Present Day Lutheran-Catholic Relations

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I’ve looked at the question of Anglican orders through a number of Catholic lenses, of a number of types, in the 15 years or so I’ve been interested in the subject. That’s not a novel one.

The Agreement of Bonn was 36 years post Apostolicae Curae. And Apostolicae Curae was roughly 25 years post the beginnings of the idea of the OCs and the CoE entering into some sort of communion, in some way. Discussed in Moss’ THE OLD CATHOLIC MOVEMENT.

Of course it would be possible to say that the CoE was chasing apostolic order, in Bonn. It would be a-historical, and would represent the sort of well-poisoning that is not uncommon, but anyone can say anything they wish, in that sense. One can, say, purport to reveal what is really behind the public line, on a given subject, exposing the real motivations and machinations of the perpetrators. I’ve had a certain shade of protestant do that, to me, more than once, in explaining things like how Catholics (like you and me, that is), really worship the BVM, not being taken in by all that dulia/hyperdulia/latria mumbo-jumbo. Folks believe what they will, what fits, what makes them comfortable, as oft as what can be best supported.

As to whether intercommunion was later extended to folks of dubious provenance, there’s the Church of South India incident.

I’ve studied the issue of Anglican orders for the stated 15+ years. I’ve not studied Porvoo much at all. But I can recognize the same sort of ecumenical impulses that started the CoE and the OCs talking, originally. But you seem to overlook a point. If the Anglicans chased, fervently, the OCs, to restore their orders, declared by Leo’s hand null and void in 1896, in 1932, and (remembering the logic of Ott, p. 458), did so to recover those orders, behind the public line, then having done so, of what utility would the OCs or PNCCs be in 1992? By all accounts, all concerned would suppose the Anglicans were bringing that gift to the table, and the altar, and the communion, already. They might have expired, perhaps?

GKC
I’ve just completed reading “Old Catholics, New Doctrines”. 😦

There is soooo much energy being expended to avoid the papacy…and so little fruit coming from that effort.
 
In my class years ago on Ecumenism, where I was ready to fall out of my chair throughout each class, I did remember quite well the bishop getting out of sorts reflecting on Episcopalian women priests and how much ‘sillyness’ their reflections and twists on rubrics were…he really ‘got off’, and was a little embarrassed.

So women ordination is a big no no in the Church. Never will happen and don’t think we will have women deacons for some time either…because there was too many weird things happening among American women religious in our country in the past 40 years or so…still in the memory of our church over here in USA.
 
In my class years ago on Ecumenism, where I was ready to fall out of my chair throughout each class, I did remember quite well the bishop getting out of sorts reflecting on Episcopalian women priests and how much ‘sillyness’ their reflections and twists on rubrics were…he really ‘got off’, and was a little embarrassed.

So women ordination is a big no no in the Church. Never will happen and don’t think we will have women deacons for some time either…because there was too many weird things happening among American women religious in our country in the past 40 years or so…still in the memory of our church over here in USA.
There will never be ordained women Deacons in the Catholic Church. women cannot be ordained. Ordained men Deacons can go on to become priests if their wife should die. Doesn’t matter what kind of shenanigans some women, religious or otherwise, have been up to in the past, it won’t happen. They are batting their heads against a brick wall and don’t seem to notice! These things will eventually die out. God Bless, Memaw
 
From a Norwegian Lutheran’s Blog:

February 5, 2013
A Roman Option for Lutherans?

Today I got my copy of William Oddie’s book The Roman Option Written in 1997, in the aftermath of the 1992 decision of the Church of England to ordain women to the priesthood, it explores the possibility of a ‘Roman option’ for ‘disaffected’ Anglicans. Some have compared Oddie’s proposals to the decision of Pope Benedict XVI to allow (Catholic-minded) Anglicans to convert corporately to the Catholic Church, while retaining certain elements of their Anglican patrimony, and I know some Anglicans personally who have rejected the proposal of the Pope, favouring rather an (conservative) Old Catholic solution, and who refer to the proposal of the Pope as ‘the Roman Option.’ I have not yet (started to) read the book, but plan to do it in the not so distant future, but I believe some remarks are in order.

I have long wondered if it isn’t perhaps time for a ‘Roman option’ for Lutherans. Much of what was considered abuses in the Augsburg Confession (a word which assumes that there is a legitimate use of said things) is long gone, and I must admit that although the Book of Concord is an interesting piece of history, I couldn’t care less about much of what it says, should I disagree with it. Belonging to the Church of Norway, I am only bound to Scripture, to the three ancient (western) symbols (the Apostle’s Creed, the Nicene Creed and the Athanasian Creed), to the Augsburg Confession and to Luther’s Small Catechism. And there is also a ‘hierarchy of truth’ here. Scripture is the norm which norms and which is not itself normed (norma normans non normata); the rest are norms which are normed and which do not themselves norm (norma normata). A further important point to be made is that in article 21 of the Augusburg Confession, in the conclusion of its doctrinal part, it is said that «there is nothing [in the preceding doctrinal part] that varies from the Scriptures, or from the Church Catholic, or from the Church of Rome as known from its writers.» (Emphasis added) If Lutherans are to be seen as a part of ‘the Church Catholic,’ if the ‘catholic principle’ is to be taken seriously, and not merely as a rhetorical device void of meaning, we need to take a look at what the Church has taught throughout history. And we also need to ask four important questions. The fourth question, which is the mirror image of the third, is the most important, adressing the concerns of the Reformation, its relation to our present situation and Christ’s prayer of unity in John 17:
  • Is there room for a Catholic ecclesiology in the Church of Norway, or in any given Lutheran church?
  • Is there such a thing as a ‘non-papal Catholicism’?
  • Do we have to be in communion with Rome?
  • Are there any compelling reasons not to be in communion with Rome in our present situation?
I am not going to answer these here, but they might be a good starting point for a discussion.

Indeed. Great questions for discussion. In fact, that fourth one sounds an awful lot like the question I asked Kjetilk earlier in this thread, doesn’t it? :yup:
 
You’re right. I had no idea…

Norwegian Woes
by William J. Tighe
touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=12-06-061-r

Excerpt:

So in 1997 the Samraad leaders began to discuss the possibility of obtaining “episcopal oversight” from the Polish National Catholic Church (PNCC), a member church of the now-collapsing Old Catholic Union of Utrecht (see my article “Old Catholics, New Doctrines: the Decline of the Union of Utrecht” in the January/February 1999 issue of Touchstone).

The PNCC insisted on two points, however: the Samraad make a clean and total break with the state church before coming under its aegis, and the Norwegian clergy undergo “unconditional” (re)ordination by a PNCC bishop, despite the fact that most of them had over the previous decade quietly obtained “supplemental ordination” from a sympathetic Swedish bishop (the Swedish church claims to have maintained the “apostolic succession”).

The Samraad leadership agreed to these conditions. But then, at the end of 1997, some of its key officials, mostly laity, as well as a majority of the ordinands associated with the organization, suddenly and unexpectedly joined the Roman Catholic Church. The consequent disarray meant that the implementation of the accord with the PNCC, scheduled for January 1998, had to be deferred to a more opportune time.

There’s a lot more in the article…but one has to ask WHY the PNCC would require the CoN priests to be re-ordained unconditionally.

In hindsight, it seems I had a pretty good idea about the validity of CoN ordinations from the get-go. :sad_yes:
Again, you are just searching stuff on the internet to seem like you know what you are talking about.

SKG, which I know pretty well, is NOT an official organisation within the Church of Norway.

I know almost all the priests who were involved there personally.
 
From a Norwegian Lutheran’s Blog … Indeed. Great questions for discussion. In fact, that fourth one sounds an awful lot like the question I asked Kjetilk earlier in this thread, doesn’t it? :yup:
Well, being the author of that blogpost, I agree that these questions are interesting. But I ask them as questions, not as debate traps.
 
Oh…never mind.

Helga Haugland Byfuglien is the presiding bishop of the Church of Norway.
No, she is not the ‘the presiding bishop.’ We do not have a ‘presiding bishop’ in the Church of Norway. She is an administrative head, yes, but do not have any power over against other bishops in the Church of Norway. She is not the equivalent of the Archbishop of Canterbury or the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church in the US.

We did have a discussion a few years back on whether or not we ought to have a presiding bishop, or an archbishop, but decided against it, opting to instead have an administrative head.
 
No, she is not the ‘the presiding bishop.’ We do not have a ‘presiding bishop’ in the Church of Norway. She is an administrative head, yes, but do not have any power over against other bishops in the Church of Norway. She is not the equivalent of the Archbishop of Canterbury or the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church in the US.

We did have a discussion a few years back on whether or not we ought to have a presiding bishop, or an archbishop, but decided against it, opting to instead have an administrative head.
Best watch her closely. When the gracious Katharine gained the office of PB, it was not the centralized behemoth she has made it.

GKC
 
Again, you are just searching stuff on the internet to seem like you know what you are talking about.

SKG, which I know pretty well, is NOT an official organisation within the Church of Norway.

I know almost all the priests who were involved there personally.
Great. Then perhaps you know the answer to the question that I asked.

Why would the PNCC require that CoN priests be ordained unconditionally?
 
Well, being the author of that blogpost, I agree that these questions are interesting. But I ask them as questions, not as debate traps.
Oh…that is YOUR blog???

😉

PS - I noted that you cited Taylor Marshall and Scott Hahn in your thesis. Interesting choices. How did you come to include them?
 
No, she is not the ‘the presiding bishop.’ We do not have a ‘presiding bishop’ in the Church of Norway. She is an administrative head, yes, but do not have any power over against other bishops in the Church of Norway. She is not the equivalent of the Archbishop of Canterbury or the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church in the US.

We did have a discussion a few years back on whether or not we ought to have a presiding bishop, or an archbishop, but decided against it, opting to instead have an administrative head.
Thanks for the clarification. That was taken from Norway.org:

norway.org/News_and_events/Norway-in-the-Midwest/Archive/Church-of-Norways-Presiding-Bishop-Helga-Haugland-Byfuglien–Opens-Leiv-Eriksson-International-Festival-/#.VT6p_9JViko

I gather that your own bishop is male, but I wonder: will you feel comfortable concelebrating with priests whom you know were ordained by female bishops? How about with female “priests”?

And do you believe personally that women CAN be ordained or do you hold that only men may be ordained to the priesthood?

I don’t believe that the Catholic Church or the Orthodox Churches will EVER ordain a woman, and the decision by the CoN, the Old Catholics and the Anglicans, etc. would seem to create a divide that might never be bridged again.

Thoughts?
 
Thanks for the clarification. That was taken from Norway.org:

norway.org/News_and_events/Norway-in-the-Midwest/Archive/Church-of-Norways-Presiding-Bishop-Helga-Haugland-Byfuglien–Opens-Leiv-Eriksson-International-Festival-/#.VT6p_9JViko

I gather that your own bishop is male, but I wonder: will you feel comfortable concelebrating with priests whom you know were ordained by female bishops? How about with female “priests”?

And do you believe personally that women CAN be ordained or do you hold that only men may be ordained to the priesthood?

I don’t believe that the Catholic Church or the Orthodox Churches will EVER ordain a woman, and the decision by the CoN, the Old Catholics and the Anglicans, etc. would seem to create a divide that might never be bridged again.

Thoughts?
For myself, I agree with your concluding observation.

GKC
 
As you see, this is from a secular source, and the word presiding bishop is not used in any official publications. You might say that she is presiding in a practical or organisational manner, which is more clear in the body of the article, where it is pointed out that she oversees the business of the Church of Norway. She has no immediate episcopal power outside of her own diocese.
I gather that your own bishop is male, but I wonder: will you feel comfortable concelebrating with priests whom you know were ordained by female bishops? How about with female “priests”?
No, and as I think I’ve said before, in the Church of Norway any priest can refuse, by means of Canon Law, to concelebrate with either a male priest (or bishop) ordained by a female bishop, or a female bishop or a womanpriest (to use the terminology of William Oddie), ordained by either a female or male priest. And the right does not simply extend to ‘keeping away.’ If a womanpriest wants to celebrate mass in my parish, I can refuse (as the pastor). That is mostly because we are a national Church (not a state Church), and if these regulations weren’t around, the Church of Norway would loose hundreds of priests.
And do you believe personally that women CAN be ordained or do you hold that only men may be ordained to the priesthood?
I do not believe that women can be ordained. But that doesn’t mean that I cannot stay in the Church of Norway. Throughout Church history, we have had heretic bishops.
I don’t believe that the Catholic Church or the Orthodox Churches will EVER ordain a woman, and the decision by the CoN, the Old Catholics and the Anglicans, etc. would seem to create a divide that might never be bridged again.
Probably.
 
As you see, this is from a secular source, and the word presiding bishop is not used in any official publications. You might say that she is presiding in a practical or organisational manner, which is more clear in the body of the article, where it is pointed out that she oversees the business of the Church of Norway. She has no immediate episcopal power outside of her own diocese.
Got it. Again, thanks.
No, and as I think I’ve said before, in the Church of Norway any priest can refuse, by means of Canon Law, to concelebrate with either a male priest (or bishop) ordained by a female bishop, or a female bishop or a womanpriest (to use the terminology of William Oddie), ordained by either a female or male priest. And the right does not simply extend to ‘keeping away.’ If a womanpriest wants to celebrate mass in my parish, I can refuse (as the pastor). That is mostly because we are a national Church (not a state Church), and if these regulations weren’t around, the Church of Norway would loose hundreds of priests.
Wow.

So, if some folks in your parish support the ordination of women, conceivably, they will decide to attend another parish, and vice-versa. And so, the Church divides and separates, divides and separates…again and again and again over every issue with which anyone chooses to take issue. Homosexual but celibate. Actively homosexual but in a committed relationship. Actively homosexual and NOT in a committed relationship. Heterosexual but living with a “partner”. Living with a partner and practicing artificial birth control. Living with a partner and practicing birth control and choosing abortion when the birth control fails.

Isn’t this what happens when no one can act as the Royal Steward? Isn’t this what happens when EVERYONE exercises his or her own private judgment in the context of sola scriptura?
I do not believe that women can be ordained. But that doesn’t mean that I cannot stay in the Church of Norway. Throughout Church history, we have had heretic bishops.
Of course, but do you recall another era when the heretics were made to feel so welcome in the Church? Why should they reform when we go to such lengths to celebrate the diversity?

This passage comes to mind:

1 Corinthians 5:13
It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that even pagans do not tolerate: A man is sleeping with his father’s wife. 2 And you are proud! Shouldn’t you rather have gone into mourning and have put out of your fellowship the man who has been doing this? 3 For my part, even though I am not physically present, I am with you in spirit. As one who is present with you in this way, I have already passed judgment in the name of our Lord Jesus on the one who has been doing this.

Are we so nuanced, sophisticated and above Paul’s simple-minded approach?
 
Yes.

I don’t think I have cited Taylor Marshall in my thesis, but Scott Hahn was a natural choice, since he has written much on both Ratzinger and liturgy.
Oops…you quoted Taylor Marshall in a blog post in 2012. (I was doing a lot of reading and conflated the two pieces.)

I’m impressed that you have linked to Jimmy Akin and a number of other Catholic authors and sites.

You are an enigma. 🙂
 
So, if some folks in your parish support the ordination of women, conceivably, they will decide to attend another parish, and vice-versa. And so, the Church divides and separates, divides and separates…again and again and again over every issue with which anyone chooses to take issue. Homosexual but celibate. Actively homosexual but in a committed relationship. Actively homosexual and NOT in a committed relationship. Heterosexual but living with a “partner”. Living with a partner and practicing artificial birth control. Living with a partner and practicing birth control and choosing abortion when the birth control fails.

Isn’t this what happens when no one can act as the Royal Steward? Isn’t this what happens when EVERYONE exercises his or her own private judgment in the context of sola scriptura?
I’ll raise you Michael Pfleger and the parish of Saint Sabina, Chicago. Not that two wrongs make a right, but what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
Of course, but do you recall another era when the heretics were made to feel so welcome in the Church? Why should they reform when we go to such lengths to celebrate the diversity?
Well, almost the entire Church, including some prominent Patriarchs, where Arians for hundreds of years after the Council of Nicea.
This passage comes to mind:

1 Corinthians 5:13
It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that even pagans do not tolerate: A man is sleeping with his father’s wife. 2 And you are proud! Shouldn’t you rather have gone into mourning and have put out of your fellowship the man who has been doing this? 3 For my part, even though I am not physically present, I am with you in spirit. As one who is present with you in this way, I have already passed judgment in the name of our Lord Jesus on the one who has been doing this.

Are we so nuanced, sophisticated and above Paul’s simple-minded approach?
No, but you are forgetting all the, practically identical, problems in your own Church.
 
Oops…you quoted Taylor Marshall in a blog post in 2012. (I was doing a lot of reading and conflated the two pieces.)

I’m impressed that you have linked to Jimmy Akin and a number of other Catholic authors and sites.

You are an enigma. 🙂
You mean he’s not a ninja?

Jon
 
I’ll raise you Michael Pfleger and the parish of Saint Sabina, Chicago. Not that two wrongs make a right, but what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
Never heard of him. Which is kinda the point, isn’t it?

However, the CoN is now in the position of having its membership (and its clergy!) picking and choosing sides. And you feel this situation is equally present in the Catholic Church?
Well, almost the entire Church, including some prominent Patriarchs, where Arians for hundreds of years after the Council of Nicea.
It only takes one man with courage to stand up for what is right. Are you Athanasius?

And if not, why not?
No, but you are forgetting all the, practically identical, problems in your own Church.
Siri Sunde? Not in my church, padre. Not in my church.
 
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