Schönborn’s fourth Creation catechesis

Those who have been following Cardinal Schönborn’s catecheses on Creation and Evolution will want to read the fourth presentation in this series:

"He upholds the universe by His word and power"

Abbott's "Voice of Reason" on Multi-Culturalism

Now who is the voice of reason?

It will come as a surprise to some to find “hardliner” Tony Abbott coming to the defence of multiculturalism in Australia. Lest it seem that he is trying to pick a fight with the Federal Treasurer, we should note that his article was published in the Quadrant before Mr Costello’s Sydney Institute speech.

But should we be surprised? Again and again, Catholics have been able to recognise in the experience of today’s Muslim migrants their own past experiences. Whether in the 19th Century when the Protestant establishment looked down on the second class Irish Catholic community, or in the post WWII immigration when Italians and Eastern Europeans brought their very non-Anglo peculiarities to these shores along with their peculiar faith.

Here’s just a bit of what Tony had to say:

“Several centuries after theocracy was rejected in the West, it can be a shock to find calls for sharia law in Australian places of worship. Still, it would be a big mistake to dismiss this as "un-Australian" rather than to begin the kind of engagement that eventually made Christianity less bloody. Indeed, talking to the more hard-line Muslims, rather than ostracising them or shouting them down, could be one of the greatest services Australia can render to the wider world. Why shouldn't the Muslim version of the Enlightenment and an Islamic doctrine of the separation of church and state be fostered in Australia? Especially as the task is so urgent.

“Keeping faith with Australians of every background and opinion means strictly impartial law enforcement. In a pluralist society, appearing to take sides is a recipe for disaster.”

Update in "Year of Grace"

I have posted a new episode in my “Year of Grace” retro-blog about my conversion to the Catholic Church.

Call no man your father...

Just last night, I was listening to a program on EWTN in which a caller rang up and asked about the passage “Call no man your father” (Matt 23:9). The explanation given was that Jesus was talking about the various factions among the Pharisees of his day, who distinguished themselves from one another on the basis of which rabbi they claimed as their “father” or “teacher”. Thus the various human authorities became excuses for divisions among those who should be following God. [Thus also, incidentally, Jesus was not referring to addressing someone “father” as a mark of respect.]

Then a friend alerted me to the following passage in Ratzinger’s Principles of Catholic Theology:

“Thoma Aquinas and the other great Scholastics of the thirteenth century are “Fathers” of a specifically Roman Catholic theology from which the Christian churches of the Reformation consider themselves completely separated and which, for the churches of the East, also express an alien mentality… On the other hand, it is evident that Protestant theology is also not without its “Fathers”, insofar as the leaders of the Reformation have, for it, a position comparable to the role of the Fathers of the Church… Indeed, we must go a step farther and say that the division in the Church is revealed above all in the fact that the Fathers of the one side are not the Fathers of the other. And the ever more observable inability of the one side to understand the other even in language and mode of thought stems from the fact that each has learned to think and speak at the knees of totally different Fathers. The differences among the sects do not have their source in the New Testament. They arise from the fact that the New Testament is read under the tutelage of different Fathers.” (pp. 140, 142-143)

Yes, indeed. Call no man your “father”…

Mr Costello feels guilty about dentention of migrants

“The point is reasonable but the presentation provocative”, says Michelle Grattan about the Treasurer’s Sydney Institute Speech. We agree. Of course citizenship means embracing the values of the nation (which are currently a subject of debate in themselves). But why the needless provocative statements about a particular faith/cultural group within Australia? Why not, as Grattan suggests, target “sophisticated globalised workers”? Why not those immigrants who bring gang warfare and organised crime to Australia? Is there another agenda here?

In the speech, Mr Costello described a citizenship ceremony he attended.

“One of the speakers this year extolled the virtues of multiculturalism telling those attending that becoming an Australian did not mean giving up culture or language or religion or opinions and it certainly did not mean giving up the love of their country of birth. The longer he went on about how important it was not to give up anything to become an Australian the more it seemed to me that, in his view, becoming an Australian didn't seem to mean very much at all – other than getting a new passport.”

While I support Mr Costello’s call for newcomers to embrace “Australian values” (which, as far as I can tell, are the humanitarian values of people of good will everywhere), may I suggest that this still need not necessitate the renunciation of the peculiar cultural practices and values of the place of origin. The only exception, of course, would be where those peculiar practices and values conflict with Australian law. Did Mr Costello need to attack a particular segment of the Australian migrant society to get this message across?

As an aside, I wonder if Mr Costello is aware of the double meaning behind his thoughts at the citizenship ceremony: “At this point, I was feeling quite guilty that we had detained these good people so long.” Is this the apology we have been waiting for so long?

The Letter of the Conscientious Dissenters

Thanks to Pete for this link to the text of the letter to the CDF about George Pell.

http://nationalcatholicreporter.org/update/aus_cdf_letter.pdf

Where did Vatican II say you would find the Word of God?

This morning, on the Stephen Crittenden show, we received further enlightenment about the agenda of the “Conscientious Objectors”. It seems that in thinking their argument with Cardinal Pell was simply over a misunderstanding of meaning of the word “conscience” in Catholic theology, I had underestimated their capacity for obfuscation . It now seems that what they really don’t understand is what the Church (yes, even the post-Vatican II Church) means when she speaks of “The Word of God”.

Cardinal Pell has insisted that above and beyond any doctrine of the “primacy of conscience” must be a doctrine of the “primacy of the Word of God”. I would have thought that this was fairly uncontroversial. Not only in the Catholic tradition, but even—or should I say “especially”?—strong in the Protestant tradition is the conviction that one’s conscience is not simply what one thinks or prefers, but is ultimately bound by the objective Word of God. When Luther declared (if he ever did declare) “Here I stand, I can do no other”, it was because he felt his conscience bound by the Word of God, which had the primary claim upon his conscience and to which he submitted his conscience.

Now what did Luther mean by “Word of God”? Did he mean the Word of God as he found it in his family, in his community, in his soul, in himself? Did the word come to him from through listening to his wife [yes, I know he wasn’t married until 1525, but bear with me here], his mother, the ABC [or whatever its 16th Century equivalent was]?

No? Strange about that, because that’s where Judge Chris Geraghty claims to look for the Word of God. Moreover, he insists that the Church teaches that Word of God is to be found in all these places, in addition to the Church, the liturgy, and the Bible. Moreover, he challenges Cardinal Pell “to deny that the Second Vatican Council said that the word of God is in the community, it’s in the world, in the signs of the times, as well as in the Bible, as well as in the church”.

I think the onus of proof is on Judge Geraghty’s side, rather than Cardinal Pell’s. According to the Vatican II Dogmatic Constitution Dei Verbum §10:

“Sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture form one sacred deposit of the word of God, committed to the Church. …But the task of authentically interpreting the word of God, whether written or handed on, (8) has been entrusted exclusively to the living teaching office of the Church, (9) whose authority is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ… It is clear, therefore, that sacred tradition, Sacred Scripture and the teaching authority of the Church, in accord with God's most wise design, are so linked and joined together that one cannot stand without the others, and that all together and each in its own way under the action of the one Holy Spirit contribute effectively to the salvation of souls.”

There is, therefore, only one deposit of the Word of God, written in the scriptures and transmitted by sacred tradition, which the bishops (such as Cardinal Pell) have been authorised exclusively to interpret.

Judge Geraghty challenges Cardinal Pell’s definition of the Word of God. I challenge Judge Geraghty to come up with any passage in either the documents of the Second Vatican Council or the Catechism of the Catholic Church that uses the term “Word of God” to refer to anything other than either 1) the Second Person of the Trinity who became Incarnate in Jesus Christ; or 2) the “single deposit” of God’s Word found in Scripture and Sacred Tradition.

I do not deny that the Word of God can be “in the community”, “in the world”, or even “in the words of my wife”, but it is “in” these places in the same sense that the Word of God could be said to be “in” a forest, if perchance Christ should be walking through the forest, or if the Scriptures were to be read and proclaimed in such a place. For the Word of God is not simply “in the Bible” in the sense that the Bible contains the Word of God. Rather it is the Scriptures, in the same sense that the Eucharist is the body and blood of Jesus Christ and does not only contain it. Thus, just as the Church teaches that Christ is present in many places other than the Eucharist, nevertheless, Christ is said to be present in the Eucharist in a way superior to all others. Thus the Second Vatican Council taught that “the Sacred Scriptures contain the word of God and since they are inspired really are the word of God.” (DV §24, my emphasis). Thus the Scriptures truly are the Word of God in a “supreme” manner.

Against this clear teaching of Vatican II, Judge Geraghty asserts that the idea that “the Bible remains supreme” is simply “fundamentalism”, like that of “the fundamentalist Muslims and the fundamental Christians”. It disturbs me that a man who has proven himself to be a highly respected and competent member of the legal profession can so easily have misinterpreted the clear written words of the Second Vatican Council on such a fundamental issue.

This blog has gone on long enough. But here’s your chance to do a little role play. Pretend that you are Archbishop Levada. It is your job to respond to the letter of complaint from the Australian dissenters. All you have at your disposal by which to judge their complaint is the section on the “moral conscience” in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Now write your letter of reply.

A real hoot! Cardinal Pell and the New Inquisitors

It has a certain logic.

You belong to the Catholic Church, but you believe orthodox Catholic doctrine allows you to dissent from the teachings of its magisterium on the basis of the “freedom of conscience”.

A prominent local bishop teaches that “freedom of conscience” does not excuse voluntary members of the Catholic Church from the obligation to conform their public life and teaching to Catholic doctrine.

You believe that such a position dissents from orthodox Catholic doctrine.

So you lodge a complaint about the said bishop’s “dissent” to the Catholic Church’s doctrinal watchdog, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, whose responsibility it is to pull such dissenters into line.

To add even more charm to this logic, the bishop against whom you are complaining was for some time a member of the CDF.

And they wonder why they haven’t received a reply…

In case you don’t know what I’m talking about, have a read of this article in today’s edition of THE AGE.

Frank Purcell says that “the issue was an important question of religious freedom”. I would suggest that one excercises one freedom in this regard by a choice of whether to belong to the Catholic Church or not. When I became a Catholic, there were a number of points on which my views differed from the views of the Church. My conscience, however, required that if I were embracing the Church because I recognised her teaching authority, I could not then pick and choose which of her teachings I would regard as authoritative.

I’m not going to go into all the questions of the primacy of conscience here at this point—it is not a simple argument. One of the main difficulties is that moderns tend to think of “conscience” to mean either “what I want” or “my opinion” or “what I feel”. When the Church talks about conscience, she means none of these things. Cardinal Pell knows that, but I don’t think his complainants do.

If you want to read what Cardinal Pell has written on conscience, have a look at: “The Inconvenient Conscience” (First Things). If you want to read the opposite view, have a look at: “A Catholic Social Conscience: Can it be reclaimed for our time” by Fr Frank Brennan SJ, who, at the launch of the ACBC Pastoral Letter on the Media, stated that it was possible for a Catholic in good conscience to support the RU486 bill.

As the good Cardinal himself has said: “This is a real hoot. Such well-known defenders of orthodoxy as Paul Collins, Veronica Brady and Max Charlesworth appealing to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.”

We too enjoy the joke.

Archbishop Fitzgerald Reassigned: What does it mean?

I arrived at work this morning to the news that Archbishop Fitzgerald (President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue) has been reassigned as Nuncio to Egypt. There has been a good deal of speculation about this, but the reports that I find most interesting are in Catholic World News and John Allen’s Word from Rome.

Even before I read Allen’s comments, I asked myself “Is this to be read as a vote of no confidence in Mons. Fitzgerald?”, and answered “No, not possible” for two reasons: 1) as Allen reports, Fitzgerald is very moderate in his approach, and I would say that he has always represented the Church in interfaith affairs with the greatest fidelity; 2) he would have to be the Vatican’s most expert theologian in the dialogue between Muslims and Christians. When I put the last consideration together with the fact that the Al-Azhar University is in Egypt, and the Vatican relates to Al-Azhar as the major partner in the dialogue with Islam, the whole thing “clicked”, and (if you will excuse my lack of humility) I felt confident that I could see what Benedict is thinking on this.

CWN reports that “his departure may be a signal that the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue will be eliminated”. That may be the hope of a certain element “right-of-centre” Catholicism that has never accepted the fact that the Church is committed to interreligious dialogue, but I don’t believe a word of it. It would certainly be a very counter-intuitive move in a “post-Sept-11” world. The work of the Ecumenical and Interfaith Commission in Melbourne has more than doubled in the last five years and all because of the importance that interfaith dialogue has on the Melbourne scene. I believe this is mirrored in other dioceses, and can’t for the life of me see how it does not apply to the Vatican. I also can’t square this forecast with the Pope’s own stated commitment to interreligious relations.

I had the pleasure of being a part of a conference in which the Archbishop was the key facilitator back in 2002. I credit him with “converting” me (a very conservative convert to Catholicism) to the value of interfaith dialogue. I have been hoping ever since that he would be recognised with a cardinal’s hat, and acknowledge that his redeployment to Egypt will at least put this development on hold. I hope, however, that John Allen is right in suggesting that this may simply be a “detour” rather than a “roadblock” along that road.

It could well be that Pope Benedict is less concerned with his prelates’ career paths, and more concerned with getting the right man for the job (ie. putting people where their Spirit-given gifts can shine for all the world to see). For which we would all be thankful.

Schönborn, Barr, and William of Baskerville

First came Cardinal Christof Schönborn’s New York Times essay last July. Then came Stephen Barr’s critique in the October edition of First Things. Now Cardinal Schönborn’s response from the January edition of First Things is available for online reading. Keep an eye on the First Things website for when they make Stephen Barr’s response in the February edition available online. The discussion is one of the most fascinating to and fro’s since America carried the Universal/Local Church debate between Cardinals Kasper and (then) Ratzinger.

What intrigued me most about Cardinal Schönborn’s reply? The simple statement that:

“Modern science first excludes a priori final and formal causes, then investigates nature under the reductive mode of mechanism (efficient and material causes), and then turns around to claim both final and formal causes are obviously unreal, and also that its mode of knowing the corporeal world takes priority over all other forms of human knowledge.”

The illogical circularity of the argument is more than evident, as is the hubris involved. I also appreciate the good Cardinal’s insistence that he is not arguing theology over against science (which would, he demonstrates, be simply positing deism over against positivism, when in fact the two tend to coexist quite happily) but rather using philosophy to critique both the positivistic approach of ideological “science” and deistic theologies which claim that intelligent causation in nature can only be known by faith (which, he notes, is a curious new application of the dictum “sola fides”).

Schönborn also raises the point that the notion of “randomness” plays a “quite different role in thermodynamics, quantum theory, and other natural sciences” compared to “the randomness of neo-Darwinian biology”. In the case of the first, he says, “the random behaviour of parts is embedded in and constrained by a deeply mathematical and precise conceptual structure of the whole that makes the overall behaviour of the system orderly and intelligible.” “Randomness” in Neo-Darwinian biology, however, is supposed to be completely unrelated to anything. “Yet”, he points out, “out of all that unconstrained, unintelligible mess emerges, deus ex machina, the precisely ordered and extraordinarily intelligible world of living organisms.” As Fr Neuhaus would say: “Go figure.”

Schönborn takes up Barr’s excellent example of the randomness of numberplates observed on a transcontinental road journey. Yes, the state of registration for each successive numberplate is “random” in the sense of unpredictable, but when one stands back, one can detect a pattern, viz. that in each state through which one passes, numberplates from that state predominate. Thus, the Darwinian “takes a very narrow view of the supposedly random variation that meets his gaze”, whereas, “if he steps back and looks at the sweep of life, he sees an obvious, indeed an overwhelming patter.”

Now I just happen to be rereading Umberto Eco’s Name of the Rose at the moment, and I came across the following passage. The context is this: Br William and Adso have been lost inside the maze of the library, but once outside the library, they survey the aedificium from outside, and use their reason to solve the puzzle of the labyrinth. Br William observes that:

"Thus God knows the world, because He conceived it in His mind, as if from the outside, before it was created, and we do not know its rule, because we live inside it, having found it already made...The creations of art [such as the aedificium, can be known from the outside], because we retrace in our minds the operations of the artificer. Not the creations of nature, because they are not the work of our minds."

While, William of Baskerville seems to deny that which Cardinal Schönborn insists upon, nevertheless there is a connecting point on which they agree. Whereas the physicist can (to a certain extent) stand outside of any (for eg.) thermodynamic system he may create, the neo-Darwinist (like the rest of us) is hindered in the search for an observable design or pattern in biology simply from the fact that he too is a part of the biological labyrinth. Br William observes that “the creations of art” can be known from the outside “because we retrace in our minds the operations of the artificer”, that is, we have enough in common with the artist that we can understand the making of brush strokes and the mixing of paints. But do our intellects have enough in common with the Intellect that designed the world in which we live to be able to detect the “intelligent design” within that universe? Cardinal Schönborn insists that the Catholic tradition answers this question an emphatic “Yes”. We shall wait to see what Stephen Barr has to say…

If the other really became my brother

Zenit has published a short meditation by Archbishop Vincent Landel of Rabat in response to the publication of cartoons on Mohammed in the Western press. Christians and Muslims and indeed all people of goodwill will find this is worth thinking about.

* * *

If the other really became my brother!

Is not this the question one must ask given the debate in the media?

If the other really became my brother, could I question the faith that makes him live?

Could I ridicule his beliefs in one way or another?

If the other really became my brother, could I speak of freedom without living respect?

If the other really became my brother, could I reject him with violent acts against his person or properties?

If the other really became my brother, could I allow myself to speak negatively about him behind his back? Could I allow myself to destroy even his privacy?

If the other really became my brother, I could really meet him in truth; we could speak simply, even if we don't agree on everything.

If the other really became my brother, meeting with him would make me grow, and I am certain he would also grow.

If the other really became my brother, our gazes would meet and a real smile would illuminate our faces.

If the other really became my brother, what an exciting world we could build!

Details of the Bankstown debate--if you're game

Here are the actual details about the debate to which I referred earlier. The first one was tonight, the next tomorrow night and the final one next Saturday. If you go down to the woods tonight…

Commencing Friday 17 February in Sydney:  

Debate: Christianity or Islam? Which is from God?
SPEAKERS: DIAA MOHAMED (Australian New Muslim Association) and PETER BARNES (Pastor of Revesby Presbyterian Church)

Three separate events at Bankstown Town Hall: Cost: $5.00
Bankstown Town Hall Civic Centre, Cnr Chapel & Rickard Roads Bankstown, Sydney NSW

7.00pm Friday, 17 February - God's Word: The Bible or the Quran?
7.00pm Saturday, 18 February - Is Jesus Lord?
7.00pm Saturday, 25 February - The Way to Paradise

There will be about 30 minutes available for questions, and at about 10.00 p.m.
there will be time to mingle and talk over tea or coffee.

Two book tables will be present, one Islamic and one Christian.
(Please note: The evening will begin with a recitation from the Quran. Segregation of women from men will be by personal choice. The Talks will be videoed by Christians and Muslims)

Further enquiries: (02) 9774 5740

Jesus and Muhommed explain about those cartoons...

Christians are inveterate bloggers, but I wonder if you knew that Muslims are into the game as well. It is really interesting to read some of their blogs, to get a perspective on what’s going down in their community.

One that I can recommend is called “Dervish”, by a local Melbourne Muslim woman, Yasmin. Her blogs are interesting, and so are the comments left by her readers.

Her most recent blog suggests that you click this link only if you have a sense of humour. I would suggest that the sense of humour is required for both Muslims and Christians viewing this little animated cartoon. Nevertheless, I found it a scream!

To Debate or Dialogue, that is the question...

Here’s a worry.

I like debating, but I am in the business of dialogue. I know that sometimes a debate can be a dialogue, especially if it is between two people who, like me, find that the best way to open your mind up to another’s point of view is to have a bloody good argument with them in which you both push your point of view so hard and so inflexibly that you begin to see how ridiculous your own point of view is and come to appreciate the view of the “opposition”. In this way you can often creep up on Truth by creating a noisy diversion.

There are not a lot of people like me (thank God).

Most people are either “dialoguers” who would run a mile from a real, honest to goodness “debate”, or “debaters” who are not really interested in what the other person thinks, but rather in scoring points against them.

That’s why the upcoming round of “debates” between Dr Peter Barnes (of Sydney’s First Presbyterian Church) and Diaa Mohamed of the Australian New Muslim Association beginning at the Bankstown Town Hall on Friday night (Feb 17th), scares me witless. There are to be three debates, one on Friday, one on Saturday and one Saturday week, on the overall theme of “Christianity or Islam: which is from God?”

If I were in Sydney, you couldn’t keep me away from this event (that’s the debater in me speaking), but at the same time if I had half a chance I would grab both parties by the ears and say “What on earth do you think you are doing?” (that’s the dialoguer in me—I think…). The flyer I saw said that there will be “coffee and tea afterwards so that everyone can mingle and chat”. Yeah? I hope so. Mingle and chat is what you do during a dialogue event (see the last blog); debates tend to get feelings rather more heated up. Does Sydney really need this at the moment—especially in the context of the Cronulla riots and the Danish cartoons?

Now, in case you are wondering, I understand that this event has been organised by the ANMA, not by the Presbyterians. I know that there is an obligation in Islam to take Christians to task on matters of faith, just as there is in Christianity to be ready at all times to give an account for the faith that we have, but is this the way to go? I’m as keen for serious scholarly and passionate debate as the next bloke or blokette, but let this be done in a controlled environment, eg. over a meal and glass of red—or coffee, if it is with our Muslim brethren and sistern. Not in public in a heated atmosphere where tempers could flair and insults be hurled etc. etc., where the good things that both have to say will be lost in the desire to “score points” and “to win” the debate. What will they suggest next? A “worm” to see what the audience approval is?

I commend ANMA and the First Presbyterian Church for coming together to discuss such important issues. I hope and pray that when it comes to coffee and tea afterwards people are still in the mood to “mingle and chat”.

Eating and drinking our way to peace and harmony...

Sorry I haven’t been blogging much in the last few days. We have been very busy at the Ecumenical and Interfaith Commission. On Tuesday morning, the good folk of the Australian Intercultural Society came around to the Archdiocesan offices to share “Noah’s Pudding” with us on the occasion of “Ashura”. The AIS are a very “ambassadorial” Turkish Muslim group, from the Sunni tradition. I became aware while planning the occasion that there is some tension between the way in which Sunni and Shiite Muslims commemorate Ashura, but we did it the Sunni way on Tuesday. Delicious pudding with very open question and answer time on Islam.

Then last night the Commission met with the Victorian Lutheran ecumenical committee over a meal of lasagne and a glass (or two or three) of red.

And next week we have the pleasure of hosting a Catholic Buddhist conversation over afternoon tea. Our guest of honour is Samdhong Rinpoche who is part of the Tibetan “Government in Exile” and close to the Dalai Llama.

I said to one of my colleagues today that we are slowly eating and drinking our way to peace and harmony…

Luther: "Abused Child" who started a "new religion"??

OK, so maybe Charlene Spretnak was an odd person for the National Catholic Reporter to ask to do a review on Is the Reformation Over? An evangelical assessment of contemporary Roman Catholicism, by Mark A. Noll and Carolyn Nystrom.  She rightly points out that there are many aspects of the contemporary Catholic Church that the authors have failed to grasp or to which they have paid insufficient attention. Nevertheless, she is hardly one to throw stones, as her own outrageous assessment of Lutheranism demonstrates:

“Luther, however, shaped his new religion around his formative experiences. As a boy, he was routinely beaten severely by his father, and occasionally by his mother, so grew to believe, like most abused children, that he was an unlovable person. Later he joined an Augustinian order of friars because of St. Augustine’s emphasis on our sinful nature, our state of fallenness and possible redemption. Luther was known to spend hours in the confessional, only to emerge feeling that he was so bad and unworthy that he had failed to enter a state of grace because he suspected he had not been sufficiently sincere; he would say his penance and then go right back into the confessional. In short, the sacrament of confession (reconciliation) never worked for him, and he was known in the monastery for his gripping fear that he would never be worthy of salvation.

“Once Luther decided to make his break from the Catholic church, even Protestant biographers are somewhat embarrassed by the crude, vulgar language with which he described and addressed the pope and his envoys. Clearly, he was making a powerful, energizing strike against the “bad father.” Once that was accomplished, Luther returned to his original concern: his inherent unworthiness before the “good father,” or God. His new version of Christianity emphasized the “radical sinfulness” of humans, the inconsequential nature of the sacraments (except baptism and ordination, called by Protestants “ordinances”), the “radical sovereignty” of a distant God (no more co-unfolding with divine presence of the organisms in Creation, as St. Thomas Aquinas had perceived), and the reactive sweeping away of nearly everything except the Bible, the one touchstone needed for faith in God.”

Where does one start to critique such a caricature? Well, the job must be done…

1. Spretnak drags out and embellishes a now outdated and discredited “psycho-analytic” explanation for the Lutheran reformation, viz. that Luther was driven by guilt arising from abuse by his father. Luther scholars—especially Catholics such as Joseph Lortz and Peter Manns—of the past century have situated him within the spiritual movements of his time, and come to appreciate the positive aspects his own personal mysticism, especially his “theology of the cross”. This historical contextualisation makes Spretnak’s amateurish explanations unnecessary.

1. Luther did not “shape” a “new religion”. A new Christian movement emerged from his teaching and preaching. Her claim that Luther “decided to make his break from the Catholic church” (later in the review) is just as erroneous. He was excommunicated for teachings that did not concur with the Catholic faith. Lutherans today vehemently insist that he did not make a conscious decision to “break” from the mater ecclesia, rather, his goal was the reformation of the Church.

1. Luther did have a radical understanding of the sinfulness of human beings, but he also knew the joy of forgiveness. He prized the sacrament of confession, and said he would run 100 miles for the comfort afforded by such a treasure. He insisted that this sacrament be retained by the Church.

1. Lutheranism did not go about “jettisoning the entire sacramental orientation of Catholicism” (another claim made in the review). It retained the sacramental, incarnational approach to Christianity, especially the validity and saving grace of baptism (including infant baptism) and a vigorous defence of the Real Presence in the Eucharist. Further, ordination was retained as a rite of the Church, and this alone gave an individual the right to preach or administer the sacraments.

1. His “crude, vulgar language” is only an embarrassment to Puritans. Luther was a German who enjoyed his beer and a good laugh (even a bit of toilet humour). Yes, his language about his opponents could be very colourful, but his preaching about the grace of Christ and the virtues of the Blessed Virgin could be sublime.

1. Luther did not preach “the radical sovereignty of distant God” (she is confusing Lutheranism with Calvinism). God’s indwelling in the believer through Christ in faith and the radical totality of the incarnation are central to Lutheran teaching. In particular the Lutherans taught (over against the Calvinists) that in Jesus “the finite was capable of the infinite” (finitum capax infinitum).

Luther erred, yes. That’s why he was excommunicated. His error lay most in rejecting the authority of the Church and refusing to submit to that authority. Spretnak is attacking a make-believe Luther for make-believe errors. There were Protestants who taught the things Spretnak claims Luther taught, but he wasn’t one of them.

RU-486? Males can butt out!

In the RU-486 debate, a disturbing point of view has been widely expressed, viz. that reproduction of the species is a female only affair: males should butt out. In a letter in this morning’s edition of The AGE, Liz Conor expresses this idea concisely while neatly combining it with a related notion that those with religious convictions share the same disqualification: “Come on Tony [Abbott], as if this isn't about you being a Catholic and a male.”

Lyn Allison, the Democrat leader, also believes that RU-486 is a gender issue. After the Senate debate, she rejoiced that the vote was "overwhelmingly carried by women", while “the case against was largely that of men, and men in the Coalition party."

The implication: only the female of the species has a moral right to express an opinion about the future propagation of the human race.

Another Senator, Liberal Judith Troeth, said that the success of the private members bill (brought by five cross-party female senators) shows “that women can unite on things that matter to them, and choice is what matters to us," she said.

There are shades of the same thought in Kate Mannix’s article in Online Opinion “Pro-choice and Catholic: a mother’s story”.

I really feel sorry about the reaction of her “wonderful priest” to her new-born daughter. I’ve met priests like that—for that matter, I’ve met men and women in and out of the church who have either an aversion to children or no interest in them. On the other hand, I have seen celibate male clergy go quite gooey over babies at times…

I also acknowledge that, regrettably, the greater part of the burden of parenthood still routinely falls upon the mother.

Nevertheless, I cannot accept her implication that men have no place in the debate over the ethics of abortion, or that the choice of whether to continue or terminate a pregnancy belongs 100% to the pregnant woman herself.

OK. Lets have a bit of “purification of reason” here.

I grant that if the RU-486 issue is about “choice”, and that if the outcome of that choice affects only the woman who exercises that choice and no-one else, then this should be a “women’s issue” and men should “butt out”.

But it isn’t just about “choice”, is it? Nor is it just “about women”. The unborn child, the father of the child, our society and culture, and the human race as a whole is affected by the “choice” that some women wish to exercise in the area of “reproductive rights”.

Men, even religious men, have a right to speak and to be heard because this issue affects them too.

Burial of the Dead: a "corporal work of mercy"

Credo drew my attention to this story in Whispers in the Loggia.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says:

2300 The bodies of the dead must be treated with respect and charity, in faith and hope of the Resurrection. The burial of the dead is a corporal work of mercy [cf. Tob 1:16-18]; it honours the children of God, who are temples of the Holy Spirit.

A Lutheran clergy-friend of mine once reported to our Pastors Conference his admiration for the care with which our Jewish brothers and sisters ministered to their dead. He outlined at length the history that the Christian Church has in the same ministry and proposed that local congregations also do what it takes to learn how to provide funerals for those who cannot afford the high costs of modern funeral companies—all the way from making the coffin to lowering it into the hole.

Its an idea still waiting for action from Australia’s Christian churches.

Burial of the Dead: a "corporal work of mercy"

Credo drew my attention to this story in Whispers in the Loggia.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says:

2300 The bodies of the dead must be treated with respect and charity, in faith and hope of the Resurrection. The burial of the dead is a corporal work of mercy [cf. Tob 1:16-18]; it honours the children of God, who are temples of the Holy Spirit.

A Lutheran clergy-friend of mine once reported to our Pastors Conference his admiration for the care with which our Jewish brothers and sisters ministered to their dead. He outlined at length the history that the Christian Church has in the same ministry and proposed that local congregations also do what it takes to learn how to provide funerals for those who cannot afford the high costs of modern funeral companies—all the way from making the coffin to lowering it into the hole.

Its an idea still waiting for action from Australia’s Christian churches.

The DaVinci Challenge

Showing soon at a computer near you…

Here’s a surprise for the books. Catholic News Agency reports that Sony Motion pictures is actually launching a site where critics of the “The Da Vinci Code” can publish their views. Just a publicity stunt? Maybe. We’ll wait and see.

The site is not quite up and running yet, but check this space: www.thedavincichallenge.com

Catholics, Evangelicals and Muslims together in the Trenches

This is something worth noting. Though the bill has passed in the Senate, and looks like doing so in lower house as well, one of the most significant outcomes of the RU-486 debate in terms of ecumenical and interfaith relations is this joint statement by the  Muslim Students Association of Australia, The Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students and The Australian Catholic Students Association.

While there are many who may be amazed that the three faiths can actually speak with one voice on anything at all, many others have been expecting and calling for just such a united voice on the important moral issues of the day.

Peter Kreeft, in his book “Ecumenical Jihad: Ecumenism and the Culture Wars”, suggests that the “Culture War” will not be won by Catholics, or Evangelicals, or even a united Christian front alone, but rather by the combined witness of believers of all religions to the value of human morality and virtue.

If you want to know what is meant by the term “ecumenism of the trenches”, then this joint statement by the Students is a good example. We will need more of the same to follow as our parliamentary “leaders” seem bent on “leading” the whole of Australian Society down the gurgler…

Burial of the Dead: a "corporal work of mercy"

Credo drew my attention to this story in Whispers in the Loggia.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says:

2300 The bodies of the dead must be treated with respect and charity, in faith and hope of the Resurrection. The burial of the dead is a corporal work of mercy [cf. Tob 1:16-18]; it honours the children of God, who are temples of the Holy Spirit.

A Lutheran clergy-friend of mine once reported to our Pastors Conference his admiration for the care with which our Jewish brothers and sisters ministered to their dead. He outlined at length the history that the Christian Church has in the same ministry and proposed that local congregations also do what it takes to learn how to provide funerals for those who cannot afford the high costs of modern funeral companies—all the way from making the coffin to lowering it into the hole.

Its an idea still waiting for action from Australia’s Christian churches.

Archbishop Fitzgerald: "Interrelgious Relations Today"

On the 6th March 2005, only week’s before the death of John Paul II, Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, the President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, delivered a public lecture at the Xavier College in Cincinnati, USA, entitled “Interreligious Relations Today: the remarkable relevance of Nostra Aetate”. The lecture was printed in the most recent edition of Pro Dialogo (Bulletin 119, 2005/2). Archbishop Fitzgerald kindly gave the the Ecumenical and Interfaith Commission permission to publish the lecture on our website.

I recommend it to anyone wanting to know what about the current state of Catholic interfaith dialogue.

Archbishop Fitzgerald: "Interrelgious Relations Today"

On the 6th March 2005, only week’s before the death of John Paul II, Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, the President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, delivered a public lecture at the Xavier College in Cincinnati, USA, entitled “Interreligious Relations Today: the remarkable relevance of Nostra Aetate”. The lecture was printed in the most recent edition of Pro Dialogo (Bulletin 119, 2005/2). Archbishop Fitzgerald kindly gave the the Ecumenical and Interfaith Commission permission to publish the lecture on our website.

I recommend it to anyone wanting to know what about the current state of Catholic interfaith dialogue.

Archbishop Fitzgerald: "Interrelgious Relations Today"

On the 6th March 2005, only week’s before the death of John Paul II, Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, the President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, delivered a public lecture at the Xavier College in Cincinnati, USA, entitled “Interreligious Relations Today: the remarkable relevance of Nostra Aetate”. The lecture was printed in the most recent edition of Pro Dialogo (Bulletin 119, 2005/2). Archbishop Fitzgerald kindly gave the the Ecumenical and Interfaith Commission permission to publish the lecture on our website.

I recommend it to anyone wanting to know what about the current state of Catholic interfaith dialogue.

Year of Grace update

I have added another day of my conversion story to the Year of Grace retro-blog

Year of Grace update

I have added another day of my conversion story to the Year of Grace retro-blog

Fr John Navone: "Are there any Catholic Theologians?"

This morning I popped into the Daniel Mannix Library to look up an article in the January 2006 edition of the English Dominican journal “New Blackfriars” for my friend, the Lutheran pastor of Geelong, Dr. Adam Cooper. His Durham University thesis (“The Body in St. Maximus the Confessor: Holy Flesh, Wholly Deified”) had received a favourable mention in the first article in this edition.

The article immediately after this however caught my eye. It was entitled “Are there any Catholic Theologians?” and was written by Jesuit Father John Navone of the Gregorian University in Rome.

In this article, Fr Navone cobbles together a bunch of great stuff, including

• The Hartfort Appeal (1975, “Appeal for Theological Affirmation”) – an early statement of reaction against the new liberalism by the likes of Avery Dulles and Fr R. J. Neuhaus, but with a number of other interesting American Evangelical names attached.


• Several articles and books on the battle between Catholics and Evangelicals in Latin America (including “The Battle for Latin America’s Soul” by Richard Ostling (1991), David Stoll’s “Is Latin America Turning Protestant?” and David Martin’s “Tongues of Fire: The Explosion of Protestantism in Latin America”)


• The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Declaration “Dominus Iesus” (2000)


• Avery Dulles’ “Principles of Catholic Theology” (Pro Ecclesia, 7/1, 1999—the whole document is not available online, but is summarised on this link by Fr Navone himself)


• And finally an “endnote” from Evangelical writer Timothy Wallace on the distinction between “A God-centred theology” and “A man-centred theology”.

A strange assortment indeed. What is the thrust of Fr Navone’s commentary? That Catholicity implies both fullness and purity, while the mission of the Church must be carried out with a simultaneous commitment to Love and Truth (I think B16 would concur).

Specifically he says:

• “The liberal-conservative rift that undermines the Church’s unity and mission can, at least in part, be explained by a failure to integrate the apostolic and the Catholic aspects of our ecclesial identity and the objective and subjective aspects of the human person.”


• “A new apologetics in a new evangelisation will, following Christ’s example, combine truth with charity. Apologists need both clear minds and open hearts.”


• “Catholic Christianity adheres to the fullness of the given, cleaves to God’s Yes in Christ, and rejects all that stands in opposition to him. Catholicity therefore implies both fullness and purity. Any version of Christianity that is not Catholic is to that extent deficient.”

So, hands up if there are any Catholic theologians out there!

Fr John Navone: "Are there any Catholic Theologians?"

This morning I popped into the Daniel Mannix Library to look up an article in the January 2006 edition of the English Dominican journal “New Blackfriars” for my friend, the Lutheran pastor of Geelong, Dr. Adam Cooper. His Durham University thesis (“The Body in St. Maximus the Confessor: Holy Flesh, Wholly Deified”) had received a favourable mention in the first article in this edition.

The article immediately after this however caught my eye. It was entitled “Are there any Catholic Theologians?” and was written by Jesuit Father John Navone of the Gregorian University in Rome.

In this article, Fr Navone cobbles together a bunch of great stuff, including

• The Hartfort Appeal (1975, “Appeal for Theological Affirmation”) – an early statement of reaction against the new liberalism by the likes of Avery Dulles and Fr R. J. Neuhaus, but with a number of other interesting American Evangelical names attached.


• Several articles and books on the battle between Catholics and Evangelicals in Latin America (including “The Battle for Latin America’s Soul” by Richard Ostling (1991), David Stoll’s “Is Latin America Turning Protestant?” and David Martin’s “Tongues of Fire: The Explosion of Protestantism in Latin America”)


• The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Declaration “Dominus Iesus” (2000)


• Avery Dulles’ “Principles of Catholic Theology” (Pro Ecclesia, 7/1, 1999—the whole document is not available online, but is summarised on this link by Fr Navone himself)


• And finally an “endnote” from Evangelical writer Timothy Wallace on the distinction between “A God-centred theology” and “A man-centred theology”.

A strange assortment indeed. What is the thrust of Fr Navone’s commentary? That Catholicity implies both fullness and purity, while the mission of the Church must be carried out with a simultaneous commitment to Love and Truth (I think B16 would concur).

Specifically he says:

• “The liberal-conservative rift that undermines the Church’s unity and mission can, at least in part, be explained by a failure to integrate the apostolic and the Catholic aspects of our ecclesial identity and the objective and subjective aspects of the human person.”


• “A new apologetics in a new evangelisation will, following Christ’s example, combine truth with charity. Apologists need both clear minds and open hearts.”


• “Catholic Christianity adheres to the fullness of the given, cleaves to God’s Yes in Christ, and rejects all that stands in opposition to him. Catholicity therefore implies both fullness and purity. Any version of Christianity that is not Catholic is to that extent deficient.”

So, hands up if there are any Catholic theologians out there!

Year of Grace update

I have added another day of my conversion story to the Year of Grace retro-blog

Fr John Navone: "Are there any Catholic Theologians?"

This morning I popped into the Daniel Mannix Library to look up an article in the January 2006 edition of the English Dominican journal “New Blackfriars” for my friend, the Lutheran pastor of Geelong, Dr. Adam Cooper. His Durham University thesis (“The Body in St. Maximus the Confessor: Holy Flesh, Wholly Deified”) had received a favourable mention in the first article in this edition.

The article immediately after this however caught my eye. It was entitled “Are there any Catholic Theologians?” and was written by Jesuit Father John Navone of the Gregorian University in Rome.

In this article, Fr Navone cobbles together a bunch of great stuff, including

• The Hartfort Appeal (1975, “Appeal for Theological Affirmation”) – an early statement of reaction against the new liberalism by the likes of Avery Dulles and Fr R. J. Neuhaus, but with a number of other interesting American Evangelical names attached.


• Several articles and books on the battle between Catholics and Evangelicals in Latin America (including “The Battle for Latin America’s Soul” by Richard Ostling (1991), David Stoll’s “Is Latin America Turning Protestant?” and David Martin’s “Tongues of Fire: The Explosion of Protestantism in Latin America”)


• The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Declaration “Dominus Iesus” (2000)


• Avery Dulles’ “Principles of Catholic Theology” (Pro Ecclesia, 7/1, 1999—the whole document is not available online, but is summarised on this link by Fr Navone himself)


• And finally an “endnote” from Evangelical writer Timothy Wallace on the distinction between “A God-centred theology” and “A man-centred theology”.

A strange assortment indeed. What is the thrust of Fr Navone’s commentary? That Catholicity implies both fullness and purity, while the mission of the Church must be carried out with a simultaneous commitment to Love and Truth (I think B16 would concur).

Specifically he says:

• “The liberal-conservative rift that undermines the Church’s unity and mission can, at least in part, be explained by a failure to integrate the apostolic and the Catholic aspects of our ecclesial identity and the objective and subjective aspects of the human person.”


• “A new apologetics in a new evangelisation will, following Christ’s example, combine truth with charity. Apologists need both clear minds and open hearts.”


• “Catholic Christianity adheres to the fullness of the given, cleaves to God’s Yes in Christ, and rejects all that stands in opposition to him. Catholicity therefore implies both fullness and purity. Any version of Christianity that is not Catholic is to that extent deficient.”

So, hands up if there are any Catholic theologians out there!

What's wrong with "Church as Koinonia of Salvation" (Round 10 of US Catholic Lutheran dialogue)

And just briefly while I’m on about the US Catholic-Lutheran dialogue…

The last round (Round 10) ended in the publication of a joint statement entitled: “The Church as Koinonia of Salvation: its structures and ministries”. Father Neuhaus made the following comments in The Public Square:

It says here that an important document from the official Lutheran-Catholic dialogue will be released in April. It is called “The Church as Koinonia of Salvation: Its Structures and Ministries.” Auxiliary bishop of Milwaukee, Richard J. Sklba, is quoted by Catholic News Service: “Five years of intensive and meticulous research have produced a striking consensus within our dialogue group. It has become very clear to me that the differences between our respective Lutheran and Catholic notions and practices of ministry are not church-dividing.” Among Lutheran “notions and practices” today are these: an absence of the ordained diaconate, the election of pastors to the title of bishop without ordination to the episcopate, the ordination of pastors, including women, by other pastors, and, in the absence of an episcopal magisterium, the determination of matters doctrinal, moral, and institutional by majority vote of a dominantly lay assembly. “We continue to pray for the gift of reconciliation for our churches,” said Bishop Sklba. And so must we all, while some of us might be forgiven for also harboring a measure of skepticism about the aforementioned differences not being church-dividing. On the other hand, who knows what may be possible when dogma, doctrine, and apostolic precedent are more flexibly understood as “notions and practices”? With strenuously disciplined enthusiasm we await the April document. A specific date is not given, but one assumes it will not be April 1. (In truth and very seriously, I expect the document will be a significant theological statement and that the bishop in his remarks was just momentarily carried away.)

I share all RJN’s concerns, but what really bothers me is a serious error in category so integral to the statement itself that it almost makes the entire “agreement” worthless, namely: the equation of Catholic category of “bishop” to Lutheran category of “President/Bishop” (both under the category of “episcopus”), and the correlated equation of the Catholic category “diocese” to the Lutheran category of “synod” (both under the category of “local church”). [Remember, this is the US dialogue. What I am about to say does not apply to the Scandinavian Churches which retained the office of bishop and the three-fold ordained ministry of bishop, priest and deacon at the time of the Reformation.]

The old adage “if it looks like a duck, and walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it must be a duck” fails in this case. Yes, Lutheran “bishops” (or “Presidents” as they are called here in Australia) do seem to do all the episcopal type things that a Catholic bishop does. In fact, in the Lutheran Church of Australia, while the actual title “bishop” has not been adopted, successive General Synods have gradually increased the episcopal role played by the President of the Church. Nevertheless, the President is most emphatically, in Lutheran theology, not a “bishop”, and no Lutheran would ever regard the area over which the president has jurisdiction as the “local church”.

In most Lutheran Churches (excluding the Scandinavians as I point out above), there is only one office of the ministry, that of the ordained pastor, and the “local church” is that place where the word and sacraments are locally proclaimed and administered, ie. the local congregation. For the sake of good order and unity, congregations in a geographic area who share the same confession of faith may form a “synod” and elect a synodical “superintendent” (the term originally used in Germany for the “president”) from among the pastors of those congregations to have jurisdiction over the synod. In his office, however, the Superintendent retains the status of “pastor”, along the lines of being “the first among equals”. In fact:

• The office of president is temporary.


• When a “president” retires, he is no longer a “president” but a simple pastor.


• When a “president” visits a congregation, the pastor of the parish retains the sole right to exercise the office of the keys through preaching, absolving and celebrating the sacrament. The “president” comes as a guest who can only exercise these functions in the parish if invited to do so.

From this it can be seen that, whereas “The Church as Koinonia” makes the following equations “Bishop = President” and “Diocese = Synod”, the real equation should be “Bishop = Pastor” and “Diocese = Congregation”. In the end, the relationship in the Lutheran Church between the President and the Pastors has much in common with the relationship in the Catholic Church between the Pope and the bishops. Its just that in the Lutheran Church there are no “presbyters” as a distinct order below that of “episcopus”!

What's wrong with "Church as Koinonia of Salvation" (Round 10 of US Catholic Lutheran dialogue)

And just briefly while I’m on about the US Catholic-Lutheran dialogue…

The last round (Round 10) ended in the publication of a joint statement entitled: “The Church as Koinonia of Salvation: its structures and ministries”. Father Neuhaus made the following comments in The Public Square:

It says here that an important document from the official Lutheran-Catholic dialogue will be released in April. It is called “The Church as Koinonia of Salvation: Its Structures and Ministries.” Auxiliary bishop of Milwaukee, Richard J. Sklba, is quoted by Catholic News Service: “Five years of intensive and meticulous research have produced a striking consensus within our dialogue group. It has become very clear to me that the differences between our respective Lutheran and Catholic notions and practices of ministry are not church-dividing.” Among Lutheran “notions and practices” today are these: an absence of the ordained diaconate, the election of pastors to the title of bishop without ordination to the episcopate, the ordination of pastors, including women, by other pastors, and, in the absence of an episcopal magisterium, the determination of matters doctrinal, moral, and institutional by majority vote of a dominantly lay assembly. “We continue to pray for the gift of reconciliation for our churches,” said Bishop Sklba. And so must we all, while some of us might be forgiven for also harboring a measure of skepticism about the aforementioned differences not being church-dividing. On the other hand, who knows what may be possible when dogma, doctrine, and apostolic precedent are more flexibly understood as “notions and practices”? With strenuously disciplined enthusiasm we await the April document. A specific date is not given, but one assumes it will not be April 1. (In truth and very seriously, I expect the document will be a significant theological statement and that the bishop in his remarks was just momentarily carried away.)

I share all RJN’s concerns, but what really bothers me is a serious error in category so integral to the statement itself that it almost makes the entire “agreement” worthless, namely: the equation of Catholic category of “bishop” to Lutheran category of “President/Bishop” (both under the category of “episcopus”), and the correlated equation of the Catholic category “diocese” to the Lutheran category of “synod” (both under the category of “local church”). [Remember, this is the US dialogue. What I am about to say does not apply to the Scandinavian Churches which retained the office of bishop and the three-fold ordained ministry of bishop, priest and deacon at the time of the Reformation.]

The old adage “if it looks like a duck, and walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it must be a duck” fails in this case. Yes, Lutheran “bishops” (or “Presidents” as they are called here in Australia) do seem to do all the episcopal type things that a Catholic bishop does. In fact, in the Lutheran Church of Australia, while the actual title “bishop” has not been adopted, successive General Synods have gradually increased the episcopal role played by the President of the Church. Nevertheless, the President is most emphatically, in Lutheran theology, not a “bishop”, and no Lutheran would ever regard the area over which the president has jurisdiction as the “local church”.

In most Lutheran Churches (excluding the Scandinavians as I point out above), there is only one office of the ministry, that of the ordained pastor, and the “local church” is that place where the word and sacraments are locally proclaimed and administered, ie. the local congregation. For the sake of good order and unity, congregations in a geographic area who share the same confession of faith may form a “synod” and elect a synodical “superintendent” (the term originally used in Germany for the “president”) from among the pastors of those congregations to have jurisdiction over the synod. In his office, however, the Superintendent retains the status of “pastor”, along the lines of being “the first among equals”. In fact:

• The office of president is temporary.


• When a “president” retires, he is no longer a “president” but a simple pastor.


• When a “president” visits a congregation, the pastor of the parish retains the sole right to exercise the office of the keys through preaching, absolving and celebrating the sacrament. The “president” comes as a guest who can only exercise these functions in the parish if invited to do so.

From this it can be seen that, whereas “The Church as Koinonia” makes the following equations “Bishop = President” and “Diocese = Synod”, the real equation should be “Bishop = Pastor” and “Diocese = Congregation”. In the end, the relationship in the Lutheran Church between the President and the Pastors has much in common with the relationship in the Catholic Church between the Pope and the bishops. Its just that in the Lutheran Church there are no “presbyters” as a distinct order below that of “episcopus”!

US Catholic-Lutheran Dialogue, the Joint Declaration, and Purgatory

CNA reports that the US Catholic-Lutheran Dialogue is starting a new round of discussions, this time on “The Hope of Eternal Life”. If that sounds a bit wishy washy as a topic for dialogue, think again. They intend to discuss “differences between Catholics and Lutherans over the Christian's life beyond death, especially as regards purgatory, indulgences, and masses and prayers for the dead.” Ie. All the hot issues are on the agenda except Mary and the Saints (which was already dealt with in a previous round).

What can we hope will the outcome be? Better information, at least. Many Lutherans suspect that although Catholics say they believe in justification by faith in Christ through grace, their practices and beliefs do not bear this out (see “The Indulgence Controversy, Again” by Michael Root). According to CNA, Bishop Richard Sklba, Catholic auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee says that he “is interested in making sure Catholic practices reflect the Joint Declaration”.

While Bishop Richard may be right (ie. that we Catholics have a responsibility as Catholics to make sure that our practices accord with the JDDJ), I rather suspect that the task of dialogue in this regard will be to make quite plain to non-Catholics that what they perceive as a contradiction between our stated belief and our practice is in fact perfectly congruent. In other words, it is not the practices themselves that need to be altered, but our understanding and explanation of the practices.

One small example: if we talk about Purgatory in terms of “satisfaction” (as has been traditional), our dialogue partners will see “works righteousness” in flashing neon signs all around it. On the other hand, if we emphasise that purgatory is a “purification” in preparation for the beatific vision (and make it clear that it is God who purifies us, not we ourselves), then “justification by faith” is not so apparently excluded by the teaching of purgatory.

US Catholic-Lutheran Dialogue, the Joint Declaration, and Purgatory

CNA reports that the US Catholic-Lutheran Dialogue is starting a new round of discussions, this time on “The Hope of Eternal Life”. If that sounds a bit wishy washy as a topic for dialogue, think again. They intend to discuss “differences between Catholics and Lutherans over the Christian's life beyond death, especially as regards purgatory, indulgences, and masses and prayers for the dead.” Ie. All the hot issues are on the agenda except Mary and the Saints (which was already dealt with in a previous round).

What can we hope will the outcome be? Better information, at least. Many Lutherans suspect that although Catholics say they believe in justification by faith in Christ through grace, their practices and beliefs do not bear this out (see “The Indulgence Controversy, Again” by Michael Root). According to CNA, Bishop Richard Sklba, Catholic auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee says that he “is interested in making sure Catholic practices reflect the Joint Declaration”.

While Bishop Richard may be right (ie. that we Catholics have a responsibility as Catholics to make sure that our practices accord with the JDDJ), I rather suspect that the task of dialogue in this regard will be to make quite plain to non-Catholics that what they perceive as a contradiction between our stated belief and our practice is in fact perfectly congruent. In other words, it is not the practices themselves that need to be altered, but our understanding and explanation of the practices.

One small example: if we talk about Purgatory in terms of “satisfaction” (as has been traditional), our dialogue partners will see “works righteousness” in flashing neon signs all around it. On the other hand, if we emphasise that purgatory is a “purification” in preparation for the beatific vision (and make it clear that it is God who purifies us, not we ourselves), then “justification by faith” is not so apparently excluded by the teaching of purgatory.

Vatican Statement on the Cartoon Affair

The Vatican Press Office has issued a statement with regard to the Cartoon Affair. It is an “unsigned” statement, so we don’t know exactly from which office it emanated. The statement condemns:

• Any assertion of a “right” to offend the religious sentiment of believers in the name of the right to freedom of thought and expression


• Forms of exasperated criticism or derision of others which manifest a lack of human sensitivity


• Any reaction in the face of offense which fails the true spirit of all religion, eg. reactions of violent protest

The voice of reason.

Vatican Statement on the Cartoon Affair

The Vatican Press Office has issued a statement with regard to the Cartoon Affair. It is an “unsigned” statement, so we don’t know exactly from which office it emanated. The statement condemns:

• Any assertion of a “right” to offend the religious sentiment of believers in the name of the right to freedom of thought and expression


• Forms of exasperated criticism or derision of others which manifest a lack of human sensitivity


• Any reaction in the face of offense which fails the true spirit of all religion, eg. reactions of violent protest

The voice of reason.

What's wrong with "Church as Koinonia of Salvation" (Round 10 of US Catholic Lutheran dialogue)

And just briefly while I’m on about the US Catholic-Lutheran dialogue…

The last round (Round 10) ended in the publication of a joint statement entitled: “The Church as Koinonia of Salvation: its structures and ministries”. Father Neuhaus made the following comments in The Public Square:

It says here that an important document from the official Lutheran-Catholic dialogue will be released in April. It is called “The Church as Koinonia of Salvation: Its Structures and Ministries.” Auxiliary bishop of Milwaukee, Richard J. Sklba, is quoted by Catholic News Service: “Five years of intensive and meticulous research have produced a striking consensus within our dialogue group. It has become very clear to me that the differences between our respective Lutheran and Catholic notions and practices of ministry are not church-dividing.” Among Lutheran “notions and practices” today are these: an absence of the ordained diaconate, the election of pastors to the title of bishop without ordination to the episcopate, the ordination of pastors, including women, by other pastors, and, in the absence of an episcopal magisterium, the determination of matters doctrinal, moral, and institutional by majority vote of a dominantly lay assembly. “We continue to pray for the gift of reconciliation for our churches,” said Bishop Sklba. And so must we all, while some of us might be forgiven for also harboring a measure of skepticism about the aforementioned differences not being church-dividing. On the other hand, who knows what may be possible when dogma, doctrine, and apostolic precedent are more flexibly understood as “notions and practices”? With strenuously disciplined enthusiasm we await the April document. A specific date is not given, but one assumes it will not be April 1. (In truth and very seriously, I expect the document will be a significant theological statement and that the bishop in his remarks was just momentarily carried away.)

I share all RJN’s concerns, but what really bothers me is a serious error in category so integral to the statement itself that it almost makes the entire “agreement” worthless, namely: the equation of Catholic category of “bishop” to Lutheran category of “President/Bishop” (both under the category of “episcopus”), and the correlated equation of the Catholic category “diocese” to the Lutheran category of “synod” (both under the category of “local church”). [Remember, this is the US dialogue. What I am about to say does not apply to the Scandinavian Churches which retained the office of bishop and the three-fold ordained ministry of bishop, priest and deacon at the time of the Reformation.]

The old adage “if it looks like a duck, and walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it must be a duck” fails in this case. Yes, Lutheran “bishops” (or “Presidents” as they are called here in Australia) do seem to do all the episcopal type things that a Catholic bishop does. In fact, in the Lutheran Church of Australia, while the actual title “bishop” has not been adopted, successive General Synods have gradually increased the episcopal role played by the President of the Church. Nevertheless, the President is most emphatically, in Lutheran theology, not a “bishop”, and no Lutheran would ever regard the area over which the president has jurisdiction as the “local church”.

In most Lutheran Churches (excluding the Scandinavians as I point out above), there is only one office of the ministry, that of the ordained pastor, and the “local church” is that place where the word and sacraments are locally proclaimed and administered, ie. the local congregation. For the sake of good order and unity, congregations in a geographic area who share the same confession of faith may form a “synod” and elect a synodical “superintendent” (the term originally used in Germany for the “president”) from among the pastors of those congregations to have jurisdiction over the synod. In his office, however, the Superintendent retains the status of “pastor”, along the lines of being “the first among equals”. In fact:

• The office of president is temporary.


• When a “president” retires, he is no longer a “president” but a simple pastor.


• When a “president” visits a congregation, the pastor of the parish retains the sole right to exercise the office of the keys through preaching, absolving and celebrating the sacrament. The “president” comes as a guest who can only exercise these functions in the parish if invited to do so.

From this it can be seen that, whereas “The Church as Koinonia” makes the following equations “Bishop = President” and “Diocese = Synod”, the real equation should be “Bishop = Pastor” and “Diocese = Congregation”. In the end, the relationship in the Lutheran Church between the President and the Pastors has much in common with the relationship in the Catholic Church between the Pope and the bishops. Its just that in the Lutheran Church there are no “presbyters” as a distinct order below that of “episcopus”!

US Catholic-Lutheran Dialogue, the Joint Declaration, and Purgatory

CNA reports that the US Catholic-Lutheran Dialogue is starting a new round of discussions, this time on “The Hope of Eternal Life”. If that sounds a bit wishy washy as a topic for dialogue, think again. They intend to discuss “differences between Catholics and Lutherans over the Christian's life beyond death, especially as regards purgatory, indulgences, and masses and prayers for the dead.” Ie. All the hot issues are on the agenda except Mary and the Saints (which was already dealt with in a previous round).

What can we hope will the outcome be? Better information, at least. Many Lutherans suspect that although Catholics say they believe in justification by faith in Christ through grace, their practices and beliefs do not bear this out (see “The Indulgence Controversy, Again” by Michael Root). According to CNA, Bishop Richard Sklba, Catholic auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee says that he “is interested in making sure Catholic practices reflect the Joint Declaration”.

While Bishop Richard may be right (ie. that we Catholics have a responsibility as Catholics to make sure that our practices accord with the JDDJ), I rather suspect that the task of dialogue in this regard will be to make quite plain to non-Catholics that what they perceive as a contradiction between our stated belief and our practice is in fact perfectly congruent. In other words, it is not the practices themselves that need to be altered, but our understanding and explanation of the practices.

One small example: if we talk about Purgatory in terms of “satisfaction” (as has been traditional), our dialogue partners will see “works righteousness” in flashing neon signs all around it. On the other hand, if we emphasise that purgatory is a “purification” in preparation for the beatific vision (and make it clear that it is God who purifies us, not we ourselves), then “justification by faith” is not so apparently excluded by the teaching of purgatory.

Vatican Statement on the Cartoon Affair

The Vatican Press Office has issued a statement with regard to the Cartoon Affair. It is an “unsigned” statement, so we don’t know exactly from which office it emanated. The statement condemns:

• Any assertion of a “right” to offend the religious sentiment of believers in the name of the right to freedom of thought and expression


• Forms of exasperated criticism or derision of others which manifest a lack of human sensitivity


• Any reaction in the face of offense which fails the true spirit of all religion, eg. reactions of violent protest

The voice of reason.

Year of Grace: My Conversion Story Blog

I have opened up a new blog called "Year of Grace". I call it a "retro-blog" as I am using it to post the journal I kept between Easter 2000 and Easter 2001, the year in which I journeyed from Lutheran Pastor to Catholic layman. From time to time (as I edit my scribbles from that year) I will post a new section. You will have to read it backwards, as with any blog, to get the story in sequence.

Year of Grace: My Conversion Story Blog

I have opened up a new blog called "Year of Grace". I call it a "retro-blog" as I am using it to post the journal I kept between Easter 2000 and Easter 2001, the year in which I journeyed from Lutheran Pastor to Catholic layman. From time to time (as I edit my scribbles from that year) I will post a new section. You will have to read it backwards, as with any blog, to get the story in sequence.

Year of Grace: My Conversion Story Blog

I have opened up a new blog called "Year of Grace". I call it a "retro-blog" as I am using it to post the journal I kept between Easter 2000 and Easter 2001, the year in which I journeyed from Lutheran Pastor to Catholic layman. From time to time (as I edit my scribbles from that year) I will post a new section. You will have to read it backwards, as with any blog, to get the story in sequence.

B16 to Ecumenists: "Let us not be discouraged!"

Credibility (sadly closing his blog on the Feast of St Joseph) put this story up recently:

Once it was announced that the devil was going out of Business, and would sell all his tools to whoever would pay his price. On the night of the sale he had his tools attractively displayed. They were a bad looking lot; hatred, envy, jealousy, sensuality, deceit and all his other tools.

They were all spread out, each marked with its price. Apart from the rest lay a harmless-looking, wegde-shaped tool, much worn and priced higher than all the other tools. Someone asked the devil what the tool was.

"Thats discouragement", the devil replied.

"Why is it so high priced?"

"Because," the devil replied, "It is more useful to me than any of the others. I can pry open and get into a mans conscience with that when I couldn't get near him with any of the others; and when once inside I can use him in whatever way suits me best. It is so much worn because I use i with nearly everybody. Very few people know it belongs to me."

The Devil’s price for discouragement was so high that it never sold. He still owns and uses it.

It’s a good story, that can help us in the area of Ecumenism too. Pope Benedict recently told the meeting of European ecumenists in Rome:

"We have such a long way to go! But let us not be discouraged; rather, let us start out again together with greater vigour. We can count on Christ's unfailing presence; humbly and tirelessly, we beg him for the precious gift of unity and peace."

As the theme for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity states: “If two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven (Mt 18: 19)”. Let’s agree on this, and not fall prey to the prowling lion of discouragement!

(P.S. The other thing to do, when feeling a bit discouraged, is to have a good laugh. Humour is not one of the Devil’s tools. For further discussion, see Umberto Eco’s “Name of the Rose” etc.)