Have you read William Lind’s on Pope Benedict’s Counter-Reformation? Writing in the American Conservative, Lind points the way forward toward the reunion of the Western Church. His position may be utopian, but it is right on.
“For Rome, there is a possible way around this wall rather than over it: status quo ante. Anglican and Protestant congregations and jurisdictions joining in full communion with Rome would not be required to accept as doctrine anything postdating their split from Rome. The Catholic Church would lead a second Counter-Reformation by backing away from some of the first.
Before the Council of Trent (1545-63), which begat the Counter-Reformation, Rome’s hand rested lightly on national churches. For example, we think of the Roman Catholic Church as having a single rite, after Trent the Tridentine Rite and following Vatican II the sad and dispiriting Novus Ordo. Before Trent, Rome allowed a vast variety of rites, as she would again. England alone had three major rites and a host of minor ones in a country of 4 million people. Rome saw no problem as long as the rites for communion services followed what Dom Gregory Dix called “the shape of the liturgy.” Anglicans might again chant in the litany, “From ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties and things that go bump in the night, Good Lord deliver us.”
Pre-Trent, the same decentralization reigned in other matters as well. Kings generally had a good deal of say in who became a bishop. The Church might “volunteer” to pay some form of tax to a needy monarch. (After all, Church lands might make up a third of his kingdom.) When, occasionally, a Pope would overreach, king and bishops would come together to oppose him.
If Rome’s ambitions for a reunited Western Church go beyond Anglicans, and the Vatican is willing to bend beyond what the Apostolic Constitution currently offers, it may be time for Vatican III. The goal of such a council would be twofold: to sweep away obstacles to Christian unity stemming from the Council of Trent and Vatican I and reverse the disastrous consequences of Vatican II, including the vandalization of the liturgy and abandonment of practices (such as fish on Friday) that buttressed Roman Catholic identity among laymen. Ultramontane doctrinal innovations would all have to be on the table; they might remain for Roman Catholics but would not be required of others seeking full communion with Rome.”
Can Rome go this far and remain Rome? You bet they can. Organic development and growth is at the heart of the Roman experience. What can be more organic than to re-interpret the Counsel of Trent and subsequent councils in a way that offers a true hope of catholicity?
Pope Benedict XVI, it is time to be courageous and to save Christendom!
Theological developments in dialogue with Eastern Orthodoxy may, in some ways, provide the groundwork for such efforts. Consider these comments of Joseph Ratzinger from a couple of decades ago which seem to point to the status quo ante-thinking pointed to in this essay:
Certainly, no one who claims allegiance to Catholic theology can simply declare the doctrine of primacy null and void, especially not if he seeks to understand the objections and evaluates with an open mind the relative weight of what can be determined historically. Nor is it possible, on the other hand, for him to regard as the only possible form and, consequently, as binding on all Christians the form this primacy has taken in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries…Although it is not given us to halt the flight of history, to change the course of centuries, we may say, nevertheless, that what was possible for a thousand years is not impossible for Christians today. After all, Cardinal Humbert of Silva Candida, in the same bull in which he excommunicated the Patriarch Michael Cerularius and thus inaugurated the schism between East and West, designated the Emperor and people of Constantinople as “very Christian and orthodox”, although their concept of the Roman primacy was certainly far less different from that of Cerularius than from that, let us say, of the First Vatican Council. In other words, Rome must not require more from the East with respect to the doctrine of primacy than had been formulated and was lived in the first millennium. When the Patriarch Athenagoras, on July 25, 1967, on the occasion of the Pope’s visit to Phanar, designated him as the successor of St. Peter, as the most esteemed among us, as one also presides in charity, this great Church leader was expressing the essential content of the doctrine of primacy as it was known in the first millennium. Rome need not ask for more. Reunion could take place in this context if, on the one hand, the East would cease to oppose as heretical the developments that took place in the West in the second millennium and would accept the Catholic Church as legitimate and orthodox in the form she had acquired in the course of that development, while, on the other hand, the West would recognize the Church of the East as orthodox and legitimate in the form she has always had.
Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology (1976)
My understanding was the Reformation happened before the RCC anathematised justification by faith alone, and the gospel with it, at Trent.
Bill,
Next stop: reunion with the Arians on the basis of accepting everything pre-dating Nicea.
Lind doesn’t understand what he’s talking about, viz-a-viz the Catholic Church. She has no power to reverse defined dogmas. That’s precisely what infallibility entails.
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
The pope’s offer is an administrative concession directed primarily to Anglo-Catholics in England. This group, despite what the author suggests, is not wedded to the historic prayerbook. They see it for what it is: an essentially protestant (ie reformed catholic) liturgy. For this reason, their masses typically are modelled on the Roman liturgy. In terms of beliefs, they are already much closer to the RCC than to the tradition represented in the articles of religion. Little change would be needed for them to become full blown RCs. For them it is basically a political issue, a transition from one jurisdiction to another.
This is not the case for other protestants, even the high church ones. For Rome to enter into communion with us, she would have to hold communion with people who deny her dogmas. Dogmas by their nature cannot be made into optional extras. A true return to the status quo ante would therefore require undoing the doctrinal definitions of the past 500 years. While I would love for Benedict to do that, there is little chance of it happening.
Protestants should be very wary of appeals to organic development. Rome since Newman’s time has made a radical departure from the traditional understanding of revelation and its preservation in the Church. Modern notions of development verge on gnosticism and ongoing revelation, and thus open the door to all manner of novel teachings. They place incredible power in the hands of the magisterium; and their embrace at Vatican II makes that council more to be lamented than Vatican I. Development has had some beneficial consequences, to be sure. But the same tool that lets Rome move closer to Protestants regarding things like the intermediate state after death can also, if the tide turns, be used to justify major changes in doctrine on matters like human sexuality.
If the conservative Protestant churches become interested in ecumenical work, and I hope they will, they should look towards the East. Rome should not be ignored (and certainly not hated), but we have much more in common with the Orthodox when it comes to fundamental theology than we do with the RCC.
Liturgically and governmentally, this post is correct, historically there has not been the kind of homogenous existence that Roman Catholic Fundamentalists believe, defend, and present. On the contrary, there was a plurality that characterized the way the Church operated and worshipped. To focus on these, however, as somehow being a solution to the division of Christ’s body, however, is to do what ecumenics do best, namely, ignore historical understandings of dogma, and in some cases, to ignore dogma itself.
The papacy claims that its claims about itself are a part of divine revelation, as well as its claims about other issues. It could not be any more unrealistic and, quite frankly, ignorant, to suggest, or imply, that Rome would in effect say, for examplee, “Our belief that Mary was bodily assumed into heaven is dogma for us but not for you.” Rome’s understanding of the nature of dogmas can be clearly understood from Pope Pius XII’s closing words in his “supernatural” proclamation that Mary’s bodily assumption into heaven is a part of divine revelation:
“Hence if anyone, which God forbid, should dare willfully to deny or to call into doubt that which we have defined, let him know that he has fallen away completely from the divine and Catholic Faith.” (Munificentissimus Deus, 45)
“It is forbidden to any man to change this, our declaration, pronouncement, and definition or, by rash attempt, to oppose and counter it. If any man should presume to make such an attempt, let him know that he will incur the wrath of Almighty God and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul.” (Ibid., 47)
These words were written in 1950. That’s not that long ago. Not only do these words give one an understanding of how Rome understands the nature of dogma, but they should also be a warning (especially the last paragraph) to ecumenics (as well as Roman Catholic adherents to Newman) trying to “develop” Rome’s position in ways that are contrary to her historical understandings.
Sorry, this is off topic, but germane to the blog’s theme: Bp Wright’s recent comments on God and Government.
Dear Not So Crypto-Papist,
Christ, not Christendom, is the savior.
P.S.
There’s a statute of Mary somewhere that need your beadly idolizing.
Brian, I believe Vatican II went completely against traditional Roman dogma, so it is indeed done.
Iohannes,
You wrote “but we have much more in common with the Orthodox when it comes to fundamental theology than we do with the RCC.”
That’s certainly news to me. What would you point to as an example?
Greetings,
I would point to the issue raised in the preceding paragraph. The Roman Catholic Church post-Vatican II retains traditional teachings but puts them on a novel foundation, admitting ongoing revelation in all but name. A breach thus opens with today’s Rome on one side, and more traditional RCs, as well as Protestants and Orthodox, on the other.
Time keeps me from discussing this at any length. If you mean to argue that Protestants too build on novel foundations, you’re welcome to do so. Maybe someone else will have leisure enough for a conversation about that.
Blessings in Christ,
John