Will Pope Francis Invite Lutherans into an Ordinariate?

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Peter_J said:
In other words, the wrapper may have been “ecumenism”, but the underlying reality was Catholics-becoming-protestantized.
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I think there was a trend among both Catholics and Protestants to soft-pedal doctrine overall. Thus some (not all) Lutherans became closer to Episcopalians, not because they appreciate each others’ doctrines but because doctrine means less and less to both groups. Rather than saying Catholics were becoming Protestantized, better to say Christians in general were moving away from absolute truths, away from any supernatural perspective, towards a vague humanitarianism. Evangelism, for some Catholics and some Protestants, was redefined as getting people away from selfish concern for their own salvation, and focusing them on creating a world of equality.
Genuine ecumenism and genuine evangelism, begins with a thorough understanding of the Christian faith. Thanks to JP II and many godly leaders within some Protestant denominations that resist the flow to secularism, I am more hopeful now than I was for the last few decades. If the forum for 1960s ecumenism was some hotel, perhaps the forum for today’s ecumenism will be Catholics and Protestants getting arrested outside the abortion clinic.
 
My Question to this is the same as it was when the whole thgs started. What provision if any has been made for those in the Angelican communions or if this happens with any Lutheran synods that have members that have divorced and remarried. Or have members that wer Catholic and divorced and remarried and joined these other traditions so as to be able to fully practise thier faith ( recieve communion, ETC…) If say as with some case the wholy parish comes back to Rome do those memember recieve a automatic annulment or are they back to where the where before they left the Catholic church to begin with?

And then if the Church does let those members back in with an auto annulment what does she tell those that divorced and have remained single, You can now remarry?
 
commenter said:
Originally Posted by Peter J
In other words, the wrapper may have been “ecumenism”, but the underlying reality was Catholics-becoming-protestantized.
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That’s fair enough. I think the way you described and the way I described it both make sense. I guess I was mostly focused on the fact that some people might call it “ecumenism” (for no good reason). Similarly, some people think that protestants-becoming-Catholic should be called “ecumenism”. I say, Why not just call it “protestants-becoming-Catholic”?
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oneGODoneCHURCH said:
My Question to this is the same as it was when the whole thgs started. What provision if any has been made for those in the Angelican communions or if this happens with any Lutheran synods that have members that have divorced and remarried. Or have members that wer Catholic and divorced and remarried and joined these other traditions so as to be able to fully practise thier faith ( recieve communion, ETC…) If say as with some case the wholy parish comes back to Rome do those memember recieve a automatic annulment or are they back to where the where before they left the Catholic church to begin with?

And then if the Church does let those members back in with an auto annulment what does she tell those that divorced and have remained single, You can now remarry?
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Surely there would not be an automatic annulment.
 
oneGODoneCHURCH said:
That is my thought as well, but i have seen no where this being addressed and I can not be the only person to think of this.
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I don’t think there is anything written in stone, but I can’t believe there would be a turning of a blind eye. Though half of me believes that what you describe would probably not be that big of a an issue. The key thing to remember is that the Anglicans crossing over under this Apostolic Constitution (and any Lutherans provided a similar measure) are the one’s too whom doctrine matters great.

I half doubt you’ll get many ex-catholics in that group, and I think you’ll have reduced instances of Christians who so casually disregard the doctrine regarding marriage. I think that if and when such cases come up, there is a more than fair chance the individual believers will come forward themselves to solve the problem with Rome. Remember, these are people leaving their former communion due to such doctrinal issues.

I have absolutely no proof, but my heart at least tells me this isn’t going to be that big an issue.
 
Peter_J said:
This is a short but interesting read:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_ordinariate#Prospect_of_personal_ordinariates_for_Lutherans
(I don’t think that has been linked here previously. My apologies if it has.)
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I expected what was written here, it was the same with the Anglicans. What I wonder is if not enough Lutheran’s have joined the cause yet, I know that they do exist. I suppose the point here is if that you are Lutheran, and you do support such an Ordinate, then it is time to be visibly involved in it.
 
crazzeto said:
I expected what was written here, it was the same with the Anglicans. What I wonder is if not enough Lutheran’s have joined the cause yet, I know that they do exist.
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Yeah, I wondered about the wording, e.g.
If the Lutherans made a similar request - he went on to say - we will have to consider their situation carefully. But the initiative remains in the hands of the Lutherans.
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as opposed to saying “Not enough Lutherans have requested it yet.”

My guess is that he/they don’t want to make it sound like an ordinariate is right around the corner, i.e. that almost enough Lutherans have requested an ordinariate. (Just a guess.)
 
Peter_J said:
Well, I like your statement too, with the line-vs-net analogy.

Nevertheless, I would say that we’re not “fishing in the Anglican pond” inasmuch as we aren’t *trying *to get Anglicans to switch sides, we’re working with Anglicans who became interested on their own.
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P.S. I think a key fact in all this is that, before Vatican II, uniatism was consider too good for Anglicans or Lutherans. So now, when/if we’re told “No Lutheran ordinariate because we’re not fishing in the Lutheran pond” … well, some of us might feel like we’ve been spun around, 360 degrees to face back in the original direction. :o
 
If Pope Francis follows the direction of Pope Benedict then further unity between Roman Catholics and Lutherans will be realized.

Pope Benedict as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger suggested it might be possible to interpret the Augsburg Confession [the primary Lutheran confession] as a Catholic confession. Before becoming Pope Benedict he supported Roman Catholic efforts for recognition of the Augsburg Confession and the establishment of the Lutherans as a corporate union with Roman Catholics.
 
Peter_J said:
P.S. I think a key fact in all this is that, before Vatican II, uniatism was consider too good for Anglicans or Lutherans.
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This isn’t a very substantial news story, but worth a mention I think:
The Anglican ambassador to the Vatican, David Richardson, has attacked the Roman Catholic “raid” on the Anglican Church two years ago as offensive and embarrassing.
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crazzeto said:
I expected what was written here, it was the same with the Anglicans. What I wonder is if not enough Lutheran’s have joined the cause yet, I know that they do exist. I suppose the point here is if that you are Lutheran, and you do support such an Ordinate, then it is time to be visibly involved in it.
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Bottom line, I don’t think that support will be materializing. (I’m sure if I were a Lutheran, I would not want Rome to create a “Lutheran Ordinariate”.)
 
Peter_J said:
Bottom line, I don’t think that support will be materializing. (I’m sure if I were a Lutheran, I would not want Rome to create a “Lutheran Ordinariate”.)
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I wouldn’t mind seeing one. My participation in it, However, would depend greatly on what would be required.

Jon
 
P.S. My earlier comment,
Peter_J said:
(I’m sure if I were a Lutheran, I would not want Rome to create a “Lutheran Ordinariate”.)
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got me to thinking, that kind of speculation is notoriously unreliable. (Who can really be sure what he/she would think or want if he/she had grown up in a different denomination?) A more reliable statement would be, I know I don’t want the Church of England to start an Ordinariate for ex-Roman Catholics.
 
Peter_J said:
P.S. My earlier comment,
got me to thinking, that kind of speculation is notoriously unreliable. (Who can really be sure what he/she would think or want if he/she had grown up in a different denomination?) A more reliable statement would be, I know I don’t want the Church of England to start an Ordinariate for ex-Roman Catholics.
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Strangely enough, that has already happened.
 
Some, although I don’t remember who specifically, have said that a “Lutheran Ordinariate” would have been a good idea in Norway a decade ago. (I refer to the situation where several Lutheran parishes left the mainline denomination and formed the Nordic Catholic Church. See also this interview:
To put it bluntly, why the Nordic Catholic Church? Why not Rome? Why not Orthodoxy?
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RF: We had been united as a group, and there was a lot of internal loyalty to the group. Those of us who had leadership responsibilities did not want to leave the people that we had put in such a difficult position. So we tried to find a collective solution. Orthodoxy would probably have accepted us in the end, after a transitional period, as a Western rite parish or parishes.
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The Roman Catholic Church never gave any indication of an option other than individual conversions. For our leadership, Rome also was more difficult in the sense that many people had difficulties with various Roman Catholic dogmas, especially the Marian dogmas. As to Orthodoxy, it was felt to be culturally impossible not to follow a Western liturgical calendar.
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Even though we were not looking for the lowest common denominator, we had to take into consideration that not all our people were moving at the same speed, and some probably were not going to move either to Constantinople or to Rome. Therefore, those of us who had responsibility wanted to find some sort of structure that could take us as a flock. So we made contact with the PNCC in 1996. They were very generous to us and proposed a period of convergence into the new system.
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Of course, it has been somewhat difficult theologically: Many of us, because of our background, are rather Augustinian in our theological thinking, but we have been very influenced by Orthodoxy in our liturgical style and also, perhaps, in our theological thinking. So we are living with a certain theological tension, perhaps a creative tension, in the sense that we are trying to unite a Western Augustinian theology and ethos with elements from the Orthodox Church. Perhaps that means, unfortunately, that we are too Augustinian to become Orthodox and too Orthodox in some of our approaches to become Roman.
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Read more: touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=15-06-054-i)
 
P.S. Just for the heck of it, I did a Google for webpages with words like “Lutheran-Papalist” or “Luthero-Papalist”. I only managed to find one page with such a term (drum roll) another thread on this forum in which we discussed the fact that “Luthero-Papalists” don’t exist!
 
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