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LutheranScholar
Guest
Then don’t whine when we refer to the papacy as anti- Christ. It’s only the truth and if our Catholic brethren take offense, it’s no business of ours.
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LutheranScholar
Guest
Where love is not, then must people of good conscience take the field. Most of the people here in the NON- CATHOLIC section of Catholic Answers ( admittedly a Catholic Apologetics forum) are good people to dialogue with, but then you will have bored, insidious vipers come in to disrupt the fellowship. Read how long and how well we were getting on in dialogue before yesterday evening. Oh, well. Cycles of fellowship and then hostility. Strengthens me in my faith, so maybe it’s the Lord’s way of toughening my armor when I hit the mission field ( day to day life).
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Peter_J
Guest
Hi all. 
Just got around to checking this thread for the first time in a few days. Some might say I missed a lot, though I can’t say who.
Just got around to checking this thread for the first time in a few days. Some might say I missed a lot, though I can’t say who.
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Peter_J
Guest
Amen!
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Wannano
Guest
I have to admit that I have never before heard a Catholic say that the goal of the Protestant realm of Christianity is an effort to separate Jesus from His Church. In other words you and I are anti-Christ. Doesn’t seem like Pope Francis would know that…someone should inform him!
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LutheranScholar
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From a Protestant perspective: " why call Anti- Christ to tell him we’re Anti- Christ? He might not like the competition!" Yeah, I hadn’t heard a Catholic say that sort of thing before, either. Well, freedom of speech is a grand thing and it applies here, too. It’s ironic that the country in which these folks practice their missionizing efforts was first founded and populated by Protestants but hey, that’s life.
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MaryT777
Guest
LOL, I’m sure he’s heard it before. Heck Jack Chick uses the term too. It’s so ludicrous it’s hard to believe based on Scripture anyone can truly believe that.
New International Version 1 John 2:22
Who is the liar? It is whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a person is the antichrist–denying the Father and the Son.
That is certainly not the Pope.
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LutheranScholar
Guest
Of course not. I think we’ve already had a discussion about the office of the papacy and how that term would not necessarily apply personally to any Pope per se, personally. It’s the office, not the dude, according to the Book of Concord ( although Luther had words for Leo X) bookofconcord.org/smalcald.php#article4 and I hope that this would help explain in less antagonistic terms the Confessional Lutheran position:
The Original and True Possessors of All Christian Rights and Privileges – Since the Christians are the Church, it is self-evident that they alone originally possess the spiritual gifts and rights which Christ has gained for, and given to, His Church. Thus St. Paul reminds all believers: “All things are yours,” 1 Cor. 3:21, 22, and Christ Himself commits to all believers the keys of the kingdom of heaven, Matt. 16:13-19, 18:17-20; John 20:22, 23, and commissions all believers to preach the Gospel and to administer the Sacraments, Matt. 28:19, 20; 1 Cor. 11:23-25. Accordingly, we reject all doctrines by which this spiritual power or any part thereof is adjudged as originally vested in certain individuals or bodies, such as the Pope, or the bishops, or the order of the ministry, or the secular lords, or councils, or synods, etc. The officers of the Church publicly administer their offices only by virtue of delegated powers, and such administration remains under the supervision of the latter, Col. 4:17. Naturally all Christians have also the right and the duty to judge and decide matters of doctrine, not according to their own notions, of course, but according to the Word of God, 1 John 4:1; 1 Pet. 4:11.lcms.org/doctrine/doctrinalposition#church.
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MaryT777
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Lutheran Scholar,
We have had the discussion many an ole time regarding the Papacy as Antichrist on this forum. It usually comes up when a Catholic finds out the LCMS, or confessional Lutherans still hold to this view. You guys really don’t advertise it so many hear it here for the first time.
You have to keep in mind the LWF including the ELCA has signed the JDDJ, is getting ready to celebrate the commemoration of the Reformation with the Catholic Church and is very friendly towards the Pope. They don’t hold to that view so it’s confusing when people hear it for the first time.
The Antichrist (Catholic Answers Tract)
catholic.com/tracts/the-antichrist (A must read)
The Antichrist
The claim that the pope is the Antichrist has been part of anti-Catholic rhetoric since the Reformation, when it was needed to justify the Protestant Reformers’ desire to leave the Catholic Church.
Thus the Lutheran Book of Concord states, “[T]he pope is the real Antichrist who has raised himself over and set himself against Christ . . . Accordingly, just as we cannot adore the devil himself as our lord or God, so we cannot suffer his apostle, the pope or Antichrist, to govern us as our head or lord” (Smalcald Articles 2:4:10, 14).
(I clipped this for brevity but it’s a great tract
NIHIL OBSTAT: I have concluded that the materials
presented in this work are free of doctrinal or moral errors.
Bernadeane Carr, STL, Censor Librorum, August 10, 2004
IMPRIMATUR: In accord with 1983 CIC 827
permission to publish this work is hereby granted.
+Robert H. Brom, Bishop of San Diego, August 10, 2004
I’s a man made doctrine Catholics reject. My PERSONAL opinion is that Luther’s hatred for the Pope helped in the scripture twisting it took to get the doctrine solidified.
We have had the discussion many an ole time regarding the Papacy as Antichrist on this forum. It usually comes up when a Catholic finds out the LCMS, or confessional Lutherans still hold to this view. You guys really don’t advertise it so many hear it here for the first time.
You have to keep in mind the LWF including the ELCA has signed the JDDJ, is getting ready to celebrate the commemoration of the Reformation with the Catholic Church and is very friendly towards the Pope. They don’t hold to that view so it’s confusing when people hear it for the first time.
The Antichrist (Catholic Answers Tract)
catholic.com/tracts/the-antichrist (A must read)
The Antichrist
The claim that the pope is the Antichrist has been part of anti-Catholic rhetoric since the Reformation, when it was needed to justify the Protestant Reformers’ desire to leave the Catholic Church.
Thus the Lutheran Book of Concord states, “[T]he pope is the real Antichrist who has raised himself over and set himself against Christ . . . Accordingly, just as we cannot adore the devil himself as our lord or God, so we cannot suffer his apostle, the pope or Antichrist, to govern us as our head or lord” (Smalcald Articles 2:4:10, 14).
(I clipped this for brevity but it’s a great tract
NIHIL OBSTAT: I have concluded that the materials
presented in this work are free of doctrinal or moral errors.
Bernadeane Carr, STL, Censor Librorum, August 10, 2004
IMPRIMATUR: In accord with 1983 CIC 827
permission to publish this work is hereby granted.
+Robert H. Brom, Bishop of San Diego, August 10, 2004
I’s a man made doctrine Catholics reject. My PERSONAL opinion is that Luther’s hatred for the Pope helped in the scripture twisting it took to get the doctrine solidified.
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Rasoleil
Guest
My dear wife, a hardcore Lutheran ( LCMS, she has to make that distinction known), would say that Luther was and is always Catholic. And the LCMS is the true catholic church, as Luther and Lutherans corrected the doctrinal errors of the Catholic Church. My paraphrasing may be a little off, but I think that is what most Lutherans believe, at least the LCMS. I’m Catholic, so I get to hear of the ‘errors’ and everything else anti-Catholic. sigh
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LutheranScholar
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MaryT777, with the above in mind ( understanding, of course that both the ELCA and LWF are far left field in the Lutheran ball park, not even considered Lutheran by many of us) and respecting your personal take on this whole business, I have to say that I am personally a lot more encouraged when I hear of successful dialogue between the International Lutheran Council, of which the Lutheran Church- Missouri Synod is a member and the Catholic Church www.ilc-online.org/2015/10/16/international-lutheran-council-roman-catholic-dialogue-begins/. I am especially enthused when I read that focal points of discussion will be the Eucharist, the Ministry and Justification. I get quite excited reading about it. Here’s a link to the second meeting: www.ilc-online.org/2016/05/12/second-meeting-ilc-pcpcu-dialogue-group/. These are Confessional Lutherans going for a sit-down!
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MaryT777
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Yes it will certainly be interesting to see what happens. My point was simply it’s difficult to know who are the real Lutherans are as a Catholic. You note many in the LCMS don’t consider those in the ELCA/LWF to be real Lutherans. I highly doubt they agree with that.
We had a Lutheran Priest on this forum who addressed the Pope as Antichrist issue and noted it’s not a Lutheran tenet of Faith anymore. He spent quite a bit of time in seminary.
We see that the Confessional Lutherans albeit united under the umbrella of Confessional have no altar and pulpit fellowship. I am thinking of Wels and LCMS relations.
Thus as a Catholic you read the headlines " Catholics and Lutherans come to some agreement on the Doctrine of Justification" or “Catholics and Lutherans together commemorate the Reformation; remove mutual anathemas” and think ok.
Next thing you know you have a confessional Lutheran saying “Oh NO the Pope is the Antichrist”
Well, as “confessional” Lutheran do the LCMS and WELS ever get together and duke it out with the LWF/ELCA specifically and try to iron on what Lutherans really do collectively believe today?
It’s beyond the realm how fragmented the church is Lutheran. No Catholic unless they have a huge interest in it can be up to date on what is still a hangover from the 16th century days like the antichrist doctrine and what Lutherans today really believe. You can say it’s so, and yet Father K who was well liked on this board says you are wrong.
Mary.
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Peter_J
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Which some posters confuse with the dialogue on a certain website.
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Wannano
Guest
Mary, reread my post please. I am not calling the Pope the Antichrist. I am saying Protestants must be anti-Christ if their goal within Protestantism is to separate Jesus from His Church as is being stated a few posts earlier! The poster who says this seems to be very authoratative in his one line judgements against Protestants so he must be correct? So I am just thinking Pope Francis should be informed that Protestants are in fact anti-Christ because from what I read I don’t think he is aware of that fact!!
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MaryT777
Guest
Yes, I understood what you meant. Sorry if my post was confusing.
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rcwitness
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I think this comment is inappropriate. Men from the Catholic side and from the Reformation side were guilty of pride. It was not “the aim of the reformers to separate Jesus from His Church”.
There were legitimate concerns for reform by reformers and faithful Catholics alike. There were also unjustified accusations from reformers and Catholics alike.
Genuine concerns still exist now, that we should do our best in charity and brotherhood, to work out with our Christian brothers and sisters.
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Wannano
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:
:tiphat: Thank you…you have restored a measure of credibility to Catholicism.
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rcwitness
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Well, I certainly can’t support the separation of the Reformers from Communion and obedience to Catholic leaders. But I can’t demonize all of their intentions and write them off as attempting to destroy the Church.
Martin’s excommunication had definite consequences and authority from above. I, personally, believe he went for more than he actually could live up to. Instead of suffering the consequences of what he stood for, he wanted to marry, and enjoy what was basically a position of Bishopric.
But this was an environment which was conducive to division by the lack of orthodoxy practiced in the Church. So many gave support for Luther. Not that they all were in unison over doctrine, since the splintering only continued from then on. But there were enough common ground to give strength to the rejection of proper obedience to leadership.
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LutheranScholar
Guest
Thank you for pointing that out. You’re right, we should and there really is five centuries of mistrust, suspicion and outright persecution ( from both sides) to try to look past so that fruitful dialogue can develop.
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LutheranScholar
Guest
Indeed.
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