Is Pope Benedict A Protestant? And Other Silly Things One Could Try to Prove

In the book to your left, the author--in three volumes nonetheless, seeks to *prove* from the witness of the early Church Fathers the Protestant doctrine of sola scriptura. I've seen this before and will see it again. It's rather tiresome, and three volumes of it would be grueling: clipping, editing and airmailing quotes to make them fit whatever you are trying to prove. Exegeting stuff to death until it renders the meaning you intend. Stringing out arguments long enough to distract the average reader from the validity of the conclusion. Not to even mention that none of these "Church" Fathers come to any of the theological conclusions regarding the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, the Eucharist as a Sacrifice, Confession, Purgatory that the average Protestant would, we are still challenged to believe that they believe in sola scriptura. What's funny to me is that this position would in a way evidence the possibility of arriving at all kinds of un-Protestant doctrines using a Protestant method. Hmmm. To demonstrate just how ridiculous this claim is, I will now prove to you that Pope Benedict XVI is a sola scriptura Protestant. The following are some quotes from PBXVI:

"Above all I think it is this: to love the word of God in sacred Scripture. St. Jerome said, 'To ignore Scripture is to ignore Christ. That is why it is important that every Christian live in contact and in personal dialogue with the word of God, given to us in sacred Scripture."

"We must also keep in mind that the word of God is given to us in order to build communion, to unite us in the truth along our way to God."

"Human opinions come and go; what is very modern today will be old tomorrow. But the word of God is the word of eternal life, it carries within itself eternity, which is always valuable. Carrying within ourselves the word of God, we also carry eternal life."

"The study of the sacred page should be, as it were, the very soul of theology"

"the centrality of the divine word in the Christian life"

“Are we truly pervaded by the word of God? Is that word truly the nourishment we live by, even more than bread and the things of this world? Do we really know that word? Do we love it? Are we deeply engaged with this word to the point that it really leaves a mark on our lives and shapes our thinking?"

"You must know how to translate the indications of the word into daily witness, allowing yourselves to be formed by the word which, like seed sown in good soil, brings abundant fruit. Thus you will remain docile to the Spirit and grow in union with God, you will cultivate fraternal communion among yourselves and be ready to serve your brethren generously, especially those most in need."

Let's recap. According to Pope Benedict:

• We should love the Word of God above all
• The Word of God unites us
• The Word of God bring us eternal life
• The Scriptures are the soul of theology central to the Christian life
• The Scriptures should "shape our thinking" and form us

Wouldn't we expect a Roman Catholic to say that we should:

• Love Christ in His Church above all
• That the Pope is the principle of unity not the Scripture
• We receive eternal life through the Church
• The soul of theology is the Church, which is the ground and pillar of the truth
• The Church should shape our thinking since it is the authoritative teacher

Since Pope Benedict said the former, he is not a Roman Catholic but a Protestant. Specifically, he is clearly a sola scriptura Protestant. 

One could also try to prove that the Church Fathers were sola scriptura Protestants as well. Oops, I think that already happened.

FULL STOP

On my journey to the Catholic Church, books like King's were discouraging. Arguments like the above read disingenuous at their core. As a semi-anti-Catholic, I could still see the Catholicity and papal tendencies of the epistles of Clement during my research on my undergraduate thesis. Even though I personally subscribed to a disparaging view of Catholicism at the time, the textual evidence required that I either (a) dissent from their opinion or (b) admit that it was unlike my own and be the cause of my consternation. At the time, I chose the the former. 

Reading into texts "catch" phrases is wrong headed. It fails to consider the already existing paradigm of the author and projects onto him or her the interpreter's paradigm. I can hear the objection that we all have paradigms. My reply is simply that what the objector is thinking about is some type of psychological state and not a paradigm as such. For our purpose, a paradigm is something that can be uncovered. It can be as simple as finding out that the author was a bishop in union with the bishop who sits on the Chair of St. Peter. Such a fact finding mission would inform how we understand various other statements of the author. Similarly, the corpus of Pope Benedict and the Church Fathers would naturally preclude a conclusion that either held to the doctrine of sola scriptura. 

Does any one single Church Father make a slam dunk case for conversion? [If you don't count their prayers in heaven] Probably not. However, they do present mounting evidence for a Catholic view of the Church and the doctrinal positions that the Catholic Church teaches. That is a fair reading of the Church Fathers (here's a link, go have fun). You only need to google "the Church Fathers are wrong" to find an assortment of articles detailing how and why the Church Fathers erred. This popular evidence is, I think, more telling of the reality of what in fact the Church Fathers do and do not teach. And, I can more fully appreciate and respect dissent from the reality of something than descent from reason.

Liturgical No-No: Applause in The Mass

Let me first say that I am not a raddie traddie, don't know latin, like it some but have never actually been to a have only been to two Extraordinary Form Masses, and you won't catch me going around saying, "Quid agis, canis?"

Yet I have a real problem with clapping at the end of the Mass. Thinking about this for some time, I finally figured out an analogy that works:

Clapping in The Mass is like clapping in a wedding.

Imagine at the end of a wedding there was applause, but the applause was not for the bride and groom. Instead, the priest asked the solo violinist who did a great job during the wedding to come up to the front and everyone applauds him, followed by applause for the ring bearer, flower girl and a rousing round of high-fives for the groomsmen who did such a good job standing still. By this time the new bride and groom are slouching their heads but the priest, in dramatic fashion, pronounces a blessing, the music starts and they all process out--unsure as to what they are now celebrating or even celebrated (two groomsman are still doing a fist bump for the extraordinary job they did).

At the end of the Mass, take some time to give thanks to the Groom who just gave Himself miraculously to you and celebrate the success of the bake sale another time.

Or in the words of our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI:

"Wherever applause breaks out in the liturgy because of some human achievement, it is a sure sign that the essence of liturgy has totally disappeared and been replaced by a kind of religious entertainment."

(Update: Due to a comment on this post, I want to be clear that I am not talking about clapping for God but rather clapping for man. Further, one can confuse the two and I've talked about that here.)

You can check out a follow up post here.

The Church is God's Sacrament to the World

At about the end of the third minute (2:50), the young crowd begins to chant, "We love you! We love you! We love you!..."

A few years ago I would have looked at something like that with a great deal of skepticism if not contempt. Why show so much affection for a man? Look, yet another example of how Catholics don't love Jesus as much as they should. They have to split their attention between The Saints, Mary, the Pope, and the list goes on and on. It must be exhausting.

This judgment is an example of pure ignorance. On the most basic level, Christians of the non-Catholic ilk might be just as likely to get in a crowd chanting "I love you" to a musician or an athlete. I'm thinking Rascal Flats or Tim Tebow. Or, they might just live in Texas. 

Either way, we all understand what it means to get excited about meeting someone important or being a part of an important moment. So, give a Catholic a break will you, we just happen to take our religion as serious as SEC football.

However, that is not what a Catholic is doing. Well, at least if they understand what's going on.

You see, The Church is God's Sacrament to the World.

Sacraments are efficacious signs of God's grace. They relay the supernatural life of God. They are His abiding promise of His work until His return.

When Christ left us, when He ascended and when the Paraclete descended, the story did not end. In fact,  it really just began. Like the first Adam, Christ too was "asleep" and from His side was born His Bride--the Church. However, as the God-Man and giver of all good gifts especially His sacraments, He endowed His church with real features. What I mean is that the Church was endowed with visibility.

In Pope Benedict XVI homily at the Mass of the Last Supper just a few days ago, he reminded us that "Only by the prayer of the Lord and of the Church can the Pope fulfil his task of strengthening his brethren – of feeding the flock of Christ and of becoming the guarantor of that unity which becomes a visible witness to the mission which Jesus received from the Father."

He goes on to plead, "Grant unity to your Church, so that the world may believe."

In a world of a Christianity of "thoughts and ideas" (Jesus of Nazareth, Part 2, p. 226), the Catholic Church's insistence on an en-fleshed faith, one of a Eucharist of His Body and Blood, a headquarters made with ancient stones on an ancient hill that cannot be hidden, and a college of Bishops led in a special way by the successor of St. Peter, is a sign and a wonder in our world that God became Man. As such, she is a Sacrament, a sure promise, of Christ's abiding presence.

When the Vicar of Christ happens to be in my neighborhood, I will not cheer out of some youthful stupidity that someone famous is near me. No. Christ's Church is a sign, a Sacrament of His Bride, a witness to the enduring passionate interest God shows to humanity.

If I ever happen to get an audience with the Pope, and if there is a video camera there, and if it looks a lot like the video in this post, you better believe you can expect you will see one man with tears in his eyes and words of adulation on his lips. The sign in the world that Christ has risen from the dead is in my presence. With every "I love you", may it demonstrate my firm hope that Christ has won, and is winning, and will win when He returns to reclaim His Bride--The Church--who will be without stain or wrinkle.

First Reactions: The Pope's Book

click to go to Amazon to buy

Thirty six hours ago, I received this book from my best friend David Williams as an Easter gift. I'm half way through, and no I'm not writing a review but just some of the startling observations of our Holy Father's momentous work so far:

He wants to move beyond the historical critical method which he claims has given us all it can offer. He hopes to fulfill what hasn't been truly attempted which is theological exegesis in the spirit of Vatican II.

The Pope as the Universal head of humanity, affirms pagan, protestant, and jewish notions showing how they all have their fulfillment in the unique person of Christ. Each group has an "Amen" moment, yet each is challenged to confront Jesus in a way relevant to their historical situation.

He compares his work to St. Thomas's Summa and then proceeds in a new type of scholasticism to lay out various exegetical possibilities and show their definitive theological reality in and through The Word made flesh.

The Eucharist is not a meal but rather "a memorial of his sacrifice". Pope Benedict XVI and other scholars notice the historical passing away of the Eucharist being connected with meal (Last Supper) but rather to a new Passover.

The "poured out for many" is the most accurate translation of the words during the Consecration, not to limit the universality of Christ's sacrifice but rather to point to the particular sacramental reality of those words (in the chalice): both in completion in the people of Israel and in each subsequent 'Sunday Morning' Eucharist liturgy.

Book Review: Introduction to Christianity

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In my journey into the Church, I picked up this book in the very beginning. I was thoroughly blown away by how then Cardinal Ratzinger moved concomitantly inside Catholic tradition and the canon of Scripture effortlessly. After I finished the book, I thought, "I could call this guy Papa". The Spirit works in mysterious ways. Here's my review:

"Cardinal Ratzinger shows us why he's the Pope-Bible scholar par excellence. Even before the weight of the Universal Church was on his vicarious shoulders, then Ratzinger leads his reader on a journey into the most pressing issue of our time: faith in God. This return to a faith in the public square has been a theme of his pontificate and we can see that it was something he was convinced of well before Bavaria cried for joy. Follow our now Holy Father as he penetrates the meaning and relevance of the ancient creed and why its proclamation is the medicine to heal the modern soul."