I can't resist it...

I have to say something about Brian Coyne's letter to the Papal Nuncio in Catholica. I have no news whatsoever about the rumours to which he refers (I'm not THAT well connected--and if I knew something like that it wouldn't be worth my job to open my mouth about it!), but I was interested in his rhetoric. Try this on for size:

My own journal is principally not a news journal but a journal of opinion and an initiative from a group of like-minded lay people who are endeavouring to reach out to the educated sections of the 85% who have become highly disillusioned with the institutional Church.

I take it he means the 85% who put themselves down as Catholics on the Census but don't go to mass. Is he saying that all of these 85% are the educated ones and the rest of us are the dolts? No, I don't think so. But he is aiming only at the "educated sections" of these 85%. That's good. Leaves the other 84% for us remaining 15% as we go about the program of re-evangelising the Church.

Archbishop Chaput — the extremist and fundamentalist Capuchin Bishop from Denver

I get it. Faithful, obedient, dutiful, evangelicalistic, magisterial = "extremist and fundamentalist". Go Your Grace! Whoo, whoo!

I suggest to you, Your Excellency, that there are an increasing body of educated Catholics in this country who are no longer prepared to be treated as "little children" and idiots.

Well, there are days when I feel like an idiot, but in general, I will always be happy to be considered one of the "little children" for the likes of whom the Kingdom of Heaven is prepared.

At last: A real date for the Motu Proprio on the 1962 Rite?

Fr Z. at What Does the Prayer Really Say has this:

IT’S COMING - MOTU PROPRIO - 7 JULY

On Wednesday afternoon the Secretary of State, Tarcisio Card. Bertone gave the Motu Proprio to 30 bishops from around the world on Wednesday afternoon in the Apostolic Palace. The bishops were explicitly chosen and invited for this. (I am guessing that they were heads of Bishops Conferences.) Pope Benedict XVI later came to the meeting. The document is three pages long, though what the format is in not revealed. The Pope’s accompanying letter is four pages.

It is clear from the way this was done that the Holy Father wanted to make sure that bishops got this document in this way, rather than having to read about it in the paper. I assume that what will happen now is that these bishops, if they are heads of conferences, will return home and distribute the document to the bishop members of the conference.

[UPDATE: They are not only heads of conferences: H.E. Archbp. Raymond Burke of St. Louis and H.E. Sean Card. O’Malley of Boston was there, whether because of this meeting or a coincidental meeting is not clear.]

The general publication is 7 July.

His source was Kath.net for those of you who would like the original German (The Cafeteria is Closed has a full translation). The Kath.net report says that Cardinal Lehmann was there as the head of the German Conference. I wonder if Archbishop Wilson was called in?

Australian Census figures on Religion Released

The figures have been released from the Australian Census 2006 regarding religion (full details here). We will have to wait for the National Church Life Survey results to get the nitty gritty details, but here are the facts:

Buddhism..........................418,756 (2.11%)
Christianity: .................12,685,836 (63.89%)
Anglican .......................3,718,252 (18.73%)
Assyrian Apostolic..................8,189 (0.04%)
Baptist ..........................316,738 (1.60%)
Brethren ..........................24,232 (0.12%)
Catholic .......................5,126,880 (25.82%)
Churches of Christ ................54,822 (0.28%)
Eastern Orthodox..................544,160 (2.74%)
Jehovah's Witnesses................80,919 (0.41%)
Latter Day Saints .................53,199 (0.27%)
Lutheran .........................251,107 (1.26%)
Oriental Orthodox..................32,711 (0.16%)
Other Protestant ..................56,106 (0.28%)
Pentecostal ......................219,689 (1.11%)
Presbyterian & Reformed...........596,671 (3.01%)
Salvation Army ....................64,200 (0.32%)
Seventh-day Adventist .............55,251 (0.28%)
Uniting Church .................1,135,427 (5.72%)
Christian nfd.....................313,190 (1.58%)
Other Christian ...................34,093 (0.17%)
Hinduism ..........................148,119 (0.75%)
Islam ............................340,392 (1.71%)
Judaism ...........................88,831 (0.45%)
Aboriginal Religions ...............5,377 (0.03%)
Other Religious Groups ...........103,645 (0.52%)
No religion.....................3,706,555 (18.67%)
Other religious affiliation.......133,820 (0.67%)
Not stated .....................2,223,957 (11.20%)
Total .........................19,855,288(100.00%)

The really interesting thing is to look at the increases or decreases in respect to the increase or decrease of population. Here are those categoriest that have grown faster than the population growth (figures given here are the category growth since 2001 percentage minus the population growth since 2001 percentage, which is 5.79%):

Hinduism.......................49.35%
No Religion....................21.76%
Brethren.......................19.42%
Christian (no further detail)..17.86%
Other Religious Groups.........16.71%
Religious affiliation not stated..15.37%
Islam..........................15.10%
Buddhism.......................11.24%
Assyrian Apostolic............. 9.40%
Pentecostal.....................7.10%
Oriental Orthodox...............6.18%
Other Protestant...............0.96%
Latter Day Saints..............0.79%


All that points to really interesting times ahead for the Australian religious scene.

Catholics only had a 2.50% rise--which is 3.29% less than the population. So effectively we went backwards. It might be tempting to say "Not as backwards as some", but we should note that in the 2001 Census we had a 4.22% rise (still 1.50% less than the population rise), so we are going backwards even against our previous levels of growth.

The bottom line: We haven't hit the bottom of the J-curve yet.
The bottom question: Is there going to BE a J-curve?

Mr Marco Speaks of His Reception

We can't call him Fr Marco any more. Or Pastor Marco as I knew him. He's just plain old Mr Marco, Catholic (unemployed) layman. We have welcomed him and Penny already in a blog below, but I would like to draw you to his simple but firm statement on his blog here. Although he denies that what he has been through is a "conversion" (in this he is in harmony with many of us "converts"), yet there is an element of conversion involved. As Marco puts it:

Baptism - the first act of God in our life - calls for a response: faith. This faith, however, needs an object. My baptism calls me to completely surrender myself to Jesus. I am called to move from hearing to listening. My personal and individual response of faith outside of the context of God’s Church is bond to become subjective and based on emotion. Faith requires a context, the Church. My surrender to Jesus requires that I listen to his voice in the world, his Church.

Becoming a Catholic is a conversion of heart toward listening to Jesus speaking in his Church. It is an act of trust and faith--naturally only possible by grace alone--whereby one ceases to listen to the voice of the Catholic Church with an "hermeneutic of suspicion" and instead learns to listen with an attentive and docile heart, a heart willing to be taught, corrected and confirmed. To have a heart like this is to have the heart of Mary, and to have the heart of Mary is indeed to be converted.

Why would you bother?

Its cold and wet outside today, so I am afraid that I will not be able to indulge myself in my favourite pastime--but there are plenty out there puffing away on their cigarettes.

I have never smoked cigarettes, personally. I had one once and wondered "why bother?". Now that is a question that applies doubly to this thing:



An article in today's The Age explains all about it.

Me? I'll stick with one of these, thanks:

The Limbo Document: A sterling example of how Catholics do theology

It is possible to speak endlessly about how Catholics do theology in theory, but (notwithstanding some legitimate criticisms here and here in the First Things blog) I have found the International Theological Commission's document "THE HOPE OF SALVATION FOR INFANTS WHO DIE WITHOUT BEING BAPTISED" to be an excellent example of the way in which Catholics do theology in practice.

It is to be noted that this is a statement by theologians, and theologians do not (unless they are bishops) participate in the charism of infallibility given to the magisterium of the Church. They do, however, serve the Church's magisterium through their scholarship. The statement was released with the approval of Pope Benedict, but that does not mean it is authorative or that it is a statement of the Church's position. It is only what it claims to be: a reflection on a unclear matter by theologians.

For all that, it is striking the way in which this document handles Scripture, the Canons of the Councils, pronouncements of Popes, the writings of the Fathers, the opinions of the Scholastics and modern theologians as it discusses the question of the fate of infants who die without baptism. There has, throughout history, clearly been a "hands off" approach to the matter on the part of the Popes and the wider Magisterium--and for one good reason (as the document points out): the answer has not been revealed to us. Some things have been revealed to us (such as the doctrine of Original Sin and the Necessity of Baptism), and the document is quite clear that it regards these doctrines of the faith as rock solid and non-negotiable.

But what most fascinates me is the way in which these theologians handle two authorities--Scripture and the Sensus Fidelium--on the matter. Scripture is definitely used (in the final conclusion) to critique the doctrine of Limbo. But also, the whole motivation for the document is a pastoral one: the Faithful have shown that they are not completely satisfied with what the Church has said (or not said) on this matter up to this point. The Augustinian option (that all who are not baptised are damned to everlasting torment in Hell even if their only stain is original sin) is sensed by the Faithful as all together beyond what they know of God's nature revealed to them in Christ. And so, while the Sensus Fidelium is a difficult beast to put one's finger on (it doesn't, for instance, manifest itself in democratic lay synods), nevertheless we see it at work here. It appears that the role which the Sensus Fidelium plays in the development of doctrine is not so much to give the answer as to ask the question.

Regarding the Development of Doctrine, the document has this to say in its introduction:

The treatment of this theme must be placed within the historical development of the faith. According to Dei Verbum 8, the factors that contribute to this development are the reflection and the study of the faithful, the experience of spiritual things, and the teaching of the Magisterium. When the question of infants who die without baptism was first taken up in the history of Christian thought, it is possible that the doctrinal nature of the question or its implications were not fully understood. Only when seen in light of the historical development of theology over the course of time until Vatican II does this specific question find its proper context within Catholic doctrine. Only in this way - and observing the principle of the hierarchy of truths mentioned in the Decree of the Second Vatican Council Unitatis redintegratio (#11) – the topic can be reconsidered explicitly under the global horizon of the faith of the Church. This Document, from the point of view of speculative theology as well as from the practical and pastoral perspective, constitutes for a useful and timely mean for deepening our understanding this problem, which is not only a matter of doctrine, but also of pastoral priority in the modern era.

Anyway, I commend the document for your reading. I especially commend it because, I agree with Robert T. Miller's assessment:

It is in many ways unlovely, being excessively long and repetitious and full of sometimes unintentionally humorous irrelevancies;... For all its faults, however, the document gets right the essential point: “Our conclusion is that [there are]...grounds for hope that unbaptized infants will be saved and enjoy the beatific vision” (no. 102), but “the church does not have sure knowledge about the salvation of unbaptized infants” because “the destiny of...infants who die without baptism has not been revealed to us, and the church teaches and judges only with regard to what has been revealed” (no. 79) [My emphasis].

Scripture and Tradition in Catholicism and Lutheranism: A reply to Curtis

Pastor Weedon has supplied the text of an article which was published in the Lutheran Forum (Subscription only) (courtesy of the author) in the comments section of my second last blog post called "THE RELATION BETWEEN THE BIBLICAL AND CATHOLIC PRINCIPLES" by HEATH R. CURTIS (Lutheran Forum 39.4(Winter 2005): 20-24).

There is a great deal that is good and valuable in this essay, but I must say it had me running back to the safe arms of Mummy (Holy Mother Church) on more than a number of occasions. It reminded me of how, as a Lutheran pastor, I was really left to work it all out for myself "in fear and trembling" (as they say)--and often in open combat with my fellow Lutherans. As a Catholic, I have the blessed relief of simply pointing people to the Catechism. Call me lazy if you like, but the task of trying to form a personal infallible opinion on every article of Christian doctrine is simply beyond my human ability (even in the grace of Christ!).

What can be said about this essay? It is very complicated. I want to agree with a lot of it. I have put ticks next to the following statements (with the qualification that they are true as far as they go). Maybe this is one of those situations which really calls for the methods outlined by Pastor Pearce in his recent blog on polemical theology. Alas, I am too lazy and a blog post is not the best medium for such work. Here's what I agree with:

• The Word alone established dogma.
• the point is not how Augustine or Chrysostom interpreted a given passage but how that passage has been received by the entire Church catholic.
• The bible is the Church's book and it cannot be understood or interpreted rightly outside the Church and neither can the Church stand apart from God's Word.
• How can I be sure that I have all the right books [in scripture]? The traditionalist Romanists [eg. me and Pope Benedict] answer this question definitively by the authority of the bishops and dogmatically declared the canon of scripture at Trent.
• The tradition of the Church is our only link to the apostolic scriptures--the Church handed them down to us and they also handed down their interpretation.

But there is so much that raises questions for me. The WEAKEST point of the whole essay is that which addresses the actual definition of what is and is not "scripture":

Lutherans are historical Christians taking the information that the Church handed down concerning the canon and accepting it. So, the Lutherans take seriously the doubt expressed by the Early Church about the apostolicity of seven of the books in the New Testament (the antilegomena books: James, Jude, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude, Hebrews, Revelation) and refuse to give them strictly equal status with the twenty sure and certain homolegoumena books of the New Testament (see Luther's Prefaces to these books; Chemnitz Examen I,192; and Pieper, Christian Dogmatics III.330-338). Likewise, Lutherans express grave doubts about the Greek portions of the Old Testament ("apocryphal" or "deutero-canonical" books) yet encourage their reading and even quote one of them (2 Macc.) as "Scripture" in their confessional writings (Ap. XXI.8-9; see also Ap. IV.156ff.)

This is scarey stuff. Consider that the arguement of the paper is that Scripture alone determines dogma, but then Lutherans (according to this paper, which I think is a little skewiff on this matter) hedge their bets on certain books of scripture which have been unanimously accepted as Word of God since the early centuries of the Church.

Part of the difficulty is in the definition of what is and what is not "Word of God". See the previous blog on this matter, but in short, the Catholic Church also believes that no doctrine can be established which is not clearly revealed in the Word of God, but does not restrict God's revealed Word to the written scriptures of the Old and New Testament. The burden of proof remains with the Lutheran parties to demonstrate (yea, even on the basis of Scripture alone) that only the written scriptures may be regarded as Word of God and therefore as the foundation and source of all doctrine.

Another part of the difficulty is that the whole discussion is couched in relation to "Scripture and Tradition". But the Catholic Church knows at least two (in fact three) other players in the determination of doctrine. The first is the living magisterium of the pastors of the Church. What gives the New Testament its authority is the fact that it is written and attested to by the Apostles. But while God's revelation ended with the death of the last apostle, the apostolic authority to teach did not, and continues in the body of men we call "bishops". Even Lutherans today struggle with the question of the degree to which their pastors (as a body) have authority and responsibility for teaching in the Church. We Catholics are definite about the matter: our bishops have the authority to judge authentic Catholic doctrine.

In fact, Curtis' paper is overly concerned with the question of whether Scripture norms the Tradition or the Tradition norms the Scripture. At times he ends up in a circle: Tradition determines the authentic interpretation of Scripture, but "the perspicuity of the Scriptures reins in the fanciful interpretations" offered by the Tradition. He is at a loss to explain why the ecumenical councils of the "undivided church" ("in particular, the first four"--why exactly?) have pride of place in the Lutheran canon. He is at a loss to say what it means that "the whole church" receives a certain tradition. What he is grouping for is the doctrine of the authoritative living Magisterium. It is this Magisterium alone which has determined what elements of the Tradition are authentic and authoritative.

Furthermore, it isn't quite true to say that Scripture gives us dogma and Tradition gives us interpretation. Scripture does have doctrinal/creedal statements, but such statements make up a small percentage of the scriptural material. On the other hand, the Tradition (or in fact, the Magisterium as recorded in the Tradition) is the "go-to" source of declarations and definitions of dogma. The Tradition did not "invent new doctrines" mind you, but throughout history has specifically declared what is to be regarded as the true Catholic faith.

Ah, there is so much here. It really can't all be dealt with at once. By the way, you will have noticed that I said "at least two (in fact three) other players in the determination of doctrine" in the Catholic Church. They are:

1) The Prophetic and Apostolic Scriptures
2) The Sacred Tradition
3) The Living Magisterium
4) The Successor of Peter
5) The Sensus Fidelium

The relationship between all these is an intricate one, and has worked mighty well over the centuries. I believe that it is the security of this matrix of authorities within the Catholic Church which has ensured its faithful survival against the gates of Hell to this day (Past Elder's suspicions not-with-standing). Without all five of these authorities, the Catholic Church would have fallen to the forces of its enemies (most relentless throughout the 20th Century and not showing any sign of letting up in this new century). This is why it, and it alone, remains as the only universal communion of Christians faithful to the Apostolic Deposit of Faith today.

Scripture and Tradition in Catholicism and Lutheranism: A reply to Weedon

This blog could get very complicated. I will try to keep it simple. It is in response to Pastor Weedon's blog on the subject of "The Catholic Principle and Lutheranism". I will address the essay by Heath Curtis in a separate blog.

1) Thanks for the reference to Pius XII Mediator Dei and lex orandi, lex credendi (cf. paras 46-52). It is common knowlege that the princple can be reversed, but I did not know that the reversal had this level of magisterial approval. Certainly the original was that the rule of prayer established the rule of belief. Orthodox Christians have been very faithful to this. However, the Orthodox are missing the essential element of a living magisterium to establish, uphold and clarify the tenants of their faith and so are unable in practice to reverse the principle even if they would agree with it in theory. Lutherans, of course, subject the rule of prayer to the interogation of Scripture (and the Confessions). It is significant that in his encyclical Pius XII does not envisage Scripture as vetoing elements of liturgical or devotional practice, but "the ecclesiastical hierarchy". It is this "hierarchy" which has

organised and regulated divine worship, enriching it constantly with new splendour and beauty, to the glory of God and the spiritual benefit of Christians. What is more, it has not been slow - keeping the substance of the Mass and sacraments carefully intact - to modify what it deemed not altogether fitting, and to add what appeared more likely to increase the honour paid to Jesus Christ and the august Trinity, and to instruct and stimulate the Christian people to greater advantage. (MD p.49)

Furthermore, he acknowledges that there has been a "progress and development of the sacred liturgy during the long and glorious life of the Church" which parallels the development of doctrine, including doctrines of the Word of God, the Eucharistic Sacrifice, and Mary as the Virgin Mother of God (cf. pp. 51ff). In any case, one thing that Pius XII certainly does is maintain the connection between church practice and church dogma in mutual relationship, which Pastor Weedon's scheme tends to separate.

2) Weedon says that

The scriptures provide a negative critique on Tradition: Whatever in Tradition is contrary to the witness of the Sacred Scriptures must be rejected, whatever is not is accepted.

This in fact gets it exactly the wrong way round from Catholic thinking. Catholics regard Sacred Tradition as the safeguard of the Apostolic Faith which was committed to writing in the Sacred Scriptures, rather than the Scriptures as the safeguard of Apostolic Faith which was passed on in Sacred Tradition.

3) Catholics, like Lutherans, are also adamant that

only God's Word shall establish articles of faith, and no one else, not even an angel can do so.

Where we differ is in our understanding and definition of the Word of God. Lutherans equate the Word of God with Sacred Scripture in such a way that the only source of God's Revelation is Sacred Scripture. Catholics understand Word of God to mean the fullness of God's Revelation. What this includes is nicely set out in the Lineamenta for the 2008 Synod of Bishops on the Word of God. In brief, the full revelation of the Word of God includes (cf. para. 9):

a - the Eternal Word of God, the Second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, the Son of the Father
b - the created world [which] “tells of the glory of God” (Ps 19:1
c - “The Word became flesh” (Jn 1:14): The Word of God par excellence, the ultimate and definitive Word, is Jesus Christ.
d - the words of man [which] are taken as the words of God, resounding in the proclamation of the prophets and the apostles
e - Sacred Scripture, under divine inspiration, [which] unites Jesus-the-Word to the words of the prophets and apostles...
f - But the Word of God is not locked away in writing. Even though Revelation ended with the death of the last apostle, the Word-Revealed continues to be proclaimed and heard throughout Church history...through spirited preaching and many other forms in service to the Gospel.

The latter can be taken to include the authoritative teaching role of the Magisterium and by inference the Sacred Tradition of the Church.

4) Pastor Weedon sets up a false dichotomy between "divine mandates" as "the way of the law" and "gifts from the Holy Spirit through the Church for her use...in whatever way best serves the gospel." If something has been given to the Church as a "gift of the Holy Spirit" for the sake of the Gospel, do we in fact have a choice as to whether or not we should use it?

5) Pastor Weedon states that "the present church has authority to regulate" the "ceremonies that have come down to her from antiquity". Did this apply to the Church of the 16th Century? Because if it did, the Lutherans at the time directly opposed the Church's authority to do so. Which raises the question: by Whose authority doest the church regulate matters of ceremony? Is there any other authority than the authority of Christ? and if not, then did the Lutherans of the 16th Century flout the authority of Christ by flouting the authority of the "present church"?

How to spot the difference between a "Confessional" Lutheran and an "Evangelical Catholic" Lutheran

Fr Fenton has a very interesting post over on his Conversi ad Dominum page. I believe his suggestions for Lutheran engagement in dialogue with Orthodox are equally relevant to Lutheran engagement with Catholics in dialogue. For that matter, they are relevant for engagement of anyone in dialogue. Bottom line? If A and B want to dialogue, it is not helpful to start with an "A vs. B" approach to begin with.

But I was intrigued by his mention of the Augustana Ministerium, and his comment that most members

would identify themselves as either "confessional Lutherans" or "evangelical catholics"--or both.

I am intrigued. How does a "confessional" Lutheran differ from an "evangelical catholic" one? And more over, what does it mean to be one but not the other, or (alternatively) both at the same time?

I never reflected on it much when I was a Lutheran. There was a time when I fully owned the "confessional" tag--but became a little uncomfortable with that label after a while and adopted "evangelical catholic". Here's how I understand the two terms.

1) A "Confessional" Lutheran is a Lutheran whose entire theology is constructed through the lense and seive of the Lutheran Confessions. Of course, the Scriptures alone are the only infallible source of all doctrine (the "norma non normata", that is the "un-normed norm" or the "norm which is not measured against any other norm"), because the Confessions say so. But the 16th Century writings gathered together in the 1580 Book of Concord (otherwise known as "The Confessions") are the ultimate benchmark for interpreting any interpretation of scripture or ecclesiastical tradition (although they remain the "norma normata", that is the "normed norm" or the "norm for all teaching measured against no other norm except the Scriptures").

Stick with me if you have followed me this far. The other thing about Confessional Lutherans is that they are quite convinced (with good reason) that there is no other honest way of being Lutheran. To be Lutheran is to be a Confessional Lutheran. If you do not teach according to the Confessions, you are by definition not a real Lutheran. In the end (and I don't want to be unfair here) this can lead to the strange situation where being "confessional" is all about being authentically Lutheran, rather than about seeking that which is universally true.

2) An "evangelical catholic" Lutheran on the other hand is one who is convinced that the Reformation was right in its fundamental proclamation of the gospel (as summarised by the four "solas": Christ alone, faith alone, grace alone and scripture alone). However, they also hold in high regard the teachings of the Church Fathers and the traditions of the pre-Reformation Church--sometimes also the traditions of the present day Catholic Church. Evangelical Catholics believe that the reformation was a "tragic necessity" to return the Church to the truth of the Gospel, but believe that only those doctrines and practices in the Catholic tradition which contradict the Lutheran doctrine of justification ("the article upon which the Church stands or falls") are to be rejected--the rest can be accepted or reinterpreted as necessary. Evangelical Catholics see themselves as a bridge and a via media between two camps (Roman Catholic and Reformed Evangelical): authentically evangelical and authentically catholic.

Now often there is overlap between these two camps. In fact, rarely will you find an Evangelical Catholic Lutheran who does not have a high regard for the Lutheran Confessions. However, over time, the Evangelical Catholic gradually finds himself attempting to do a bit of a "John Henry Newman"/"Tract 90" job on the Lutheran confessions. He finds himself reinterpreting the "norma normata" not only against the Scriptures, but also against the Catholic Tradition. In other words, he begins to slip from the sure and certain ground of confessional Lutheranism (which in its modesty only ever claimed to be certain about what it was to be authentically Lutheran) and begins to ask what it is to be authentically catholic. [For some reason, the question rarely frames itself in terms of what it is to be authentically evangelical.]

He then finds (as Past Elder pointed out recently in the comments) that it is very difficult to be authentically small-c catholic without actually being big-C Catholic. And once he reaches this point he is on the slippery slope downhill to full blown Roman Catholicism. It is well known that few who describe themselves as "Confessional" Lutherans have entered into full communion with the Bishop of Rome. Guided solely by the Lutheran Confessions (interpreted with the backup help of scripture) they know Rome's errors too well to fall for its tricks.

On the other hand, just about every Lutheran convert to the Catholic faith was at some time a self-professed "Evangelical Catholic". As with the Anglo-Catholics, Evangelical Catholics will only ever be secure in the Lutheran Church so long as they remain convinced Confessional Lutherans at the same time. This itself remains difficult, however, because they have already conceded another norm as well as the norm of Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions, namely the Catholic Tradition. And it does not take long for him to realise that his order of authority has shifted from Scripture-Confessions-Tradition to Scripture-Tradition-Confessions. And when this happens he finally realises that the disjunction between the witness of the Tradition and the witness of the Confessions to the apostolic faith is simply too great to be sustained.

Welcome Home, Marco and Penny!

Tonight at 6pm in a private ceremony at the Catholic Church in Waikerie, South Australia, Marco and Penny Vervoost and their small tribe of Vervoostlings were received in the welcoming arms of Holy Mother Church, and into full communion with their Holy Father and cherished brother in Christ, the Bishop of Rome, Papa Benedict XVI. Marco is, of course, the owner of the blog "The Confused Papist". It used to be called "The Confused Anglo Papist", and now, of course, he has dropped the "Anglo" bit (in fact, Marco is actually Germano, but we won't hold that against him). My prayer for him is that now he will be able to drop the "Confused" bit from the title!

That makes him the third Lutheran pastor in Australia to become a Catholic in the last seven (or one hundred and twenty, for that matter) years. Yes, I know that up until tonight, he was in fact an Anglican vicar, but he went through Luther Sem with Peter and me, and he was ordained a Lutheran pastor before he was an Anglican priest, its just that his journey was a little more tortuous than it was for me and Peter. Well, on second thoughts, Peter's was fairly tortuous--he made it all the way to the Catholic Church from the Brethren! Now, Penny, on the other hand, she was raised Baptist, and attended the Baptist Church in Kew as a youngster. So, she has travelled a long way too.

If this is too confusing for you, let me briefly explain the nature of the journey which Marco and Penny, and Peter and Susan, and I have undertaken IN PICTURES. We have gone from this:



To this:



To which I can only say: It's cold outside tonight, folks. Why don't ya' all come on inside?

Papa Benny Quote for the Day

I have very much enjoyed reading the two Homilies of the Holy Father on St Francis made available by Sandro Magister. When I came across this quotation:

Man is truly both greatness and misery: he is greatness, because he bears within himself the image of God and is the object of his love; he is misery, because he can make evil use of the freedom that is his great privilege, ultimately pitting himself against his Creator

I was reminded of a passage from C.S. Lewis' "Prince Caspian", which I read recently to my daughters:

"You come of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve," said Aslan. "And that is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth."

A Lutheran on the Sacrifice of the Mass

It is my great pleasure to recommend to all my readers (especially those interested in the Lutheran Catholic dialogue) an excellent short essay by Pastor William Weedon entitled "Revisiting the Sacrifice of the Mass". The rest of this blog will make no sense to you if you don't take the time to read his essay, so go away now if you are that lazy.

For the rest of you excellent people who are continuing to read this blog (and I gather from that that you have done your homework) here follows my engagement with the excellent Pastor Weedon's points.

First, let me congratulate, Pastor Weedon, on an excellent bit of work. It astounds me that the Lutheran Catholic Dialogue in Australia, which produced the excellent document "Sacrament and Sacrifice", did not see fit to include the references to the Fathers of Lutheran Orthodoxy to which you refer. For I see a distinct shift in understanding and emphasis between the Confessional attacks on "the Sacrifice of the Mass" and the possibilities for dialogue opened up by the reflections of Johann Gerhard and David Hollaz.

(May I just name drop here and note that one of the sources from which Pastor Weedon quotes is Gerhard's "Meditations on Divine Mercy", translated by Pastor Matt Harrison: Matt and his wife shared a house with us at Luther Seminary in North Adelaide when he did an exchange year here in Australia about 20 years ago--I can remember photocopying huge piles of Sasse manuscripts for him in the library. He has made a significant contribution to making the Lutheran fathers available in English--but not, I fear, to the world of banjo playing).

Back to business. When I read the condemnations of the Sacrifice of the Mass from the Lutheran Confessions quoted by Pastor Weedon, I was left with the impression that the Confessions condemn the notion that the Mass as a ceremony in itself, as an action of the priest distinct from the real presence of Christ's body and blood, is a sacrifice. I was not immediately left with the impression, as Pastor Weedon claims, that they opposed

1) the notion that we sinful human beings can participate in the salvific self-oblation of the Lamb of God;
2) that in the Mass the self-offering of the Lamb of God can be “ex opere operato” applied to those who do not even participate at the Holy Table.

Read them yourself and see:

In the third place, the sacrament was not instituted to provide a sacrifice for sin – for the sacrifice has already occurred – but to awaken our faith and comfort our consciences….the Mass is not a sacrifice for others, living or dead, to take away their sins… (AC XXIV:30-34.)

In point of fact there has been only one atoning sacrifice in the world, namely, the death of Christ, as the Letter to the Hebrews teaches… (Ap XXIV:22)

There is also a sacrifice, since one and the same action can have several purposes. Once a conscience has been uplifted by faith and realizes its freedom from terror, then it fervently gives thanks for the benefits of Christ and for his suffering. It uses the ceremony itself as praise to God, as a way of demonstrating its gratitude, and as a witness of its high esteem for the gifts of God. In this way the ceremony becomes a sacrifice of praise. (Ap XXIV:74-my emphasis)

For it held that the Mass (even when performed by a rotten scoundrel) delivers people from sin both here in this life and beyond in purgatory, even though the Lamb of God alone should and must do this, as mentioned above. Nothing is to be conceded or compromised in this article. (SA II:2:1-my emphasis)

[Condemned:] The papal sacrifice of the Mass for the sins of the living and the dead. (Ep. VII:2-my emphasis)

Do you get what I mean? There is no sign of any consciousness that the essential reality and action of the Sacrifice of the Mass is the same as the once for all sacrifice of Calvary, and that the two are identified because it is one and the same sacrifice that is truly present.

All of that is completely changed in the passages from Johann Gerhard quoted by Pastor Weedon. You will immediately see what I mean in the following passage:

In the celebration of the Eucharist ‘we proclaim the Lord’s death’ (1 Cor. 11:26) and pray that God would be merciful to us on account of that holy and immaculate sacrifice completed on the cross and on account of that holy Victim which is certainly present in the Eucharist…. That he would in kindness receive and grant a place to the rational and spiritual oblation of our prayer….In the Christian sacrifice there is no victim except the real and substantial body of Christ, and in the same way there is no true priest except Christ Himself. (Confessio Catholica, vol II, par II, arti xiv, cap. I, ekthesis 6, 1200-1201, 1204. Translated by A.C. Piepkorn in The Church, p. 135.)

You see here that we are in completely different territory. Here Gerhard concedes the basic point upon which the Catholic Church insists: The Mass is a propitiatory sacrifice BECAUSE the Mass is the body and blood of Christ. The Body and Blood of Christ are the only sacrifice that can be offered for the sin of all humankind, and this sacrifice was offered once for all on the Cross. It cannot be repeated, but can only be (and here language tends to fail us) re-presented, re-actualised, applied or "commemorated" through the Divine liturgy. Note that Gerhard insists that there is only one sacrifice (Christ's body and blood) and only one priest (Christ). For the moment we will simply note that Catholic theology does not dissent from this--it simply identifies the Eucharistic bread and wine with that body and blood and regards the celebrating priest as "in persona Christi".

But there is something odd in Gerhard's insistance that Christ's "commemoration" of his sacrifice takes place only in heaven. From the same passage quoted above, we read:

It is clear that the sacrifice takes place in heaven, not on earth, inasmuch as the death and passion of God’s beloved Son is offered to God the Father by way of commemoration…

Hence, this sacrifice once offered on the cross takes place continually in an unseen fashion in heaven by way of commemoration, when Christ offers to His Father on our behalf His sufferings of the past, especially when we are applying ourselves to the sacred mysteries, and this is the ‘unbloody sacrifice’ which is carried out in heaven.

Why "in heaven" but "not on earth"? This reminds me a little of the infamous "black rubric" in the Book of Common Prayer, which declared that

the natural body and Blood of our Saviour Christ are in Heaven, and not here [in the Eucharist]; it being against the truth of Christ's natural body to be at one time in more places than one.

Now we know that Lutherans do not hold to this doctrine (in fact, Luther was notorius for his doctrine of ubiquity). Therefore, if Christ indeed offers his body and blood to the Father as a continual plea for the forgiveness and salvation of human beings everywhere and at all times, and if this very same body and blood are present upon the altars of our Churches in the celebration of the Eucharist, WHY CAN'T WE SAY that the sacrifice is offered by Christ here on earth SIMULTANEOUSLY AS IT IS OFFERED IN HEAVEN? Isn't that what we say the Eucharist is? Heaven upon earth? When the Eucharist is celebrated, are we not lifted up into heaven by the very body of the Son of Man upon which the angels of God ascend and descend (John 1)?

And so, as long as these points are all finally connected up, we find nothing with which to disagree in the Lutheran Dogmatician David Hollaz's statement that:

If we view the matter from the material standpoint, the sacrifice in the Eucharist is numerically the same as the sacrifice that took place on the cross; put otherwise, one can say that the things itself and the substance is the same in each case, the victim or oblation is the same. If we view the matter formally, from the standpoint of the act of sacrifice, then even though the victim is numerically the same, the action is not; that is, the immolation in the Eucharist is different from the immolation carried out on the cross. For on the cross an offering was made by means of the passion and death of an immolated living thing, without which there can be no sacrifice in the narrow sense, but in the Eucharist the oblation takes place through the prayers and through the commemoration of the death or sacrifice offered on the cross. (Examen theologicum acroamaticum, II, 620 Translated by A.C. Piepkorn in The Church, p. 135.)

All that remains is to take into deep consideration what it means that "the Bread which we break is a participation in the Body of Christ". It is not simply as a result of the gift of eating and drinking the body of Christ present in the Eucharist that we "participate" with him, but the result of the grace of baptism that we are all "one body" with him, that we have been buried with him, and that we have risen with him, and that therefore we are united to his sacrifice in such a way that we, as Church, do what Christ does in heaven: namely (in Gerhard's words):

this sacrifice once offered on the cross takes place continually in an unseen way in heaven AND ON EARTH IN THE EUCHARIST by way of commemoration, when Christ offers to His Father on our behalf His sufferings of the past, especially when we are applying ourselves to the sacred mysteries, and this is the ‘unbloody sacrifice’ which is carried out in heaven AND ON EARTH IN THE EUCHARIST.

All that is required is the squaring off of this incredibly fruitful reflection upon the grace of the Sacrament of the Altar.

What ICEL did to the Novus Ordo Latin Mass

One blog I read regularly (especially for the podcasts which are excellent meditations on the Office of Readings 2nd Reading for the Day from the Fathers) is Fr. Z's (Zee? Zed?) "What does the prayer really say?". Since Paul McCain asked for examples of the differences of the Novus Ordo, the 1962 Mass and the ICEL translation of the Novus Ordo, here is a bloody good example of what ICEL did to the new (Novus) latin Mass. He takes this example from the Mass for the Vigil of St John the Baptist (coming up next Sunday night):

POST COMMUNIONEM (ad Missam in Vigilia):
Sacris dapibus satiatos,
beati Ioannis Baptistae nos, Domine,
praeclara comitetur oratio,
et, quem Agnum nostra ablaturum crimina nuntiavit,
ipsum Filium tuum poscat nobis fore placatum.

LITERAL VERSION:
O Lord, may the excellent prayer of blessed John the Baptist
accompany us, filled to satiety with the sacred sacrificial meal,
and may it urge that Your Son Himself,
whom it declared was the Lamb about to take away our offenses,
will be appeased in our regard.

Then Fr Z. gives the ICEL translation and especially warns us: "Keep in mind in follows that I am not making this up":

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
Father,
may the prayers of John the Baptist
lead us to the Lamb of God.
May this eucharist bring us the mercy of Christ.

What a stark example. I can't wait for the new translations.

Amnesty...

This picture says it all, really. But if you want to read more, Mark Clarke's article in the latest edition of Kairos gives you all the details.

Dialogue in the Spirit of Benny XVI

My header proclaims this blog to be "In the Spirit of Benny XVI" (is it too oblique, or do you get the counter referance?). When I hear Papa Benny saying things like this, I am affirmed in my committment to his magisterium:

It would not be evangelical, nor Franciscan, to be unable to unite acceptance, dialogue and respect for all with the certainty of faith which each Christian, like the saint of Assisi, is called to cultivate, proclaiming Christ as the way, truth and life of mankind, the one and only savior of the world.

The pope has been in Assisi to celebrate the 800th anniversary of Francis' conversion. His point is that it was Francis conversion to Christ--the only Saviour of the World--which opened his heart up to love, accept and respect all those around him. It is certainly the spirit in which I conduct ecumenical and interfaith dialogue. I am quite aware that for the last forty years, the dominant spirit of interfaith/ecumenical dialogue has been one of indifference and relativism rather than one of committment. To this, the Holy Father says:

The light of the poor man of Assisi which shone upon that event [1986 Meeting of World Religious Leaders in Assisi] was a guarantee of its Christian authenticity, given that his life and his message clearly show his choice for Christ, refuting a priori any temptation to religious indifference, which has nothing to do with authentic interreligious dialogue."

For more info, see: http://www.zenit.org/article-19914?l=english

Comments on Eucharistic Sacrifice

Well, after all that, I want to congratulate all of you on a thorough and gentlemanly (or lady-like in your case, Christine) discussion of the matter raised by Pastor McCain below. An exemplary example of discussion without recrimination. And for the most part the facts are right too. (I would want to point out that one anonymous comment said Luther rejected the real presence as well as the sacrifice--he didn't).

To that, I think we can probably concluded the discussion by saying to Paul McCain that the Novus Ordo, while differing in some significant ways from the 1962 edition of the "Tridentine" Mass, still contains the sacrificial prayers that were so objectionable to Luther in his time, and so the wider use of the earlier mass is not likely to cause any difference in this regard--except perhaps to remind more "modernist" Catholics that the Eucharist we celebrated today is still the Sacrifice of the Mass.

However, dialogue between Lutherans and Catholics has established a new understanding of what each confesses and condemns in this regard and have found that the 16th Century Reformation condemnations do not always address the true doctrine of the Sacrifice of the Mass. That is to say, that Catholics also would condemn any understanding that the priest was "re-sacrificing" Christ, or that the Church were offering "bread and wine" as a sacrifice for sins.

According to the Compendium of the Catechism:

1) The Eucharist is "the very sacrifice of the Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus" which he instituted

2) that it perpetuates the sacrifice of the Cross throughout the ages

3) that it makes present and actual the sacrifice which Christ offered to the Father on the cross, once and for all.

4) that the sacrifice of the cross and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one and the same sacrifice

Thus much, perhaps the Lutherans would share with Catholics. Because we agree on the Real Presence, and because we both agree that what is present is the very Sacrifice of Calvary, we can all agree that the Eucharist is a Sacrifice--an as such, that it is more than simply the "sacrifice of thanksgiving" which characterises all worship. We could probably also agree that this sacrifice on our altars is the same once for all sacrifice that Christ continually presents to his Father in heaven as a propitiary sacrifice for the sins of all people.

Where we would probably part company is on the extent to which (or even if at all) we as the Church, being both representative of the human race and the Body of Christ, participate in offering this sacrifice as a propitiary sacrifice to Father.

The Catholic Church asserts that we do participate in this offering. The Compendium describes it in these terms:

1) that the Sacrifice of the Mass differs from the Sacrifice of the cross only in the manner of its offering (bloody on the cross, unbloody on the altar)

2) that since the Faithful (in heaven and on earth) are the One Body of Christ, their lives, suffering, prayers, work and praise are united to the life, suffering, prayer, work and praise of Christ, and therefore Christ's Sacrifice to the Father becomes the their sacrifice to the Father

3) since the Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross is a propitiary sacrifice for the whole human race, and for all the faithful living and the dead, and since it was offered to obtain for us all spiritual and temporal blessings of God's grace, the Sacrifice of the Mass (being the same sacrifice) is offered in reparation for the sins of all these and as an act of prayer to obtain the same spiritual and temporal benefits from God.

For the life of me, I cannot see what is problematic with this. I see it as naturally following from our belief in the Real Presence and our belief in the identification of the Church as the Body of Christ. Both these seem to follow from the passage in St Paul's Letter to the Corinthians about "discerning the presence of the body" in the Eucharist--a wonderful phrase charged with both the Christological and Ecclesial meanings.

Perhaps it might be useful to quote from the Australian Lutheran Catholic Dialogue statement "Sacrament and Sacrifice" (1985):

62. Catholics in the dialogue have been able to assure Lutherans that when Catholics speak of ‘offering Christ’ in the sacrifice of the Mass they do not deny or undermine the once—for-all nature of Christ’s sacrifice on Calvary. They have pointed out that the offering of Christ by the eucharistic community is not a new offering. Rather, in the Eucharist the community, already one with Christ in Baptism, affirms his unique sacrifice in faith, participates in his self—offering to the Father, and pleads to God for mercy on the basis of his sacrifice on the Cross. In this sense, ‘to offer up Christ’ is an application of Christ’s sacrifice in our own time.

While Lutherans acknowledge the significance of the incorporation into Christ as a vital dimension of eucharistic faith, they have continued to ask Catholics whether this view of the offering of Christ by the Church is not in danger of undermining Christ’s self-offering on behalf of the Church. In turn, in the light of our eucharistic incorporation into Christ, Catholics have asked Lutherans to consider whether a radical distinction can be made between our offering of praise and thanksgiving in Christ and the Eucharistic offering of Christ to the Father.

I also find it significant that later on, the Lutherans add the comment:

Lutherans will continue to stress the gift of Christ’s unique work on the Cross given to the believer in the Eucharist, without seeing any need to reflect further on the anthropological implications of this emphasis. Thus Lutherans will continue to remain reserved towards the concept of our offering up of Christ in the Eucharist because they do not consider that faithfulness to the scriptural witness necessarily demands this thrust and because they are concerned to uphold the doctrine of justification by God’s grace alone.

I find it rather bizarre that anyone should speak of whether there is a "need" to reflect upon any particular aspect of the Eucharist--surely the Eucharist is a mystery upon which God graciously invites our reflection? I also think it is interesting that they would preclude themselves from reflecting upon a certain implication of the scriptural witness because it conflicts with their predetermined understanding of the scriptural doctrine of justification. And for the record, Catholics also believe in "justification by God's grace alone", and cannot for a moment imagine how our doctrine of the Sacrifice of the Mass does anything other than uphold this doctrine.

Pastor McCain on the Tridentine Mass and the Motu Proprio

Amid all the comments on Continuity and Discontinuity blog, Pastor Paul T. McCain asked:

Dave, have you done a post on your thoughts/reactions to the soon to be issued papal pronouncement on the Tridentine Mass?

Seem to me that the Old Order Mass will be a step backwards for Rome and will make it even easier for Roman parishes to fall back into precisely the very thing that Lutherans in the 16th century found *so* objectionable: the Mass as practiced by Rome.

Your thoughts? I will look forward to your thoughts on this. Thanks. Blessings, Paul.

A couple of quick thoughts:

1) It is worth pointing out that giving a universal indult for the celebration of the 1962 Mass will probably not have a great affect on the bulk of the Catholic population

2) There isn't much in the Novus Ordo (Eucharistic Prayer I) which differs theologically from the 1962 Mass--although the English translations have perhaps obscured the similarity. We expect this latter situation to change anyway with the new translations in preparation (I think Lutherans would welcome the new translations personally). All the sacrificial language is still there. It isn't as if that has been dropped in any way at all--except by those ignorant of the liturgy and doctrine of the Church. (I should point out that the sacrificial theology is present in all the Eucharist prayers, not just no. 1.)

3) It is true that post-Vatican II addressed the Reformation call for the liturgy in the vernacular. But the Novus Ordo Mass is still the Latin Mass and can be said in Latin at any time, so I don't think that is an issue.

Is there an issue I haven't addressed here? Perhaps if Pastor McCain were specific about what parts of the pre-Vatican II Mass were/are particularly objectionable to Lutherans, I could be more specific about whether these "objectionable parts" are still in the Novus Ordo.

A Fine Ecclesiastical Body of Men (and Women)

Past Elder made this comment amid all the ruckus of the duel:

Go back to the church you left. I'm sure it's bloody awful as an ecclesiatical body. They all are, even the pre conciliar Roman church, and most certainly LCMS.

For the record, I want to say that Lutheran Church of Australia is a very fine ecclesiastical body. I didn't leave it because it was "bloody awful". It was the best humanly possible in many ways, and in human terms much finer in many ways than the one I belong to now. (I am thinking of the title of the book by Catholic convert Joana Bogle called "Come on in, it's awful!"). I left the Lutheran Church of Australia for one reason only: it was not the Catholic Church established by Jesus Christ, and nothing could have been done to make it the Catholic Church. And as they say in the movies, it was "no-one's fault, not even the Romans." It was just the way it was.

More on Continuity and Discontinuity in the Church

It occured to me this morning (at 5:30am while lying in my youngest daughter's bottom bunk after she had pushed me out of the matrimonial queen-size...), that Past Elder, who is "not a traditionalist or a member of the SSPX", and those who are, have no case when they complain that the post-Vatican II Church is very different from the pre-Vatican II Church. Of course, it is very different. Ecumenical Councils--once they have been properly assimilated by the Church--tend to have this effect.

Compare, for instance, the ante-Nicene and post-Nicene Church. This division still marks our categorization of the Church Fathers, and is further enhanced by the stark differences of context between a persecuted sect and a state religion. It is not too much to say that the Christian religion as a whole was irrevocably transformed by this transition.

Or take pre-Tridentine and post-Tridentine Churches. The decrees of Trent, which addressed many of the abuses and laxities criticised by the Reformers, also introduced many "novelties"--a universal liturgy for one. It took decades--perhaps almost a century--to be properly received in the face of great opposition in some quarters, but the result afterwards was a very different kind of Church, so much so that someone (I think it was Pelikan in his earlier period) opined that Trent in fact created a separate "denomination" called "the Roman Catholic Church".

So sure, the post-Vatican II Church is very different from what it was before the council. But throughout all the changes of their two thousand year history, Catholic Christians have remained faithful to their Church in the belief that Christ remains faithful to his promise, and that just as Christ is "the same yesterday, today and always" so also the Church, ever old and ever new, is built upon the unchanging foundation of the Word of God. And the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

And all the people said: "Amen".

Pretty Pictures of our two new Bishops: Elliott and Costelloe

There are some very pretty pictures of the ordination of our two new Melbourne auxiliary bishops, Peter Elliott and Tim Costelloe, on the Archdiocesan website. It was a marvellous show on Friday night (yes, I do mean a "show"--there's nothing like the Catholic Church when it comes to grand liturgical productions--except perhaps the Orthodox--but that's more like a chamber orchestra compared to the Catholic symphony productions!).

The pictures are here and were taken by John Casamento. Take especial note of pictures 1 and 46. The weather conditions around the Cathedral on Friday night can accurately be described as "atmospheric". One almost expected it to snow!

Joining me for the evening were Pastor Fraser Pearce of the "epistolae obscurorum virorum" blog, Arabella (who often comments on these pages), and a young RMIT Journalism student currently considering the Catholic Church. To the latter I was able to say "Look and see: Here is the Catholic Church!". Quotable quote for the night goes to Arabella, who was heard to say (at the anointing--see photo 26) "It's like basting a chook, isn't it?".

Dogmatic Creationism or Evolution?

Unfortunately, there is hardly anything such as a new thought these days. I have been reflecting upon the parallels between the "Creation and Evolution" debate in biological science and the "Development of Doctrine" debate in dogmatic theology. It seems to me that Newman and Darwin (roughly contemporaries) introduced remarkably similar ideas into their relative fields of study.

To put it simply, where Darwin proposed a theory of the organic development of species rather than a pristine and unchanging state from the first beginnings until now, Newman proposed an theory of the organic development of doctrine rather than a pristine and unchanging set of doctrines from the very beginning of the apostolic age until the present day.

Of course I am not the first to think of such a thing. A quick websearch threw up these comments by a certain Sr Mary Scullion from 15 years ago:

This is a real opportunity for us to reflect on the life of John Henry Newman and what his life might say to us today. ...Remember He lived around the same time as Darwin who was proposing the evolution of man and here Newman was asking the Church to consider the evolution of dogma. Both of these men were offering very radical positions of thought for their day.

More than one hundred years ago, Cardinal John Henry Newman, in his "Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine", stated that if the Scripture message is to be understood in an age other than that in which it was written,, in a different place and time, the message has to develop, evolve, and grow in history. Development and natural growth were contemplated by the Divine Author, Newman argues. "The whole Bible is written on the principle of development. As revelation proceeds, it is ever new, yet ever old."

In a memorable passage he opens the door to biblical exploration and discovery: "To the end of our lives and to the end of the church, the biblical message must remain an unexplored and unsubdued land, full of concealed wonders and choice treasures. Of no development of doctrine whatever, which does not actually contradict what has been delivered, can it be asserted that it is not in Scripture. Everything our Savior did and said in the New Testament is characterized by simplicity and mystery, which are evidence of revelation, in germ, to be developed; a divine truth subject of investigation and interpretation."

Vince Donovan reflects further on the writings of Cardinal Newman stating: "...Newman's original discovery, which we have not yet fully appreciated or accepted, is the place of history in doctrinal thinkingof the true evolution of dogma. We must face the implications of his disturbing thought for our time." (Vince Donovan in The Church in the Midst of Creation)

Now I have no knowledge of either Sr Mary or Vince Donovan, but what they say accords with my own thinking in this area.

Nevertheless, I believe there are questions that are thrown up when comparing Newman's theory to Darwin's.

First: At first glance it would appear that, in Newman, history is to the development of doctrine what, in Darwin, environmental context is to the development of the species. Is this correct and is it helpful?

Second: the question of teleology. Whereas Darwin's theory insists that the development of species is completely random and affected only by the chances of environment and survival, Newman would most assuredly have found a definite Spirit-directed "forward" impulse toward the goal of "all Truth" (John 16:13). Is this teleological difference in the two theories a fundamental distinction?

Third: Is there not perhaps some relationship between the form of Newman's theory which the Church has chosen to accept and the form of Darwin's theory which it has felt free to endorse: namely, a doctrine of evolution which sees even the contingent developments as directed by the omniscient, omnipotent will of the Creator?

It seems to me that there is something in the "Sola Scriptura sine Traditio" attitude toward dogma which smacks of Creationism. On the other hand, a "liberal" attitude to the development of dogma (which might, for instance, be said to include the "ordination" of women or the allowance of homosexual "marriage") seems to have more in common with that sort of theory of biological evolution that sees the present environmental context as totally determinative of the outcome. Whereas a sober attitude to the the devolopment of dogma would appear to require:

• a direct continuity with the Origin (the "deposit of faith" and the Will of Christ)
• a clear belief in the teleological goal of "All Truth"
• a firm confidence that at every stage the dogmatic pronouncments of the Church in response to historical circumstances have been led unerringly along the direction between the Origin and the Goal by means of the Spirit-given charism of the infallible magisterium.

Newman's Development of Doctrine -- According to Neuhaus

Having laid down the gauntlet (see my challenge to a duel/dialogue below) in which one of the rules are that, after nomination of a specific "new" official teaching of the Catholic Church which contradicts her earlier stated official teaching, I then rise to the challenge of demonstrating how the contradiction is only apparent and in fact it is a legitimate development according to Newman's principles on the development of doctrine, I became aware that I had not actually stated what those princples were.

Here, thanks to Fr Richard John Neuhaus, is a good summary:

The Church’s teaching lives forward; it is not reconstructed backward-whether from the fifth century or the sixteenth or the nineteenth or the twenty-first. But through all the changes of living forward, how do we know what is corruption and what is authentic development? Recall Cardinal Newman’s reflection on the development of doctrine, a reflection that has been incorporated by magisterial teaching. He suggested seven marks of authentic development:

• authentic development preserves the Church’s apostolic form;
• it reflects continuity of principles in testing the unknown by the known;
• it demonstrates the power to assimilate what is true, even in what is posited against it;
• it follows a logical sequence;
• it anticipates future developments;
• it conserves past developments;
• and, throughout, it claims and demonstrates the vigor of teaching authority.

And thus it is, said St. Vincent of Lerins in the fifth century, that in authentic development of doctrine nothing presents itself in the Church’s old age that was not latent in her youth. Such was the truth discovered by Augustine, a truth "ever ancient, ever new."

Past Elder, I challenge you to a DUEL!**

Since there are 26 comments on the Cyprian post already... I'm going to continue this here. And the time has come to throw down the guantlet.

Faith is very important to me as a Catholic. I have faith in the promises of Christ. Christ made a whole bunch of promises including:

"The Spirit will lead you into all truth"
"You are Peter and upon this Rock I will build my Church and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it".
"Behold I am with you always until the end of the Age".

I have faith in Christ and his promises, and therefore in the Church. I believe that the Church which is governed by the Successor of St Peter and the bishops in communion with him is the one Catholic Church of Christ.

And I believe that today's Catholic Church is continuous with the very Church established by Christ on the foundation of his apostles for both reasons Pastor Pearce points out:

1) It is continuous in doctrine (ie. it is evangelical)
2) It is continuous in outward fellowship (ie. it is not gnostic)

The second is historically demonstrable. You would have a tough time disproving it. Even the 2nd Vatican Council was run by guys who were the direct successors of the Fathers of the 1st Vatican Council and the Fathers of Trent etc. etc. and the Fathers of Constantinople and the Fathers of Nicea and the Fathers of the Apostolic Council of Jerusalem.

The first--continuity in doctrine--is only partly demonstrable by means of historical evidence (eg. quotes from the past--although there is a general ignorance about what was realy taught eg. by the Early Church Fathers and eg. by the pre-Vatican II popes). Continuity in doctrine is, in the final analysis, only clearly demonstrable by means of FAITH--which includes faith in Christ's promises given above.

As I said in my post on the Lutheran at the CTSA meeting, if you find the teachings of the Catholic Church to be contradictory, you are not reading them correctly. Professor Koons, who recently converted to the Catholic faith, has stressed the importance of Newman's theory of the development of doctrine for understanding the teaching of the Church.

Part of that theory (which is widely accepted) is the presupposition of continuity within the Tradition. I have yet to find an instance of any teaching that was held and taught by the Church at some earlier time which is not faithfully reflected and included in the faith of the Church at this present time--or, for that matter, a teaching that is held and proclaimed today that is without precedent within the past Tradition of the Church.

In fact, Past Elder (and Pastor Weedon and anyone else who wants to wade in) I challenge you to a duel. Give me an official documented teaching of the Church today--for our purposes, let's say a quotation from the Catechism of the Catholic Church--which you believe contradicts the official documented teaching of the Church in the past. And I will show you how what you see as a contradiction is in fact in full continuity according to the principles of Newman's development of doctrine.

That's my challenge. Let the fun begin.

**And Pastor Weedon is right, it's not a "duel"--its a prayerful dialogue. That's what I meant.

A Lutheran in the Court of the Catholic Theological Society of America

Sounds like something from Mark Twain, but here it is, as reported by John L. Allen, Jnr. Apparently Lutheran theologican Michael Root, addressing the Catholic Theological Society of America, found “internal tension, incoherence or contradiction” in Catholic ecclesiology and ecumenism.

Michael Root of the Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary in Columbia, South Carolina, observed that post-Vatican II Catholicism teaches that the one church of Christ is “present and at work” in other Christian bodies such as the Anglican Communion and Lutheranism, that these “ecclesial communities” are instruments of salvation for their members, and that they have preserved the “basic truths” of the gospel. At the same time, Root observed, Catholicism also holds that these bodies lack valid ordained ministries, meaning, in effect, that they don’t have bishops.

Root said that logically speaking, the conclusion would follow that bishops are therefore not essential to ecclesial communion, to the presence of the church, to the means of grace that lead to salvation, or to the teaching office. Otherwise, he suggested, it would be impossible to explain the presence of those qualities in communities that don’t have bishops.

Ironically, Root argued, if one takes Catholic teaching at face value, it “would imply that ordained ministry and episcopacy are less significant for Catholics than they even are for Lutherans.”

If there is one thing I have discovered in the Catholic faith, it is a passion for inner coherance at every turn. Tension is okay, but if, in your reading, you find the articles of the Catholic faith "contradictory", you can be assured that you don't understand it rightly.

It is true that the Church acknowledges that it has a "real but imperfect" communion with all who are baptised and believe in Christ. But note two things:

1) This communion is based on faith in Christ and the sacrament of baptism. It is not based on the Eucharist, or on the validity of Holy Orders.

2) This communion is primarily with separated brothers and sisters, and therefore only secondarily with the ecclesial communions as such.

To put it another way, baptism and faith establish a relationship with individuals outside the visible boundaries of the Catholic Church, not with "churches" (eg. "the Anglican communion and Lutheranism"). There is a sense in which the Church has a deeper communion with those true local churches which have preserved valid orders (eg. the Orthodox churches), but baptism and faith always remain the basis for this communion.

The Church does not actually teach that the ecclesial communities are "instruments of salvation for their members" in themselves, as Root claims, but rather that in and among them are preserved some of those means of grace "which derive their efficacy from the very fullness of grace and truth entrusted to the Catholic Church" (UR 3), and therefore which make salvation possible, most notably (according to Vatican II):

the written word of God; the life of grace; faith, hope and charity, with the other interior gifts of the Holy Spirit, and visible elements too. All of these, which come from Christ and lead back to Christ, belong by right to the one Church of Christ [NOT, if I might add a word of clarification, to the ecclesial communions in which separated brothers and sisters encounter them].

However the real communion established by these means of grace are not sufficient for FULL communion, and it is this which Root seems to have failed to understand. FULL communion, according to the will of Christ, requires a shared Eucharist, and a shared Eucharist is impossible without a shared ministerial priesthood. Baptism and faith are the basis, but the Eucharist is the goal, of that communion to which Christ calls his church.

It is quite possible "to explain the presence of those qualities in communities that don’t have bishops". The word of God can be proclaimed, baptism can be administered, prayers can be offered, the life of grace can be practiced, and the Holy Spirit can certainly be present without the sacramental charism of holy orders. But wherever this is the case, as the Council said, the impetus is toward full communion with the Catholic Church. For apart from valid ministerial orders, it is not possible to absolve sins, confirm, or consecrate the Eucharist.

The Catholic Church has, of course, a civil and even religious respect for the ordained ministers of the ecclesial communities, even though it does not recognise their validity. That is why we expect such clergy, when attending Catholic prayers and liturgies of the Word (eg. Vespers), to be vested according to their custom. We also show respect toward their Eucharistic celebrations, even though we do not recognise their validity. There have been occasions when this respect has been shown in very significant ways, for instance, when Paul VI gave his episcopal ring to the Archbishop of Canterbury and when John Paul II sent gifts of pectoral crosses to all English Anglican bishops. But in effect this was a way of saying: "You are so close to union with us: please come closer!" There are, however few indications that this invitation has been heeded (see the reaction of the English bishops to Cardinal Kasper's plea for them not to go down the road of ordaining women bishops).

[As an aside here, I was with Lutheran clergy friends camping on the Queen's Birthday weekend far out of reach of a Catholic mass. I encouraged them to celebrate their Eucharist since all the others present were Lutherans. Afterwards, I assisted in the cleansing of the glass and plate used for communion (the pastor had already consumed the remaining elements). I did so with the same respect that I would have done had it been the Catholic Eucharist--although without the adoration which which I would normally accompany such an action.]

I think if pushed, even Michael Root would agree that the ministry of Word and Sacrament does not establish communion. But equally, he must agree, that a shared ministry is necessary for full communion. Unfortunately there are many examples in the modern world where a level of shared communion is formally established between protestant bodies (eg. Episcopalians and ELCA Lutherans or between the English Anglican Church and the Scandinavian Lutheran Churches) including a shared Eucharist, but where this partial communion has completely defused any further action of seeking full visible unity between these bodies. The Catholic Church is aware of this, and therefore insists that true unity must be visible unity: visible in the whole community, including in its ministers and in its celebration of one Eucharist around one altar.

Bishop Elliott and the Evangelical Pentecostal Dialogue

Mons. Peter Elliott will be ordained a bishop tommorrow night at St Patrick's Cathedral at 7:30pm along with Bishop-Elect Tim Costelloe. "The Mons" (as he has been affectionately known up until now) gave an interview on Zenit recently in which he referred to one of our endeavours: our local "Catholic and Pentecostal/Evangelical" Dialogue.

Q: Benedict XVI has specifically mentioned Australia, along with some other Western nations, as being one of the countries most affected by secularization and a weakening of the Church. What do you see as the priorities for the Church in Australia to affront this situation?

Bishop-designate Elliott: Yes, secularization is prevalent in Australia. I recently took part in a dialogue with evangelicals and Pentecostals on this question, which is of concern to all Christians.

The secularizing process, and a kind of ideology of secularism, has made great inroads into our families, and into the lives of individuals. But that is just the kind of challenge we have had to face, in other pagan forms, in other societies in the past.

In Australia we need to strengthen the Church by concentrating on two points: formation of priests and promoting vocations, and a radical revision of religious education and catechesis.

Our dialogue is addressing the topic of "Preaching the Gospel to Secular Australia". So far we have addressed the topics of "The Gospel" and "Secular Australia" in our meetings. The next meeting will address our understandings of "Preaching", and the final meeting for the year will put it all together. It has been great fun doing this with our protestant brethren and sistern, and "The Mons" has made a great contribution. When asked if he would continue with the dialogue now that he will be a bishop, his answer was "Even more so!"

Cardinal Sins and Sushi Journalism: Fudging Rational Debate in the Discussion of Stem Cell Research

Maisy Ward said of her father that he would have been happy to have a "papal encyclical to read at breakfast" every morning. Me? I'm satisfied with reading The Age. It always gives me something to get grumpy about, and that makes me feel better immediately!

Today's offering comes from Sushi Das, entitled "Cardinal Sins: Fudging the science of stem cell research". Her main complaint is that Cardinal Pell has used "shrill language" (???) and employed "errors of fact" about what the stem cell research will involve.

Question to Sushi Das: On your own evidence, don't you think the Cardinal's claims were quite justified?

Exhibit One:

Pell asserts immature eggs taken from aborted girls would be fertilised with adult male sperm creating "a human embryo with an aborted baby girl as its genetic 'mother' ". With current technology, immature eggs, which are the type you would get from aborted foetuses, cannot be extracted from ovaries, let alone be fertilised in a lab. One day scientists hope to work this out. [My emphasis]

My analysis: Cardinal Pell says that eggs will be used from aborted foetuses. Sushi Das says that this is an "error of fact" because scientists can't do this yet. BUT they are working on it. I ask you, dear Reader: Was the good Cardinal therefore wrong to point out the fact that this is a distinct possibility as a result of this legislation??? Was this, in fact, an "error of fact"?

Exhibit Two:

Pell's statement also said the legislation would allow human-animal hybrid embryos to be created to test for sperm quality. Yes, animal eggs can be used to test for sperm viability in the context of IVF, but the legislation does not allow human-animal embryos for therapeutic cloning. [My Emphasis]

My analysis: embryonic research scientists CURRENTLY use animal eggs to "test for sperm viability". One assumes that they do this by fertilising an animal egg with a human sperm. The result? An human-animal hybrid embryo. It may not be kept for very long. It may never be used to harvest stem cells for therepeutic cloning. BUT it is used EVEN NOW as a part of the process. I ask you, dear Reader: Was the good Cardinal therefore wrong to point out the fact that this is a distinct possibility as a result of this legislation??? Was this, in fact, an "error of fact"?

Exhibit Three:

In an exquisite example of absurd logic, Pell argues embryos created for the purposes of research cannot be "saved" by being implanted in a woman. It is inconceivable that any scientist would create and use an embryo for experimental purposes and then allow it to be implanted into a woman. That really would be unethical. [My emphasis]

My analysis: Cardinal Pell was pointing out to folk who might not have understood that the baby human created for the purpose of stem cell harvesting COULD NOT BE SAVED--ie. IT WAS DOOMED TO DIE. Sushi Das' reply is simply: But of course. You don't think we would want to save something we had been playing around with do you? Ugh. Yuk. How gross. I ask you, dear Reader: Was the good Cardinal therefore wrong to point out the fact that this is the reality which will result from this legislation??? Was this, in fact, an "error of fact"?

Sushi Das has at least allowed that "Pell should certainly let Catholics know where the church stands on life issues." But her call for him to "at least get his facts right" seem superfluous as she has just corroborated everything he has claimed.

The Catholic Priesthood and Women: An end to confusion

I have just finished reading a brilliant book by Sister/Dr. Sara Butler called "The Catholic Priesthood and Women: A Guide to the Teaching of the Church". Sr Butler is professor of dogmatic theology at St Joseph's Seminary in New York, a member of the International Theological Commission (recently responsible for the document on Limbo), a member of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission, and (still) a member of the Catholic Theological Society fo America.

It may be of some interest to some of you that for one brief period in the past (around the early 90's) I was a supporter of the ordination of women. Of course, I was a Lutheran back then, but the questions were the same:

1) Can the church ordain women?
2) Why wouldn't Jesus/God want women to be pastors?

Interestingly, I had came to accept that the answer to the first question was "No" on the basis to the answers that I discovered to the second question.

However, that is not the direction that Sara Butler takes--and in taking the questions in proper order, she demonstrates a great clarity in theological method that Catholics (and Christians of other stripes and spots) would do well to imitate.

Sara Butler was also once a great proponent of the ordinaton of women. For a clear picture of where she once was, see "The Findings of the Research Team of the Catholic Theological Society of America" by Sara Butler, M.S.B.T. from "New Woman, New Church, New Priestly Ministry: Proceedings of the Second Conference on the Ordination of Roman Catholic Women" (November 1978, Baltimore, U.S.A.).

Where she is today is on the opposite end of the spectrum. What changed her mind? The clarity of Church teaching on the matter. But her experience in arguing the pro-women's-ordination case stands her in good stead to write this book, which is aimed above all at making clear exactly what the Church does and does not say regarding the ordination of women.

The beauty of Sr Butler's approach is that she distinguishes between the REASONS why the Church has judged that it does not have the authority to ordain women to the priesthood, and the EXPLANATIONS of why this may be so.

The "fundamental REASONS" are three fold:

1) The tradition of male only priesthood is rooted in Jesus' way of acting (in chosing only males to constitute The Twelve): it is the will of Christ
2) The Apostles' way of acting confirms the Tradition
3) The Tradition has normative value

These fundamental reasons are outlined in John Paul II's Ordinatio Sacerdotalis but have their root in Paul VI's 1975 Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Declaration Inter Insigniores.

These are the REASONS why the Church cannot ordain women. Any argument with the Church's practice must address these reasons. BUT for those who wish to understand what God's purpose may be behind these REASONS, there are EXPLANATIONS. It is important to note that the "explanations" are not "reasons". They do not in themselves constitute the reasons for the Church's way of acting, but rather are to be regarded as "theological arguments" which give us a way of understanding God's purpose in directing the Church to act in such a way.

The EXPLANATIONS or "theological arguments" are based on the "Analogy of Faith" (ie. male only priesthood in relation to the doctrine of the Mystery of Christ and to the doctrine of the Mystery of the Church).

1) The Christological Argument: The priest acts in persona Christi capitis ecclesiae; the priest is a sacramental sign of Christ; the priest is a sign of Christ who is and remains a man.

2) The Ecclesial Argument: The analogy of the covenant and the Eucharist; the priest as the "living image" of Christ the Bridegroom; the ministerial priesthood and nuptial symbolism.

She also skillfully and faithfully outlines the "objections" to the Church's teachings, and (a la Aquinas) gives answers to the objections. She lists and answers 10 OBJECTIONS:

1) The exclusion of women is unjust
2) The Exclusion is based on faulty anthropology
3) If women can be baptised, they can be ordained
4) Jesus' choice of 12 men is irrelevant
5) Women were 'apostles' in the Early Church
6) All the baptised act in persona Christi
7) The priest acts in persona ecclesiae
8) Jesus' sex has no theological significance
9) The risen Christ transcends Maleness
10) Why not ordain only Jewish males?

You will recognise all these objections.

She highlights and interesting point--interesting at least for Protestants and Australian Lutherans in particular--namely that the Pauline "anti-women" passages do not fall into the "fundamental reasons" category, but rather into the "theological arguments" category. In other words, St Paul's prohibitions are not the REASONS why the Church cannot ordain women; rather they are themselves EXPLANATIONS or THEOLOGICAL ARGUMENTS for the practice that was already fully established in that first generation of restricting the pastoral ministry to men.

This excellent review and clarification of the Church's magisterial teaching on the subject of the ordination of women concludes with a short chapter on "The Development of Doctrine", investigating authentic development on the basis of Newman's famous essay. She concludes:

The discussion has been declared closed. The Pope clearly intended to prohibit Catholic theologians, pastors, and religious from publicaly espousing positions contrary to this teaching. This does not mean, however, that the teaching itself does not need to be expounded and discussed. Because the magisterum requires "the full and unconditional assent of the faithful" to this teaching, it devolves on Catholic theologians to explain this as fully and adequately as they can.

According to Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, the authentic development in Catholic doctrine with respect to the status of women in society and in the Church does not require their admission to the ministerial priesthood. Closing off this possibility has led the Church to search for new ways to identify the "genius" of woman and a new commitment to foster the collaboration of men and women in the Church and in society.

All in all, this is a strikingly sober and measured account of the matter, and a shining example of Catholic theological method at its best.

Iznik--or "Nicea" if you prefer

A sad piece in Turkey's part in the history of the "clash of civilisations" was when ignorant Greeks blew up the local mosque in Iznik during their brief occupation after World War One.


That in itself would have been a crime against religion--but to make matters worse (if such a thing were possible) the mosque they blew up was none other than the Church of Holy Wisdom (Hagia Sophia) in which the Second Ecumenical Council of Nicea (7th Ecumenical Council overall) was held in 787AD. Built by Justinian in the mid-6th Century, it was damaged by earthquakes and rebuilt in 1065AD. There is a good page of pictures at: http://www.als-travels.com/Turkey/iznik.htm.


And just to prove that we are all human, when the Turks regained the city, they blew up the local Church that the Greeks had been using. All one can say is that they did a better job on the Church than the Greeks had done on the Mosque.

Here am I pondering all this inside Hagia Sophia.