Off topic this, but…Don’t be silly! Of course I would stand.
(it’s hard to run away from the anti-christ when you’re seated)
…
( I really hope this isn’t what Catholic think us confessional Lutherans are like - I’d honestly stand, and if I had the joyous opportunity to meet the Pope, I would properly greet him in the traditional way.)
blogs.lcms.org/2008/lcms-leaders-attend-ecumenical-meeting-with-pope
Jon
Jon-
Well, not exactly. As I said in my latest post: “Note that Im not saying that they actually had invalid orders. I am arguing from the Roman Catholic perspective.” (Here ‘they’ refer to the Church of England, but it can apply to others as well.)
If they were doing it as an “ecumenical gesture”, then the leadership would have trumpeted the fact that they were taking such a step in order to benefit from the resulting public relations bump. They would have said,
) wanted.It would be merely reinforcing some my points, oft expressed.Please do.
Considering I know way more on this subject than you do, I prefer my conclusion.If they were doing it as an “ecumenical gesture”, then the leadership would have trumpeted the fact that they were taking such a step in order to benefit from the resulting public relations bump. They would have said,
"There is absolutely nothing wrong with our ordinations. However, the Catholics will be happier if we invite some folks in whose ordinations are undeniably valid.
See, everyone, we’re willing to meet the Catholics halfway on this. We’re going to publicly ordain our newest priests with the Dutch in order to eliminate any possible obstacle to our eventual reunification with the Catholic Church."
That would have put pressure on the Catholic Church to reciprocate with concessions the Protestants (“Catholics” not based in Rome
But this didn’t happen. Intead, the leadership said:
“Let’s keep this quiet so that no one will boast that we’re admitting that our ordinations have been invalid. But, if word does leak out, we’ll claim that we are only doing this for ecumenical reasons, and within a generation, we can claim that this was all due to misguided ecumenical ideas of a more optimistic era.”
I’m not buying any of this. I think Anglicans and Lutherans admitted privately that their ordinations were invalid, and they moved to correct the deficiency. The rest is “spin” as we Americans say.
D’accord. I find it is often thus.
From your position some cynicism about the archbishops of England is permissible no doubt, but to sustain your argument you would need to show (a) that the English church thought its orders invalid and (b) that the Bonn Agreement was kept secret. Can you?If they were doing it as an “ecumenical gesture”, then the leadership would have trumpeted the fact that they were taking such a step in order to benefit from the resulting public relations bump. They would have said,
"There is absolutely nothing wrong with our ordinations. However, the Catholics will be happier if we invite some folks in whose ordinations are undeniably valid.
See, everyone, we’re willing to meet the Catholics halfway on this. We’re going to publicly ordain our newest priests with the Dutch in order to eliminate any possible obstacle to our eventual reunification with the Catholic Church."
That would have put pressure on the Catholic Church to reciprocate with concessions the Protestants (“Catholics” not based in Rome
But this didn’t happen. Intead, the leadership said:
“Let’s keep this quiet so that no one will boast that we’re admitting that our ordinations have been invalid. But, if word does leak out, we’ll claim that we are only doing this for ecumenical reasons, and within a generation, we can claim that this was all due to misguided ecumenical ideas of a more optimistic era.”
I’m not buying any of this. I think Anglicans and Lutherans admitted privately that their ordinations were invalid, and they moved to correct the deficiency. The rest is “spin” as we Americans say.
Or that the ecumenical discussions with the OCs didn’t start years before Apostolicae curae.
Ok. I still prefer mine. More based on history and stuff, and avoiding reductionist conclusions.
Nope. Just reasoning it out.
Not much. I do recommend Moss’ THE OLD CATHOLIC MOVEMENT, chaps. XXVII and XXVIII, and Hughes’ STEWARDS OF THE LORD, Appendix II.
Believe whatever you want to believe. I prefer to take people at their word. But maybe that’s because I don’t think cynicism is a good way of life.
This fact shows that your point falls flat. The Church of England did not consider their orders invalid, but agreed to have a co-consecrator (+van Vlijmen, OC Bishop of Haarlem) alongside +Cosmo Gordon Lang, Archbishop of Canterbury, to make sure, once and for all, that Anglican orders were valid (to those with doubts). This doesn’t imply that the Church of England had invalid orders, or thought they had. It is simply an ecumenical gesture. It is, essentially, pastoral, and has, essentially, to do with sacramental assurance.
You and I are not in total agreement on this. The discussions between the OCs and the Anglicans run back 20+ years before Apostolicae curae. The talks were indeed for intercommunion, for ecumenical purposes. But there is nothing, in my many years of reading on the general subject, to suggest that the Agreement of Bonn was in any sense aimed at assuring anyone of the validity of their orders. The only ones that was of interest to were the OCs, and they had so accepted them for years prior to the Agreement. Thus the additional quote from Hughes, from the same document the words of the Bishop of Haarlem were taken (cited above, which clarify sacramental intent), that the reason for the OC participation was to mingle the two streams of episcopal succession, from the Apostles, come down to the bishops of the OC and to the Anglican episcopate.
