Faith and Life Column
545 words
Faith and Life Column for Sunday, July 22, 2007
By Don Lindman
Two recent proclamations by Pope Benedict XVI have caused significant ecumenical concern.
His approval of a document written by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith gave a tighter definition to what it means to be a Roman Catholic and raised serious questions about whether one can be a non-Catholic and still be a Christian. His approval of a broader use of the Latin Mass restored an ancient rite that many older Catholics, and some younger ones as well, were missing; it also raised questions about the direction in which he will be leading the Catholic Church in the future.
As a headline over a column on the Detroit News website stated, in the process he became "irrelevant to other Christians." The Pope's actions didn't completely write Protestant and Orthodox churches out of the Kingdom of God, as some commentators have said, but they certainly were pushed farther away from the Roman Church's definition of what true Christianity really is.
As a result, non-Catholics will not hold the same respect for the Pope that has been building over recent years. They will continue doing their faith as they believe God wants it done, and they will disregard the Pope and other Catholic Church authorities much more than they have done in the recent past.
If the Pope's intent is to turn back the clock on Catholic ecumenicity, he then would become irrelevant not only to "other Christians" but to great numbers of Catholics as well. As a result of Vatican II and the cultural climate, many western Roman Catholics simply would not return to the old days.
The response of many of the faithful to the Pope's recent declaration, as it has been to a number of other positions the Church has taken, is "I think he's wrong and I just won't follow him in this area." They remain Catholics, but the position of the Pope as infallible authority and guardian of truth for the whole church is being lost.
There is another question that may hurt the Catholic Church even more: How does it reverse the proclamations of a legitimate Church Council, one of the highest governing bodies in the Roman Catholic hierarchy?
If Vatican II was wrong in some areas, who is to say that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is correct now? Who is to say that some future Pope will not "correct" these proclamations of 2007?
According to Catholic Church doctrine, the Pope is considered infallible when he speaks ex cathedra, or out of his position as Pope, on issues of faith and morals. In practice, Popes exercise this authority very seldom. To my knowledge, Benedict was not speaking ex cathedra when he made his recent pronouncements.
But the concern is to define truth. How much weight do you place on the authority claims of a group that in its own way is periodically reversing itself? They become just like Protestants then, with different opinions and interpretations on every street corner.
The Pope is right in his belief that a relativistic world is in serious need of a belief system that it can trust is really true--for all eternity. But a church that in effect says Vatican II was wrong doesn't offer that kind of stability.