant by their concepts of things etc. They then said: “We did not know that Catholics could be like that (loving Christ). Because of you we dropped our prejudize. Thanks for explaining to us what you guys really mena when you say this or that”. And these people know I am a Roman Catholic who left Evangelicalism, and who is conservative in my Catholic thinking. But they also know I love them and understand what they do. Having been Protestant and experienced God in Protestantism, I know that He is not confined to the walls of the Catholic institution. **
This being the case, I fail to see that God calls any of us to be anything less than one, holy, catholic and apostolic in our faith. Lutheranism does not meet these criteria. It is not one (witness WELS vs ELCA and so on). It is not catholic (either in the sense of being universal as the Catholic church is, nor in the sense of in communion with the head of the Catholic faith). It is also not Apostolic, not being founded on authority nor teaching full truth as passed down by the Apostles.
Then let me ask you. How do you reach out to these brothers and sisters? Mark these words. A true missionary first learns the language of people, then he builds on that which is alsready good and true in their faith. You cannot neglect any of these things if you have ever loved anyone who wasn’t Catholic.
As I said, something jars within me at the idea of any Catholic thinking that anyone is called to other faiths. Is Peter not the rock? How can anything not built upon him be the true Church that Christ founded and calls all without exception to join?
**No one is called to other faiths. Jesus said “I am the Way”. People who attend valid Christian churches deserve our respect. As long as they worship Christ in other churches, they get baptised in His Name, marry in His Name, enter ministries in His Name and die in His Name, do you really think that shunning the most important moments in their lives will make even one of them want to become Catholic?
Look, I don’t deny there are places one should not go. Places that are wicked. There are religions that deny the deity of Christ, or worship other gods… I don’t say we should enter their prayerhouses. But a Lutheran, Anglican, Pentecostal or other Evangelical is called our Christian brother and sister by our Church. **
I already said it and I say it once again… what is the difference between attending a Ceremony where they have Last supper or Communion (and you don’t take it) from attending an ordination (and you are not the ordinated person)?No minister of any sacrament is ever free to do so in literally any fashion they wish. Priests and Bishops have rules about how they go about administering the sacrament of confession, how they say Mass, how priests are ordained etc. And so Catholics have rules about how their marriages are to occur.
They are required to obtain permission (rarely given) to marry anywhere other than a Catholic Church, for example, or to marry in front of anyone other than a Catholic priest or deacon. And I’m sure there are some things that must be said and done during the ceremony for it to be counted as valid as well.
I’m sure there is probably some room for the words to be improvised somewhat as well, as long as what is said is not contrary to the Catholic understanding of marriage. For example a couple couldn’t say ‘I vow to take you as my spouse for three years, and not to the exclusion of all others because I want to have affairs as well’.
Of course. And I have attended baptisms and weddings. I wouldn’t dream of attending an ordination though, any more than I would dream of receiving Communion at their services. Yes, some would be offended by my not attending, just as some would be offended by my not receiving communion, but if I place offense to others that far ahead of living truth as I see it, then it doesn’t say much about my integrity or how solid my faith is.
I never said there were any hard and fast rules or church teaching, and do not believe that there are. I have expressed my views, which are shared by several eminent priests. You have expressed yours, same. We are both free to think and act according to our lights on this matter.
My view is this. We Catholics all profess to believe in ONE HOLY CATHOLIC and APOSTOLIC Church. Not just for ourselves, but for everyone - truth is not relative nor applicable only to some.
This being the case, I fail to see that God calls any of us to be anything less than one, holy, catholic and apostolic in our faith. Lutheranism does not meet these criteria. It is not one (witness WELS vs ELCA and so on). It is not catholic (either in the sense of being universal as the Catholic church is, nor in the sense of in communion with the head of the Catholic faith). It is also not Apostolic, not being founded on authority nor teaching full truth as passed down by the Apostles.
As I said, something jars within me at the idea of any Catholic thinking that anyone is called to other faiths. Is Peter not the rock? How can anything not built upon him be the true Church that Christ founded and calls all without exception to join?
The difference is that I basically SHOW that I don’t view Church X’s Last Supper as being equivalent of Catholic communion by the very fact of my being seen by the whole congregation of Church X to not partake.I already said it and I say it once again… what is the difference between attending a Ceremony where they have Last supper or Communion (and you don’t take it) from attending an ordination (and you are not the ordinated person)?