Pro "Choice" Pols insist on receiving Communion at papal Mass

It appears that some Pro "choice" pols think they have a right to commune with the pope, and in the process may make the pope's pronouncements to look, well, ineffectual:

"Catholic members of Congress who publicly support the right to abortion will trek to Nationals Park Thursday for a Mass celebrated by a pope who has said such lawmakers should not receive Communion.

Leading these lawmakers, some of whom have repeatedly complained about remarks by Pope Benedict XVI and a few bishops on the subject, will be House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the government's highest-ranking Catholic and a supporter of abortion rights. Nowhere in her remarks or her actions this week has she referred to strains with the new pontiff....

... And yes, her spokesman said, she intends to receive Communion from one of the 300 priests and lay ministers who will offer it to the gathered flock of 45,000."

The pope is supposed to be the infallible Vicar of Christ when teaching about faith and morals. RC apologists claim he is a sort firewall for false teaching. If the pope says a politician, or anyone else, should not receive--they should not receive.

If Pelosi does commune in the face of papal pronouncements though, who will listen to a papal pronouncement in the future? It is as if a Lutheran pastor gave a sermon stating the obvious--Mormons cannot receive communion, and then proceeded to commune some Mormon visitors. It completely undermines the authority of the pastor and makes him look like a wind bag. The same thing here. The pope, the guy who is supposed to put a stop to heresy, cannot even stop a legislator from receiving Communion at his own Mass.

And then there is this too:

"If Catholic legislators are scorned and held out for ridicule by Church leaders on the basis of a single issue, the Church will lose strong advocates on a wide range of issues that relate to the core of important Catholic social teaching," they wrote. "Moreover, criticism of us on a matter that is essentially one of personal morality will deter other Catholics from entering politics, and in the long run the Church will suffer."

Notice the implicit threat--let us commune or else there will be consequences! This only increases the problem though, because not only will these pols disregard a clear teaching of the RCC, but they threaten the Church that if it deigns to try and live by its own pronouncements, it had better watch out! In other words, this is even more reason not to commune a flagrant sinner--he insists there will be consequences if his wishes are not fulfilled.

Also, notice the post-modern habit of distilling everything down to "personal morality". I find this appalling. And on another level, what use is papal infallibility, and papal authority, if one can flout the pope on such an important issue and simply do what one pleases? It seems to me Luther was excommunicated and remains so for much, much less. I never thought murder was a private matter, neither does the pope. But apparently, the pope won't act on that conviction.

The principle is rather straight forward; if someone in our congregation is a thief, the pastor would not necessarily excommunicate him. But if he publicly advocates thievery, and persists in his own thievery in public and then demands communion, the pastor would rightly excommunicate him, basically saying "Until you repent, we turn you over to Satan" just a St. Paul did. It is the case, is it not, that flagrant public sin excludes one from the Lord's Table. The critique of the papacy would more or less write itself--the pope said they shouldn't receive because they advocate the murder of the unborn, then he allowed them to at a mass over which he presided. So much for the "fiat currency" of what the pope says--especially these circumstances. In my opinion, this turns the pope's words to mere ink or recycled electrons, because they can obviously be ignored even when he presides over a mass.

What use is this infallibility, again?

Universalism

It seems there is an Eastern Orthodox bishop believes God would not be so cruel as to condemn people to hell for eternity:

In a stunning ecumenical moment at the Catholic Church's first-ever World Congress on Divine Mercy, Russian Orthodox Bishop Hilarion Alfeye, bishop of Vienna and Austria, told a rapt audience of 8,000 that God's love places no limit on his mercy toward humanity, even to the point of imposing a temporal limit on hell.

Quoting St. Isaac the Syrian, a 7th-century holy man revered in Russian Orthodoxy as "famous among saints," Bishop Hilarion noted that "God does nothing out of retribution. Even to think that way about God would be blasphemous. Even worse is the opinion that God allows people to lead a sinful life on earth in order to punish them eternally after death. This is a blasphemous and perverted understanding of God, a calumny of God."

I think that much of the OT is difficult for the more mystical strains of Orthodoxy to swallow. From the quote supplied "God does nothing out of retribution. Even to think that way about God would be blasphemous. Even worse is the opinion that God allows people to lead a sinful life on earth in order to punish them eternally after death. This is a blasphemous and perverted understanding of God, a calumny of God."

The problem is that there are a lot of readings in the Scriptures which state explicitly that God does take vengeance on the sinner, repays, he repays Israel for her sins, he is pitiless (Ezekiel 7) etc. If my theology asserts something else despite these repeated examples, well, I suppose I have to re-evaluate my theology instead of re-imagining the deposit of faith to fit into my notions of what is or is not a calumny towards God.

I am honestly at a loss as to how a bishop--someone educated in godliness, can come to the conclusion that hell is temporary--unless the Scriptures simply don't mean much to him despite traditional Orthodoxy's claims to the contrary that the Scriptures are quite important indeed. The fact is that we have it on good authority that the damned will go away to eternal punishment. If that makes someone squeamish because it sounds mean, or unjust, or violates their sense of what God ought to be like, so be it. Just admit you are not apophatic, and that theology trumps the Scriptures, Tradition, and everything else.

Eternal damnation is what our Lord has taught by his own words, and throughout the Scriptures. It is in the Old and New Testaments, it is supported by the great majority of the Fathers, it has pretty much been widely believed throughout the centuries--except perhaps among speculative theologians. If "Scriptures+Tradition" or "Holy Tradition" do not establish this, they pretty much do not establish anything at all, including other basic tenets of the faith.

(Via TheologyWeb)

UPDATE:

I found this other article from Bp. Hilarion. In it he states:

"On the one hand, it is impossible for one to actively repent in hell; it is impossible to rectify the evil deeds one committed by appropriate good works. However, it may be possible for one to repent through a ‘change of heart’, a review of one’s values. One of the testimonies to this is the rich man of the Gospel we have already mentioned. He realized the gravity of his situation as soon as found himself in hell. Indeed, if in his lifetime he was focused on earthly pursuits and forgot God, once in hell he realized that his only hope for salvation was God[76] . Besides, according to the teaching of the Orthodox Church, the fate of a person after death can be changed through the prayer of the Church. Thus, existence after death has its own dynamics. On the basis of what has been said above, we may say that after death the development of the human person does not cease, for existence after death is not a transfer from a dynamic into a static being, but rather continuation on a new level of that road which a person followed in his lifetime."

To be fair to the bishop, he does not claim this as a dogma of the Church.

So, it seems the bishop claims one can repent through a change of heart, in hell, after death. My only critique of his scriptural example of the Rich Man, is that we are told there is a wide gulf between the Bosom of Abraham and hell, and that his relatives have Moses and the Prophets. In other words, the "change of heart" didn't seem to work, and Christ did not say he had any hope.

What do white people like?

This is not really a Lutheran site, but it is hilarious!

Here is a sample:

It is imperative that you do not attempt to kick them out of their misery by saying things like “get over it,” “there are other people out there,” or “I don’t want to read your poem.” Implying that there things in the world more important to you than their breakup is considered one of the rudest actions possible.

I have seen nothing on the WWW that captures the banality of much of modern American life than this site.


http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/

A Lutheran Commercial?!

I may not have done it exactly like this, but I sure wish the Synod would come out with communications like this!



(Link Updated)

Relational Evangelism?

Should evangelism be almost completely relational these days? By “relational”, I mean the Christian already has some kind of relationship with the non-Christian. It is not a public proclamation of the Gospel, such as in Church. I am very sympathetic to the relationship angle. However, I am not sure that is how it always worked in the early Church, in a period similar to ours in that the general culture was not friendly to the Gospel message. Peter did not have a relationship with the crowd of people he preached to on Pentecost. What he did is use familiar language, and "fill in the blanks" after he got their attention. Now that I think of it, Paul did the same thing at the Aeropagus--he started from their "Unknown God", and went along pointing the Athenians to the real God, and the Resurrection of all flesh. He did not teach the Athenians Sin/Redemption--instead his "sermon" was one of "God is now calling you all, and he is the one you seek, you seek him because you have a place for the unknown God!" In other words, for non-believers, he did not use the Law/Gospel dialectic. It also seems to me St. Paul used a bit of “Christus Victor”.

I have been thinking about this lately.

The Real Presence, the Incarnation and so called "Empirical Evidence"

The doctrine of the Incarnation teaches that Jesus is the God-Man. He is not the God-man like I am German-English-Irish though, his way of being God-man is different from your typical American mutt. Regarding my composition, each "group" contributed something to the whole person, me. It might even be possible to separate the different strands which come from each group--blood chemistry etc. In the case of Christ though, it is not as though he is part God and part man so that we can separate the man from God--which would be Nestorianism, but that the person of Jesus Christ is God, such that to shake hands with him is to shake God's hand, to eat with him is to eat with God etc. He is not 50/50, but one person who is God and Man at the same time, indivisible, yet not mixed.

Now, I see an analogy between this and the RP. The bread and body of Christ are united in such a way so the bread is the body of Christ, even if we cannot detect it, just like we can't detect the divinity of Jesus Christ if we eat with him, or shake his hand.

Now, some "Reformed" types claim that the Real Presence is empirically falsified, because if we look at the bread, taste the bread, chemically examone the bread we will find bead and no body. I think this is the wrong question, however. If we want to be empirical the question is, not whether we can discern the body of Christ physically, but whether we can discern the effects of the body of Christ. For instance, Medieval people could discern the effects of infection, but could not always discern the cause of infection. In other words, the only "empirical" evidence was the effects, not the cause. This did not cause them to deny the reality of infection, far from it. Through experience they even learned to mitigate the effects. Later in history, we learned more details about infection, that they are caused by bacteria or viruses. In other words, the cause of the infection was later "revealed" through investigation. So, in a like manner, the RP was revealed, not only in Christ's words of Institution, but by their effects on those who profaned the Sacrament. This is true even though, like bacteria and viruses, we cannot now see the cause with our senses, we don't know how his body is present, but sometimes we can see the effects, including sanctification and the increase of faith and godliness. And like the "revelations" of science, God will reveal all things to us in his good time. But in the mean time, it is not correct to assert that we have no empirical evidence, what we have is enough evidence to believe, which should be sufficient this side of eternity.

What is Baptism?

I am not a pastor or a trained theologian, just a layman with experience in theological polemics and somewhat well read. I attempted to answer a question regarding Baptism on the Witternberg Trail. This post is lightly modified from a Forum entry I wrote there.

What -- exactly -- happens when a person is baptized?

We are washed by God with the water and the Word. The Word, or the promises in the gospel, come with the Holy Spirit. This is a way God has of bringing us into Christ, of grafting us into the vine, so to speak. I want to add something, because many Protestants have a lot of problems with this idea. It is not water that washes us, but water with the Word that washes us. Water is good for washing away filth, water with the Word is good for washing away sin, death and our slavery to the devil. Baptism is God's promises, a spiritual thing, united with material, water. This is an important thing to understand, because if we miss this, we will miss a lot of what Lutheranism is about.

A good analogy for uniting spiritual things to material things is the Incarnation, where the Word became man, was born of a virgin, wet his shorts etc. It was not a mere man who saved us, but a man who is also God, united in the person of Christ. God and man in one person. In a similar way, God's promise, the Holy Spirit etc. are united with the water in Baptism. We believe this because we believe God's promises.

Does this answer change if the person is an infant?

No.

How do you know this is true? What are the Biblical texts?

Eph 5:25-27
25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.

This passage is not directly referring to Baptism. But I hope you will notice that there is a washing of water with the word with the effects of cleansing, and leaving without blemish. As I said, water by itself cannot do this, but water with the Word can make us holy and without blemish.

Titus 3:4-7

4But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, 5he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, 6whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

While the word "baptism" does not appear here, I believe this is a clear teaching that Baptism brings renewal and rebirth, because it washes away our filth, as the passage above says.

Of course, there is always this:

John 3

1Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. 2This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him." 3Jesus answered him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." 4Nicodemus said to him, "How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?" 5Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

Again, we see Jesus uniting water with the Spirit, which is another way of saying water and the Word. And let's not forget St. Peter's "Baptism now saves us".

There are other allusions to Baptism throughout the NT, but I hope these will suffice for now.

So, that is my pocket sized justification for our doctrine of Baptism. Whole books have been writen abo tthe subject, but I hope this suffices at least for now.

Vengeance is mine, but I will not repay!

When God punishes sin, does he take vengeance upon the sinner? By vengeance, I do not mean a petulant rage, like a child who smashes his block building because of a flaw. I mean a righteous repayment for sin, either eternal or temporal.

I ask because I keep thinking about the discussion I had with Dr. Liccione, RC philosopher and expositor of the infallibility of the Majesterium. In this discussion I claimed that Trent Session 14 contradicted the new Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC). Here is the pertinent section of the CCC:

1472 To understand this doctrine and practice of the Church, it is necessary to understand that sin has a double consequence. Grave sin deprives us of communion with God and therefore makes us incapable of eternal life, the privation of which is called the “eternal punishment” of sin. On the other hand every sin, even venial, entails an unhealthy attachment to creatures, which must be purified either here on earth, or after death in the state called Purgatory. This purification frees one from what is called the “temporal punishment” of sin. These two punishments must not be conceived of as a kind of vengeance inflicted by God from without, but as following from the very nature of sin. A conversion which proceeds from a fervent charity can attain the complete purification of the sinner in such a way that no punishment would remain.

(Emph. added)

Now, Dr. Liccione said that the CCC is clear, that when God is said to punish sin in Trent, we should take it to mean that God punishes us by allowing the effects of our sin take hold of us, he is not actively punishing, he is only willing that those effects take place, which is termed "vengeance".

I just don't see Trent, or the Scriptures, or anything else in prior Church history teaching any such thing. Are we really to believe that God is not active in inflicting (Trent's term BTW) punishment? Aren't there numerous passages in the Scriptures, in the writings of the Fathers, even in Church art which tell the story of a vengeful God punishing evil? I am not trying to score cheap debating points, but it seems there is more than a little tension between RC tradition before the CCC, and RC tradition post CCC. If "If any one saith, that satisfaction for sins, as to their temporal punishment, is nowise made to God, through the merits of Jesus Christ, by the punishments inflicted by Him..." really means something like "If any one saith, that satisfaction for sins, as to their temporal punishment, is nowise made to God, through the merits of Jesus Christ, by allowing the consequences of the sin to afflict the sinner..." then words really have no meaning, and we are at the extreme end of nominalism, which is not a good place to be, because it only causes confusion.

A for us Lutherans, when God says he inflicts, he inflicts, because if he wanted to say allow, or inspire a council to tell the truth, he would have said allow. That may be too simple for the learned, but it is much more graspable than constantly "clarifying", or in effect saying words have no meaning.

It is, in fact, a big reason I came over to Wittenburg all those years ago.

Here we stand

I got this from an account of The Marburg Colloquy over on Begars All:

Luther: We decline naming them [the Fathers who taught the Real Presence]. Augustine wrote the passage you have quoted in his youth, it is moreover very unintelligible. Besides, I do not concern myself as to what the Fathers teach on this head, but I abide by the words of Christ, (Here he pointed again to the words written in chalk upon the table, "This is my body.") See, so they run. You have not driven us out of this stronghold, as you proudly imagined you would do, and we concern ourselves no farther about proofs.

This occurs near the end of the Colloquy, so very soon afterwards the two camps departed, never to be united in doctrine again. The section I cited above is Luther's final argument, basically, and he says he will stand by Christ's words "This is my body", no matter how many logical arguments Zwingli and co. can come up with. This is, I think, the essence of Lutheran Sola Scriptura, in that what God has expressly revealed, we are to believe because it comes from God, not because logical arguments can be deduced. It also ties in with the ongoing micro-blogstorm regarding Luther's alleged statement that councils would be required to judge between Luther's and Zwingli's divergent interpretation of the Scriptures--an argument made by some RC apologists for centuries. I am not a Luther scholar, but doesn't it seem a little odd that the guy who simply said "I abide by the words of Christ" would suddenly have a change of heart about councils? I am not saying it is impossible, just that the possibility is becoming more remote the more I learn about the events around that time.

Faith in Christ precedes Trust in the Bible

Over on becominghinged, there is a discussion regarding whether or not the CCC contradicts Trent on sin and punishment. While I find that discussion interesting, I was challenged because I wrote that Trent and the CCC apparently contradict on the matter of temporal and eternal punishment. The challenge was

I’ve seen non-Christians use the same argument against the apparent contradictions in scripture. What do we say to them that won’t sound like the same kind of “nuancing” that you accuse the Catholic Church of?

My response was

Regarding what atheists say about the scriptures–I don’t think the Holy Scriptures are meant to be read as a strict history text, but as a proclamation through the writers by God of Jesus Christ. So, I start with Christ and then believe the Bible, I don’t start with the Bible and then extrapolate what it tells me of God. Or, the Bible is true because Christ is true, and Christ has known me, and I him, from my Baptism.

(Here is my stop loss-when I say the Bible should not be read as a strict history text, I meant that questions like how many women were present at Christ's tomb are of no interest to me, because the Gospels are not detailed histories of every event they record, but they are none the less true).

Dr. Liccione responded to this by saying

Your brand of Protestantism is quite problematic even by Protestant standards. You say: “I start with Christ and then believe the Bible, I don’t start with the Bible and then extrapolate what it tells me of God. Or, the Bible is true because Christ is true, and Christ has known me, and I him, from my Baptism.” Well, if your knowledge of and faith in Christ is thus epistemically prior to the Bible, then sola scriptura is out for you, and you claim knowledge of the deposit of faith through a Tradition that is epistemically, and presumably temporally, prior to the Bible. But by whose account of Tradition? Whatever the answer, what authority can they claim? Do you claim to know which ecclesial authority, if any, speaks with the infallible authority of Christ? If so, why? And if none does, at least according to you, then how can you distinguish your faith from mere personal opinion? Even apart from any specifically Catholic-Protestant issue, these are very serious questions for you.

Here is what I mean by "I start with Christ and then believe the Bible, I don’t start with the Bible and then extrapolate what it tells me of God." I believed Christ before I believed the Bible, it is as simple as that. Dr. Liccone says that therefore my knowledge of Christ is before the Bible. I never said anything about knowledge in an intellectual sense, I said I start with Christ before I believed in the Bible. And when I said that I do not then go forth and extrapolate doctrines, I mean that I did not read the Bible, decide it was true, and then decide to believe certain things about Christ--that is a Baptist/Evangelical way of doing things, I am Lutheran and we do not do things that way, we depend on the things Christ provided to the Church to make Christians, Baptism, Holy Communion and the verbal proclamation of the Gospel. So Dr. Liccione is jumping to conclusions here, giant leaps in fact. Sorry, but Sola Scriptura is not out for me, and I think Dr. Liccione's question has a misunderstanding embedded into it. Lutherans believe the Scriptures because they point to Christ, they have Christ as their center, not man. Traditions, infallible "ecclesial authority" or what ever else the RC apologist can throw at me has man at its center, not Christ. Just look at the arguments typically made, or look at Dr. Liccione's statement above; I am to see what authority the ecclesial authority I choose has based on my determination as to whether it speaks with Christ's infallible voice. I am at the center, not Christ, because I decide.

Instead of this, I proclaim that Christ himself baptized me and made me his own, so he knew me and I know him--though not intellectually--more like how an infant knows his mother and father. The "ecclesialogical authority" gives me Jesus' body and blood, and proclaims his love for me and what he did. It is infallible becausse Christ made promises, and he never lies, the infallibility is centered on Christ and not on man. If an "ecclesial authority" can provide people with the things Christ promised, it "works" as an "ecclesial authority", though it may sow tares of false traditions among the wheat of the Sacraments and Gospel preaching, and therefore may destroy trust in the promises of Christ. And we also therefore don't need detailed formulations about exactly when the infallible "ecclesiological authority" is infallible or not--because the Sacraments are infallible, because Christ himself made promised regarding what he does in and through them.

As for Sola Scriptura, I know this is true because God tells me so in his word, the Bible, which proclaims Christ, how he gives himself to us in Baptism and Holy Communion, and in the absolution I receive from the ordained minister in the Church I attend. I don't think it is too hard to grasp.

Now, I suppose Dr. Liccione or another RC apologist might say "How do you know what the Bible tells you about Christ without an infallible "ecclesial authority?" But I am not too interested in elaborate, abstract ideas of authority, in which one must make apologetic arguments to determine which part of what document under which circumstances constitutes an infallible statement. I want Christ where he promised to be, and he says where he will be in his word. I find him in Baptism, Holy Communion and the preaching of the Gospel. He does not lie, and I believe him.