Gazizza.Net

There was much to do abouta document released by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith last week. Given the media's usual lack of understanding of Christianity in general, and Catholicism specifically, I figured there was much heat and little light generated over it. After finally getting the opportunity to read it last night, my suspicions were confirmed.

The proper headline for this (if it was even news) would have been "Vatican Agency Reaffirms 2,000 Year Old Teaching." After all, this belief that the Catholic Church is the one true Church goes back to the earliest days of the Catholic Church. The "Vatican II" Catholics seem to be the most upset, but as the document points out in its first Question/Answer, this is exactly what Vatican II taught and was consistent with "[w]hat the Church has taught down through the centuries," to quote Paul VI. Given the Church's consistent teaching, back to the earliest Christians, that Christ founded His Church on the Rock of Peter, it follows logically that those Churches not in complete union with that Church (the Catholic Church), are in some way lacking something that comes from full union with the Church of Christ. This "lacking" was expressed through the use of the word "defect," which the press reports failed to note came in a quote from Vatican II. (Again we see that those Catholics who most often appeal to Vatican II really don't understand the Council at all.)

It is argued that this document sets back the cause of ecumenism. What truly hurts the cause of ecumenism is for Catholics not to acknowledge what we truly believe. Before we can hope to effectively discuss theology with our separated brothers and sisters we must understand what we believe. If we reach unity on false pretenses, we don't reach unity on the truth. And as Christ is "The Way, the Truth and the Life," if we don't reach unity in the truth, we don't reach unity in Christ. It would be a false unity and harmful to all our souls.

I put the joke in the sidebar because it is a nice way of pointing out what this document really says: the sacrificial priesthood with roots back to the apostles is what makes a community of Christians a Church. Virtually all Protestant Churches lack this, as they separated themselves from the Catholic Church back in the 1500s. (As my girlfriend told me on Saturday, Baptists don't even have priests. There is a limited exception to this apostolic succession rule among some Anglican priests in America as in the colonial period some Anglican priests were ordained by Eastern orthodox bishops, as I understand, which gives those Anglicans who can trace their priesthood back to those priests an authentic and apostolic priesthood. There are most likely other limited exceptions as well that I am unaware of.) So, the Eastern Churches not in union with the Catholic Church are Churches due to their apostolic succession, but Protestant Christian communities are not Churches in the truest sense. They are definitely Christian, as long as they have been validly baptized (using the Trinitarian formula), and are definitely Christian communities, but are not Churches in the true sense.

Do those who object to this document really expect the Church, after 2,000 years of saying that we are the one, true Church, to reverse course? There are really only two reasons to be shocked that the Church would say such a thing: ignorance of Catholicism or a fake outrage in an attempt discredit the Church.

Also: Mark Shea, a convert to Catholicism, discusses how in his Evangelical days, distinctions about what was and wasn't a Church were made all the time.