Holy Moly! Check out the August 27 issue of America!

[hedgehog]

And here the Pope thought he sytraightened things out when he made the Jesuits get rid of the last editor!


"Consider the following thought experiment. Imagine a neighborhood with two churches: Grace Lutheran and St. Bernadette Catholic parish. According to the council’s teaching, the Lutheran congregation would be lacking some specific “means of sanctification and truth” available, in principle, to St. Bernadette’s. Presumably, they do not have access to a universal ministry of unity (the papacy), the sacrament of reconciliation or the full reality of the Eucharist. Yet Grace Lutheran Church might be fostering a community that emphasizes Christian fellowship, hospitality and the dignity of one’s baptismal calling. Church leaders might stress the necessity of being biblically literate and living with fidelity and passion, a biblical vision of discipleship.

On the other hand, St. Bernadette’s might be a community where Christian hospitality is almost completely absent and genuine fellowship minimal, a community in which baptism is simply a christening ritual performed on infants, where the Scriptures are poorly proclaimed and the homilies are filled with arcane, pious references and silly jokes but say little about the concrete demands of discipleship in daily life. In this scenario we must grant the possibility that Grace Lutheran Church, although technically lacking ecclesial “fullness,” might in fact be fostering a form of Christian communal life that more effectively brings them into communion with Christ than does St. Bernadette’s.

[elshiva]

1. This is good. Thank you!

[DemBones DemBones]

2. There are a lot of priests and bishops and

people at the Vatican still trying to make the Church more and more Protestant.

Why they think Catholics want to be Protestants, I've never understood. Some do, obviously; I think you prefer many of the Protestant things, like the Children's Liturgy, but many of us don't like the steady encroachment of Protestant customs, hymns, etc. I did not become Catholic to be another form of Protestant.

They didn't translate the Traditional Mass from Latin, you know, they created an entirely new and quite different service, the Novus Ordo, which of course means New Order, eerily like New World Order. Finding this out has been most disturbing to me. I never dreamed Holy Mother Church would do such a thing, but they did. They omitted parts and made up new parts and mistranslated some key words, most notably in the Consecration itself.

Result: 70-90% of Catholics, depending on which survey you read, no longer understand/ believe in the Real Presence. Of course, with the Consecration having an error in it in English and most other languages -- I think only the Polish and Portuguese translations are correct -- maybe it's not the Real Presence except in Polish and Portuguese churches, and in the Traditional Latin Mass where it is still offered. Maybe that was the whole idea of the "mistake."

Anyway, I think you would find that the "fellowship" and "hospitality" in Protestant churches such as the imaginary Grace Lutheran in your quote are not as sincere as they seem to be. I base that assertion on my experiences attending at least eighteen Protestant churches in seven states and overseas; Presbyterian, Episcopal, Baptist, Methodist, Quaker, with a couple of visits to Mormon, Unitarian and Jehovah's Witnesses services. (You move around a lot when you're a military family.)

It's true that Protestants stand around and chat after services more than Catholics do but a lot of that is more about showing off of clothes (or was in the past) than in Catholic churches and if you miss a Sunday, several people will approach you and say "We missed you last week," followed by a pregnant pause in which you're supposed to explain your absence. I've never heard that in the Catholic church, which is ironic since Catholics have a Sunday obligation and Protestants don't!

Truth is, some churches are better communities than others, doesn't matter whether they're Catholic or Protestant. The people in the church are what matters, as well as the leadership of the priest or minister. In my experience, there are people in every group, church or not, who are nice and welcome newcomers and others who are not so nice and stay in their little cliques. Really, most adults still act like they did in high school.

:shrug:

[hedgehog]

3. For years, one of the differences between Catholics and Protestents

was whether or not Faith in and of itself was sufficiwent for Salvation. I believe that Luther taught that Faith was sufficient while Catholic teaching followed St. James Gospel that Faith without works was meaningless. I think the author here is pointing out that the Real Presence is not some sort of magic trick that makes us superior to other Christians. Remember, wherever two or more of you are gathered in my name, there I am also.

[133724]

4. Unfortunately you are somewhat mistaken...

Luther's belief was that we are justified by Grace Thru Faith. This means that there is nothing what so ever that anyone can do to "earn" salvation. It is a gift, freely given; and; our to accept or reject...

this is a major difference between Lutheran's and other denominations

[hedgehog]

5. My apologies

[pnwmom]

6. And I am uncomfortable with Catholic converts who wish to lock the Church

into the position it occupied when they joined it -- and who are resistant to allowing the Holy Spirit to blow the winds of positive change, as it did during Vatican II.

It is not about Catholics becoming more Protestant. It is about Catholics becoming better CHRISTIANS -- and sometimes that means recognizing, with some humility, the spiritual gifts that God has bestowed on others. Even on other Churches.