Sunday, March 19, 2017

Dialog With the Lutheran World Federation at the Cost of Catholic Identity




Pope Francis with Munip Jounan, President of the Lutheran World
Federation on 31 October, 2016 in Lund.


With "Joint Declaration" of Lund, Pope Francis has signed a protestant document on 31 October 2016. In this way he brought the Protestants an ecumenical gift for the Lutheran Jubilee which he put in place of essential dimensions of  Catholic Church identity.
A guest contribution by Hubert Hecker.
October 31, 2016 is certainly considered the eve of the Protestant Reformation Jubilee. On that date Pope Francis traveled to the Swedish city of Lund. The Lutheran World Federation had been founded in 1947.  There are 145 Lutheran communities with 70 million Protestants are members included in this umbrella organization. In Lund, Pope Francis signed a "Joint Declaration" for the Catholic Church and Munip Jounan for the Lutheran World Federation.

Two texts in contradiction

In the introduction,
  • That "we begin with the memorial of 500 years of Reformation."
  • Furthermore, "we deplore before Christ that Lutherans and Catholics have wounded the visible unity of the Church . ...
  • Many members of our communities yearn to receive the Eucharist in a meal as a concrete expression of full unity . ...
  • If we commit ourselves to move from conflict to fellowship, we do this as part of the one body of Christ , into which we have all been incorporated through baptism. ... "
According to the Catholic catechism, believers are introduced into the Church through the sacrament of baptism as members of the body of Christ. According to the dogmatic Council document, Lumen Gentium No. 8 , the "Church" and "Body of Christ" are to be understood as follows: Jesus Christ wrote "His holy Church ... here on earth as a visible structure, and bears it as such unceasingly. ... The only complex reality - the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church ... " is the society equipped with hierarchical organs and the mysterious body of Christ, the visible assembly and  spiritual community. This Church is realized in the Catholic Church, led by the successor of Peter and the bishops in communion with him. This does not exclude that there are various elements of sanctification and truth outside their structure. "This is particularly true of the separate sister churches of Orthodoxy and the ecclesial" communities" of Protestantism.

The Ecumenism decree also states that only the Catholic Church has the full abundance of the means of salvation which the Lord has entrusted to Peter and the apostleship to constitute the Church as "the one Christian body on earth, to which all are fully incorporated who are already in some way a part of the people of God" (Unitatis redintegratio, No. 3).

The Pope signed a Protestant statement

Already, on the first close reading of the two published document excerpts, the impression appeared that they were contradictory in essential points. More precisely, the Joint Declaration reflects the Protestant church image, which is contrary to the Catholic understanding of the Church in the Council. It is precisely in the understanding of the Church that the "most serious dogmatic contrast" exists between Lutherans and Catholics, according to Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller in his lecture at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. The differences in questions concerning the Church, office, and sacraments should not be reduced to "striking formulas."
This is exactly what the Joint Declaration of 31 October is.  It seems to be the least common denominator in Church doctrine. However, a Lutheran-style church understanding has emerged. This means a weakening, if not a departure from the Catholic ecclesiology. Accordingly, the Pope has signed a Protestant statement. He brings an ecumenical guest gift to the Protestants at the Lutheran Jubilee, by displacing essential dimensions of the Catholic Church identity.

The EKD emphasizes the ecclesiastical identity of the Protestants ...

The EKD [Evangelische Kirche Deutschland] President Heinrich Bedford-Strohm warned at his Vatican visit in early February: "There should be" no homogenization, which eats one's own. We want to restrain Church dividing identity." (FAZ 7. 2. 2017). The Protestants emphasize their ecclesiastical identity - in contrast to Catholic doctrine. In the Lunder Declaration they have introduced their self-understanding of church. This is not to blame them. But the Pope and his advisers are accused of not having anchored the Catholic, "Church dividing identity" in the Joint Declaration. In so far as the pope signs the Lutheran image of the Church as a common denominator, the pope has permitted the "character" of the Catholic Church to be swallowed down in the supposedly "common," but actually Protestant decline.

... the Pope wants ecumenical dialogue at all costs - even his own identity.

This is shown in the individual statements of the Joint Declaration:
▪What is with the pope as the head of the Catholic Church commemorating the Reformation in the "We" modality? Luther wanted to replace the "devilish" Pope's Church at least in the "German nation" by his new-believing church. The result was the division and separation of his community from the Church.
▪Luther wanted to abolish the Catholic Church "as a visible structure" and replace it with an invisible church of the faithful assembled. Luther's contemporary, the humanist Gerhard Lorich from Hadamar, criticizes the reformer as a demolitionist of the Church. The complaint that "Lutherans and Catholics" had equally "wounded the visible unity of the Church" is wrong on both sides: Luther alone and his followers destroyed the visible church in their sphere of influence by separating themselves with their new ecclesial community. On the other hand, the Pope's self-condemnation is absurd that Catholics have "wounded the visible unity of the Church".
▪According to the doctrine of the Council, the Church founded by Jesus Christ is realized in the Catholic Church with Its sacramental hierarchical character. Luther and his followers did not want a Church in the classical sense but a non-sacramental, new-believing community. But there can be no second apart from the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. That is why the 145 members of the Lutheran World Federation are called and are merely "ecclesial communities".
The Joint Statement speaks of "members of our communities ...". Grammatically, the Catholic Church is also meant.  As a signatory, the Pope thus demoted the Church into one of the many ecclesiastical communities and thereby denied this. If, however, only the Protestant communities which desire a common eucharistic meal are meant, the sentence is a twofold presumption. In the case of their rejection of the Sacrifice of the Mass, the Consecration, and the Transubstantiation, the Lutherans want to receive Communion, and see it as an "expression of full unity."
▪It is a doctrine particular to the Lutherans that all the baptized members of the Protestant communities belong to the Body of Christ. According to apostolic-Catholic doctrine, the baptized are part of the people of God. But they do not constitute the Church in its visible and invisible-spiritual form of the mystical body of Christ. They are outside the Church, into which they should be incorporated for their salvation - according to the Council Decree Unitatis redintegratio .
The Pope and his advisers have the sacred duty of studying the doctrine of the Catholic Church, to take it to heart, and to explain it. This would prevent them from signing questionable new doctrines of the Protestants.
Text: Hubert Hecker
Photo: MiL
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
Link to Katholisches...
AMDG

17 comments:

GMUA said...

All of those mentioned above are laymen in clerical garb.
The fact of the matter is the True Church is in the catacombs. With Trueb bishops and true priests. Not the circus performers given the time of day from "Catholic news agency". That is a false Church.

As St. Athanasius wrote:
"May God console you! ... What saddens you ... is the fact that others have occupied the churches by violence, while during this time you are on the outside. It is a fact that they have the premises – but you have the Apostolic Faith. They can occupy our churches, but they are outside the true Faith. You remain outside the places of worship, but the Faith dwells within you. Let us consider: what is more important, the place or the Faith? The true Faith, obviously. Who has lost and who has won in the struggle – the one who keeps the premises or the one who keeps the Faith? True, the premises are good when the Apostolic Faith is preached there; they are holy if everything takes place there in a holy way ...
"You are the ones who are happy; you who remain within the Church by your Faith, who hold firmly to the foundations of the Faith which has come down to you from Apostolic Tradition. And if an execrable jealousy has tried to shake it on a number of occasions, it has not succeeded. They are the ones who have broken away from it in the present crisis. No one, ever, will prevail against your Faith, beloved Brothers. And we believe that God will give us our churches back some day.
"Thus, the more violently they try to occupy the places of worship, the more they separate themselves from the Church. They claim that they represent the Church; but in reality, they are the ones who are expelling themselves from it and going astray. Even if Catholics faithful to Tradition are reduced to a handful, they are the ones who are the true Church of Jesus Christ."

James said...

May God deliver us from Pope Francis the Destructor.

john said...

Simple: know your catechism. Listening to the fake commie "pope" occupying the Vatican, will lead you to the fire pit, fast.

Anonymous said...

This is HORRIBLE. How long, O Lord, how long???

JayJay said...

what need have we of further testimony...

thewarourtime.com said...

Cf. Did Blessed Anna Katharina Emmerick foresee the Lutheranization of the Catholic Church in Our Time? - http://wp.me/p2Na5H-VY

Anonymous said...

Why is this article first published now? This took place 5 months ago!

susan said...

How on earth can this even be happening?

God must be very very angry with us....this from a pope is unthinkable; unimaginable.

What infernal, demonic thing does bergoglio have planned for halloween (the high 'holy' day of satanists)?

Anonymous said...

If someone belongs,approves,or defends the Novus Ordo in any way,what's the problem with Francis & the Lutheran's?
This is your Church and you must approve and obey.
Secondly this has been going on since Paul VI.
Mr.Francis is not doing anything remotely new or innovative.

Catholic Mission said...

March 12, 2017




Catholic-Protestant debates, discussions use irrational theology of Cushingism: Scott Hahn, Kenneth Samples unaware of magisterial error
http://eucharistandmission.blogspot.it/2017/03/catholic-protestant-debates-discussions.html

Anonymous said...

It's funny how unambiguously orthodox even the Vatican 2 documents look when compared to the antics of Bergoglio!

Anonymous said...

I wish the Catholic Church could go back to the time, not too long ago, when we had absolutely nothing to say to any Protestant group. We didn't call them heretics any longer, but we did label them as "non-believers". They were not treated with hatred, just avoided. We had our Faith and traditions, any "they" had whatever they had.
I remember some of our neighbors telling me that when they were little (and one is now 90), that whenever they walked past a Protestant church, they looked the other way, or looked down until they passed it. The nuns taught them that the devil was inside those "churches".
Maybe that was a little extreme (not really), but it certainly was better than what we have now with Bergoglio and friends.
Damian Malliapalli

PaxTecum77 said...

TANCRED, I just read some news from Rorate Caeli. Only one set of signatures is needed for the Papal Prelature of the SSPX. And the SSPX is buying a Church near the Lateran Basilica. The Immaculate Conception Sisters are just waiting for the authorization to continue with the negotiations. It would be great if you feature this article on eponymousflower blog.

Osusanna said...

My sister, the eldest, had to attend a rural public primary school. She was actually ignored by the teacher and the other students because she was Catholic! I would like to know why the Catholic Church is always the one doing the apologizing. Christ wants us to be one, but let's not be idiots.

Anonymous said...

The Immaculate Conception nuns were a great teaching Order before Vatican II, and if I'm not mistaken, wore a beautiful white and light blue habit in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Now, like so many other once great Orders, they lost a few thousand sisters, have no vocations, are closing up, and have a median age of close to 80!.
On the other hand, my friend in Rome who left the USA to travel to Italy to be in Rome, and to join an Order which never updated their traditional habit, relaxed their rules to the point of not having any, and discarded their traditions. She's about to celebrate her 10th anniversary in the Order, and her 5th in perpetual vows. What's even nicer is that this year, her Order is opening their first house on the African continent, in Nigeria where they already have 20(!) young girls anxious to join there. And also opening their 1st house in Poland. They already have a few Polish sisters, but no foundation there. It will be named after the late, great St. Pope John Paul II (who else :)
Damian Malliapalli

Anonymous said...

John Paul 2?
The same man who kissed a Quran and stated
"May St.John the Baptist protect Islam!"
"The Earth will soon need a New World Order"
The same JP2 who signed a joint declaration of justification with the Lutherans?
The same JP2 who invoked 2 different blasphemous demonic interreligious "prayer meetings"?
What a sterling reputation!

coradcorloquitur said...

Exactly, Anonymous. This syrupy cult of St. John Paul "the Great" (the latter a hyperbolic, freely assigned title by his devotees) defies the imagination and common sense---and from otherwise right-thinking orthodox Catholics. The hideous list of infidelity on the part of John Paul II above is undeniable, but it will mean nothing to those who are fanatical about this enigmatic pope who made the reign of the present nightmare which is Francis possible by naming him cardinal and archbishop of Buenos Aires. No wonder we are losing the battle for truth in the Church---at least in human terms!