Will the real OHCA church stand up?

[adf417]

We all know the abuses within the church prior to (and even today) the reformation. When referencing these abuses it is always referred to as “abuses in the church” and “church” is always assumed to be the Catholic Church. To my knowledge the Catholic Church has always and still does take responsibility for these abuses and has/does make effort to clean them up.

It is also my understanding that many view the OHCA church to be an invisible non-papal entity that is only the community of believers in a spiritual sense with no visible authority. Correction solicited here…

If the OHCA church is of the invisible non-papal verity, I have to assume it always has been and therefore wonder if the Catholic Church has/is taking responsibility for things it has or should not be.

For those who believe in the invisible non-papal church, where does this blame, “abuses in the church”, lie for you? Is there any other entity today willing to stand up for those pre-reformation abuses?

Peace!!!

 

[Izdaari]

Point of clarification: what does OHCA stand for? I’ve never encountered that abbreviation before.

 

[RyanBlack]

One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic

 

[chaunceygardner]

Point of clarification: what does OHCA stand for? I’ve never encountered that abbreviation before.

I have been around more than half a century and I too have not encountered this one. Please define. Could you be referring to “One Holy, Catholic and Apostolic” Church?

Plus I am not getting a clear sense of what the OP’s question is about. It seems to discuss a few different topics. Some clarification on that, as well, please.

 

[chaunceygardner]

Here is the summary of what the Catechism says about the One Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church:

866 The Church is one: she acknowledges one Lord, confesses one faith, is born of one Baptism, forms only one Body, is given life by the one Spirit, for the sake of one hope (cf. Eph 4:3-5), at whose fulfillment all divisions will be overcome.

867 The Church is holy: the Most Holy God is her author; Christ, her bridegroom, gave himself up to make her holy; the Spirit of holiness gives her life. Since she still includes sinners, she is “the sinless one made up of sinners.” Her holiness shines in the saints; in Mary she is already all-holy.

868 The Church is catholic: she proclaims the fullness of the faith. She bears in herself and administers the totality of the means of salvation. She is sent out to all peoples. She speaks to all men. She encompasses all times. She is “missionary of her very nature” (AG 2).

869 The Church is apostolic. She is built on a lasting foundation: “the twelve apostles of the Lamb” (Rev 21:14). She is indestructible (cf. Mt 16:18). She is upheld infallibly in the truth: Christ governs her through Peter and the other apostles, who are present in their successors, the Pope and the college of bishops.

870 “The sole Church of Christ which in the Creed we profess to be one, holy, catholic, and apostolic,… subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the bishops in communion with him. Nevertheless, many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside its visible confines”(LG 8).

My sense is that the OP has a somewhat skewed vision of what this means. The OHCA Church would, by definition, include those who succeeded the Apostles, namely the Bishops of the Church, including the Pope. The OHCA Church, which is, according to the Catechism, basically what we mean by the Catholic Church, is neither invisible nor non-papal. It obviously exists on this earth, although it contains a spiritual, invisible element as well. It is not exclusively one or the other.

How individuals view the Church may be quite varied. If anyone holds a view that the OHCA Church is only spiritual, invisible and non-papal, I would think they would still place responsibility for past and current abuses on the people who should be held responsible for them. That would not change.

Again, I may be mis-reading the OP’s thoughts and questions here, and not addressing exactly what they are talking about.

 

[benjohnson]

For those who believe in the invisible non-papal church, where does this blame, “abuses in the church”, lie for you? Is there any other entity today willing to stand up for those pre-reformation abuses?

Peace!!!

Lutherans make a positive claim to be the OHCAC - but we don’t usually claim that others are not. Generally, where the Gospel is proclaimed and the Sacraments are administered is where you’ll find the church - some of the members of the church are in communion with the Bishop of Rome and some are not.

Perhaps I’m wrong:

To put things in find detail, I would say the abuses of the past belong to the people who committed them - and don’t really belong to the church itself. It’s out of compassion and an sincere desire to make amends that the church accepts those abuses as her own. Lutherans in the church sin just as much as any other - even the abuses that we sometimes say are 'Catholic" abuses from the reformation times are really in our own shared history.

 

[tawny]

One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic

These are called The Marks of the Church.

 

[marywarfield]

We all know the abuses within the church prior to (and even today) the reformation. When referencing these abuses it is always referred to as “abuses in the church” and “church” is always assumed to be the Catholic Church. To my knowledge the Catholic Church has always and still does take responsibility for these abuses and has/does make effort to clean them up.

It is also my understanding that many view the OHCA church to be an invisible non-papal entity that is only the community of believers in a spiritual sense with no visible authority. Correction solicited here…

If the OHCA church is of the invisible non-papal verity, I have to assume it always has been and therefore wonder if the Catholic Church has/is taking responsibility for things it has or should not be.

For those who believe in the invisible non-papal church, where does this blame, “abuses in the church”, lie for you? Is there any other entity today willing to stand up for those pre-reformation abuses?

Peace!!!

Huh? No why should they?
Just like today when an RC diocese is sued for child
molestation we don’t ask the Lutherans to pay the
settlement.
The question doesn’t quite make sense.

 

[adf417]

Huh? No why should they?
Just like today when an RC diocese is sued for child
molestation we don’t ask the Lutherans to pay the
settlement.
The question doesn’t quite make sense.

Sorry if I didn’t make my point clear. I guess Im like that quite often, just ask my wife.

I was not speaking of these types of abuses but of those prior to the reformation and more specifically the ones that were the cause of Luther nailing his 95 thesis on the door at Wittenberg.

It is my understanding that these abuses are considered abuses of the “church” as opposed to individuals within the church, no? If “church” is the invisible body of believers, where do these responsibilities lie?

If the Catholic Church takes responsibility for these abuses, which I think it has, It would seem to me, if I were an invisible only church advocate, that the Catholic Church is assuming responsibility falsely and thus asserting itself as an authority over something no entity has the right to do.

Again, sorry if this is disjointed or confusing.
Peace!!!

 

[Peter_J]

I think part of the problem is that this question

Is there any other entity today willing to stand up for those pre-reformation abuses?

could be taken as a bit of a loaded question. Or to look at it another way, no one would say “I stand up for those abuses”, but someone might say “I stand up for such-and-such. It is considered an abuse by some people, but it really wasn’t an abuse.”