Ecumenicalism and the Truth

[Tonks40]

Just wanted to find out some opinions.

How far can we, as Catholic Christians, go inasfar as reaching out to other non-Catholic Christians, find each others’ commonalities, and reveal to them the Truths of Christ’s Church? Does one take a “soft” approach, or should we expose them to the Truth as soon as possible?

It appears by the leadership of Pope Benedict XVI that he may have tendencies to take the former. Are ecumenical efforts between the other Christian religions that sensitive to where we would have to take that approach? Or, in keeping that sensitivity in mind, do we still feel the need to defend our Catholic faith in a fervent pitch? Can we be convincing in either approach?

In Christ,
Tonks40

 

[StCsDavid]

One of my first questions to a Protestant is “what exactly are you still protesting?” It seems to me the burden of proof is on their end. If they really do the research they can’t help but conclude that the Catholic Church is the Chruch that Christ gave to humanity.

 

[Mystophilus]

StCsDavid:

One of my first questions to a Protestant is “what exactly are you still protesting?” It seems to me the burden of proof is on their end. If they really do the research they can’t help but conclude that the Catholic Church is the Chruch that Christ gave to humanity.

Several hundred years ago, a lord owned a castle and its attending lands in Britain. This lord had several sons. Due to the rules about inheritance, the castle and lands passed down one branch, while my subsequent ancestors were in another. I am just as much a descendant of that lord as is the current holder of the title, but I have no castle.

The Catholic Church has the lands, but that does not make them the only descendant.

As for what they are protesting, we need to remember that many Protestants are protesting nothing. They are Protestants because they have always been Protestants, and they have been given no reason to be anything else. Nowhere is this more obvious than Northern Ireland, where your affiliation (Catholic or Protestant) is determined more by the street in which you were born than by your actual belief. Thus you have Protestant atheists and Catholic atheists.

Others who are protesting, being those who actually think of the possibility of being something other than Protestant, largely reject Catholicism on a sola scriptura basis.

 

[Mystophilus]

Tonks40:

How far can we, as Catholic Christians, go inasfar as reaching out to other non-Catholic Christians, find each others’ commonalities, and reveal to them the Truths of Christ’s Church? Does one take a “soft” approach, or should we expose them to the Truth as soon as possible?

With respect, any ‘ecumenical’ movement based on the idea that the other side should do all of the moving while your side stands still is a movement doomed to failure from the start. Unless you truly listen to others and honestly consider the possibility that their ways might actually be better than yours, you give them no reason to continue to communicate with you.

 

[Tonks40]

Mystophilus:

With respect, any ‘ecumenical’ movement based on the idea that the other side should do all of the moving while your side stands still is a movement doomed to failure from the start. Unless you truly listen to others and honestly consider the possibility that their ways might actually be better than yours, you give them no reason to continue to communicate with you.

I agree with you in the respect that free-flowing communication should take place between both parties in an ecumenical dialogue. But being that those outside of the Church are brethren in Christ, shouldn’t we as Catholics be concerned about their faith evolving into the Truth? Or should we, as I asked earlier, take the “soft” approach - chalk up for what we have in common, but take it slowly (maybe even years, or even never), and hope that someday they ‘stumble’ upon it?

I’m sorry I’m being so nick-picky on this topic, but I have many devout Christian friends from other non-Catholic denominations. We sing together, we pray together, but I still feel this sense of isolation due to the fact that they have either rejected the Truth about the Catholic Church, or they aren’t open to it, or don’t seem to know it, and I’m saddened that they can’t experience the joy I feel in following my faith in the Church as one.

 

[Mystophilus]

Tonks40:

I’m sorry I’m being so nick-picky on this topic, but I have many devout Christian friends from other non-Catholic denominations. We sing together, we pray together, but I still feel this sense of isolation due to the fact that they have either rejected the Truth about the Catholic Church, or they aren’t open to it, or don’t seem to know it, and I’m saddened that they can’t experience the joy I feel in following my faith in the Church as one.

I think that the sense of isolation is only to be expected because of the ideological division: so long as either side thinks that the other is wrong, you will be divided.

As for your joy in the unity of the Church, there are quite a few Protestants, especially within the Anglican communion, who regard the Chuch as one: varied but not separated.

 

[Gilbert_Keith]

MYSTOPHILUS

*I think that the sense of isolation is only to be expected because of the ideological division: so long as either side thinks that the other is wrong, you will be divided.
*
I have checked your biography and am puzzled by the ? after your Religion. Is it that you have none or that you are uncertain of what you believe or that your religion is so personal that there is no name for it?

This would help us to understand where you are coming from.

The remarks you made cited above indicate a decided relativism, so far as I can make out. Are you saying that if either side thinks the other side is wrong, both sides are wrong to think this way? But what if one side is right. Is it supposed to stop thinking it is right so as to understand the truth of the other side?

Could you please clarify what you mean? I don’t think you mean that two sides can say the opposite thing and both be right.

 

[Tonks40]

When I posted this topic, I wasn’t even thinking about the “wrongness” of other denominations. I do find that they share some of the truths of the Catholic Church, but it’s in their inability or unwillingness to understand the Catholic Church and the fullness of Faith that we have that, I feel, creates this “divide.”

But like I said, I didn’t want to emphasize that. I cannot deny there is a theological, spiritual difference between the Church and our non-Catholic brethren, but that doesn’t diminish the fact that I’m open to ecumenical dialogue. I don’t see any reason to give up acknowledging what my faith believes, and how we strive to towards holiness, to my friends and others.

 

[Mystophilus]

*I think that the sense of isolation is only to be expected because of the ideological division: so long as either side thinks that the other is wrong, you will be divided.
*
I have checked your biography and am puzzled by the ? after your Religion. Is it that you have none or that you are uncertain of what you believe or that your religion is so personal that there is no name for it?

There is certainly a name for it: I am a heretic. The question mark is because I do not appropriately fit under any of the other labels, although I suppose that I could change it to that. I am not a Protestant, because I do not believe in sola scriptura. I am not a Catholic, because I do not believe in ecclesiastical infallibility. I am not Orthodox, because I do not believe in the immutability of doctrine. Thus, I am a heretic.

The remarks you made cited above indicate a decided relativism, so far as I can make out. Are you saying that if either side thinks the other side is wrong, both sides are wrong to think this way? But what if one side is right. Is it supposed to stop thinking it is right so as to understand the truth of the other side?

Well, anyone in my position is likely to be quite relativist (see? I can’t even put an absolute in that ). What I am saying is that true dialogue is not possible while either side is certain that the other is wrong. That certainty prevents genuine listening, and is the source of the division which Tonks has felt. Only when both sides are capable of bracketing their own beliefs and considering the reasonability of the Other’s views from the Other’s viewpoint will real ecumenical dialogue be possible.

Otherwise, it is just an attempt to sell someone else on your own ideas, and one of the basic rules of sales is “Quash all of the prospect’s objections”.

I don’t think you mean that two sides can say the opposite thing and both be right.

I did not mean this, no, but it can happen, because “right” is usually defined with respect to an ideology, and ideologies disagree.

 

[trogiah]

Please consider the following viewpoint. Let me start by saying that I whole-heartedly agree with two recent great Popes who said “That which seperates us as believers in Christ is far less than that which unites us.”

Now to put it in my own words:

There is, always has been, and always will be, one church. It is made up of those who believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. Those who put that belief into action, who pray with sincerity the Our Father, who seek God’s kingdom before they seek anything else, who practice forgiveness and who share their material goods with others as needed - these people are part of that church.

It is my belief that in the course of history, the Roman Empire and thus the city of Rome have played an important singularly central role in the historical spread of the Christian faith. Thus the bishop of Rome (aka the Pope) has a singularly central role to play in the ongoing existence of the Church. There has been and will continue to be debate over how great that importance is. I don’t pretend to understand exactly how God would have men excercise that central role. But I am certain that the role does matter.

I don’t think there is a great deal to be gained by “convincing” others that they should put more faith in those who fill that historical role. There is some to be gained but there is far more to be gained in developing and maintain a relationship with God and awareness of God’s kingdom in our daily life. I think that people can find much in common as they seek that relationship and that awareness, even if they don’t share the same appreciation for the role of the bishop of Rome.

So, to answer your original post, we can go as far as we want in sharing faith with anyone who claims allegiance to Jesus. Until they themselves tell us we should change what we are doing wrong when we know are doing right.

That is my opinion.

In case it matters. I attend a Catholic Church weekly except when travel or illness prevent me. I appreciate the chance to receive the sacraments. But I recognize that a person gets closest to God when they are able to live their daily lives completely in touch with God’s kingdom.

Peace

-Jim

 

[Contarini]

StCsDavid:

One of my first questions to a Protestant is “what exactly are you still protesting?” It seems to me the burden of proof is on their end. If they really do the research they can’t help but conclude that the Catholic Church is the Chruch that Christ gave to humanity.

Unfortunately that’s not really the way it works. Most of us would say that there were plenty of faults on both sides. “Protestant” doesn’t mean that we are protesting anything (if you look at the origin of the name you’ll see that the “protest” was a political protest and the name just stuck more or less by accident–the names that the early Protestants preferred for themselves were “evangelical” or “reformed”). We aren’t Protestants because we are protesting. We are Protestants because it is in Protestant communities that we have received the Word and the Sacraments. I for one long for reunion every day. But a personal conversion to Catholicism would be the ultimate Protestant act. Then I really would be guilty of the individualism of which you accuse us.

That’s why Pope Benedict’s approach is so heartening. As someone who has worked alongside Protestant theologians, he understands the realities of Protestantism (though granted mostly German mainline Protestantism, not necessarily American evangelicalism) better than any Pope before him. He understands that Protestants are not people with a perpetual grudge against the Church. He understands that the schisms of the 16th century were disastrous precisely because certain charisms were less freely available to the Catholic Church afterwards than before (OK, I’m putting words in his mouth there, but I suspect he would agree), even though (from the Catholic perspective) the fullness of the Church continued to subsist in your communion.

I wish you could be persuaded to trust your own Pope a little more. But since we have often accused you of listening to Rome too implicitly, we can’t very well complain when you take a more independent attitude!

Edwin

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

StCsDavid:

One of my first questions to a Protestant is “what exactly are you still protesting?” It seems to me the burden of proof is on their end. If they really do the research they can’t help but conclude that the Catholic Church is the Chruch that Christ gave to humanity.

1. That overlooks this - that Protestantism’s protest is two-fold: it is a protest against certain things, and a bearing witness to certain things. It’s more than objecting to certain things.​

Even if the CC were perfectly Evangelical in every respect, and were unmistakably a completely NT Church with no flaws whatever, the positive protest would still be valid.

1. How one judges things is not purely a matter of doing research - important as that is. Different people see different things according to their different knowledges, their different degrees of insight and understanding, and a host of other variables - such as the kind of people they are. That’s why it’s not possible to say, of any form of Christianity, “If only X knew Y, he would join church Z.” W & X may be equally intelligent and knowledgeable about church Z, and both may be moral people; but their “personal equations” may differ so that one joins it, and the other does not. We are men - not gingerbread men, identical, interchangeable, with nothing to distinguish us from each other.

So just as in other matters, so here: people are attracted - or repulsed - by different things, in different degrees, for different reasons. What one person finds imposing and reassuring about the CC, someone else may find oppressive and suffocating. Some people are attracted by perfect certainty - others find it lifeless and very tedious. Some people respond to grandeur and elaborate display and colour - some find it hard to believe that such things do not mask a lack of spiritual content. Or the same person may react in all these ways, or some of them, at different times. Some people are never so happy as when they are part of a group - others find this a new way to be lonely.

I think it’s very important to remember that conversion is a profoundly mysterious process - it involves the whole of our nature, including depths in human nature of which we are only incompletely aware. This may be why it is not altogether possible to give a full account of our motives for conversion - there is much about it that is hidden from us, though not from God.

1. Maybe some people are better Christians as Protestants than they would be if they were Catholics. The best can sometimes be the enemy of the good - which is why what is in principle the best thing for someone, may not in actuality be good for them as the people that they are. Celibacy may in principle be better than marriage - but that’s not a reason for happily married couples to split up. It may be best in principle for everyone to become Catholic - but the principle, however good it may be, tells us nothing about what is best for the millions of actual individuals who are not Catholic. And it’s not as though God cannot be to Protestants all He is to Catholics. ##

 

[Pug]

Mystophilus:

What I am saying is that true dialogue is not possible while either side is certain that the other is wrong. That certainty prevents genuine listening

I think I talk to people all the time who are mistaken on some point, but that doesn’t mean I can’t listen to them, from their perspective. Why voluntarily talk to someone I don’t intend to listen to? I do not understand how thinking someone is mistaken on a point means I am prevented from listening to them. I’ve never experienced this as a truism.