Inter-Communion with Protestants

[Isaiah45_9]

I am curious…

Isaiah45_9:

Why aren’t you Catholic? Or are you an Undercover Catholic like JonNC?

Contarini:

Sort of. . . . I am very reluctant to break communion with the people I’m already in communion with, including my wife. But I think I’ve finally got to a point where conscience requires me to enter into full communion with Rome. At the advice of the local priest, I’m waiting until I move early next year. And knowing parish RCIA programs, they may spin me out further . . . .

Edwin

Isaiah45_9:

Praise God! Are you going to teach RCIA or take the classes?

Contarini:

That was actually a problem last fall, when I went into RCIA. The class was good but, from my perspective, a bit boring, and I kept interjecting things like “Well, Aquinas says this about that,” which confused the other participants. (I tried not to, but it is very hard for me to just sit still–it’s one of my faults.) The priest emailed me and suggested that I meet with him individually. By this time I was getting my usual cold feet, and I set the whole thing aside for another year. . . .

Edwin

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=11324175&postcount=48

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=11325739&postcount=66

Peace

 

[GKC]

I was not speaking for myself.

For some years, the only think I have found really objectionable was the need to break communion with my fellow-Christians who are not in communion with Rome.

I still find this difficult to accept, but I now believe that my conscience requires me to seek union with Rome anyway.

Edwin

Good.

Been waiting for it.

GKC

 

[concretecamper]

I was not speaking for myself.

For some years, the only think I have found really objectionable was the need to break communion with my fellow-Christians who are not in communion with Rome.

I still find this difficult to accept, but I now believe that my conscience requires me to seek union with Rome anyway.

Edwin

Awesome! I pray you complete the path to Rome.

 

[concretecamper]

One of us is behind the power curve.

Maybe.

GKC

Yep…it is me!

 

[GKC]

Yep…it is me!

I was pretty sure it was. I’ve “known” Contarini online for many, many years. This is what I’ve been expecting, and I salute him, and wish him well. It’s where he should be.

GKC

 

[Novocastrian]

I was not speaking for myself.

For some years, the only think I have found really objectionable was the need to break communion with my fellow-Christians who are not in communion with Rome.

I still find this difficult to accept, but I now believe that my conscience requires me to seek union with Rome anyway.

Edwin

I could name a few, concretecamper.

And all best wishes to you, Edwin; I have great respect for what you write here, and I trust your judgement.

 

[Peter_J]

For some years, the only think I have found really objectionable was the need to break communion with my fellow-Christians who are not in communion with Rome.

Exactly … Well, not that I’m in the same situation as you, but let me put it this way: If I were let’s say Orthodox, I wouldn’t switch to Catholicism. But, conversely, I’m not going to switch from Catholicism to Orthodoxy.

 

[Contarini]

Exactly … Well, not that I’m in the same situation as you, but let me put it this way: If I were let’s say Orthodox, I wouldn’t switch to Catholicism. But, conversely, I’m not going to switch from Catholicism to Orthodoxy.

My sentiments exactly. And obviously that’s how GKC feels about [traditional, “Continuing”] Anglicanism. I can’t agree, though I respect his perspective. I think Anglicanism did break with the Tradition, and that break has become part of Anglicanism in such a way that I cannot, as someone who rejects that break, continue to use my attachment for Anglicanism as a reason not to enter full communion with Rome.

That was convoluted. But my feelings on this matter have been and continue to be extremely convoluted. There is so much that is good in Anglicanism, and the confusing and tragic part is that a lot of the good seems, as things are now, inextricably tied to the separation from Rome. I hope and pray that it isn’t so. It’s hard to explain why the well-meant “don’t worry–there’s always the Ordinariate” leaves me cold. But it does. . . .

Edwin

 

[cmodrmac]

We take the Eucharist very seriously-it is at the Center of our Worship-the Episcopal CHurch has valid Orders ( of course the RC do not believe this-nothing we can do about it)

I do not believe it will ever happen -there is no willingness on the RC side

It is what it is

 

[EvangelCatholic]

Yes, definitely. Her argument is that they associated holiness with clear thinking and the restraint of the passions, and they couldn’t imagine alcohol being even a symbol of something holy. **There was also a strong anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant (for that matter also anti-Lutheran) element to it. **Alcohol was identified with immigrant populations who were seen as dirty and undisciplined. (To be fair, this went along with a genuine concern to evangelize these immigrants and teach them better ways.)

Edwin

Especially among the latter migrations from Germany [LCMS]. They erected churches with crucifixes and statues of saints. Many Protestants were confused and may have resented the foreign language as well.

 

[steido01]

Especially among the latter migrations from Germany [LCMS]. They erected churches with crucifixes and statues of saints. Many Protestants were confused and may have resented the foreign language as well.

Um… just to clarify…

Are you saying that the LCMS is “anti-immigrant,” “anti-Catholic,” and a proponent Prohibition? Or are you acknowledging that the LCMS and other “Old Lutherans” who came to the New World were, in fact, immigrants themselves who were shunned by American protestants for being “too Catholic?”

I assume it’s the latter, but I just figured I’d check…

 

[Stilldreamn]

Um… just to clarify…

Are you saying that the LCMS is “anti-immigrant,” “anti-Catholic,” and a proponent Prohibition? Or are you acknowledging that the LCMS and other “Old Lutherans” who came to the New World were, in fact, immigrants themselves who were shunned by American protestants for being “too Catholic?”

I assume it’s the latter, but I just figured I’d check…

I read EC’s remark as saying the LCMS folks encountered a lot of the same suspicion and discrimination as the Catholics experienced. My own family settled in Wisconsin and absolutely kept to themselves in a sort of rural Lutheran “ghetto.” They kept their native tongue and worshipped in German until WWI broke out. The statues and crucifixes were not well tolerated in the South, either.

 

[steido01]

I read EC’s remark as saying the LCMS folks encountered a lot of the same suspicion and discrimination as the Catholics experienced.

That’s what I thought, too. But I wasn’t quite sure.

My own family settled in Wisconsin and absolutely kept to themselves in a sort of rural Lutheran “ghetto.” They kept their native tongue and worshipped in German until WWI broke out. The statues and crucifixes were not well tolerated in the South, either.

Your church stopped speaking German in WWI? The church I grew up in didn’t stop until the 1970’s! I feel ya. Many folks in the ‘Bible Belt’ can’t tell the difference between Lutherans and Roman Catholics.

 

[EvangelCatholic]

Um… just to clarify…

Are you saying that the LCMS is “anti-immigrant,” “anti-Catholic,” and a proponent Prohibition? Or are you acknowledging that the LCMS and other “Old Lutherans” who came to the New World were, in fact, immigrants themselves who were shunned by American protestants for being “too Catholic?”

I assume it’s the latter, but I just figured I’d check…

You assume correctly. My Dad also could remember when Lutheran parishes still used the German language up until the Second World War. Religious art [particularly the crucifix] was considered ‘catholic’ to other Protestants so they were not sure what kind of Christian were these new Lutheran immigrants. Nearly all the old Lutheran churches in the U.S. looked “too catholic” and perhaps why more modern Lutheran parishes were plain, more or less.

 

[Peter_J]

Yes, and mostly no. Germany’s Evangelical state church, in which Hein is a bishop, is a forced ‘union’ church, relying mostly on Reformed theology rather than Lutheran. While there are certainly some Lutherans who are members of it, the body itself is certainly not Lutheran (despite what some from a more liberal persuasion would claim). In fact, it’s fair to say that the none of the state churches of Europe are “Lutheran,” except in name only.

This confessional Lutheran prays that the Roman Catholic Church is blessed with more popes like Pope Benedict XVI - honest, Christian men who understand that true ecumenism requires full doctrinal agreement, not simply “agreeing to disagree.” And on this front, real work can be, and is being, done between Roman Catholics and the truly confessional Lutheran bodies (which are independent of the mainline churches in America and the state churches in Europe).

Thanks, steido. Frankly, I get tried of the Benedict-bad-for-ecumenism lines that we (and I assume you as well) hear all the time.

 

[steido01]

Thanks, steido. Frankly, I get tried of the Benedict-bad-for-ecumenism lines that we (and I assume you as well) hear all the time.

Immeasurably. :banghead:

Heck, he was even labelled the “Lutheran” Pope in some of the more insular Roman Catholic circles!

Benedict has come the closest of any Roman bishop (that I am aware of, anyway), to reconciling Rome’s understanding of justification with Wittenberg’s. I find his words regarding Sola Fide in a papal audience from 2008 to be more clear and honest than even the JDDJ, and they are one of the reasons that I continue to peruse these boards - I now think lasting, doctrinal agreement and reunion between our communions is a real, future possibility. All of Christendom, and not just the Roman Church, was blessed by his service.

 

[EvangelCatholic]

Immeasurably. :banghead:

Heck, he was even labelled the “Lutheran” Pope in some of the more insular Roman Catholic circles!

Benedict has come the closest of any Roman bishop (that I am aware of, anyway), to reconciling Rome’s understanding of justification with Wittenberg’s. I find his words regarding Sola Fide in a papal audience from 2008 to be more clear and honest than even the JDDJ, and they are one of the reasons that I continue to peruse these boards - I now think lasting, doctrinal agreement and reunion between our communions is a real, future possibility. All of Christendom, and not just the Roman Church, was blessed by his service.

Benedict was German * so his interaction with Lutherans includes the days he taught in several universities and as archbishop of Munich. A brilliant man; his homilies are words of poetry. I have no doubt that Benedict will be added to the Lutheran holy days like John 23rd before beatification*

 

[Novocastrian]

Thanks, steido. Frankly, I get tried of the Benedict-bad-for-ecumenism lines that we (and I assume you as well) hear all the time.

Agreed. I’d go as far as to say that he was far more ecumenical than his predecessor. He is a true saint, as far as I’m concerned!

 

[GKC]

Benedict was German * so his interaction with Lutherans includes the days he taught in several universities and as archbishop of Munich. A brilliant man; his homilies are words of poetry. I have no doubt that Benedict will be added to the Lutheran holy days like John 23rd before beatification*

There were 7-8 previous German Popes, IIRC.

GKC

 

[Contarini]

There were 7-8 previous German Popes, IIRC.

GKC

Right. But not for a long while. The last Germanic Pope was Adrian VI, who was Dutch and died in 1523. (Adrian was, by the way, a very good Pope, or at least showed promise of being one. J. A. Wylie’s History of Protestantism, a ferociously anti-Catholic 19th-century tome which initially whetted my interest in the study of the Reformation when I was a kid, called him a “gloomy fanatic,” which is Wylie’s way of saying that he can’t actually find any dirt on him.) The last Pope from what we now call Germany would appear to have been Victor II, who died in 1057. His successor Stephen IX (d. 1058) is counted as German, but he was from Lorraine, which is part of France today. See this helpful list from Wikipedia. The great reform popes of the mid-11th century were German, and I guess people got tired of Germans after that

Edwin