Catholicism, Tradition and Protestantism Every ecclesial community brings its traditions to bear in the exegesis and understanding of Scripture. Even independent Protestant Fundamentalist pastors and larger Protestant denominations employ their traditions [i.e., their received community understanding of texts] as a normative principle in biblical interpretation, and indeed often split from each other on that account. The question is whether ones interpretive tradition (including the sacramental) stretches back in organic continuity with all of the fathers to the time of Our Lord, or whether ones traditions emerge only late and disappear as one goes backwards in time to the early Church. Sacred tradition in the Catholic sense simply sets the boundaries of genuine interpretation, outside of which one is bound to stray. That the Church was from the beginning one mystical body replete with the gift of presbyters, bishops, sacraments and one body of received teachings centered around the Eucharist is clear from the New Testament record itself; and Christians were admonished not to be seduced from this one body of tradition by false teachers and private interpretations. Protestant and Other Friends Want to Know This one Church of Christ and Faith must then include three certainties: 1. She must go back in time to Our Lord; she cannot disappear as one traces history backwards in time, as do Luther, Calvin, Photius, etc. 2. She must always have had the same essential doctrines, sacraments and government, though it will surely have developed, but only from implicit to more explicit as heresies arose. No new doctrines, novelties, etc. 3. While she will have always suffered and survived great persecutions and assaults, she must experience the most terrible and unprecedented apostasy, many falling away from the Faith (2 Thess 2:1-4) before the Second Coming of Our Lord, a great evil unleashed leaving in the end a global Eucharistic remnant of Catholic believers (Lk 18:8) in union with Peters successor, though there is no knowing how long the time of apostasy will last. (We recall that Judas among the Twelve did not negate the truth of Christ but affirmed it, precisely in betraying it). This great apostasy can only happen to the true Church of Christ, fulfilling #s 1 &2 above, and is further proof of the divine constitution of the Church which is destined for persecutions (Rev 12) especially near the end of time. And while there will be this great falling away, an apostasy from the faith near the end of time, the Church will always remain a worldwide remnant of believers who maintain that same unchanged faith with the Holy Father (Peter) and his bishops (apostolic succession). The Churchs sacraments and offices cannot be annihilated even by apostasy and persecution. These will always be supplied and occupied according to the will and promise of Christ Himself (Mt 28:19f). In the New Testament there is no apostolic college without Peter as its earthly head under Christ(1). The gift of infallibility is simply the Promise of the Holy Spirit (Jn chs 14-17) to recall to the Church all things so that she will never depart from the apostolic Faith. Peter only very rarely exercises this charism when a doctrine is threatened from within or without. False Teachers Within and Without St Paul says of false teachers of every age, having itching ears they will not endure sound doctrine (2 Tim 4:3); this means that there cannot be a cacophany of churches with different doctrines but only one unchangeable body and doctrine, one household of faith (2 Tim 3:15), the one Catholic (i.e, universal) Church which is the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Tim 3:15) existing from the time of Jesus Himself with Peter as its earthly head under Christ (Mt 16:18f) from which one must never depart. One could multiply text upon text. Apostolic Hierarchical Succession When Paul says lay hands on no man suddenly (1 Tim 5:22) he was indicating the unbroken apostolic episcopal hierarchical succession. From the time of our Lord until the end of time there will ever be only one Lord, one faith, one baptism just as there is only one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all (Eph 4:5-6). When the same apostle declared an anathema on those who departed from the one body of dogma / doctrine received, (Gal 1:7-10) he showed forever that doctrinal coherence abides in the Church and that a chaos of churches was not possible, except as apostasy intrudes. Protestantism Protestantism is not one thing but many, amounting to the Catholic mind as a wild doctrinal incoherence, conflicting bodies which do not agree what Christian doctrine or praxis is or means, and therefore does fit the bill of one Faith in unity through history, and must be ruled out ahead of time, a latecomer to the religious scene in salvation and ecclesial history. Catholics cannot accept that God was inactive in history, or the Church a chaos and dispersed, until Photius or Martin Luther appeared very late. Church history precludes such a notion a priori. Protestant bodies find unity in one thing, a negative, in that they reject Catholicism, and in so doing join the world in this. The Protestant confessions will often differ, de facto, from one another on the meaning of baptism, and the meaning of sacraments in general, the Eucharist especially, on the meaning of the Cross, atonement, the teachings and Person of Jesus; also on election, what it means to be saved, the nature of holiness and sanctification, the meaning and implications of grace and free will, on what it means to be born again, eschatology, general interpretation of biblical texts, etc., etc. The same is true of other bodies which did not persevere but broke off from the Church over time. You cannot put a book in the witness-box and ask it what it really means. The Fundamentalist controversy itself destroys Fundamentalism. The Bible by itself cannot be a basis of agreement when it is a cause of disagreement...G.K.Chesterton The novelist Evelyn Waugh, an English convert to Catholicism, referred to Protestantism as chips off the old Block. But having stated all this, there is very much Catholics and Protestants can do together for the world apart from any irenic spirit, especially in works of mercy, pleading on behalf of the poorest of the poor, the unborn, the sick, the weak and meek who may be the victims of injustice anywhere; and to work for peace in the world and against all unjust wars. As neighbors and friends we are called to love one another and to will only the good for each other and for all. The Bishop of Rome is Peters Successor, He Is Shepherd Of The Whole Church (1) The Lord made St. Peter the visible foundation of his Church. He entrusted the keys of the Church to him. The bishop of the Church of Rome, successor to St. Peter, is head of the college of bishops, the Vicar of Christ and Pastor of the universal Church on earth (CCC936). The Lord made Simon alone, whom he named Peter, the rock of his Church. He gave him the keys of his Church and instituted him shepherd of the whole flock. [Mt 16:18-19; Jn 21:15-17] Simon Peter holds the first place in the college of the Twelve; [Mk 3:16; 9:2; Lk 24:34; 1 Cor 15:5] Jesus entrusted a unique mission to him. Through a revelation from the Father, Peter had confessed: You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Our Lord then declared to him: You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. [Mt 16:18] Christ, the living Stone, [1 Pt 2:4] thus assures his Church, built on Peter, of victory over the powers of death. Because of the faith he confessed Peter will remain the unshakable rock of the Church. His mission will be to keep this faith from every lapse and to strengthen his brothers in it [Lk 22:32] (CCC552). Jesus entrusted a specific authority to Peter: I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. [Mt 16:19] The power of the keys designates authority to govern the house of God, which is the Church. Jesus, the Good Shepherd, confirmed this mandate after his Resurrection: Feed my sheep [Jn 21:15-17; 10:11]. The power to bind and loose connotes the authority to absolve sins, to pronounce doctrinal judgements, and to make disciplinary decisions in the Church. Jesus entrusted this authority to the Church through the ministry of the apostles [Mt 18:18] and in particular through the ministry of Peter, the only one to whom he specifically entrusted the keys of the kingdom. (CCC553).---comparingviews
Posted on: Sun, 28 Dec 2014 20:43:10 +0000
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