On anniversary of Reformation, it’s time to get ecumenical

I am! Well said Bill. I believe we all share in the sacredness of baptism... participation in the life and death our Blessed Lord. We are like brothers who don't see eye to eye but if we can agree on what a wonderful gift it (baptism) is just wait until you see the other six that our Lord gave us to help sustain us on our shared pilgrimage.

Bill - I appreciate your humility and sincere desire to move ecumenical talks forward. I agree w/ you that once fracture takes place it's really difficult to heal the division. In light of this, alongside your commitment to semper reformanda, I wonder if Protestants like yourself would be willing to accept a provisional reunion w/ the goal of working towards further reform. In my view, reform is always more fruitful when it takes place inside the Church. As things stand now, continuing reforms w/in Protestant circles leave the Roman Catholic Church untouched. It seems like with the progress made on justification and the Catholic Church's postconciliar renewal in the area of ecclesiology, that the remaining differences are not serious enough to warrant division. Obviously, not all Protestants will see things this way, especially in light of matters such as purgatory, indulgences, and Marian devotion (which remain operative in the RCC); but, it seems like there is a substantial amount of Protestants like yourself who would entertain a provisional reunification. In my mind, this kind of arrangement could have monumental effects on the ecumnenical movement as a whole.

Are 'divisions' real or mere perception?
In whose mind are we 'divided?'
Certainly, not in God's, whose heart and soul is One with All.

I find it interesting that the people in the pews have no problem associating with those from other denominations at work, at play, or any other time - except for Sunday mornings. Too often it is the religious heirarchies who demand conformity to miniscule dogmatic differences and are comtuous of other faith traditions.

I fault the leaderships involved; perhaps it has something to do with retaining their priveleges?

Thanks for this article. As a Roman Catholic, I would love to see a reunification of all Christians and I agree that sometimes it starts with just the small steps that each of us can make in our own communities. It would be amazing to witness the influence we would have in this world as one united Body of Christ.

I'm with you! My mother was a very faithful Lutheran and my father a Roman Catholic. I'm Catholic too, but given my upbringing, I emphasize in my own faith practice and belief more of the aspects of Christianity that are held in common than those which are uniquely Roman Catholic.

However, I am saddened that so many of my fellow Roman Catholics (still) believe that they have a lock on the One Way to salvation, and view anything that remotely looks like ecumenism as a threat to their beliefs and practices.

My view is that if we look with an open heart, we'll find so much more that we hold in common than we hold uniquely, and it is upon that commonality that we can truly build fellowship and, indeed, the Kingdom.

Sadly, though, I fear there are large number of Roman Catholics who have no interest in looking.

"Why can’t those of us who lead from the pews find ways between now and then to make peace between Protestants and Catholics -- even if it’s just between my own congregation and a single nearby Catholic parish? Or between your parish and the Methodist church down the block?"

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An excellent and urgent idea. I couldn't agree more!

Our place in the world order is rationalized on a displaced worldview. If we presume Earth, ourselves, to be central to all other existence, then we dare to harbor presumptions that cause us to think and act arrogantly toward all other.

Today, global life suffers mortal waste because of humankind’s arrogant presumption of dominion right over Earth and all creatures. Can we desist from arrogant and destructive habits of misinformed consumerism? Or will we persist in them, terminally waste Earth-life and put at risk human existence?

The fixations evolved by and within centrist, theological absolutism no longer inform faith and reason credibly. Quite to the contrary, they serve as confrontational flashpoints of violence and havoc. The faith foundation common to life and unfolding consciousness is the essential continuity of cosmic transformation, which speaks in human consciousness to global, self-caused predicaments. If the pillars of vital consciousness are trashed by an arrogance that is blind to essential Earth/cosmic connections, then, the future for humankind is bleak indeed, and in mortal peril.

Is it possible for religious ideologues to mend their schisms and come to the "common ground" of unconditional love openly exemplified by Jesus? Christian hope has to believe that it is. The hope for it to happen can begin with personal/ communal confession and sharing of open faith.

What stymies well-intentioned reconciliation is lack of a universal, topical approach (curriculum) and a forum where people can convene locally.

http://divinicom.com/Emerging%20Church,%20NEW%20ERA%20DAWNING.pdf

The DIVINICON proposes a beginning with the transformational consciousness of the world order — a continuity order of essential connectedness, a cosmic order of "quantum-electric" relationships — a common-ground link that might let us together escape from self-elaborated traps of deception and consumption — offered is a non-polemical, topical approach that might be taken up locally by Church Committees of Social Concern. www.divinicom.com

Please join with others in your community to bring about a self-reflective and purposeful change from dead-end, centrist thinking to the openness of the expanding cosmos — a change from the "culture of death" to the "culture of life."

Now that the Party has started for politics, it's time to "take TEA to church."

I had reason to read about various Protestant sects or religions the other day. Being a cradle Catholic I always thought the reason for 'separation' rested soley and exclusively with the Protestants.

After doing some reading, I changed my opinion. I just did not see the degree of separation that Rome sees in Protestant religions. I concluded that if there was genuine goodwill on both sides, but especially Roman Catholicism that appears to want to emphasize the differences rather the similarities, that the Protestant/Catholic or Catholic/Protestant division could be healed rapidly.

"Who's with me?"

Me!!!!!!!!!!

The arts, in particular music, have been a great source of commonality for me. While in the Armed Forces, I found a hospitable enthusiasm for participation in different choral groups and traditions in both formal celebration and more intimate gatherings. I have to admit that the spontaneous effusions of Pentecostal expression caught me completely by surprise. I was particularly impressed by the Protestant penchant for ringing the rafters in song. Catholics have a very rich musical tradition that is under-utilized but engaging.

Luther is a colorful and interesting human personality. He and Paul of Tarsus were struck by Lightning in the storms of social transformation and took us in unique and valuable directions. I see the divide more like a duality of mutual nurturance like Ying and Yang that prepares us for the dialogues of the future with other great human traditions, particularly in the East.

Thanx in large part to the impending NEW MASS of the ROMAN RITE translation -and the process by which it has been rammed down the English-speaking world's throats- decades of ecumenical dialogue are now definitively dead in the water.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/relrpt/stories/s1099662.htm

I would like to propose two ideas...
1-Ash Wednesday should be an ecumenical event. Nothing says that it is necessary for ashes to be distributed at a Mass.
2-Let us continue to hope that all Christ-centered religions can agree on the same date that Easter is celebrated. Truly an embarassment in this day and age that we continue to have separate holy days.

Woderful column! So often we focus on the differences that we forget that we all believe in the same loving God. We forget that our loving God wants to be with us and that, even though we have different ways of practicing our faiths, we all want to be with God.

There never has been unity in Christianity, even from the start, only a bewildering diversity. Live with it, as Justice Scalia would say.

Certainly we all are for good relations. However, I fail to see how it’s even possible in this day to go beyond personal goodwill to a minimally hopeful ecumenical theological convergence between PCA(USA) and the Catholic Church.

The conservative Layman notes: “But the 1997 General Assembly declared that there are no essential tenets – or at least none that Presbyterians must subscribe to in order to qualify for ordination, despite clear references to such tenets…” The Layman Online http://209.151.145.106/News.aspx?article=13084

A liberal Presbyterian Pastor I know also confirms orally there are no “essential tenets” in PCA(USA).

I’m all in favor of ecumenism, but how can one bridge a theological gap from Dogma to nothing? From postings at this site, certainly some at NCR must believe in the same “essential tenets” as PCA(USA), but the Catholic Church does not – it believes things and says so rather definitively.

The greater divide is between liberal and conservative rather than Protestant and Catholic. A conservative Baptist and a faithful Catholic are going to find much less dividing them than with liberal Protestantism. Conservatives do not believe that God's law can be changed, and believe at least when it comes to everyday activity that God not man makes the rules.

Liberals on the other hand feel that changing times, and pop culture are more important than scripture and Tradition, and that will never be tolerated or accepted by conservatives and traditionalists.

I just find it amusing to read Tammeus talking this way when he publishes here, and pretending that a lot of us don't realize that he takes many opportunities to bash Catholics on his blog.

The Pope is a frequent object of ridicule, as are other Catholic leaders.

If Tammus were more up front about his prejudice, it would be a little more tolerable.

You haven't even mentioned talking to members of the Reformed family; it's highly unlikely you'd be as comfortable talking to members of the Presbyterian Church in America or the Cumberland Presbyterian Church as you would to "National Catholic Reporter" catholics who want to ordain women and openly gay people. You're talking about throwing a bridge over a divide that's largely closed and ignoring a chasm in your own backyard.
The Presbyterian Church-USA's average age is around 59; you'd better hurry with all these talks or there will be nobody for the Catholics or Orthodox to talk to.

One of the biggest mistakes the Church made in ecumenism was focusing on western protestantism instead of Eastern Orthodoxy.

I see that now Bill Tammeus is complaining about posters who object to his bashing of Catholics at his column (he calls it "criticism" as a journalist)...which is, indcidently, a place where he does not allow ANY COMMENTS. (But if you look at his archives, he gave free reign to some Militant Atheists for almost TWO YEARS.)

BILL...if you you are going to criticize Catholics on your blog, then you should allow them to RESPOND on your blog, especially since you are OVER HERE POSTING!

The "Reformation" credo: Every person his own Pope

Alas, its so very very simple.
There is only one Christ, one Body, and one Church.
It is to this all baptized Christians belong.
Time to abandon Protestant and Catholic in the reformation sense.
Amusingly, most protesting today is within the catholic community.
As a catholic seminarian I was assigned work in a local Lutheran Church.
That was a revelation resulting only in developing love and respect for all.
What is important is what we have in common, not what makes us different.
In Deo Jubilo.
TomC

Why would one want to associate with Episcopalians and Presbyterians? They condone legal abortion, the greatest crime against humanity in history. We should call on them to atone for the horrors theyve brought down.

I am also a Presbyterian elder who over the years in moderating discussion groups have identified myself as a Vatican II Catholic-phile. I have visited John 23's remains twice at the Vatican, not to worship him but to thank his memory for his efforts. I know he would be sad about the deconstruction of the results of that momentous meeting. Collegialty has gone by the boards and as to inter-tradition relations, we have been reminded that we are not authentic. Serious discussions require recognition of parties as equals. Dreams for improvement in that area have been cemented beyond the court of probability. As to the fragmentation of Protestant movement, I have no problem with that as long as we recognize each other as valid and cling to the original "Jesus is Lord" confession.