In the southern states, the Bible Belt, Catholics have long worked together with Protestants, prayed with them and shared common interests especially in the work of helping the poor. Daybreak, a ministry of DePaul USA is a prime example of it here in Macon.
The pope's message of ecumenism makes sense to me:
5 comments:
Ecumenism is OK as long as we remind "them" regularly that "they" are not "Us", that their "church" is not a real...Church.
They are a part of the real Church but not in full communion inasmuch as they believe what the real Church believes. The Eastern Orthodox are in the "most" full communion, the historic reformation Churches more in full communion and the others that evolved since, especially the non-denominational movement are in least full communion.
Ecumenism means that the Church should cover the world…the Catholic Church. Ecumenism is solely for the purpose of converting other denominations to the Catholic Church. RCIA is, perhaps, the most ecumenical activity in the Church. All this hand-holding and prayer meetings with other denominations, silly-a** joint services, and other dog and pony shows is nonsense.
Ecumenism is the real "gradualism"! The bad gradualism is that you never, ever even try to suggest non-Catholic Christians consider becoming one with us. To cement them in their separation.
The good 'gradualism' is to actively at all times use the OCCASION of meetings and joint-actions on civic or social levels to invite, encourage, and evangelize them to the point of inspiring or overtly inviting them to become one with us in Jesus.
God loves us not 'just the way we are' but despite "just the way we are!. He loves us and so wants us to be saints! So too with all we meet.... yes, of course we love them, they are created by God for Heavenly glory. They are our 'ninevites' we've been sent to preach to.
But we love them not to keep them locked in the status quo but to invite them to join us in the Kingdom. True love does not keep people in the dark out of false human respect.
Ecumenical efforts, from the standpoint of the Catholic Church, cannot mean a merging with any ecclesial community or religion outside of her. Non-Catholic communities and religions, which by varying degrees have some elements of truth within them, have corrupted that truth with error. The Catholic Church, which contains the fullness of the truth, cannot take on any error even for a noble reason.The best that can be hoped for is a mutual co-operation on things that are held in common and benefit the community at large, not unlike a detente between different nations. One fruitful consequence of Ecumenism would end in a result which can be seen in those Anglicans who have become part of the Holy Church but have retained a certain part of their religious identity and form of worship. I say this recognizing that the Anglican ordinariate came about from factors other than just Ecumenical dialogue, but such dialogue can have an indirect contribution to reaching this kind of result. One other hopeful consequence is that by associating in common endeavors with other ecclesial communities we can by our good example(coupled with intercessory prayer) influence others to recognize the True Faith.
God has sovereignty over His creation. His Church, on earth, the Mytical Body, has a certain spiritual sovereignty over those outside of her. The Divine Grace of God through power of the Holy Spirit reaches out beyond her physical boundaries to those who through no definitive act of the will and full knowledge have rejected her truth. It even reaches out to those who have knowingly rejected her in order to enlighten them to see the error of their ways. The grace is available through the generosity and love of the Merciful God. He is God to all - even to those who don't recognize all His truths. It is up to those, according to how they are disposed to co-operation with the Holy Spirit, to accept His grace. It is up to us through our spiritual and co-operative acts to aid in that process.
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