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Thursday, November 5, 2015

Joint Communion with Lutherans? Oh my!

Bishop Denis Madden and Lutheran Bishop Elizabeth Eaton
Bishops Committee Recommends Opportunities for Shared Communion with Lutherans

Well....

According to the bishops' press release reporting on their dialogue with the Lutheran Church, Declaration on the Way:
The document...also suggests that the expansion of opportunities for Lutherans and Catholics to receive Holy Communion together would be a sign of the agreements already reached. The Declaration also seeks a commitment to deeper connection at the local level for Catholics and Lutherans.
Honestly, I would like to see the "reunion of all Christians" as much as anyone. I pray for it every day when I make the morning offering. I have family members in other faiths with whom I would love to be in complete union. 

But if a religious group has "32 points of agreement" with Catholics, but doesn't accept the authority of "Peter" are they really "in communion" with us? And what about their acceptance of intrinsically evil moral issues? If they say they agree with us that Jesus is really present in the Eucharist, but champion intrinsic moral evils...what then?

Contraception does not, however, violate love. And as Oehschlaeger rightly points out, contraception allows for many parents the ability for more full child- rearing. This view of sexuality as union between partners, symbolic of the greater unity that holds individuals in real community, is not opposed to the view that sexuality is linked to procreation. Rather it forms the necessary understanding of the self as relational that makes other parts of the discussion about procreative ethics sensible.
The first sentence of this paragraph is absolutely false and completely violates Catholic sexual ethics. (Read Casti Connubii, Humanae Vitae, Familiaris Consortio, etc.) The marital act is both love-giving and life-giving. To deliberately attack one of those goods is to "violate love." When a couple makes themselves temporarily or permanently sterile, they become pleasure objects for each other closing off God from their union. They basically tell God, "I don't want your creative gift this time. We'll tell you when we want your involvement!" It is nothing like the practice of Natural Family Planning which, for serious reasons, chooses sexual "silence" during the fertile time.

And where do they stand on same-sex marriage? Here's what ELCA president bishop Elizabeth A. Eaton wrote after the Supreme Curt decision:
The ELCA social statement "Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust" (2009) neither endorses nor forbids same-gender marriages and recognizes that we have differing understandings and convictions on this matter. In its decision, the court stated that "the First Amendment ensures that religious organizations and persons are given proper protection as they seek to teach the principles that are so fulfilling and so central to their lives and faiths."
According to this church's social statement on human sexuality, all decisions about recognizing, supporting and holding publicly accountable same-gender relationships are entrusted to congregations. Recognizing that the church is not of one mind on this subject, our 2009 actions provide that congregations and clergy should discern together whether to recognize such relationships and to what degree.
And if we enter into "communion" with a church that is essentially in material heresy and operates according to a vote of its congregations how does that affect the doctrine of the Church? Can Jesus' commands be amended by popular vote of a congregation? Is that how we determine doctrine? How can we be in communion with a church that isn't even in communion with itself?

Marriage and the Eucharist are already under attack following the Synod on the Family. This report and its recommendations seems to me to be one more front in the battle.

And one last thing. How many points of agreement do we have with the SSPX? And yet they are regularly vilified and accused of not standing with Peter and being in schism. So...the bishops are moving toward inter-communion with Lutherans who deny the authority of the pope and support a number of intrinsic moral evils, but treat traditionalists with disdain. 

No wonder Catholics are so confused! 

Somebody please pinch me. Maybe I'm asleep and having a nightmare.

12 comments:

  1. Yeah, pretty mind blowing, isn't it? By the way, have you read this blistering article by Bishop Athanasius Schneider? It's pretty powerful stuff.

    http://sspx.org/en/news-events/news/non-possumus-synod-bp-schneider-12100

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  2. I will fight against Lutherans receiving The Eucharist with everything in me!































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  3. Whoever thought this up and advanced this "brilliant" idea should be subject to a Spanish-type Inquisition to determine their fidelity to the Church. Now is the time to terminate Ecumenical practices before we lose more Catholics to heretic denominations.

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  4. Not just no, but *Purgatory* NO!

    (Lutherans believe in Purgatory, right Mary Ann?)

    CKev

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  5. There are all kinds of Lutherans and they do not like each other. There are those communities or synods that are pro-life and there are those communities that have gone along with every immoral thing society imposes. The Roman Catholic Church has little in common with the liberal lutherans. Luther was an apostate heretic who started a civil war and said to 'wash our hands with the blood of bishops'. He was a bad man.

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  6. Even setting aside all the other doctrines on which we do no agree with the ELCA, the most fundamental problem is that we do not even agree on what the Eucharist is, or what its purpose is.

    Reading the declaration, the "agreement" amounts to this: "We agree that Christ is somehow present, and that it has great spiritual benefits."

    How can we share a communion we don't even understand in the same way?

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  7. Most Bishops belong to: A Different Church. A Different Religion. Novus Ordoism.

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  8. The very fact that the picture shows a female "bishop" tells us that we can't have communion with them.

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  9. How could we "share the Eucharist" with Lutherans, other than allowing them to receive the Holy Eucharist confected by a validly ordained Catholic priest? We surely wouldn't want anything a Lutheran minister without Holy Orders would offer us. It would be nothing more than a mere symbol, if that.

    Holy Communion, besides being the real Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ is the source, center, and summit of our Catholic faith. It also underlines the communion we have with one another. For those not in communion with the Catholic Church, receiving the Eucharist would be a sort of lie. Why would we condone such a thing?

    True ecumenism means we work towards unity of all believers into the one, true Church, the Catholic Church. Anything else is a waste of time, and almost assuredly centered on the ego of those involved. All the hand-shaking and back slapping between different groups does not unite anyone. It's just feel-good humbug.

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  10. Sometime back, the Lutherans and Orthodox Christians had their own ecumenical meeting which didn't end well.

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  11. Our Lady of La Salette warned us that "the priests will betray the Church". Our shepherds are desperately in need of our prayers and sacrifices. Hell is forever. Pope Benedict has mentioned at least twice that the 100th year anniversary of Fatima is approaching and that he feels those prophecies will soon be fulfilled. The bishop of Akita believed that Akita's warnings were part of the Fatima message. God cannot continue to permit the world to go on as it is, pray for your friends and family as well and warn them if they will listen. God have mercy on us.

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