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Not a path to unity!

8th January, 2012 - Posted by Wolf Paul -

On First Things Magazine’s blog “First Thoughts”, Matthew Cantirino suggests that the Personal Ordinariates created by Pope Benedict XVI for disaffected Anglo-Catholics in England and the United States (and possibly elsewhere) are a pathway to the eventual re-unification of the Christian church.

These ordinariates were created with the laudable aim of providing a safe haven for Catholic-minded Anglicans, whose convictions and liturgical practices are closer to Roman Catholicism than to Protestantism (hence the name Anglo-Catholics) who feel estranged and disenfranchised by the increasingly liberal and revisionist leadership of the Anglican churches in the West.

But they hardly are a pathway to greater unity; rather, what they do is give Evangelicals of every stripe, especially in predominantly Roman Catholic countries like my own Austria, a carte blanche to evangelize nominal and disaffected Roman Catholics, a practice which the Roman Catholic church has long criticized as proselytizing and sheep-stealing, and which it considers a major problem in Latin America where Evangelicals and Pentecostals are growing in number at the expense of nominal Roman Catholicism.

By creating special structures to attract and appeal to members of other churches (Church of England in Britain, Episcopal Church in the US) and encouraging their mass “conversion” to these Roman Catholic structures, the Vatican, at the behest of the current pope, Benedict XVI, is effectively institutionalizing the practice of proselytism, and is henceforth hardly in a position to complain about others doing the same thing — perhaps we should set up evangelical congregations celebrating the Lord’s Supper with an evangelical adaptation of the mass — something like a contemporary version of Martin Luther’s “Deutsche Messe” …

But there is another reason why the “ferry across the Tiber” which these Ordinariates constitute will not contribute to the unity of the Church of Jesus Christ: because the very way they are structured and set up makes plain to everyone that Rome’s vision of unity is “re-unification,” a return to papal jurisdiction which Protestants feel is not only not warranted by Scripture but is actually contrary to the plain sense of Scripture and the practice of the Early Church — one of the convictions at the basis of the Reformation.

A number of years ago the previous pope issued a call to leaders of non-Roman Catholic Christian churches and communities for suggestions of how the “Petrine Ministy” could be exercised by him and his successors in a way less offensive than it currently is to non-Roman Catholics. A number of suggestions were made, and most of them focused on one thing: relinquish the unbiblical claim to jurisdiction (which the pope, by the way, also does not make with regard to the Eastern Orthodoxy). Unfortunately nothing came of that, and the clear demonstration of that very claim in the structure of the Ordinariates is a step in the wrong direction.

Those of us who have a burden for the unity of the Body of Christ will continue our efforts, but it is becoming increasingly clear to many of us that institutional unity of any kind will not be achieved until Christ returns and brings it about despite all of us.

Werner

January 8th, 2012 at 22:50    


Great points made, Wolf.

Stuart Koehl

January 10th, 2012 at 02:58    


As I said at the First Thoughts site, you are in error in conflating the ordinariates with the so-called Uniate Churches (of which I am a member). We came out of various Orthodox Churches that were never part of the Church of Rome or under its jurisdiction. On the other hand, each and every Protestant community and denomination is splinter (or a splinter of a splinter) off of the Latin Church. True unity thus requires the reintegration of the various Protestant communities into the Western Church whence they came, just as it will require the reintegration of the Eastern Catholic Churches into their respective Orthodox Mother Churches. It’s futile to pretend that Protestant communities will ever be granted full ecclesial status, as they reject what both the Catholic and Orthodox Churches regard as essential elements of Tradition.

Wolf Paul

January 23rd, 2012 at 15:02    


Stuart, I am not implying that the Ordinariates are exactly the same thing as the Uniate Churches, but I am not sure I am buying your explanation either. SOMEBODY split off from SOMEBODY else at the Great Schism, and I am sure both the East and the West have their explanation why it was the other side. Similarly, Romans and Protestants have different views on the subject of the Reformation and who left the path of truth then.

All of that is moot and a futile discussion, just like the pretense that Rome will ever consider Protestant communities as churches. I am not pretending that either.

All I was saying was that the Ordinariates are not about unity, they are about giving beleagered Rome-leaning Anglicans who are usually very conservative an option that cannot be sabotaged by more “progressive” local ordinaries.

And they do effectively legitimize Evangelical efforts at drawing Roman Catholics into their churches, whether that is what Rome intended or not.

Which is fine with me.

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