UNITY THROUGH CONVERSION, NOT ECUMENISM

To comment, please open your gmail account, use my email address, Facebook, Twitter or Messenger. Scroll down for comments.



Cardinal John ('call me Father') Dew says other Christians are just like us Catholics.

In a clarion call for a 'Week for Christian Unity' * beginning today, Cardinal Dew notes that "there are doctrinal differences" (you can say that again) "and differences in styles of worship and prayer" (well, these days not so much, and if we could just stop calling priests Father, we'd be more like the Protestants than ever.)

Of course, other Christians are like us insofar as they recognize Jesus Christ as the Son of God. But they are emphatically not "just like Catholics", who are quite simply the only true "followers of Jesus Christ, committed to his way, his truth and his life" - as Cardinal Dew claims that Protestants are - because other Christians do not recognize their Lord in the Eucharist. 

Even Lutherans, often quoted as being 'just like Catholics', do not believe that Christ resides in the Sacrament except at institution, distribution and reception. In other words, no tabernacles, no Adoration of the Eucharist.

Cardinal Dew says that "compared to the animosity of previous centuries we have made huge strides in learning to work together". 

Yep, I remember my father telling us that when he was a child (a Lutheran child), his parents said that if he saw a nun coming he had to cross the road. I remember some non-Catholic kid spitting on his hand when he was told to hold mine for the Grand March at the fancy dress ball. I remember hearing "Catholic dogs stink like frogs" on the way to school. But for the life of me I can't remember any Catholic kid retaliating. 

The cardinal begs us not to miss any opportunity "to take part in an ecumenical service in your area".

The cardinal might recall the encyclical on Christian Unity, Mortalium Animos, in which Pope Pius XI remarked on the growing trend and desire expressed by Catholics to pray in common with members of other Christian denominations for purposes on which they could agree, such as peace in the world. 

Pope Pius writes:

“It is clear that the Apostolic See cannot on any terms take part in their (Protestant) assemblies, nor is it anyway lawful for Catholics either to support or to work for such enterprises; for if they do so they will be giving countenance to a false Christianity, quite alien to the one Church of Christ. 

Shall We suffer, what would indeed be iniquitous, the truth, and a truth divinely revealed, to be made a subject for compromise? For here there is question of defending revealed truth.” 

And Pope Leo XIII warned about the dangers of putting "the various forms of divine worship on the same footing as the true religion" (Immortale Dei). 

It's been explained to me recently very clearly, by a priest of the SSPX, that joining in prayer with non-Catholics is as good as saying their religion is equal to ours. This is the sin of indifferentism. I'm not sure whether this priest (definitely a Father Surname, no hail-fellow-well-met equality here), mentioned indifferentism: the doctrine and dogma poured out of him at such a rate, and in a French accent, that I couldn't keep up. But I got the gist all right.

Even Vatican II's ' Declaration on Religious Freedom' , contrary to popular clerical misunderstanding, does not say all beliefs are equally valid. It states that "the one true religion subsists in the Catholic and Apostolic Church".

Many Jews "followed Him no more" because they refused to believe in the Eucharist. What's the difference - in terms of religious belief - between those hard-hearted Jews and the Protestants of today?  "Unless you eat my Body … you shall not have life in you" was Christ's "hard saying" ne plus ultra. It sorts the men from the boys.

That SSPX priest directed me, in confession, to leave an ecumenical group I've attended for years immediately - but not before inviting its members, dear friends of mine, to become Catholics. That was 'a hard saying' too, but I obeyed it. 

Yes, it's 'nice' to 'share' with our good Protestant friends (will I have any after this?) but Jesus Christ was not about niceness. He was Love, which always wishes for others the joy of eternal life. He offered not several churches, just One. He offered not a nice way but a hard one, with no compromise.

As Cardinal Dew himself would have prayed in today's Divine Office:
"On this day you promised the Holy Spirit to the apostles, for the spreading of your gospel to the ends of the earth; strengthen us by the power of the Spirit in bearing witness before the world." We Catholics are instructed to spread the gospel, not niceness.

Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus: outside the Church (the Catholic Church) there is no salvation. The business of the Catholic Church is saving souls. Full stop. Rule off. Everything else is subsidiary. 

So could we Catholics please stop pussyfooting around with ecumenism and concentrate on some good old-fashioned doctrine and conversion?


*We note that the theme for the 'Week of Christian Unity' is the tired old concept of social justice, taken they say - under the direction of an unholy alliance between the Vatican and the World Council of Churches - from Deuteronomy 16:20: Justice and only justice you shall pursue.

My Douay-Rheims bible translates Deut 16:20 as: Thou shalt follow justly after that which is just. 

Which just goes to show how even biblical translation can be corrupted. 

'Anonymous' says: 

Love your new blog, unity by conversion. That is my route, never regretted, even though yes it is a hard road. And the difficulty largely emanates from those renegade or revisional clerics. By them the fort is betrayed. 
Deo gratias for those holy priests we have met who stand for God in tradition, first the worship of God, then the saving of souls. Men who would rush into the mouth of Hell to drag a penitent out to salvation. 
Heroes all. 

Paul Collits says: 

Bet that will go down well!

'Anonymous' II says:

The problem is in a nutshell one of true ecumenism vs modernist ecumenism. Pope Francis gets this and he recently said in an address in Rome, "Christ the Lord founded one Church and one Church only. However, many Christian communities present themselves to people as the true inheritance of Jesus Christ; all indeed profess to be followers of the Lord but they differ in outlook and go their different ways, as if Christ were divided. Such division openly contradicts the will of Christ, scandalizes the world, and damages the sacred cause of preaching the Gospel to every creature.