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StGeorgesSquire
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I thought Lutherans had bishops too?
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commenter
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I agree, the term “Protestant” has little useful meaning anymore. But that happened pretty recently. In the US, for many years the TEC was “The Protestant Episcopal Church”. The local orphanage was “The Protestant Home for Children”. The term “Protestant” was used all the time in the 1950s, both by Protestants and everybody else, not as a compliment or insult, but just a useful, somewhat meaningful description for persons who belonged to communions or broke off from communions originally recognized in the 16th century.
After 1970 hardly anyone used that term except Catholics. When we use it now, the Prot (I mean, separated brethren and cistern) get mildly annoyed. I wanted to say it was once used as by those people as a term of PRIDE, but now I can’t use that term anymore, either.
I am stuck calling them “fellow Christians” until I find a new term.
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StGeorgesSquire
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Friend may be a good alternative
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ComplineSanFran
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Fellow Christians work for me.
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commenter
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You have somewhat a point there; I would point out the Church is trying to reconcile, or at least build a bridge to almost everybody on the planet now. There have been contacts with SSPX over the years, including recently. The Church is trying to communicate, at least, with the current leaders in SSPX, Lutherans, Methodists, Muslims, etc, etc, and **really **etc.
One can argue the Church’s ecumenical efforts are sometimes ineffective here, or talking to the wrong people there, and always imperfect. I agree, but in the long run I trust the Church.
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Duane1966
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That’s great that there is collaboration.
Of course we cannot change what has happened. But by commemorating the Reformation, we are in essence saying for the good of the Church that*** it had to happen.*** Why else would we show respect for the Reformation? I’m sorry, I do not buy into that.
Most Catholics are for reconciliation, and pray for it, and cheer it when it happens. But it must always be based on truth. The question that still must be asked every day is this: was the reformation good for the Church? If yes, then by all means commemorate it. But then that brings us back to why was it okay for Luther to disobey the pope, but not Archbishop Lefebvre? They were both Catholics when they disobeyed. I cannot in good conscience say one is wrong and not the other. That is hypocrisy. At the end of the day, they both disobeyed the Holy Father. They were both wrong in their actions.
You are arbitrarily choosing who undermines from within and who does not. Did not Luther also undermine the Church from within for four years after 1517? You seem to be espousing a sort of statute of limitations for people. Perhaps in 60 or so years, we will commemorate Lefebvre.
Okay. But to me it is glaringly obvious.
CAN WE AS CATHOLICS objectively say the Reformation was good for the Catholic Church? If yes, then we cannot castigate ANYONE who leaves and starts a new church because they believe they have a better way.
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Duane1966
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I am all for dialogue and reconciliation, as long as the truth is not compromised.
I do too, in the looooooooooooooooong run.
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Don_Ruggero
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You don’t have “buy” into it. This is not a matter of consultation with the laity. The decision is that of the Holy See.
From Vatican Radio:
*(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis will travel to Sweden in October for a joint ecumenical commemoration of the start of the Reformation, together with leaders of the Lutheran World Federation and representatives of other Christian Churches.
The event will take place on October 31st in the southern Swedish city of Lund where the Lutheran World Federation was founded in 1947.** While kicking off a year of events to mark the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation**, it will also highlight the important ecumenical developments that have taken place during the past 50 years of dialogue between Catholics and Lutherans.
The one-day event will include a common worship service in Lund cathedral based on a Catholic-Lutheran “Common Prayer” liturgical guide, published earlier this month by the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (PCPCU) and the Lutheran World Federation (LWF).
The commemoration in Lund follows on directly from the publication in 2013 of a joint document entitled ‘From Conflict to Communion’, which focuses on the themes of thanksgiving, repentance and commitment to common witness. While asking for forgiveness for the divisions of past centuries, it also seeks to showcase the gifts of the Reformation and celebrate the way Catholics and Lutherans around the world work together on issues of common concern.
Please see below the joint press release from the LWF and the PCPCU on the joint ecumenical commemoration of the Reformation in Lund
Pope Francis, LWF President Bishop Younan and General Secretary Junge to lead October event
GENEVA/VATICAN CITY, 25 January 2016 - The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) and the Catholic Church will hold a joint ecumenical commemoration of the Reformation on 31 October 2016 in Lund, Sweden.
Pope Francis, LWF President Bishop Dr Munib A. Younan and General Secretary Rev. Dr Martin Junge will lead the Ecumenical Commemoration in cooperation with the Church of Sweden and the Catholic Diocese of Stockholm.
The joint ecumenical event will take place in the city of Lund in anticipation of the 500th Reformation anniversary in 2017. It will highlight the solid ecumenical developments between Catholics and Lutherans and the joint gifts received through dialogue. The event will include a common worship based on the recently published Catholic-Lutheran “Common Prayer” liturgical guide.
“The LWF is approaching the Reformation anniversary in a spirit of ecumenical accountability,” says LWF General Secretary Rev. Dr Martin Junge. “I’m carried by the profound conviction that by working towards reconciliation between Lutherans and Catholics, we are working towards justice, peace and reconciliation in a world torn apart by conflict and violence.”
Cardinal Koch, President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (PCPCU) explains further: “By concentrating together on the centrality of the question of God and on a Christocentric approach, Lutherans and Catholics will have the possibility of an ecumenical commemoration of the Reformation, not simply in a pragmatic way, but in the deep sense of faith in the crucified and resurrected Christ.
“It is with joy and expectation that the Church of Sweden welcomes The Lutheran World Federation and the Catholic Church to hold the joint commemoration of the Reformation in Lund,” says Church of Sweden Archbishop Antje Jackelén. “We shall pray together with the entire ecumenical family in Sweden that the commemoration will contribute to Christian unity in our country and throughout the world.”
“The ecumenical situation in our part of the world is unique and interesting. I hope that this meeting will help us look to the future so that we can be witnesses of Jesus Christ and His gospel in our secularized world,” says Anders Arborelius OCD, Bishop of the Catholic Church in Sweden.
The Lund event is part of the reception process of the study document From Conflict to Communion, which was published in 2013, and has since been widely distributed to Lutheran and Catholic communities. The document is the first attempt by both dialogue partners to describe together at international level the history of the Reformation and its intentions.
Earlier this year, the LWF and PCPCU sent to LWF member churches and Catholic Bishops’ Conferences a jointly prepared “Common Prayer”, which is a liturgical guide to help churches commemorate the Reformation anniversary together. It is based on the study document From Conflict to Communion: Lutheran-Catholic Common Commemoration of the Reformation in 2017, and features the themes of thanksgiving, repentance and commitment to common witness with the aim of expressing the gifts of the Reformation and asking forgiveness for the division which followed theological disputes.
The year 2017 will also mark 50 years of the international Lutheran-Catholic dialogue, which has yielded notable ecumenical results, of which most significant is the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (JDDJ). The JDDJ was signed by the LWF and the Catholic Church in 1999, and affirmed by the World Methodist Council in 2006. The declaration nullified centuries’ old disputes between Catholics and Lutherans over the basic truths of the doctrine of justification, which was at the center of the 16th century Reformation.
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en.radiovaticana.va/news/2016/01/25/pope_to_travel_to_sweden_for_joint_reformation_commemoration/1203462
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Don_Ruggero
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A major conference in Rome was just concluded on the impending commemoration. As Vatican Radio reported:
(Vatican Radio) Commemorations for the 500th anniversary of the Lutheran Reformation in 2017 must be marked by a spirit of gratitude, of penitence and of hope. That was the message of Cardinal Kurt Koch, head of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity, to a Catholic-Lutheran international seminar taking place this week at the Pontifical University of St Anselm here in Rome.
The three day conference, which concluded on Friday, was entitled ‘Signs of Forgiveness, Paths of Conversion, Practice of Penance: A Reform that challenges all’. Organised in partnership with the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), the meeting included an ecumenical liturgy at Rome’s Lutheran Church and Vespers with the Benedictine community of St Anselm on the Aventine hill.
Sr. Susan Wood from Marquette University in Milwaukee gave the concluding lecture, entitled ‘From Conflict to Communion?’. As well as teaching and writing about theology and ecumenism, she’s a member of both the U.S. and the International Lutheran-Catholic dialogues. She talked to Philippa Hitchen about the way Catholics and Lutherans can jointly commemorate this 500th anniversary – not by telling a different history, but by telling their shared history differently…
500 years on, Dr Wood says, we can choose to remember the Reformation as “a story of Church division or we can tell it as a story of needed reform in the Church”, which at the time was very polemical. As with any story, she says, you can tell it with different perspectives and for the first time in history, this anniversary is being celebrated from the perspective of 50 years of ecumenical dialogue.
Asked how well the commemoration is being understood in this light, Dr Wood says it depends on ecumenical formation, adding that for some Catholics, ecumenism is still seen as ‘lowest common denominator Catholicism’. On the contrary she says, for unity you need to “go to something higher” as the setting of the Doctrine of Justification within a Trinitarian framework made clear.
Speaking of Luther’s objectives at the time of the Reformation - primacy of the Gospel, primacy of Christ, translation of Scripture into German so that people could read them - she says “many of the things he wanted to do at the Reformation were done during the Vatican Council”.
Today there is a temptation to use one’s ecclesial identity against others, demonstrating that we still have a long way to go in viewing the Reformation in a shared way. Dr Wood says that we “have to heal divisions at the roots”, which were doctrinal so theological work for ecumenism is vital alongside the grass roots work of promoting dialogue through friendships and shared mission.
en.radiovaticana.va/news/2016/05/06/2017_reformation_tell_catholic-lutheran_history_differently/1227989
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Don_Ruggero
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Again, the decisions do not rest with you or your conscience.
The decisions rest with the Pope and with the Holy See…regarding both the Reformation and our relations with the Lutherans and other non-Catholic Christians via the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and the judgments concerning Archbishop Lefebvre and the Lefebvrists…through the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Congregation of Bishops relative to the case regarding the person of the archbishop and, for his followers, they and their disposition are in the hands of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei.
As regards the former, all of this is why I said to you earlier that there will be certain proclamations and events during the impending year of commemoration that you will likely find quite extraordinary indeed, especially if you are not fully up to speed on where Rome exactly is at the present moment on topics related to both the dialogue and the commemoration, or minimally at least in regular contact with the ecumenical officer of your diocese.
From Conflict to Communion was completely prepared, I hasten add, under the pontificate of Pope Benedict…the commemoration and the groundwork was all planned under his papacy. Do you have any idea how many years of work have gone to preparing all of this? Indeed, it was Pope Benedict who, before he retired, brought to Rome the great architects of From Conflict to Communion, which was published in 2013: Gerhard Müller and Kurt Koch and, by God’s gift, they are both now Cardinals.
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Don_Ruggero
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One of my favourite quotes in From Conflict to Communion:
238. Catholics and Lutherans realize that they and the communities in which they live out their faith belong to the one body of Christ. The awareness is dawning on Lutherans and Catholics that the struggle of the sixteenth century is over. The reasons for mutually condemning each other’s faith have fallen by the wayside.
I seldom meet Catholics who have a mindset on ecumenism today that ante-dates the Council and the ecumenical imperative derived from it, gratefully. Such people are rare in my world.
On the occasions when I do, and if they are English speaking, I invariably say: “The struggle of the sixteenth century is over. It seems you did not get that memo.”
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Memaw
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It’s NOT just MY definition!!! think what you want! God Bless, Memaw
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Duane1966
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Father, in your opinion, is the Vatican saying the Reformation was necessary?
I agree with all of this. Where I disagree with its usage is in the implication at, even generally, all Protestants are the same, or come from the same original monolithic group and then splintered. If we wish to say that Protestants are members of the various western non-catholic Christian communions, okay. But many of them are not related to the original protest, or even the Reformation era.
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MaryT777
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Don,
I had read previously the LCMS and other confessional Lutherans (WELS etc) are NOT participating in this. They are the ones that still embrace the Lutheran Confessions such as the Pope is the Anti Christ, etc.
Do you find that truly a commemoration when only the liberal Lutherans are participating, the ones that support women ordination, abortion, and gay marriage?
Mary.
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Memaw
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I don’t think anyone has said “all protestants are the same”. Otherwise there wouldn’t be thousands and thousands of different denominations now would there? Most of them splinter off because they disagree what the other is teaching. We should call them distant relatives of the original protestant revolt. But they are still continuing on in the same pattern. You say the word “protestant” has no “modern” meaning. So do you think it’s is not “political correct” to use that term?? Seems the modern way of getting around a situation is to avoid the words to describe it. As for the Catholic meaning of Ordination, one must be ordained by a valid Catholic Bishop in the Apostolic Succession to be a valid priest. I’m sorry but we’re not the ones that broke that succession in the protestant revolt. Didn’t Jesus say, “The TRUTH will set you free” Seems so many are afraid of the truth. God Bless, Memaw
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commenter
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But Protestant once did mean something. Even Christians belonging to communions with no historic connection, apparently identified a common contemporary connection during the Eisenhower era.
Protestantism was never as monolithic as some Catholics imagined to to be, but there definitely was something there, an imperfect unity before 1960 at least.
Something significant must have happened in less than a generation. In the early 1960s Protestants could still talk about
- Protestants (general category); much in common
- Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans and others (somewhat specific category)more in common
- LCA, ALC, LCMS (and similar more specific categories for other Protestant communions)
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GKC
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steido01
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Oh, I don’t know about that. Peter might still retain primacy there, too, depending on how one looks at things. People tend to build big tents.
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GKC
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My money’s still on the Anglicans.
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