Headlines, August 12-13, 2016
It's the summer doldrums, all right - no movement overnight on the 'above the fold' headlines in both Catholic news aggregators...
Canon212.com
PewSitter
Update: Both aggregators refreshed their home page this afternoon:
Canon212.com
The Papal Almoner has a Bergoglian knack for visible, attention-calling actions, in this case, an act of charity
(or act of mercy, one would say in the Pontificate which habitually used the word 'mercy' in place of 'charity'
which is a more encompassing term and is, moreover, a theological virtue) towards a busful of refugees in Rome.
Since he can only do so much for a token number of beneficiaries, one hopes he is
setting an example for
other individuals and organizations to step in with similar charity to benefit the majority of Rome's refugees
and homeless, who are the Almoner's main concern (providing baths and meals for the homeless - please throw
in some clothing, as well - and swims and pizzas for the refugees) and who might feel neglected or discriminated
against, if they do not happen to be among the token beneficiaries.
PewSitter:
As for the headline about the German bishops' misplaced enthusiasm for Luther - how can a Protestant be
'a teacher of the faith', if by faith we mean the Catholic faith? - it mirrors JMB's own enthusiasm,
who called Luther 'medicine for the Church', and who apparently thinks ecumenism means a de facto denial
(or at least, glossing over) of the major doctrinal differences between Catholicism and Protestantism...
German Catholic bishops say
Luther was a ‘teacher of the faith’
by Jonathan Luxmoore
August 20, 2016
Germany’s Catholic bishops have praised Martin Luther as a “Gospel witness and teacher of the faith” and called for closer ties with Protestants.
In a 206-page report, “The Reformation in Ecumenical Perspective”, Bishop Gerhard Feige of Magdeburg, chairman of the German bishops’ ecumenical commission, said the “history of the Reformation has encountered a changeable reception in the Catholic Church, where its events and protagonists were long seen in a negative, derogatory light”.
“While the wounds are still felt to the present day, it is gratifying that Catholic theology has succeeded, in the meantime, in soberly reconsidering the events of the 16th century,” he said in the report, published this week by Germany’s Bonn-based bishops’ conference.
Bishop Feige said the “history and consequences” of the Reformation would be debated during its upcoming 500th anniversary, but added that there was consensus that previous mutual condemnations were invalid.
“Memories of the Reformation and the subsequent separation of Western Christianity are not free from pain,” Bishop Feige said. “But through lengthy ecumenical dialogue, the theological differences rooted in the period have been re-evaluated – as is documented in the work presented by our ecumenical commission.”
Martin Lazar, the Magdeburg diocesan spokesman, told Catholic News Service on Wednesday that the Reformation still caused tensions in Germany, especially “in religiously separated families.”
The bishops’ report said the
“Catholic Church may recognise today what was important in the Reformation – namely, that Sacred Scripture is the centre and standard for all Christian life."
“Connected with this is Martin Luther’s fundamental insight that God’s self-revelation in Jesus Christ for the salvation of the people is proclaimed in the Gospel – that Jesus Christ is the centre of Scripture and the only mediator.”
[Those are generic and reductive statements that make it appear there are no major doctrinal differences between Catholicism and Protestantism. To take just one example: Protestants do not believe in Trans-Substantiation, which for Catholics is the operative principle in the Eucharistic Sacrifice.]
The Reformation is traditionally dated from the October 1517 publication of Luther’s 95 Theses, questioning the sale of indulgences and the Gospel foundations of papal authority.
Luther was excommunicated by Pope Leo X in January 1521 and outlawed by Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.
The German bishops describe Luther as “a religious pathfinder, Gospel witness and teacher of the faith,” whose “concern for renewal in repentance and conversion” had not received an “adequate hearing” in Rome.
They said the reformer’s work still posed a “theological and spiritual challenge” and had “ecclesial and political implications for understanding the Church and the Magisterium.”
[1. Are we supposed to forget all the hateful and unfounded statements Luther made about the Catholic Church - and even about Jesus - and think he only said them because he was angry and did not mean any of it?
2. What possible theological and spiritual challenges could Luther have posed about Catholicism that have not already been explored and explicated more than adequately and in depth by the great thinkers of the Church, from the early Fathers and subsequent Doctors, and by great eminences like Blessed John Henry Newman and Joseph Ratzinger? Or that were not answered by the great theologians of the Council of Trent?]
The report said a joint Catholic-Lutheran statement in 1980 commemorating the Augsburg Confession, which set out the new Lutheran faith, had been crucial in bringing churches closer, while another ecumenical statement in 1983, on the 500th anniversary of Luther’s birth, had started an “intensive engagement” with the reformer’s work.
A historic 1999 joint declaration on the doctrine of justification was a “milestone in ecumenical dialogue,” the report said, by recognising that
remaining differences should “no longer have a church-dividing effect.” [How can Protestant unbelief in Trans-substantiation, for example, not be church-dividing?]
The bishops’ report includes June 2015 conciliatory letters between the German bishops’ conference president, Cardinal Reinhard Marx, and Lutheran Bishop Heinrich Strohm, president of the Evangelical Church of Germany, outlining plans for a 2017 ecumenical pilgrimage to the Holy Land and a Lent service devoted to “healing memories.”
In an interview with CNS, the ecumenical commission’s deputy chairman, Bishop Heinz Algermissen of Fulda, said Catholic-Lutheran ties had improved since the Second Vatican Council, but that churches must work for “visible unity, not just reconciled diversity.”
“This means not only praying together, but meeting
the challenge of speaking with one voice as Christians when we are all challenged by aggressive atheism and secularism, as well as by [radicalised] Islam. Otherwise we will lose more and more ground,” he said.
[But have the Protestants of Europe, to begin with - separately by denomination or collectively through one of their many federations - ever made a statement condemning aggressive atheism, secularism and radicalized Islam? The one Christian church that has done that clearly and consistently - shaming JMB in this respect - is the Russian Orthodox Church. Certainly not the other Orthodox churches or the Anglican Communion, for that matter.]
“In commemorating the Reformation, we cannot just see it as a jubilee, but should also admit our guilt for past errors and repent on both sides for the past 500 years,” he added.
[For the Protestants - and JMB and his misguided myrmidons - the fifth centenary is a cause for jubilee, but it cannot be for the Church, for which Luther's schism was one of the blackest episodes which cannot be whitewashed by the prevailing historical revisionism about Luther.]
Catholics make up 29 per cent of Germany’s 82 million inhabitants, with the Evangelical Church of Germany accounting for 27 per cent, although all denominations have faced declining membership.
[What does it say of the Evangelical Church that in the country of its birth, its membership is now less than that of the parent Church which was deemed so deficient by Luther and all Protestant sect founders after him that they formed their own 'churches'? And now, look how fragmented they are - 33000 denominations and counting, against the one, holy Catholic and true Church of Christ!]
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 14/08/2016 00:09]