Category Archives: Doctrine

Apologetics, Doctrine, Ecclesiology

CCC 846 – Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus


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Vatican Piazza

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Explicit & implicit faith: who can be saved?

CCC 846 How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers?335 Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is His Body:

Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; He is present to us in His body which is the Church.

He Himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door.

Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.336


-by Bp Robert Barron, Bishop of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota.

“You have probably heard by now that a statement made by Bishop Américo Aguiar has caused quite a stir. Aguiar is the auxiliary bishop of Lisbon, Portugal, and he is the chief coordinator of the upcoming World Youth Day. Moreover, he was, in a very surprising move, just named a cardinal by Pope Francis. So he is a man of considerable weight—which is one reason why his remarks have gotten so much attention. He commented, in reference to the international gathering over which he is presiding, “We want it to be normal for a young Catholic Christian to say and bear witness to who he is or for a young Muslim, Jew, or of another religion to also have no problem saying who he is and bearing witness to it, and for a young person who has no religion to feel welcome and to perhaps not feel strange for thinking in a different way.” The observation that excited the most wonderment and opposition was this: “We don’t want to convert the young people to Christ or to the Catholic Church or anything like that at all.” I will admit that the remark of his that disturbed me the most, however, was this one: “That we all understand that differences are a richness and the world will be objectively better if we are capable of placing in the hearts of all young people this certainty,” implying that fundamental disagreement on matters of religion is good in itself, indeed what God actively desires. Lots of Catholics around the world have been, to put it mildly, puzzled by the cardinal-elect’s musings.

In the wake of the controversy, Bishop Aguiar, to be fair, has walked back his statements quite a bit, insisting that he meant only to criticize the aggressive, brow-beating manner of sharing the faith that goes by the unlovely name of “proselytizing.” (I must say that this clarification still does nothing to explain his straightforward assertion that he does not want to convert young people to Christ or to the Catholic Church.) But for the moment, I will let that go and take him at his word. Nevertheless, I would like to address a wider cultural issue that his intervention raises—namely, the simple fact that most people in the West would probably consider his original sentiments uncontroversial.

Behind so much of the language of tolerance, acceptance, and non-judgmentalism in regard to religion is the profound conviction that religious truth is unavailable to us and that it finally doesn’t matter what one believes as long as one subscribes to certain ethical principles. Provided one is a decent person, who cares if he or she is a devout Christian, Buddhist, Jew, or Muslim—or nonbeliever? And if that is the case, then why wouldn’t we see the variety of religions as a positive, one more expression of the diversity that so beguiles the contemporary culture? And given this epistemological indifferentism, wouldn’t any attempt at “conversion” be nothing more than arrogant aggression?

As I have been arguing for years, and pace the current cultural consensus, the Catholic Church places an enormous emphasis on doctrinal correctness. It most assuredly thinks that religious truth is available to us and that having it (or not having it) matters immensely. It does not hold that “being a nice person” is somehow sufficient, either intellectually or morally; otherwise, it would never have spent centuries hammering out its creedal statements with technical precision. And it most certainly does maintain that evangelization is its central, pivotal, most defining work. St. Paul himself said, “Woe to me if I do not evangelize” (1 Cor. 9:16); and Pope St. Paul VI declared that the Church is nothing but a mission to spread the Gospel. Neither the first-century St. Paul nor the twentieth-century St. Paul thought for a moment that evangelizing is tantamount to imperialism or that religious “diversity” is somehow an end in itself. Rather, both wanted the whole world to be brought under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. This is precisely why every institution, every activity, every program of the Church is dedicated, finally, to announcing Jesus. Some years ago, when I was an auxiliary bishop in California, I was in dialogue with the board members of a Catholic high school. When I commented that the purpose of the school was, ultimately, evangelization, many of them balked and said, “If we emphasize that, we’ll alienate most of our students and their parents.” My response was, “Well, then you should close the school. Who needs one more secular STEM academy?” Needless to say, I was never invited back to address that board! But I didn’t care. When any Catholic institution, ministry, or outreach forgets its evangelical purpose, it has lost its soul. 

The same goes for World Youth Day. One of Pope St. John Paul II’s greatest contributions to the Church, World Youth Day has always had, inescapably, an evangelical élan. It delighted the great Polish pope that so many of the young people of the world, in all of their diversity, came together at these gatherings, but if you had told him that the true purpose of the event was to celebrate difference and make everyone feel comfortable with who they are, and that you had no interest in converting anyone to Christ, you would have gotten a look to stop a train.”

Love & truth,
Matthew

Doctrine

Where accompaniment fails

“Whatever we call these movements — “social justice,” “wokeness,” “identity politics,” “intersectionality,” “successor ideology” — they claim to offer what religion provides…Pope Francis makes the same point powerfully in Fratelli Tutti: unless we believe that God is our Father, there is no reason for us to treat others as our brothers and sisters.

That is precisely the problem here.

Today’s critical theories and ideologies are profoundly atheistic. They deny the soul, the spiritual, transcendent dimension of human nature; or they think that it is irrelevant to human happiness. They reduce what it means to be human to essentially physical qualities — the color of our skin, our sex, our notions of gender, our ethnic background, or our position in society.

No doubt that we can recognize in these movements certain elements of liberation theology, they seem to be coming from the same Marxist cultural vision. Also, these movements resemble some of the heresies that we find in Church history.

Like the early Manicheans, these movements see the world as a struggle between the forces of good and the forces of evil. Like the Gnostics, they reject creation and the body. They seem to believe that human beings can become whatever we decide to make of ourselves.

These movements are also Pelagian, believing that redemption can be accomplished through our own human efforts, without God.

And as a final point, I would note that these movements are Utopian. They seem to really believe that we can create a kind of “heaven on earth,” a perfectly just society, through our own political efforts.

Again my friends, my point is this: I believe that it is important for the Church to understand and engage these new movements — not on social or political terms, but as dangerous substitutes for true religion…these strictly secular movements are causing new forms of social division, discrimination, intolerance, and injustice…We should not be intimidated by these new religions of social justice and political identity…

Jesus Christ came to announce the new creation, the new man and the new woman, given power to become children of God, renewed in the image of their Creator.

Jesus taught us to know and love God as our Father, and He called His Church to carry that good news to the ends of the earth — to gather, from every race and tribe and people, the one worldwide family of God.

That was the meaning of Pentecost, when men and women from every nation under heaven heard the Gospel in their own native language. That is what St. Paul meant when he said that in Christ there is no Jew or Greek, male or female, slave or free…

The world does not need a new secular religion to replace Christianity. It needs you and me to be better witnesses, better Christians. Let us begin by forgiving, loving, sacrificing for others, putting away spiritual poisons like resentment and envy…

True religion does not seek to harm or humiliate, to ruin livelihoods or reputations. True religion offers a path for even the worst sinners to find redemption.”
-‘Reflections on the Church and America’s New Religions’, Most Reverend José H. Gomez, Archbishop of Los Angeles, Address delivered to, Congress of Catholics and Public Life, Madrid, Spain, November 4, 2021


-by Rev. Jerry J. Pokorsky

“Let’s take a look at Jesus’ ministry and see if the modern pastoral doctrine of accompaniment is worthwhile. As the dogmatic precepts of the secular religion take shape, cultural elites try to deflect criticism by presuming the rhetorical high ground. Only a racist and a bigot would object to the allegedly self-evident truths of “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” LGBTQ+ replaces morally descriptive words like homosexual, sodomy, perversion, and mutilation. Abortion and genital mutilation are no longer crimes against humanity. They are human rights.

Church leaders—like all of us—fear demonization and isolation, and Catholic moral teaching seems too harsh for modern sensibilities. So priests and bishops scramble to devise innovative strategies in response to these dramatic cultural changes. In recent years, they have introduced the pastoral doctrine of accompaniment.

Accompaniment has benign connotations and downplays divisions. The piano accompanies the singer; the side dish accompanies the main. As a pastoral strategy, the term implies compatibility and complementarity. It also encourages linguistic sugar-coating for “non-judgmental” and “inclusive” gospel proclamation. But how does the strategy compare with the mission of Jesus?

After the Resurrection, Jesus appears to his disciples on their journey to Emmaus (see Luke 24:13-35). The disciples initially do not recognize him. Good Friday devastated their expectations, and Jesus—employing the Socratic Method—instructs them along the way. He explains how the events fulfilled all of the scriptural prophecies. When he joins them at their destination, they recognize him in the breaking of the bread, and he immediately vanishes from their sight. They exclaim: “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?”

The benign components of accompaniment on the road are on display. The disciples are loyal to Jesus but discouraged by the horror of the cross. Jesus engages them in conversation, respectful but teeing up for a teaching moment: “O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!” The anonymous Jesus pointedly confronts their slothful thinking and hardness of heart. Jesus’ journey with faithful, attentive, and docile disciples on the road is a pastoral success story.

Earlier in his sacred ministry, the Pharisees bring an adulterous woman to Jesus (see John 8:1-11). The Law of Moses requires stoning as the punishment. This time, Jesus is a man of few words. He patiently listens and enigmatically scribbles in the dust. Rising, He responds: “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” Bending down again, He continues to write (enumerating their sins?), and they all depart, one by one. But Jesus did not save the lady for her to work the streets later in the day. He says to her, “Has no one condemned you?” She replies, “No one, Lord.” Jesus responds, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and do not sin again.” Except for the departure of the shamed accusers, the account looks like another successful illustration of pastoral accompaniment.

During his encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well, Jesus reveals Who He is in response to her inquiring mind (see John 4). He promises God’s gift of living water, but he also confronts her adultery: “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and he whom you now have is not your husband.” Instead of discouraging her, the honesty of Jesus inspires her. She concludes that Jesus is a prophet and elevates the conversation to the questions of orthodoxy—“right worship”—and Jesus reveals that He is indeed the Messiah. The lady returns to her village with exuberance. “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?”

Listening with patience and engaging in conversation are required components of the pastoral strategy of Jesus. But His witness to the truth takes precedence. Before Pilate, Jesus testifies: “For this, I was born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Every one who is of the truth hears my voice.” (John 18:37). So every gospel proclamation strategy must witness to the truth after the example of Jesus.

Without the goodwill of those He encountered, the fearless honesty of Jesus could have easily derailed the happy outcomes. His confrontations with the Pharisees provide a stark contrast to the success stories (see Luke 11:37-53). Although Jesus recognizes the authority of the Pharisees because they “sit on Moses’ seat,” he pulls no punches in his critique of them. They preach but do not practice. They bind heavy burdens that they will not move and love places of honor, the best seats, and salutations; they are blind guides and hypocrites. Jesus here violates every tenet of accompaniment. Indeed, he often fails to win friends and influence people throughout the gospel because his honesty can be provocative, unsettling, and offensive to hardened hearts.

When we measure it against the ministry of Jesus, we must conclude that the modern pastoral strategy of egalitarian accompaniment—never invoking gospel truths on the hot-button issues—fails. It systemically disguises either fearful complacency (the failure of action in disciplining pro-abortion politicians) or malevolent cooperation with the enemies of Christ (e.g., so-called LGBTQ ministries). The foundational component of the modern strategy of accompaniment is often not the proclamation of the gospel. It is self-preservation and accommodation, hoping the Church’s cultural adversaries will not demonize and isolate Church leaders. Pastoral accompaniment and cultural accommodation have become interchangeable terms.

Such “mutual accompaniment” doesn’t make much sense in the world of music. Even if the piano part is especially elaborate or beautiful, we would never say the singer thus accompanies the piano. Likewise with food: the side dish accompanies the main, not vice versa. Similarly, neglecting the teachings of Christ in favor of “inclusive” and “non-judgmental” accompaniment is incomplete, even dishonest.

In retrospect, the modern doctrine of accompaniment is flawed from its inception. It deviates from Jesus’ program in a fundamental way: instead of accompanying our Lord on the way of the cross, many Church leaders choose to accommodate sinners on sinners’ terms. Hence, the doctrine of pastoral accompaniment and accommodation has replaced the guardrails of orthodoxy with doctrinal ambiguity and error.

There can be no substitute for the truth of the gospel. “For if I preach the gospel, that gives me no ground for boasting. For necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!” (1 Cor. 9:16).”

Love & truth,
Matthew

Doctrine

Florida State University Settles Discrimination Lawsuit With Catholic Student for Almost $100,000

June 1 2021

“Florida State University (FSU) has reached a settlement with a former student leader who sued the school last year for violating his First Amendment rights.

The settlement came nearly a year after Jack Denton, who is Catholic, was ousted from his position as the student senate president after comments he made in a private text messaging group were made public.

In June 2020, amid the nationwide unrest and debate over racism, Denton advised fellow students in a Catholic Student Union messaging group not to donate to Black Lives Matter, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) or Reclaim the Block, because those organizations “all advocate for things that are explicitly anti-Catholic.”

“BlackLivesMatter.com fosters a ‘queer affirming network,’ and defends trangenderism,” Denton wrote, when asked by a student what exactly he meant by that. “The ACLU defends laws protecting abortion facilities and sued states that restrict access to abortion. Reclaim the Block claims less police will make our communities safer and advocates for cutting [law enforcement] budgets. This is a little less explicit, but I think it’s contrary to the church’s teaching on the common good.”

Denton’s criticism caused an uproar on campus after his comments were leaked to the student senate. The FSU chapter of College Democrats denounced the messages, saying they “demonstrate a clear lack of respect for our black and LGBTQ+ students.” An online petition also circulated, demanding the student senate remove Denton for his “transphobic and racist behavior.”

Denton sued the FSU following his removal, alleging that he had been discriminated against for his Catholic beliefs.

The legal battle came to an end last week when the FSU agreed to settle the lawsuit. As part of the agreement, the university will pay Denton $1,050 in lost wages, $10,000 in compensatory damages and $84,000 in attorneys’ fees.

The FSU also agreed to post a public statement reinforcing that student government is open to all students, regardless of their religious beliefs.

“Florida State University remains committed to protecting the rights of its students to hold and practice their religious beliefs free of persecution,” the statement reads. “Every student, no matter their religion, has the right to participate in student organizations and hold positions in student government.”

The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a conservative legal group representing Denton in the case, celebrated the victory.

“Public universities can’t single out and punish students for their religious beliefs,” ADF legal counsel Logan Spena said in a press release. “We are pleased that Florida State has finally affirmed its commitment to students’ First Amendment rights on campus. All students should be able to peacefully share their personal convictions without fear of retaliation.”

Denton graduated in December 2020 and now works as a legislative assistant to Republican state Rep. Larry C. Strickland of North Carolina, according to the state legislature’s website.“

Christology, Doctrine

Jesus is NOT your best buddy!!!2


-by Eric Sammons

“”Do you have a personal relationship with Jesus?”

If you have ever moved in Evangelical Protestant circles, you’ve probably been asked this question. A fundamental presupposition of Evangelical theology is that each person is called to a “personal relationship” with Jesus, and it is this relationship that brings us salvation.

Driving this “personal relationship” theology is usually evangelization. Most Christians seem to believe that making Jesus more directly accessible makes him more likely to be followed. If we can present Jesus as relatable, the thinking goes, it’s more likely someone will have a relationship with Him.

In recent decades, “personal relationship” theology has crept subtly into Catholic circles. It can be found especially in Catholic youth ministries as well as apostolates directed toward college students. In Catholic circles, this “personal relationship” theology is augmented with the understanding that a relationship with Jesus comes primarily through the reception of the sacraments, particularly the Eucharist and penance.

What’s often not made explicit—and perhaps often not even realized by those who promote it—is that “personal relationship” theology portrays Jesus primarily as a friend. After all, one doesn’t usually have a personal relationship with a king or a ruler, or even with a teacher. We most commonly have personal relationships with equals.

But this image of Jesus as a friend is not based in Scripture nor does it follow time-tested methods of evangelization. In the Bible, Jesus is called “friend” once: in Matthew 11:19, Christ notes that people say he’s a “friend of tax collectors and sinners.”

In John 15:14, Christ tells the apostles, “You are my friends if you do what I command you” and says they are no longer servants but “friends.” And in Luke 12:4, he refers to the disciples as “my friends.” However, other than these few references, nowhere else is Jesus presented as a friend.

Note that the Gospels do not shy away from giving Jesus titles and names. In Matthew’s Gospel alone he is referred to as “carpenter’s son,” “King of the Jews,” “Lord of the Sabbath,” “Physician,” “Son of David,” and “Son of God,” among a host of other designations. Most of His titles are prophetic or kingly, and “friend” is notably absent.

St. Paul does not present Jesus as a “friend” either. Then how does Paul portray Jesus? The answer provides a model for our own evangelization efforts today.

Let’s look at three Pauline passages: Colossians 1:12-20, Philippians 2:6-11, and Ephesians 1:3-10. All three are canticles and are the only three Pauline canticles included in the Church’s Liturgy of the Hours (during evening prayer).

Colossians 1:12-20 (Wednesday, Evening Prayer)

Let us give thanks to the Father,
Who has qualified us to share
in the inheritance of the saints in light.
He has delivered us from the dominion of darkness
and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son,
in Whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
He is the image of the invisible God,
the first-born of all creation;
for in Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth,
visible and invisible,
whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities
—all things were created through Him.
All things were created for Him.
He is before all else, and in Him everything has its being.
He is the head of the body, the church;
He is the beginning,
the first-born from the dead,
that in everything He might be pre-eminent.
For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,
and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things,
whether on earth or in heaven,
making peace by the blood of His cross.

In this canticle, Christ is given several titles, including “firstborn of all creation,” “the beginning,” and “head of the body, the Church.” Each of these titles presents an exalted view of Christ as someone who is above creation and, in fact, in charge of creation. But it’s the title in verse 15 that is key: Christ is “the image [icon] of the invisible God.” In other words, when we see Christ, we see the omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient God himself. In theological terms, this is “high Christology,” meaning it views Christ above humanity and above all creation. Paul follows this up in verse 19 when he writes, “In him [Christ] all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.” The Greek word for “fullness” [pleroma/πλήρωμα] signifies a completeness or perfection. In Christ we have the one, true God made flesh.

Philippians 2:6-11 (Sunday, Evening Prayer I)

Though He was in the form of God,
Jesus did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,
but emptied Himself,
taking the form of a servant,
being born in the likeness of men.
And being found in human form
He humbled himself and became obedient unto death,
even death on a cross.
Therefore God has highly exalted Him
and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

In this famous and beloved canticle, we begin with Christ “in the form of God,” that is, equal to God, as we saw in the passage from Colossians. But then there is movement: Christ is equal to God but he gives up that equality (“he emptied himself”), becoming man and even suffering the disgraceful death of the cross. Through this death, however, Christ is exalted and declared “Lord.” At His name “every knee should bow” both in heaven and on Earth. Again, we have a “high Christology.” Paul doesn’t see Christ as an equal, or someone who is simply a friend. He sees—and preaches—a Christ who is above all things. We don’t simply have a “personal relationship” with Him—we bend our knees to worship Him.

Ephesians 1:3-10 (Monday, Evening Prayer)

Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Who has blessed us in Christ
with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,
even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world,
that we should be holy
and blameless before Him.
He destined us in love
to be His sons through Jesus Christ,
according to the purpose of His will,
to the praise of His glorious grace
which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.
In Him we have redemption through His blood,
the forgiveness of our trespasses,
according to the riches of His grace
which He lavished upon us.
For He has made known to us
in all wisdom and insight
the mystery of His will,
according to His purpose
which He set forth in Christ
as a plan for the fullness of time,
to unite all things in Him,
things in heaven and things on earth.

In this final Pauline canticle for examination, we see Paul’s vision of the work Christ has accomplished in the world. He has brought redemption and the forgiveness of our trespasses (v. 7). But most importantly, in Christ, all things in heaven and earth are united to him in the fullness of time (v. 10). Christ is presented as a cosmic figure who brings about the reconciliation of the fallen universe. Everything became disordered through the actions of Adam and Eve, but now everything is reordered to Christ as head.

The type of language Paul uses for Christ is, unfortunately, foreign to our ears. We’ve grown up thinking of Christ in the words of the Doobie Brothers song, “Jesus is just alright with me.” We live in a casual age that, at least on the surface, prizes egalitarianism. We don’t have kings or rulers; we’re all to be considered equals. So we’ve lowered Jesus to our level to make him more palatable and acceptable to those around us. Paul saw Christ as the Image of the almighty God who became man, died for us, and in doing so restored and saved the whole universe. We, on the other hand, picture Jesus—and present him—as a good buddy we can count on in times of trouble.

Has this new presentation of Jesus been effective as a means of evangelization? It seems that it has not, as our era has seen a precipitous drop in the number of practicing Catholics. A Jesus equal to us is simply not worthy to be worshipped or followed.

People today are looking for more than a good buddy. They want someone to look up to and to follow. As a culture, we’ve insisted on cutting down our heroes and leaders, but this has left a void in our hearts, because we were made to serve a king. If we begin to preach Christ as King and Lord of the universe, many may decide to follow Him. Not simply as their friend, but as their God.”

Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Love,
Matthew

Apologetics, Doctrine, Marriage, New Testament, Sacraments, Scripture

Catholic marriage & Mt 19:9


-by Karlo Broussard

“The Church teaches that marriage is indissoluble. Thus, the Catechism teaches that while spouses are living, a new marital union “cannot be recognized as valid, if the first marriage was” (1650). Those who attempt civil remarriage after divorce, therefore, “find themselves in a situation that objectively contravenes God’s law.” The Church bases this teaching on Jesus’ words in Mark 10:11-12: “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another, commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”

Many Protestants critique this teaching for not taking into consideration what Jesus says in Matthew 19:9: “Whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another, commits adultery; and he who marries a divorced woman, commits adultery.” Since Jesus inserts the clause “except for unchastity,” it’s argued, a man who divorced his wife and married another wouldn’t be committing adultery if his wife were guilty of infidelity.

Is the Catholic Church contradicting Jesus? It seems the Church is telling divorced people they can’t remarry when Jesus says they can. [There are several points to support the Church’s teaching in light of this Gospel passage.]

One is to point out that porneia/πορνεία—the Greek word for unchastity in this verse—isn’t part of the group of words Matthew uses for adultery in his Gospel.

Porneia/πορνεία, translated as “unchastity” or sometimes “fornication” or “sexual immorality,” is different from the Greek word for adultery (moichaō/μοιχάω). In its broadest sense, porneia/πορνεία means unlawful sexual intercourse, so it can include adultery, but Matthew never uses the word that way in his Gospel. Instead, he uses moichaō and related words. For example, in the same verse of the porneia/πορνεία clause, Matthew uses moichaō/μοιχάω twice to refer specifically to adultery: “Whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another, commits adultery [Gk. moichatai/μοιχάω]; and he who marries a divorced woman, commits adultery [Gk. moichatai/μοιχάω].” In 5:27, Matthew uses moicheuō/μοιχάω to refer to the literal act of adultery, in 5:28 to broaden the concept of adultery to include lust, and in 5:32 in reference to the husband making his wife an “adulteress” by divorcing her.

If Matthew thought Jesus was talking about adultery providing an exception to his teaching on divorce, why didn’t he use the word he always used for adultery? As Bible scholar John P. Meier argues, “If Matthew wishes to name adultery as a reason for divorce, he would be almost forced to employ some form of moicheia/μοιχάω [noun] to express the concept.”

Since Matthew doesn’t use any form of the Greek word that he commonly uses for adultery, it’s reasonable to conclude that Matthew doesn’t think Jesus was referring to spousal infidelity when he spoke of “unchastity.”

A second strategy focuses on the disciples’ reaction to Jesus’ teaching: “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is not expedient to marry” (Matt. 19:10).

At the time of Jesus, there were two rabbinic schools of thought as to what constituted legitimate grounds for divorce. The Hillel school, which followed the Jewish leader Hillel, believed that practically anything could be grounds for divorce. It could be something as simple as burnt food or a prettier woman. The school of Shammai, on the other hand, believed that only sexual immorality was cause for divorce.

Given this background, the disciples’ reaction that it would be better not to marry would be unintelligible if Jesus were allowing for divorce and remarriage in cases of adultery or sexual immorality. The disciples already were accustomed to divorce and remarriage, as the Hillel and Shammai schools attest. Their strong reaction suggests that they understood Jesus to be giving a new and different teaching.

For our third strategy, we can point to how Jesus’ teaching stands alone amid the thought of the age. His teaching about divorce and remarriage in verse 9 is part of his response to a question posed by the Pharisees: “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?” (v. 3). Notice the phrase “for any cause.” It seems the Pharisees were testing Jesus to see which school of thought he would side with: Hillel or Shammai.

But Jesus’ response indicates that he sides with neither. He appeals to God’s original design for marriage and says, “What therefore God had joined together, let not man put asunder” (vv. 4-6; see also Gen. 2:24). In other words, it’s not that Moses allowed divorce for any cause, but “from the beginning” (v.8) it was only adultery-justified divorce. Rather, from the beginning there was no divorce: “it [divorce] was not so” (v.8). This proves that he sides with neither the Hillel nor the Shammai view on divorce and remarriage.

This context excludes the interpretation that porneia/πορνεία refers to adultery; in fact, it excludes reference to sexual immorality of any manner within marriage. For if Jesus intended the porneia/πορνεία clause to refer to any of these alternative interpretations, he would have been siding with either the Hillel or Shammai school. Instead, he gave a more radical teaching: that marriage is indissoluble. Therefore, we must conclude that Jesus didn’t intend the porneia/πορνεία clause to refer to sexual immorality within the context of the marriage bond, whether adultery or some other kind of immoral conduct.

Jesus underscores his radical view by saying no man can marry a divorced woman without committing adultery: “He who marries a divorced woman, commits adultery” (v.9; see also Matt. 5:32). This implies that no deed for which the woman is divorced, including adultery, renders her free to marry another man.

One last strategy: There are good reasons to think porneia/πορνεία instead refers to forms of sexual immorality that took place before or at the time of the attempted union, rendering it unlawful (invalid).

The Jews understood that certain sexual relationships rendered a union unlawful, meaning null and void—such as relationships of close consanguinity and affinity (Lev. 18:1-20). Only the Jewish community would know about the Levitical law concerning unlawful unions, and thus only the Jewish community would raise the question about whether these unions are an exception to Jesus’ teaching against divorce and remarriage. And Matthew, who is writing to a Jewish audience, is the only Gospel that records this exception clause.

As for porneia/πορνεία, the word is used twenty-five times in the New Testament. For only two of these do scholars even suggest it’s used for adultery: the passages that include the debated porneia/πορνεία clause concerning divorce and remarriage (Matt. 5:32, 19:9). Every other time, porneia/πορνεία refers to some sort of sexual immorality outside the lawful bounds of marriage: fornication (Matt. 15:19; Mark 7:21; John 8:41; Gal. 5:19; Eph. 5:3; Col. 3:5; Rev. 17:2, 17:4, 19:2), incest (Acts 15:20,29, 21:25; 1 Cor. 5:1;), general sexual immorality (1 Cor. 6:13,18, 7:2; 2 Cor. 12:21; 1 Thess. 4:3; Rev. 2:21, 9:21), and metaphorical impure passions (Rev. 14:8, 18:3).

Since we know from above that porneia/πορνεία can’t refer to adultery in Matthew 19:9, and every time porneia/πορνεία is used in the New Testament, it refers to sexual immorality outside the boundaries of the marital bond, it’s likely that the “porneia/πορνεία exception” in Matthew refers to sexual immorality that took place before and at the time of the attempted union, invalidating it.

We can support this interpretation by considering two things. First, it adequately explains why in these cases a man who “puts away his wife” and marries another doesn’t commit adultery. If he was never in a lawful union to begin with, he would be free to marry. This is the basis for Catholic teaching on annulments: allowing marriage for civilly divorced persons whose first “marriage” was judged not to have been valid.

Matthew’s intention in including the porneia/πορνεία exception is to clarify for his Jewish audience that Jesus was concerned with lawful marriages. His prohibition of divorce didn’t apply to those unions contracted before Christian baptism because they weren’t lawful to begin with. You can’t divorce if you were never married!

The great irony here is that rather than the Catholic Church telling people they can’t remarry when Jesus says they can, the view that the challenge implies tells people they can remarry when Jesus says they can’t. It’s not the Catholic Church that’s contradicting Jesus’ teaching. It’s the view that spousal infidelity dissolves a valid marital bond and gives grounds to divorce and remarry.

Unlike the many Christian groups that have caved to the pressures of modern society, the Catholic Church’s doctrines remain faithful to Jesus’ teaching on marriage, echoing Christ’s words: “What therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder.”

The seven sacraments: baptism, confession, eucharist, confirmation, holy orders, extreme unction, and…martyrdom. 🙂 I’m in trouble now! Actually, I’m always in trouble, no matter what, cuz I’m a man.

Love,
Matthew

Culture of Life, Doctrine, Homosexuality, Theology of the Body

Gay marriage: when loving the sinner means saying “no”


-by Drew Belsky

“On Tuesday, the Vatican’s press office included in its daily bulletin a notice that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) had ruled a hard “negative” on the prospect of the Church giving “blessings [to] unions of persons of the same sex.” The Associated Press, covering the story, built its headline from a phrase in the second-to-last paragraph of the two-page document: “Vatican bars gay union blessing, says God ‘can’t bless sin.’”

God “does not and cannot bless sin.” This is strong language from the Holy See and from Pope Francis, who explicitly authorized it. It flies in the face of the efforts of some prominent churchmen to mainstream Catholic tolerance of same-sex relationships, including the German bishops’ conference; the Austrian Priests’ Initiative; and, most famously in the USA, Fr. James Martin.

In comparison with the secular media and some Catholic observers, Fr. Martin’s reaction to the CDF’s response was subdued. It was certainly less strident than past criticism of what he sees as Catholic discrimination against persons with same-sex attractions.

For example: “In the U.S.,” Fr. Martin said in a 2020 video message, “the Church must stop firing married LGBT people from their positions in Catholic institutions—because if you’re going to fire people for not following Church teaching, that would include a lot more than just married LGBT people. Otherwise, it’s not just enforcing Church teaching; it’s engaging in discrimination.”

And he wrote in America, the Jesuits’ flagship U.S. publication, in 2018:

Do you hold the LGBT community to the same standards as the straight community? . . . With LGBT people we tend to focus on whether they are fully conforming to the church’s teachings on sexual morality. So are you doing the same with straight parishioners—with those who are living together before being married or practicing birth control? Be consistent about whose lives get scrutinized.

“Even though Jesus condemns divorce outright,” Fr. Martin continued, “most parishes welcome divorced people. Do we treat LGBT people with the same understanding?”

Fr. Martin is right to call out hypocrisy when Catholics rail against some sins and not others—although he’s off base if he thinks parishes “welcoming” divorced people into their doors means giving unrepentant adulterers Communion. Singling out people who publicly persist in only one particular sin is bad pastoral practice. In fact, God “does not and cannot bless” any sin. Neither should the Church. Neither should we.

So let’s keep going with Fr. Martin’s excellent logic—for instance, by applying it to “those who are living together before being married.”

Many dioceses provide literature on how cohabitation ruins a marriage. Yet when a cohabiting couple approach a priest for marriage prep, too often he will allow them to cohabit up to the wedding day. (In my own experience in Pre-Cana, the otherwise upbeat priest-speaker, acknowledging the many cohabiting couples among us, apologized in a mournful tone for having to relay the Church’s teaching on living together before getting married.) A 2005 guidance for priests from the U.S. bishops pointedly reminds that “the couple may not be refused marriage solely on the basis of cohabitation,” and Pope Francis even spoke favorably about certain long-term cohabiting arrangements he’d seen in Buenos Aires, saying “they have the grace of a real marriage.”

Can you see a disconnect here? The loving course is to insist that couples live separately and faithfully entrust the consequences to God, Who will not abandon them. It’s not loving to send them into marriage with the albatross of cohabitation around their necks. You could even say tolerating cohabitation “does and can bless sin.”

It doesn’t stop at marriage prep. When Catholic schools hire teachers who live in a state of public and unrepentant fornication or adultery (or, yes, a same-sex “marriage”), it’s not loving to scandalize all the kids who will see a destructive lifestyle and a grave offense to God boosted. And don’t forget the teachers themselves, now instantly made into hypocrites, expected to model fidelity to Catholic teaching but rejecting it in their personal lives. It’s not loving to set them up that way.

When priests and bishops are confronted with a public figure who broadcasts his support for sins that cry out to heaven for vengeance, it’s not loving to give that public figure the Eucharist. St. Paul is uncompromising about this: receiving Christ unworthily is a ticket to hell—and not only that, but everyone who watches that sinner consume our Lord can’t help but wonder if the sins he’s promoting really are so bad after all. This is why, as Pope Benedict XVI told ex-cardinal Theodore McCarrick, pastors should deny Communion to anyone whose formal cooperation with sins like abortion and euthanasia “becomes manifest.” So you could say giving the Eucharist to a public, grave, unrepentant sinner “does and can bless sin.”

Those are three examples; there are many more. Whether it’s divorce or adultery or contraception or sodomy or whatever else, we don’t love our brethren in Christ by blessing their sin—expressly, or tacitly, or through omission—and thus making it easier for them to continue in that sin. The call to repentance may need to be gradual and gentle, as prudence dictates, and always done with charity at heart. But there is no charity in enabling grave sin in our fellow Christians. That can only be a form of hatred. It is the starkest possible way to say, “To hell with you.”

When Fr. Martin says we should treat “LGBT” sins the same as all the others, he’s right. So let’s do it—in Catholic hiring policies, in marriage prep, and beyond. Where these sins are private, pastors are wise to treat them privately. Where they are public, indeed even flaunted, the CDF leads the way: “the Church does not have, and cannot have, the power to bless” these things, because God “does not and cannot bless sin.”

“If you talk about chastity with LGBT people,” Fr. Martin admonishes in his 2018 America article, “do it as much with straight people.” That is a great idea. It’s a spiritual work of mercy. So, to love and save our neighbors, let’s fight sin—“LGBT” sins, yes, and all the others, too.”

Love,
Matthew

Doctrine, Eschatology, Salvation

How do Catholics know they’re “saved”?

A very dear friend recently posed the following question to me:

“Matt, what do I have to do in order to be saved? What must I do to know that I will go to heaven when I die?”

Here is my response:

“Dear (friend), Catholics, in this life, never know if they will be found worthy. This is a decision only Jesus as God can make in our particular judgment immediately after death, and we cannot. It is presumptuous to think otherwise. We trust in the promises of our Lord.

Neither can we be sure of the damnation of any. Again, this is a judgment of the Lord, and not ours. For Catholics, sanctifying grace, the life of grace, must be present within the Catholic for the hope of salvation. The idea of universal salvation because the Lord is so merciful is a heresy, although not the worst. Mt 25:10.

The saints (both specific and general, the communion of saints, as mentioned in the Nicene and Apostle’s creeds) are believed to be in Heaven. We hold with strongest belief this is true, but this is also why two miracles are required for canonization. Phil 2:12.

Those outside the church have the possibility, not necessarily the likelihood, of salvation (CCC 846). Within the Church exists the fullness of the life of grace and the sacraments which impart grace.

These might help, too:

https://soul-candy.info/2018/06/protestant-catholic-different-definitions-of-grace/
https://soul-candy.info/2015/08/explicit-implicit-faith-who-can-be-saved/”

Love,
Matthew

Apologetics, Doctrine, New Testament, Salvation, Scripture, Theology

“By their fruits…” Mt 7:16-20, the role of works in salvation


Karl Keating

Faith & Salvation are gifts

“Fr. William G. Most (1914-1997) will not end up numbered among first-rank apologists, but his book Catholic Apologetics Today (now out of print) came to my attention just when I could profit from it. It appeared as I was putting together the newspaper columns that, when collected and revised, became my first book.

Every Fundamentalist I have dealt with—or so it has seemed—has faulted the Catholic Church for teaching, supposedly, that we are saved through good works. We earn our salvation by what we do.

Although I took the usual route of referring Fundamentalists to James 2:17 (“faith without works is dead”), I learned early on that that scriptural verse failed to make much of an impress on them.  A few seemed to be wholly unfamiliar with that book. That might seem unlikely, given that Fundamentalists style themselves “Bible Christians,” but many of them read (or study) only those parts of the Bible recommended to them by their preachers. Those who read the whole of the Bible often have little appreciation of the import of some passages, such as John 6, in which the Eucharist is promised and described. James’s comment on works is another. “Faith without works is dead” either is passed over or, at most, is interpreted to mean that good works have no significance higher than public affirmation of having “accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.” Doing good works is a good thing—but not a necessary thing.

It was through reading Most that I adopted a formulation that helped clarify the discussion. It came from his making a distinction between the way James wrote about faith and the way Paul wrote about it. They used the same word but in differing senses.

“Is it true that there is salvation in faith alone?” asks Most. “Definitely, yes!” It is “the chief theme of Galatians and Romans.” Yet James could write that “a man is justified by works and not by faith alone” (James 2:24)—a seeming contradiction.

Either salvation is by “faith alone,” as Luther so imperiously insisted, or it is not; either it comes through faith and nothing else or through faith plus something else. Which is it?

Most made the obvious point that the issue here is with the meaning of the word faith as used by the two apostles. The word was not used univocally. James “clearly uses faith to mean, narrowly, just intellectual acceptance of a revealed truth.” To faith in that restricted sense one needs to add good works. We see this confirmed by Paul himself in Romans 2:6: “He will repay to man according to his works.”

Here comes the crucial part. Most says that “Paul does not mean that works can earn salvation—but violation of the law can earn eternal ruin.” (do good/avoid evil*.  how? by doing good!) Paul does not disagree with James, but he uses a broader sense of faith: “total adherence of a person to God in mind and will. This, in turn, implies certain things.” Chief among the implications is that works have a kind of negative role to play in salvation, this being the main takeaway I had from Most. We can affirm that salvation is through faith, but salvation can be forfeited through sin. Salvation is a gift, but any gift can be rejected or returned to the giver. Something taken on by compulsion (Ed. or forced on you, i.e. slavery, the “gift” of faith) is not a gift.

Once a Christian is in the state of grace (Ed. the “readiness/worthiness/ability to receive/having received” the gift), through baptism or through repentance followed by sacramental confession, s/he is, at that moment, “saved”: were s/he to die in that state (Ed. of grace, readiness/worthiness to receive/having received), he would end up in heaven, even if with a sojourn through purgatory. But his/her state is precarious. There is no adult Christian who has not fallen out of grace through sin. “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). Someone who has not fallen short of the glory of God, however transiently, is someone who is imbued with God’s grace (Ed. “O Mary conceived without sin…”; Hail Mary, full of grace…, Immaculate Conception, Assumption, etc.); to fall short is to fall into gracelessness.

The key, then, is not to fall out of grace. This where works come in (do good/avoid evil. how? by doing good!), both good works and bad works. Bad works are sins. Through mortal sins (Ed. those which are serious, intentional, which “kill” the life of grace within us, the symptom being, likely, a guilty conscience, if not scrupulous) we lose sanctifying grace and thus salvation. What about good works? (do good/avoid evil. how? by doing good!) They don’t earn us salvation but they do something nearly as valuable: they keep us from throwing salvation away. (do good/avoid evil. how? by doing good!) To persist in good works is to avoid evil works, sins (do good/avoid evil. how? by doing good!). Those who habitually perform good works habitually avoid (but they do not necessarily always avoid) sins that destroy grace.  (Ed. “The devil’s playground…”, Prov 16:27.)

This was, for me, Most’s most valuable point. The Fundamentalist, thinking about Catholicism’s insistence that good works are necessary, thinks we believe that we bring salvation to ourselves. (Pelagianism) The Catholic can answer by saying that good works are shields against bad works (do good/avoid evil. how? by doing good!) (Prov 16:27.). Without good works, there is no prospect that a Christian can maintain grace in his soul, the opportunities to fall from grace being ubiquitous and, often enough, seemingly irresistible. Help is needed if they are to be resisted, and that help comes in the form of habitually performing good works, whether in the form of prayer, almsgiving, or something else.

It wasn’t that Most told me something I had not known, but he told it to me in a way that I had not seen before, at a time when I needed a clearer way to convey Catholic teaching to those who were sure the Church was teaching something contrary to Scripture.  Already I was coming to appreciate that often apologetics consists of offering spectacles of varying prescriptions to an inquirer. Only one prescription will give him clear sight; all the others will give him at best indistinct sight. What you want him to see—some particular truth of the Faith—will remain fuzzy to him until you come across spectacles that precisely compensate for his particular defect of vision.”

-from https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/faith-and-works-0, this is GOOD!!!  You SHOULD read the WHOLE thing!!!  I didn’t say “easy”.  I just said GOOD!!!!

“Following the Protestant Reformation, the Catholic Church held an ecumenical council in the Italian city of Trent to deal with the theological questions that were being debated. The Council of Trent issued the Decree on Justification (DJ), which set forth the Catholic position on the subject…This is the case with the idea that we need to earn our place before God by doing works…According to Trent, “none of those things that precede justification, whether faith or works, merit the grace (Ed. gift) of justification. ‘For, if by grace, it is not now by works, otherwise,’ as the Apostle says, ‘grace is no more grace’” (DJ 8, quoting Rom. 11:6).

When we come to God and are justified, it happens WITHOUT ANY MERIT ON OUR PART (emphasis added). Neither our faith nor our works—nor anything else—merits justification...If you go through Trent’s Decree on Justification, or the section on justification in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC 1987-1995), you won’t find the phrase “faith and works.” And you won’t find the word works at all in the Catechism’s section on justification.

This may be surprising, but the fact that the magisterium does not express its teaching in this way is a signal that we need to look more closely at what it says….

…Earlier we mentioned that Protestants tend to conceive of justification as an event that occurs at the beginning of the Christian life (Ed.  “I accept Jesus Christ as my PERSONAL? (what about everybody else?) Lord & Savior! = saved) where we are forgiven and declared righteous by God, and we said that this understanding is true as far as it goes.

But in the Catholic view, there is more to justification than this.

In the first place, God doesn’t simply declare us righteous. He also makes us righteous in justification. Thus the Council of Trent defined justification as “not only a remission of sins but also the sanctification and renewal of the inner man” (DJ 7).

So at the beginning of the Christian life (being “saved”), God forgives our sins and gives us the gift of righteousness.

But He’s not done with us!!!  (Ed. how is THIS NOT obvious?) He wants us to grow in righteousness over the course of the Christian life, and, if we cooperate with His grace, we will.

Catholic theology refers to this growth in righteousness using the term justification, so, in Catholic language, justification isn’t something that happens just at the beginning of the Christian life. It happens over the course of the Christian life. (Ed. Phil 2:12)”

The Council of Trent harmonizes the necessity of grace and works: “If anyone says that man can be justified before God by his own works, whether done by his own natural powers or by the teaching of the Law, without divine grace through Jesus Christ, let him be anathema” (Session 6; can. 1).


-stop screaming. it’s a JOKE!!!! 🙂

Love, and the JOY of DOING (Ps 40:8, Jn 4:34) His will, in faith, by grace.  ALL is grace.  ALL is gift.,
Matthew

* Many proponents and critics of Thomas Aquinas’s theory of natural law have understood it roughly as follows. The first principle of practical reason is a command: Do good and avoid evil. Man discovers this imperative in his conscience; it is like an inscription written there by the hand of God. Having become aware of this basic commandment, man consults his nature to see what is good and what is evil. Ps 37:27, 1 Pet 3:11

Apologetics, Doctrine, Salvation

The “Savage Forest” – Dante’ Alighieri, the Divine Comedy, & the disordered soul


-by Br Irenaeus Dunlevy, OP

“A windswept forest on a cloud-covered night creaks, cracks, and moans, sending chills up and down the spine. Trees waving and wagging on their upward path have elbowed for the brightest spot in the sun. They’re intertwined. When the wind blows, they rub, and a humanlike agony echos through the woods.

The 13th-century poet Dante Alighieri begins his famed supernatural epic, The Divine Comedy, with such an eerie scene. Yet, how did he end up in this ‘savage forest’? He writes,

“I cannot well repeat how there I entered,

So full was I of slumber at the moment

In which I had abandoned the true way.”

Before Dante’s journey spirals into the depths of hell, climbs the steep slope of purgatory, and soars into the luminous heights of heaven, he stands confused, lost, and alone. He questions, “How did I get here?” Unsure of the answer, he is sure of one thing: he’s on the wrong path.

It’s familiar, becoming lost, making a wrong turn, missing an exit, or simply gawking at a strange setting. Depicting this familiar irritation, Dante probes a deeper tragedy, something more problematic than being in the wrong locale. Dante is on the wrong path of life. Abandoning the true way, he has abandoned the road to happiness.

The ‘savage forest’ describes Dante’s disordered soul. The gnarly branches are his own vices chafing in the wind of vain pursuits. Pride, vanity, envy, wrath, gluttony, sloth, and lust compete for their own desired objects: praise, honor, vengeance, pleasure, money, and material possessions. All of these drag him down and pull him off the path to true happiness.

What’s more, Dante perceptively connects slumber with veering off the true way. Following our passions and disordered desires resembles sleeping; we’re not really thinking. Our wounded souls struggle to know the truth, to desire what is truly good, to overcome what is difficult, and to resist that quick fix of pleasure. These wounds invert our humanity in such a way that the lower parts of ourselves influence the higher parts. Reason can become like a distracted ticket agent, admitting any action without a discerning judgment. Put another way, letting the passions rule our lives is like letting a toddler rule the household.

The true path that Dante longs for is anything but the result of slumber. Christ rose from the sleep of death to new life. You might say, “One has to be awake to be saved.” (ed. #WOKE) This salvation is living with vitality, while living according to vice is not living at all.

The vices are usually called the seven deadly sins, which lead to slumberous folly. In contrast, the life of salvation and grace manifests itself in the seven lively virtues. Faith, hope, love, prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance seek their own desired objects: truth, eternal happiness, the good, the right course of action, equity, self-mastery, and the balanced enjoyment of pleasure. Far from the gray and gloom of the “savage forest,’ the new life of grace and virtue resembles a garden of various flowers and fruits.

At the beginning of his journey, a lost and dull Dante rambles into a gray, shadowy scene. Yet, at the end of his journey, a found and illuminated Dante beholds a vision of variegated color he struggles to express. Beholding God, he writes,

“Here vigor failed the lofty fantasy:

But now was turning my desire and will

Even as a wheel that equally is moved,

The Love which moves the sun and the other stars.”

Passing from vice to virtue, Dante’s journey begins in an enclosed, shadowy forest and ends with the unfathomable vision of God, the source of all light, love, beauty, and reality. Far from a slumberous vision, Dante becomes fully awake and fully alive.”

Love & His joy, only He can provide,
Matthew

Apologetics, Doctrine, Evangelical, Salvation

Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus: No Salvation Outside the Church – Reply to Pastor Bill Keller


-by Dave Armstrong
originally 4/23/08

“Catholics think that Protestants are fully incorporated into the Body of Christ by virtue of baptism.

[Pastor Keller’s words will be in bold, hereafter. I was responding to his article, so he wasn’t “there” personally, to respond]

***

I have rebuked and rejected the extremists who made the claim that the Roman Catholic Church is the only true church and that you are not even saved unless you are part of that church.

Every Christian group believes that it has the truest theology, or else it would hardly have a reason for existence. The Catholic claim that there is only one true Church is simply hearkening back to the views of the Church fathers and, indeed, of the Bible itself, that knows nothing of denominations.

There is a lot of misunderstanding, however, about our claim that no one is saved apart from the Catholic Church. We do not believe that every person has to necessarily be a formal member of the Catholic Church to be saved. We think that if a person fully understands what the Catholic Church teaches, and rejects it, then they cannot be saved, but many do not understand our teachings, and we believe that God takes that into consideration.

The Catholic Church thinks that Protestants are fully incorporated into the Body of Christ by virtue of baptism, and that many graces are available within Protestantism, leading possibly even to salvation, if a person is unacquainted with Catholic teachings.

The Bible teaches that the church (ekklesia) is a body of Believers. The true church according to Scriptures is made up of those who have accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior and hold the Bible to be God’s inspired, inerrant Word, representing Absolute Truth and our final authority in all matters.

This is not true. The Bible is a supreme authority, yes, but it has to be interpreted in line with the Church. That is seen in many biblical examples; most notably the Jerusalem Council, recorded in Acts 15. The Church also includes sinners in its ranks, and has visible elements by which it can be identified.

It was nearly 400 years AD before what we know of today as the Roman Catholic Church emerged.

Hardly. We see clear signs of Catholic doctrines such as the Real presence in the Eucharist, bishops, a centralized hierarchy centered in Rome, baptismal regeneration, the communion of saints, Mariology, and so forth, from a very early period. Doctrines had to develop more fully, sure, but that is true of all Christian doctrines, so that the Trinity was more fully developed at the Council of Nicaea in 325 and at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 (the doctrine of the Two Natures of Christ).

What makes a true Christian church is faith in Jesus Christ and adherence to the Bible as God’s Word.

And what does that Bible teach? That is the question. What does one do when two or more of these churches disagree with each other on doctrine? The NT knows nothing of doctrinal relativism. There was one truth, period. So the trick is to determine where that lies. The Church Fathers always appealed to history and apostolic succession tracing back the true Catholic doctrine and opposing those who could not trace their doctrines back to the apostles: like the Arians (precursors of today’s Jehovah’s Witnesses, who deny that Jesus is God). The Arians appealed to Bible alone because they couldn’t follow their heresy back to the beginning. It began in the 4th century.

So for Pope Benedict to state that all non-Roman Catholic churches are not true churches is a lie and not what the Bible teaches.

All we are doing is saying that the Bible teaches that there is but one “Church” and that we claim to be that Church. If someone wishes to argue that denominationalism and more than one Church can be found in the Bible, then let them make that argument. I contend that it cannot be done. Nor can a solely invisible Church be found in the Bible. The first thing to determine, then, is the nature of the Church. Then one has to figure out if this entity “The Church” exists and how to identify it.

Most troubling, however, is the Pope’s claim that salvation is only achieved through the Roman Catholic Church. I hate to give the Pope a Theology 101 lesson, but there is only one way to be saved and that is through faith in Jesus Christ alone. Period!

We agree with Protestants that salvation comes through Christ alone through grace alone. God uses the Church and human instruments to convey that salvation to men. The two are not mutually exclusive.

NO CHURCH CAN SAVE YOU!

We do not claim that the Catholic Church is the ultimate cause or origin of salvation. That is God alone. We are saying that God uses His own Church: that He set up by His own will, as His instrument in salvation, because human beings are not isolated individuals, with no connection to each other.

This notion that being part of a church can save you is not only anti-Biblical, it is pure blasphemy! In essence, what Pope Benedict is saying is that anyone outside of the Roman Catholic Church is not saved! That is not what the Bible teaches and is the type of statement I would expect out of a cult leader, not the head of the world’s 1.1 billion Catholics!

Nor is it what we teach. It is the Calvinist view that consigns people to hell solely because of an accident of birth, or never having heard the gospel message of Jesus Christ. We say only that whoever is saved is so in part because of the aid of the Catholic Church, whether they are aware of it or not, not that they will be damned if they are not formally a member of the Catholic Church.

It appears now that the Pope doesn’t even know how to be saved and I wonder if he is trusting Jesus by faith or his church for his own salvation?

No Catholic trusts the “Church” for his or her salvation. We simply believe that there is such a thing as a visible, historical Church, with apostolic succession, that has authority, and which can bind its members to believe certain things, and require them to reject heretical, false doctrines, and that this is clearly taught in the Bible.

I find it very troubling that the Pope would seek to placate those who are following the false religion of Islam to the depths of hell, yet has no problem telling Bible-believing Christians who have put their faith in Jesus Christ that unless they are part of the Roman Catholic Church they are not saved!

Ecumenism, apologetics and evangelism are all distinct and important tasks, but they are not mutually exclusive. We live in a world with others who do not believe as we do. This conflict causes wars and much misery. So, while not watering down our own beliefs, it is good and worthwhile to build bridges with others insofar as we can do so without forsaking our own beliefs and principles. The pope, as a hugely important world figure, does all these things.

The very reaction of Catholic critics proves this, because we get misery no matter what we do. If we claim there is one Church through which we can be saved, we’re accused of being narrow and dogmatic. But if we are ecumenical and reach out to Muslims as much as we can, then we are accused of forsaking the same gospel that we assert in connection with the one true Church and One True Doctrine. We can’t win for losing. In effect, unless we are Protestants, we’ll always be roundly condemned.

Nothing is more divisive than the unbiblical doctrine of denominationalism. True unity will only come through doctrinal unity, not a touchy-feely, “least common denominator” brand of low-church Protestantism. That has never brought about an end of division; only a weakening of orthodox Christian doctrine.

No Protestant denomination can be traced in historical continuity all the way back to the apostles. The Methodists derived from the Anglicans, who derived from the lustfulness of Henry VIII and his desire to break off of the Catholic Church for the reason of wanting to divorce his wife. Hardly a biblical origin . . . The Assemblies of God are only a little more than a century old, derived from the holiness movement of the 19th century, that was an offshoot of Methodism. The Baptists began with the Anabaptists in the 16th century. The Catholic Church began with Jesus commissioning Peter as the first pope in Matthew 16, and the infallible Church Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15).

There is no comparison. No Protestant denomination can demonstrate that it is in line with the consensus of the Fathers and the Bible. Eastern Orthodox is the only viable alternative to Catholicism, and we consider the Orthodox very close to us, and indeed, a “sister” Church.

The critical point is that while each group of churches or denominations have their own unique differences in regard to different doctrinal issues, what makes them Christian churches are the foundational element of the Christian faith.

The Bible nowhere sanctions doctrinal contradictions. There is “one Lord, one baptism, one faith” (-Eph 4:5).”

Love,
Matthew