I know where your reader is coming from, but... this new sensitivity has to be consistent with Dominus Iesus before I could accept it wholeheartedly.

Furthermore, contrary to what your reader indicates, the sad truth is that the one place the Church isn't growing is the ancient land of Augustine.
Rob | 11.26.02 - 3:50 pm | #

I don't see anything inconsistent with Dominus Iesus here. I also don't see any assertion that the Church is growing in the land of Augustine (though I'm seeing indications that the removal of state-enforced Islam would result in a hemhorrage of defectors from the religion of peace). May that day come soon.
Mark Shea | Homepage | 11.26.02 - 3:58 pm | #

You're right. Your reader didn't say that the Church was growing in the land of Augustine, only that the Church of the future was likely to look more like the Church of Augustine. French missionaries tried to play on Berber animosity towards Arabs to win some of the indigenous population to Christianity, but with little to no success (BTW, Augustin's mother was probably a Berber -- the name suggests it -- while his father was probably an "Afer," a Roman African). Evangelical Protestant missionaries are attempted to attract Berbers today with only marginal success. Disgust with the bloodthirstiness of the Islamist insurgents in Algeria might succeed in doing what 1200 years of Arab dominance over Berbers has failed to do.

I think it's great that Catholic kids, Buddhist kids, and Muslim kids can play and have fun and even talk about spiritual things without apparent rancor. I just hope toleration doesn't lead to indifference, which is surely can. I'm not saying your reader says it should in this case, only that we have to vigilant... though not lidless!
Rob | 11.26.02 - 4:13 pm | #

We belong to a multi-ethnic, multi-continental parish. Thank God. One feels the living power of the Church, and there isn't a sour puss in the bunch.
Pavel Chichikov | 11.26.02 - 5:00 pm | #

I have always believed RadTrads & Liberals are really the same foul thing.

Yours truly often find himself imagining when the Moon is full the editorial staff at The Rem-gnat
shapeshift into the staff at the National Psudo-Catholic Reporter.

Where is a silver bullet when you need it.
James Scott 4th(BenYachov) | 11.26.02 - 5:39 pm | #

Problem with folks on the extremes is that they are so caught up keeping track of where other folks are relative to Jesus, that they forget to keep their own eyes on Jesus and soon have no idea of where they. Unless their eyes are firmly on Jesus, odds are sooner or later they are going to end up being lost sheep.

We should be careful to avoid falling into the same trap by becoming preoccupied with either extreme. The best thing we can do is to keep our eyes on Jesus and pray to the Good Shepherd to watch over them.
Therese | 11.26.02 - 6:21 pm | #

This letter writer sounds like he or she has watched too much Oprah. If one wants anecdotes, then I can point to my Catholic friends who never read Scripture, but are "into" Buddhism; or the Catholics I know who married Jews and Moslems and whose children have no religious upbring at all (so much for the "ecumenical jihad" against secularism). I'm not saying this can be laid at the door of Assisi, but I don't think interreligious events impress people with the fact that the choice for against Jesus is a life and death decision.
Steve Jackson | 11.26.02 - 7:15 pm | #

Steve:

No doubt this is why you routinely bring a million youth from all over the world to celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ every couple of years, whereas the Pope's witness to Jesus Christ is so utterly bereft of fruit.

I'm eager to hear about your many triumphs in bringing the gospel of Jesus Christ to people outside your immediate peer group. You seem to be confident that you know how to do it. So could you share with me the story of the conversions that trail in your wake? Talk is cheap.
Mark Shea | Homepage | 11.26.02 - 7:26 pm | #

Let me try, Mark. Since I myself became Catholic 23 years ago there have been millions of new Catholics. My hypothesis is a cause and effect one. Now, if each of these ... wait, I forgot that many Catholics in mortal sin have gone to Confession in these several decades; therefore, oops, I'm running out of time.
John L. Sillasen | 11.26.02 - 11:55 pm | #

Greetings,

I guess I better not go to the Thanksgiving service tomorrow being held here Madrid at the Anglican Church.

Our Catholic priest will be officiating the service, at which many other religious leaders from the American community will be attending.

Besides us Catholics and Anglicans, there will also be Methodists, Lutherans, Baptists, some Evangelicals, as well as probably an American Muslim or Jew. In fact, our past ambassador was Jewish and he would often attend the services.

But *thank goodness* that I've read some posts lately (in St Blogs in general) to now know that this services, which for all appearances seemed to be merely an act of "giving thanks" and remembering our American traditions, is in reality nothing more than a sinister part of the agenda of liberals and ecumenalists.

Who would have thought?

Happy Thanksgiving...
jesus gil | Homepage | 11.27.02 - 3:17 am | #

One interesting side-effect of there being inter-religious dialog in kindergarten is that it's now never too early to share your faith with your young friends. This tended to happen in college in years past. But there is real zeal in Muslims and Jehovah's Witnesses.

When the Son of Man comes will He find faith on the earth?

Patrick Sweeney | 11.27.02 - 1:02 pm | #

Opposite evils, so far from balancing, aggravate each other. - C.S. Lewis

The task of the Church is not to be "inclusivist" or "exclusivist" in the hope of gaining the most recruits or winning media approval. The task of the Church is to live according to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Sometimes that will entail saying "exclusivist" things (He who is not with me is against me.). Sometimes it will entail saying "inclusivist" things (He who is not against us is for us.) Both are part of the gospel. Using one strain of revelation to deny another strain is the very definition of heresy. Law (and JPII and Luman Gentium and Nostra Aetate) emphasized one of the saying of Christ ("He who is not against us is for us.") But they do not deny the exclusivist aspect (summarized in Dominus Iesus). Both are necessary. Neither can be rejected.
Mark Shea | Homepage | 11.27.02 - 1:20 pm | #

Mark,

The rationale you use here can be used to justify *absolutely anything*. The Catholic Church has been resolutely exclusive in her religious claims for nineteen plus centuries. This doesn't mean that the Church hasn't recognized the partial truths and goods found outside her bounds (the value of Greek philosophy, especially Plato and Aristotle; the Old Testament revelation shared with the Jews; the validity of non-Catholic baptism if properly performed, etc.)

But at no point in its history has the Church ever suggested that one can engage in religious worship in a non-Catholic, or even non-Christian, rite. In past generations, Catholics from the Roman martyrs to English recusants preferred to die than to participate in non-Catholic worship. Were they wrong to do so?

I suspect that Christians today in places I mentioned like Nigeria, Sudan, and Pakistan would rather die than bow down to Mecca at the Mosque. Are they simply being overly scrupulous in avoiding what is really just an innocent prayer to the same God as Christians worship?

If something has been considered a grave mortal sin tantamount to heresy for nineteen centuries, one that is worth dying rather than succumbing, it is hard to see how it can become right overnight c. 1965. It's not as though exegetes had somehow the "whoever is not against me is for me" verse for two millennia - it simply never occurred to them that it would justify communicatio in sacris with non-Christians.

The belief that something must be good or true simply because the Pope says it or does it is not Catholicism. It is what I call Mottramism - taken from Rex Mottram in Brideshead Revisited, who meeting with his religious instructor takes the position that if the Pope says it is going to rain, and it doesn't rain, that it must be "raining in a spiritual sense, only we are too sinful to see it."
Mark Cameron | 11.27.02 - 4:48 pm | #

Concerning what Mr. Cameron said, perhaps one should consider the results of Catholic-Jewish dialogue. A few years ago, Cardinal O'Connor told a Jewish/Catholic that "God would smile on him" if he converted to Judaism. We recently saw the Reflections document, which was highly ambigous on the need for Jews to convert. This was preceded by years of Catholic prelates attending Jewish passover seder events.

I suspect that Moslems have looked at events such as the above and wondered if they too can get a pledge of "no prostelytism" from the Catholic church.

That ecumenicalism can go overboard in the case of people like O'Connor or Law isn't reason not to engage in some dialogue. But it's important that the Christian Church doesn't give the appearance of having joined the pluralistic game.
Steve Jackson | 11.27.02 - 5:22 pm | #

Mark C, you don't get it. What the martyrs died rather than be forced to do is not the same thing that Law did, except in some purely superficial sense.
Kevin Miller | Homepage | 11.27.02 - 10:40 pm | #

Mark S., it is an elementary fact of religious psychology and sociology that churches and faiths which are exclusivist in their claims and actions do better than faiths which are inclusive, open and nonjudgmental of the beliefs of others. See the works of people like Rodney Stark, Dean Kelley, Thomas Reeves, etc.

If secular sociologists and historians don't impress you, I will point out the Cardinal Newman considered Catholic exclusivism and intolerance of other faiths one of its signs of genuine continuity in the Essay on the Development of Doctrine:

"If there be a form of Christianity at this day distinguished for its careful organization, and its consequent power; if it is spread over the world; if it is conspicuous for zealous maintenance of its own creed; if it is intolerant towards what it considers error; if it is engaged in ceaseless war with all other bodies called Christian; if it, and it alone, is called 'Catholic' by the world, nay, by those very bodies, and if it makes much of the title; if it names them heretics, and warns them of coming woe, and calls on them one by one, to come over to itself, overlooking every other tie... such a religious communion is not unlike historical Christianity, as it comes before us at the Nicene Era."

Or, as Ronald Knox put it, "the study of comparative religions is the best way to become comparatively religious."

What your correspondent characterizes as "paranoia and separatism" is a desire to keep before the world the exclusive truth claims of Christ and the Church. When they are proclaimed, as in Dominus Iesus, the world and the media fulminate and castigate, but the Church is strengthened as peoples' consciences are forced to confront the claims of Christ. When they are downplayed, as at Assisi or Cardinal Law's worship in the Mosque, the world and the media applaud, but the Church is weakened as people begin to think that all denominations and religions are more or less good.


Mark Cameron | 11.28.02 - 12:56 am | #

I suppose by "superficial" Kevin means that even they would be doing exactly the same thing physically, Law was acting out of a voluntarily desire for ecumenical / interreligious understanding, while the martyrs were acting under coercion.

Let's think of a few analogies. One Christian refuses to offer incense to Caesar on the grounds that it would be venerating an idol and is thrown to the lions. Another, more assimilated Christian puts the incense on the altar on the grounds that it is simply a civic ceremony and "we know that no idol is anything in the world, and that there is no God but one." (1 Cor. 8:5) One recusant refuses to attend an Anglican service and is imprisoned and tortured. Another attends on the grounds that he is simply obeying the King and wishes to show his loyalty to the state. (Or, more recently, a Catholic President of Ireland receives Anglican communion as an ecumenical gesture). One Chinese Catholic refuses to be forced to attend a Patriotic Church Mass under Mao and is killed. Another Chinese Catholic (or perhaps a Maryknoll missonary from the U.S.) happily attends and receives communion at a Patriotic Church Mass on the grounds that they have a perfectly valid priesthood and eucharist, they pray for the Pope, and hope to create greater harmony between the Church and the Chinese state.

One can think of all kinds of perfectly good social, political, or ecumenical reasons for participating in "communicatio in sacris" in non-Catholic rites. But we honour those Catholics who refuse to do so as saints and martyrs. Those Catholics of past generations who have given in we view as traitors, appeasers, and compromisers, if not heretics and apostates.
Mark Cameron | 11.28.02 - 10:17 am | #

Kevin,

Superficial? How so?
Bill | 11.28.02 - 12:46 pm | #

Mark, I'm starting to worry about you here. Reading the history of Israel in the OT shows the dangers of what might seem at first to be harmless "ecumenicalism." Either Christ is Lord, or He is not. Either one has faith in Him, or one has faith in an idol. There is no middle ground here. "There is no other name given under Heaven by which we may be saved." I might want to soften that message a bit, but as Christ constrains me, I cannot. I hope the Catholic Church doesn't end up going the way of liberal Protestantism and some strands of evangelicalism now, and says that there are multiple acceptible paths to God. We in the Reformed community will never go there.
evan donovan | 11.28.02 - 9:15 pm | #

According to this article, churches are raising money for mosques --

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/ new...RTICLE_ID=29810
Steve Jackson | 11.29.02 - 7:52 am | #

Evan,

Which Reformed community do you mean? The Dutch Reformed Church in the Netherlands is as liberal as it gets, as are many branches of the Presbyterian Church. The Christian Reformed in the U.S. are currently debating universal salvation. Oh, sure, there are places like the Orthodox Presbyterian Church or the "Credenda Agenda" types that are no friends of liberalism. But in a generation or two, who is to say that they will not follow in the footsteps of other Reformed and Presbyterian bodies before them?

One of the reasons I am Catholic is that I have divine confidence that the gates of Hell will never prevail against it (including doctrinal deviation), and I don't think that any other denomination, no matter how conservative or traditional their current membership is, has that guarantee.
Mark Cameron | 11.29.02 - 10:39 am | #

Mark,

Yes, many protestant churches have gone liberal. On the other hand, many have not, or have been pulled back from the precipice of liberalism.

As far as universal salvation, that issue has also been debated in the Roman Catholic Church. Many Catholics (such as Urs von Balthasar) argue that it is a possibility, and the pope hasn't been all that clear about it. We also, have the Assisi event among other things that many catholics feel obligated to defend (of course if a protestant church had held Assisi prior to Vatican II, it would have been a sign of apostacy).

All things considered, I think the Confessional Protestant approach is the best.
Steve Jackson | 11.29.02 - 5:21 pm | #

It is true that the Reformed and Protestants in general can go liberal, but they do so against their own confessions and against Scripture. They leave orthodoxy when they do so, and they reject the name of Reformed or Protestant by their actions, even if they keep it outwardly. Yes, my denomination (the PCA) could go liberal, but the Reformed tradition will survive elsewhere even if that happens (and I think it's unlikely right now), since I believe that we have the true Gospel.
Evan Donovan | 12.02.02 - 8:26 pm | #

Also Mark C., to clarify my original comment was directed to Mark S. I hadn't read your comments at the time.
Evan Donovan | 12.02.02 - 8:29 pm | #

Actually, Mark C, I meant more than that by "superficial." There's a difference between doing something qua rejection of one's own faith and/or affirmation that in-fact-false elements of others' faith are true, and doing it qua affirmation of what others' faith has in common with one's own, i.e., affirmation that in-fact-true elements of others' faith are true.
Kevin Miller | Homepage | 12.03.02 - 10:09 am | #