Vatican Prefers Tanks to Talks to Achieve Unity
August 21, 2012 20 Comments
Personally, I don’t agree with the premise held, but there are many of this opinion and it is worth sharing, and possibly debating further:
When the idea of an Anglican Ordinariate was announced in September 2009 in the apostolic constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus, the Timesof London ran the headline ‘Vatican Parks Tanks on Rowan’s Lawn’.
It seemed an apt image at the time, for all sorts of reasons: one was the spectacularly undiplomatic character of the act, which was opposed by some in the Vatican and by very senior English Roman Catholics; another was the personal affront to Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, whose progressive leanings have never hidden a genuine admiration for the wider western catholic tradition of which his own Anglicanism is a part.
But the other implication of the image was one of a serious and lasting shift in power, a re-drawing of boundaries or movement of populations. Three years later it is more as though the Pope had, uninvited, sent over a Fiat cinquecento or two to pick up some stranded friends and their bags. As they leave the Lambeth Palace gates there is probably relief on both sides.
The agenda was ostensibly Christian unity; Anglicanorum Coetibus cited Vatican II’s decree on ecumenism to the effect that ‘such division openly contradicts the will of Christ, scandalises the world, and damages that most holy cause, the preaching the Gospel to every creature’. The tanks were there to unify the Church.
The Personal Ordinariates established this year in the UK, the USA, Canada and Australia have in fact been important mostly to individuals — a few thousand in total world-wide, a mixture of high-Church conservatives who found themselves ill-at-ease in Anglican Churches that now ordained women, and others of similar mind who had already left Anglicanism to form splinter groups driven by the same issue. A structure that provides them with a happier ecclesial home can be welcomed, even by those who differ from them.
However the stated aim of the Ordinariates, to accommodate whole groups of Anglicans who might come together as existing communities or structures with Anglican patrimony in tow, and thus to promote unity, is a failure. In just a few cases — ostensibly including one in Melbourne — congregations have moved en bloc; generally the new parishes of the Ordinariates will be precisely that, new bodies made up of disaffected individual Anglicans from various communities, gathered afresh around re-ordained clergy.
The Anglican parishes from which they came and even the ‘Traditional Anglican Communion’ itself remain, the structures of disunity as evident as ever, with a few extra cuts and bruises to boot.
As for Anglican patrimony, embodied in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, it remains to be seen how much this really becomes part of the life of the Ordinariates. Anglicans of high-Church leanings had often abandoned that eucharistic liturgy for theological reasons, even before Anglicanism’s own version of Vatican II’s aggiornamento, and were often using more or less the whole Roman Rite.
When Anglicanorum Coetibus was issued, one bishop in the Church of England quipped that the likely departures would have to go out and buy copies of the BCP so as to have a patrimony to take with them.
So statistically at least, the impact of the departures on Anglicanism itself is minimal; Anglicans have more serious things to worry about than the outbound trickle of remaining opponents of women’s ordination. By implication, Roman Catholics might have even less reason to notice the new arrivals, given the scale involved.
Yet the appearance of a decent handful of new clergy not imported from far afield may be more significant. So far at least the Ordinariates are more about these than about parishes or groups of lay people.
The departing clergy now have some prospect of pursuing their vocations with more support and encouragement than they will recently have felt in an Anglicanism where they were a shrinking minority.
There have been costs to them. One will be somehow reconciling the immediate past of their sacramental ministries in Anglican orders, pursued even while publicly preparing to join and accept re-ordination in a body which still does not recognise that they had ever had any orders or sacraments at all.
This is not quite Newman’s profound journey of conscience.
There must also be some curiosity about future clergy; the fact that the Ordinariates can accept married men as candidates for ordination, for instance, could be of wider significance for a Roman Catholicism struggling to identify local vocations in English-speaking countries.
This story has underscored the unpromising future of ecumenism itself. Agencies such as the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity do continue to work with Anglican bodies on bilateral dialogues, and many Anglican and Roman Catholic individuals and communities find their ways to bear common witness.
Yet the fact of the Ordinariates suggest that the real position of the Vatican on Christian unity is about absorption rather than convergence; the tanks, not the talks.
(HT: William Tighe)
See, to my mind, the whole venture (or perhaps better put: ecumenical work) is about unity. The question, I suppose, boils down to whether unity involves absorption - are you a part of, or are you not? It is absolutely ridiculous to suggest that the Ordinariate should continue in unity with the Catholic Church as some quasi-Anglican entity that maintains, or is allowed to maintain, its own independence. As matters currently stand, there is indeed room for diversity, but it comes under an authority, which is an affront to those rebellious and divisive Anglican tendencies that come far too easily. In this instance, I would in fact go as far as to suggest that ‘unity without absorption’ is no unity at all. Given that past behaviour and history of Anglican/Continuing Anglican division, demanding allegiance which requires full submission and obedience under the Ministry of Peter is a safeguard against who will/will not join (a sifting process), how they will be controlled, and the road forward. And I can see nothing wrong in that.
Moreover, the Ordinariate is but an invitation, and no one is holding a gun (or a tank) to another’s head. Anglicanorum Coetibus envisages former Anglicans coming along and finding their own special place in life of the Catholic Church.
About Fr Stephen Smuts
I wonder why people imagine being victimized by the mean old Pope with his Anglicanorum Coetibus? I mean, I’d be the first to cheer at the deployment of tanks at Lambeth, but seeing as how this writer already imagine them in his paranoid delusions, tanks are not necessary after all.
Anglicans are in the West, which is the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of the West (a title discontinued by the Holy Father, probably to please those whiny crypto-protestant bishops and cardinals.) and historically, the Rites of the West are local versions of the Roman Rite. But that doesn’t mean they can’t have the Anglican use.
What is it that everyone wants? If we try to make everyone happy, we in the end only try to make ourselves happy, and completely forget about God. We need to suck it up and carry that cross.
Aren’t the Anglicans, Protestants? How are they and the Pope connected?
Some Anglicans believe themselves to be “Catholics” even without the Pope. They probably mean “catholic” (with a lower case “c”) like how the Eastern Orthodox call themselves. It’s strange how the only supporters they have on that issue is the Islamic Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which recently fought against the Vatican’s bid to buy the “.catholic” domain name.
Anglicans broke off from the Papacy during the reign of King Henry VIII over his wives and because he’s a bloody psychopath. And then we have the insistence that suddenly, these protestants arrived at the fullness of the Truth only after 1,500 years of Apostolic Tradition was broken. Sure, unlike the continental protestants, Anglicans love the smells and bells (and they still do, by the way) but they’re being disingenuous in leaving (note, they were not kicked out by the Pope, but LEFT of their own accord, just like Martin Luther, Marcion of Sinope and SATAN rather than submit to authority.) and then claiming to “Oh, we’re still catholic!”
From 1600′s it wasn’t until the mass exodus of priests to England from the French Revolution that English people got to see what real Catholic priests looked like (They didn’t look like the caricatures that anti-catholic propaganda portrayed them to be) And that paved the way of people like John Henry Newman.
And now, Pope Benedict XVI made the Apostolic Constitution “Anglicanorum Coetibus” as a result of the requests of people who want to leave the Anglican communion and go back to Rome. Then we have people, such as the writer of this article going “WAAHHH~! The Pope is being mean! Serves him right that the Ordinariates are failing!”
Actually, Ioannes, the Orthodox Church uses the word ‘Catholic’ – capital ‘C’.
Well, that’s just confusing, then! (Especially since the Orthodox are not in communion with Rome.) I’ve had to explain to my parents who the Orthodox Jews are, and how they’re different from the Orthodox Christians and how the Eastern Orthodox are different from the Oriental Orthodox despite “Oriental” and “Eastern” meaning the same thing, and who the former-Anglicans-but-now-Catholics-but-they’re-allowed-to-look-Anglican people are. It’s probably going to be the same case with how when one talks about the “Pope” they’re talking about the Pope of Rome, and not of Alexandria.
I’ve always regarded the Orthodox as “Orthodox”. Frankly, I’d be flattered if people called my church “The Orthodox Church.” It seems better to be right than to be universal.
But in any case, regarding that, people ought to discuss on the next Ecumenical Council, that will includes the Eastern Orthodox Churches, which will not happen in our lifetimes: “What do we call ourselves?” That issue is also apparent in this entire Ordinariate, Anglican, Anglo-Catholic, English Catholic, Roman Catholic, Sarum Catholic, Anglo-Papalists, etc. Issue.
It’s confusing, people! Someone gather all the bishops and lock them in a room or something.
Joannes,
Anglicans broke off from the Papacy during the reign of King Henry VIII over his wives and because he’s a bloody psychopath. And then we have the insistence that suddenly, these protestants arrived at the fullness of the Truth only after 1,500 years of Apostolic Tradition was broken. Sure, unlike the continental protestants, Anglicans love the smells and bells (and they still do, by the way) but they’re being disingenuous in leaving (note, they were not kicked out by the Pope, but LEFT of their own accord . . .
You may care to reflect on the following:
a] England was corporately re-united to the Holy See under Mary
b] The final breach with Rome occured with the publication of the bull Regnans in excelsis in 1570. Until then the position was ambivalent.
c] Anglicans lost “smells and bells” [and vestments and images] over the century and a half following the reign of Elizabeth. The last recorded use of incense was in Ely Cathedral in the 18th.century. Unlike continental Lutherans, who retained them!
Lest you think I am writing from a biassed Anglican viewpoint, you may care to read Eamonn Duffy’s works on the reformation in England, including Stripping of the Altars and John Jay Hughes Absolutely Null and Utterly Void and Stewards of the Lord to get a fuller understanding of what cannot be reduced to such simple language.
As for Henry VIII’s being a “bloody psychopath”, I fear it is all too easy to condemn the past through modern eyes.
Without wishing to defend his actions (in particular his wholesale destruction of the monasteries and above all his breach with Rome), it is possible to see a cold logic behind his actions. At the risk of over-simplification:
His overriding concern was to secure the peaceful future of his kingdom after the bloody Wars of the Roses. The only possible way to to this (in 16th century thought) was through an undoubted legitimate male heir ( and spare). His matrimonial problems with Catherine of Aragon were influenced by two further considerations: one, God was punishing him for having married his deceased brother’s wife by not sending a male heir; and ( of lesser importance in the general scheme of things, though doubtless not to Henry) he fell violently in love with Anne Boleyn who would not consummate their relationship unless (promised) in marriage.
Henry, in the normal scheme of things, would have expected the Pope to have granted his annulment, but Clement was more concerned with the presence of Catherine’s nephew, the emperor Charles V, on his doorstep. So far (Henry had, for example, canvassed the opinion pof the leading universities of Europe) there had been nothing untoward (in 16th.century eyes) in Henry’s actions in seeking an annulment.
Increasingly desperate, Henry piled the pressure on the Pope and when that failed took the law into his own hands. But after dabbling with the Bible in English, his own religion remained the somewhat oxymornic “catholicism without the Pope”.
The dissolution of the monasteries, building on the precedent set by Cardinal Wolsey,, ostensibly for their reform (the smaller ones), by “voluntary” surrender (the larger ones) and by forfeiture for treason (those who held out), in fact replenished the exchequer and removed centres of opposition to Henry’s religious policy. The removal of shrines also replenished the exchequer.
As far as the remaining wives were concerned, the need for an heir and spare remained paramount:
Anne Boleyn, having produced Elizabeth, was found guilty of adultery (treasonable as it compromised the parentage of any resulting child) was executed.
Jane Seymour died in childbed having given birth to the future Edward VI.
Katherine Howard was found guilty of adultery and executed.
Anne of Cleves’ marriage was annulled for non-consummation.
The widow, Catherine Parr, produced no children, but survived Henry and married again.
In twenty-first century terms, Henry’s behaviour is unjust and immoral.
In sixteenth century terms, it was explicable and understandable, tho’ still in many areas immoral.
Henry VII may have shown that a break with Rome and an Erastian church could be [?succesfully?] achieved, but Anglicanism itselfis founded upon the Elizabethan settlement.
Kind regards,
John U.K
The Orthodox Church refers to itself (as it has done for well over a millennium): “The One, Holy, Orthodox, Catholic and Apostolic Church. This is why the Orthodox Church refers to Roman Catholics as such: it is not disparaging, rather it is descriptive of Catholics under the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Rome (whom the Orthodox Church perceives to be in schism), rather then the jurisdiction of another patriarch. “Orthodox” is the general descriptor, however, for the reason you identify. You only see “Catholic” in very formal writing.
Despite misunderstandings early in his papacy, the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches are enjoying warmer relations under the present Pope than they have been for a very, very long time. We must pray that this relationship grows beyond the personal affection and esteem between Pope Benedict and Patriarch Bartholomew: they will not see the reunion of East and West in their lifetime, but they have (I hope) laid down firm foundations on which their successors may build.
The relationship between Eastern and Oriental Orthodox is different. The Chalcedonian Schism has been recognised as predominantly due to a misunderstanding by both parties (how shameful and humiliating! It’s no wonder it took them so long to acknowledge this). I have read in several Orthodox and Oriental sources that enormous strides have been made in the last three decades, in the cause of EO/OO reunion: to the point where Baptism and Matrimony are mutually recognised and – even more importantly – there are now limited circumstances where Oriental and Eastern Orthodox may receive Holy Communion in either church (subject to the blessing of the appropriate bishop). There is a very real prospect of you living to see the day when Eastern and Oriental Orthodox are in full communion. I probably won’t, since I’m in my 60′s.
However, I quite agree about locking all the bishops up and making them talk. Bishops aren’t whipped often enough.
Further more, from what I’ve read about the Ordinariates, it’s not a sui iuris community like the eastern Catholics. Their “rite” is called the “Anglican Use of the Roman Rite” for a reason. But there is a semblance of distinctiveness to the Ordinariates. This entire “Unity without absorption” is a nod to how, for example, Jesuits and Dominicans can have intense disagreements with each other but there is the umpire, or a referee in the person of the Pope that prevents Dominicans from forming their own little “Dominican Catholic Church” without the Pope and so forth. The same could be said about Eastern Catholics- but the truth of the matter is, the Pope has actual authority, an authority continually fought against by oikophobic liberals who will not stop until the Pope has become a Pope-rah Winfrey of sorts- only as relevant as the Queen of England or the Emperor of Japan.
As time goes on, the whole thing becomes clearer in my mind. The problem is not about whether those who decide to adhere freely to the Roman Catholic Church should follow its rules and obey its authorities like the Pope and bishops. Converting to Roman Catholicism or Orthodoxy is exactly that – converting. There is no “political asylum” in a church other than the one we were brought up in.
Even if we went back to our original churches, we would still have to “convert” to them.
The real issue is remaining Anglicans and that option becoming discredited or invalidated by the existence of the ordinariate option. We do seem to have difficulties of conscience, as we each have our part to play in the fragmentation of Continuing Anglicanism. The alternative is remaining in or returning to the Anglican Community in union with Canterbury – and accept what they require, not 50 years ago but now. Is there a legitimate Anglican option? Perhaps to some of us, the existence of the ordinariates has taken away its legitimacy and consciences are prodded and forced, with the help of some sixteenth century or nineteenth century apologetics and their old litanies about “private judgement”.
The third option for those in the spiritual no-man’s land is giving up religion and lapsing into agnosticism and a secular life style. But, that has to be assumed logically.
The real issue is faith and reason, the relationship between authority and freedom, what kind of authority is legitimate. Does faith depend on being threatened by some kind of inquisition and state authority that supports the political ambitions of the Church? I constantly ask the question – if religion can only “work” if it is based on constraint rather than freedom and human dignity, then is it objectively valid. Does man’s aspiration to freedom depend on the rejection of religion? Often, the best apologists for atheism are people who call themselves Christians. The paradox of Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor is that the Inquisitor if fundamentally an atheist!
I think it is right to say that the ordinariate is a sensitive and generous pastoral provision by the Pope for former Anglicans who are attracted by the cultural accommodation and are convinced by Catholic teaching and disciplinary requirements. What we need to discover is something else, whether there is any kind of Anglican expression outside the official Anglican Communion and the ordinariates that is legitimate – not a sham or something insincere.
We should separate the two issues. Is there any development of thought possible here?
For the most part, this… Is actually sensible. Huh.
The issue of interest for me is the notion of freedom. I am starting to lean towards the notion that the idea of “freedom” as taught to me by society is more and more illusory as I progress through my life. I’m not talking about Free Will, which I think is a moral issue concerning the ability to freely choose to align one’s will with God’s and attain true freedom available only in that which is truly infinite, or to choose to have one’s will aligned any other ways, ways which are impermanent and always in a state of change. But rather, I have come to believe that all human work is ultimately futile unless it is with Grace from God. And we all have to eventually submit to the authority of a Greater Power- for what kind of a Judge has His authority ignored when passing judgement? It is inevitable, but the judgement He metes out is just, because He gives us the opportunity to choose before being judged. This is where atheism becomes attractive- it has no Supreme Judge, because there is no afterlife nor is there anything beyond what is felt and what is experienced with the senses, and that ultimately makes humanity nothing more than a bunch of insignificant organisms on a rock with subjective, illusory opinions that don’t matter when the Sun runs out of fuel and explodes. It becomes easier then to do as what one pleases, in the end being enslaved to one’s own humanity, and life’s objective merely about avoiding unpleasant things.
I refuse to be enslaved by an illusory freedom guaranteed to me by a godless existence.
I believe that the Will of God and His desire to save all humanity, is expressed in the Roman Catholic Church, through its Apostolic Teachings, Sacraments, and most importantly, through the Holy Eucharist in the Sacrifice of the Mass, in which bread and wine really become the actual Body and Blood of Christ. These things are not from human invention but ultimately derived from Jesus Christ, who I believe is the Son of God, and is the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. Outside the Church which Christ established, headed by Peter, as proclaimed by Christ as the Rock, the foundation of His Church, there can be no Salvation, unless God Himself decides otherwise. It is the Will of God; if I fail to align myself with Him, it is because of my own fault, not the bishop’s, not the priest’s, not the Pope’s, not the protestants, not my parents, nor anyone else.
I don’t believe most atheists are motivated by refusal of authority, but rather – for them – that religion has lost its credibility through its intrinsic incoherence and lack of integrity. They then have to choose whether God is possible outside religions, or whether it is all bunk and have to reconcile themselves with a totally materialistic mindset.
For your own ideas to have a little credibility, perhaps you could talk about your parish where you worship each day / Sunday – not the “platonic” “universal” Church, but where you actually live the “one true church”. No universals without particulars! Please also describe your involvement with the community and parish activities. That would be interesting.
Hmm. You must have experienced a different group of atheists. The atheists I’ve experienced are the “Occupy Wall Street” crowd, the self-righteous, angry, wannabe-revolutionary/communist college student. These people, admittedly, had a hand in making me the self-righteous, angry, Guy Fawkes-wannabe internet character that you read in this blog. It was because of them that I had to seek out answers to counter any sort of attacks against belief in God or religion. Strangely enough, I will admit to all of you, the best apologist I’ve seen who responded to atheist mouthpieces is the PROTESTANT philosopher/theologian/debater William Lane Craig who famously exposed Richard Dawkins for being the naked, cowardly atheist emperor that he is. If there is a Protestant I can respect, William Lane Craig is pretty high on that list.
Why not a Catholic philosopher/theologian/debater? This is because I’ve not yet heard any Catholic intellectual who chopped down high-profile atheists such as Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Peter Atkins, etc. in debates. But he certainly opened up more doors to Christian intellectuals (Both Catholic and non-Catholic) that I never knew existed prior. I don’t know where the Catholics were, most of the time. And even more, I don’t know what’s going on with Catholic education. You have the University of Notre Dame awarding a degree to BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA, pro-death gay president, etc. But I’m going off the topic.
The atheists I’ve corresponded with, who are closest to your description, are those who tend to believe that “There is no objective truth” or “Everything is subjective” and for a long time, even I believed that. Probably because of, well, the dumbing down of the religion. People, ESPECIALLY THE CLERGY stopped being intellectual, and more “huggy-feely”. I don’t know what that’s going to accomplish, but it certainly hasn’t put young Catholics in the pews in comparison to traditional communities.
I don’t believe that religion in general is intrinsically incoherent, but I believe there can only be One true religion, which is the religion God Himself established. All others are false. It is necessary to be so, unless we are going to interpret that, say, the bloody Aztec religion was a valid religion too, or a religion that requires devout Indian widows to be immolated is a valid religion too. How can a person believe in God without religion, unless they exist outside a community? I don’t know, for example, how St. Anthony the Great received Holy Communion if he was out alone in the desert prior to people setting up a monastery. But now, there is a monastery at where he practiced his asceticism. To believe in God means to believe that He will gather all people throughout the ages unto Him. He is no respecters of persons, and I believe God Himself stated that “It is not good for man to be alone.”
So there exists religion, a community of the faithful. Increasingly absurd in this alienating, isolating age we live in, when you can buy something without leaving home, or you, who live thousands of miles away from me, can communicate with me with just electronic signals. But then, we both believe in the truth that a Man died for our sins 2,000 years ago. We might as well be absurd in the eyes of the world, because the world will call us absurd anyways!
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Credibility! In this day and age! Everyone’s a skeptic! (because anyone can totally make up an identity, an I.P. address, a facebook page, a fake name, gender, complete with pictures, etc.) You’ll have to trust me, just as how I’m going to have to trust that you are who you say you are.
I am a Catholic layperson at a parish in Southern California. (Los Angeles? Glendale? Burbank? Beverly Hills? Inglewood? It doesn’t really matter. It’s all Los Angeles/Hollywood to the lot of you.)
My medium-sized parish is multiethnic and uses (surprise, surprise) Novus Ordo. A regular Sunday service has, at most, 7 white (elderly) people and 3-4 black (middle-aged, female) people. Out of 700 in a church. The rest of us are Asians and Hispanics.
I am a volunteer at my parish, and I distribute sandwiches and coffee every morning to the homeless and hungry that frequent our parish office. Then I go off to work. I donate 10% of what I earn every Sundays and devote my spare time to prayer, writing, reading, and this blog, among other blogs. (Fr. Z, Rorate Caeli, The Anglo Catholic, The New Liturgical Movement, and others.)
I am sure that the readers of the Antipodean blog which published “Vatican Prefers Tanks to Talks to Achieve Unity” would have been aware that Professor the Rev Andrew McGowan is not just the Warden of an Anglican Theological College but also a Canon of Melbourne’s Anglican Cathedral, a member of the General Synod and of the Doctrinal Commission of the Anglican Church in Australia. In other words, he is not uninfulential in Antipodean Anglican circles.
Having read Canon McGowan’s piece The Grammar of Fragility: After Australia’s General Synod 2010, I am left wondering whether the good Canon’s ungenerous remarks aout the Vatican, Roman Catholicism and the Ordinariates are in some way a reflection of the forces which make the Anglican Church in Australia quite so fragile.
I am going with the Reformation myself, and the ‘Ecclesia semper reformada est’! There has always been some Anglicans here (Cranmer, and the Elizabethan Settlement, etc.), as we see in the Irish Articles 1615, the Archbishop James Ussher, and then of course with the Thirty-Nine Articles.
Our Lord speaking to the “religious” of His day, and that still presses into our own, said: “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.” Some of the Pharisees near him heard these these things, and said to him, “Are we blind?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no guilt, but now that you say,’We see,’ your guilt remains.” (St. John 9: 39-41, ESV)
And the point here is that those people that do see and “know” the Lord, are as Jesus said, “are not of this world”… “I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.” (“in the world, but not of the world”)…(John 17:14, etc.) The Gospel of the Grace of God, is His to unfold and to show, the “regeneration”! (Matt. 19:28)
“My kingdom is not of this world!” (John 18:36)
Indeed, what has become of “preaching” and the “kerygma”? “It pleased God, says Paul, “by the foolishness of Preaching to save them that believe.” (1 Cor. 1:21) The word here translated “preaching,” ‘kerygma,’ signifies not the action of the preacher, but that which he preaches, his “message”!
Bringing an organization back into union with the Church can be a messy process like rescuing a lamb from the jaws of a lion — piece by piece, with parts left behind. And the longer it has been with the lion, the bigger the mess.
@ Ioannes – August 21, 2012 at 13:21
Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.
Being exalted or humbled is the least of my worries. The Lord can do with me as He pleases. Whether Heaven or Hell, God is Merciful and Just in any case.
Until the Day of Judgement, then, I’d go up into the church, pray, and try to set myself apart from the extortioners, the unjust, the adulterers, because of what they do, not because of who they are. I’d rather not enable them through acts of false compassion, by misleading them into thinking that what they do is A-Okay, by allowing them the excuse “Well! Jesus ate with sinners!”
What they are is dependent on what they do. The priest ministers the sacraments. The abortionist murders children. Who they are, only God knows. (So it’s impossible to judge them on the basis of who they are anyways.)
You know how it is- everyone’s a sinner until proven a saint. So why not try to lead a saintly life anyway, that is, to try and set oneself apart from the sinners, in acting differently from sinners, in not engaging in sinful activities?
I mean, one can assume that I’m proud and vain when worshiping God, though how one can determine this without knowing me, is a mystery. Isn’t that what this parable is about? How to worship God? Or one can assume that I constantly badmouth everyone around me but myself while worshiping God in church, but then that’s a leap of faith in itself, isn’t it?
I merely quoted Christ, nothing else.
Indeed Fr. A., for me the issue is the Gospel of Christ! Its “Good News”, but to a fallen, broken and sinful world. The Christian’s salvation is in three tenses: past, present and future! And if we loose anyone of these tenses, we simply marr and can even loose the Gospel, itself!
“To those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept (preserved) for/by Jesus Christ.” (Jude 1:1 ; 24-25)
Btw, note how these tenses run together nicely! Literally, “in God the Father having been loved” (eternally), “and in Jesus Christ having been kept..” (eternally, for eternity), and “called ones” (eternally). Indeed we are called, kept and loved ‘In Christ’ from eternity, for eternity!