Modernism Vs. Catholicism

Add caption

Which do you think is right? What was lost and change?

Vatican sacks priest after he comes out as gay

By Philip Pullella

.

View gallery

Monsignor Krzystof Charamsa smiles as he leaves at the end of his news conference in downtown Rome October …

By Philip Pullella

Monsignor Krzystof Charamsa was removed from his position at the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican's doctrinal arm where he had worked since 2003, a statement said.VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Vatican dismissed a priest from his post in a Holy See office on Saturday after he told a newspaper he was gay and urged the Catholic Church to change its stance on homosexuality.

Charamsa, 43, and a Polish theologian, announced he was gay and had a partner in a long interview with Italy's Corriere della Sera newspaper on Saturday.

He later held a news conference with his partner, a Spanish man, and gay activists at a Rome restaurant. They had planned a demonstration in front of the Vatican but changed the venue several hours before it was due to have started.

The Vatican said Charamsa's dismissal had nothing to do with his comments on his personal situation, which it said "merit respect".

View gallery

Monsignor Krzystof Charamsa smiles as he leaves at the end of his news conference in downtown Rome O …

But it said giving the interview and the planned demonstration was "grave and irresponsible" given their timing on the eve of a synod of bishops who will discuss family issues, including how to reach out to gays.

It said his actions would subject the synod, which Pope Francis is due to open on Sunday, to "undue media pressure".

The issue of homosexuality and the Church has dominated the aftermath of the pope's visit to the United States last week.

In Saturday's interview, Charamsa said his partner had helped him come to terms with his sexuality and knew he would have to give up the priesthood, although the Vatican statement made no reference to this outcome.

"It's time for the Church to open its eyes about gay Catholics and to understand that the solution it proposes to them -- total abstinence from a life of love -- is inhuman," he was quoted as saying.

The Catholic Church teaches that homosexuality is not a sin but that homosexual acts are.

The Vatican has been embarrassed by controversy over the pope's meeting with Kim Davis, a Kentucky county clerk who went to jail in September for refusing to honor a U.S. Supreme Court ruling and issue same-sex marriage licences.

The Vatican said on Friday that "the only real audience" the pope had during his visit to Washington was with a small group that included a gay couple.

Erwin Krautler, Brazilian Bishop, Urges Ordination Of Married Elders As Priest Shortage Grows

BELEM, Brazil (RNS) The largest Roman Catholic geographical district in Brazil, located deep in the Amazon along the Xingu River, has more than 800 Catholic congregations but only 27 priests.

Bishop Erwin Krautler, prelate of Xingu (pronounced Shin-goo), has argued that the situation calls for drastic measures. In April, he took his case to the Vatican, where he met with Pope Francis. Recently, Krautler and Cardinal Claudio Hummes, a friend of Pope Francis, presented the idea of ordaining married community elders to Brazil’s National Conference of Bishops, which is now in the process of forming a commission to delve deeper into the matter.

Krautler said he counted himself among a group of bishops, mostly in the developing world, who see the ordination of such elders as a potential solution for the countless rural congregations that cannot receive the sacraments, including Communion, marriage and baptism.

“The situation of Xingu is not an exceptional situation,” Krautler said. “All of the Amazon has the same problem of very few fathers for a large number of communities.”

Krautler said Pope Francis has encouraged open dialogue on the issue and urged bishops at the national level to come up with “courageous” proposals to address the priest shortage.

The Brazilian bishop is not the first to propose ordaining married men. Krautler said Fritz Lobinger — retired bishop of Aliwal, in South Africa — put forward the case for ordaining married men in underserved areas.

Lobinger visited Brazil five times while he was formulating his views, which he has espoused widely.

“Lay leaders preach, conduct services, conduct funerals, pray for the sick and in some areas they are even authorized to conduct baptisms and marriages,” Lobinger said. “There can be no doubt that they would also be accepted if they were ordained to the ministerial priesthood.”

Lobinger said the ordination of elders would work in vibrant, self-reliant Catholic communities.

But some priests view a new path to ordination without formal academic training or the celibacy requirement as a threat that could undermine the traditional priesthood.

Lobinger has argued that traditionally trained priests would fit into the new system.

“The local leaders become a leadership team and the priests become fomenters,” he said. “This happens because there is no other training facility. If it is to happen, it can only happen through the local priests.”

Married priests are not unheard of in the Catholic world; married men are ordained in the Eastern Rite Catholic churches and married former Anglican priests have been allowed into the church.

“The celibacy of priesthood in the Western church is a matter of ecclesiastical discipline and therefore changeable,” said James Conn, a Jesuit priest and professor of canon law at Boston College.

Since assuming office, Pope Francis has espoused flexibility, especially on nondoctrinal matters. In a July conversation with Italian newspaper La Repubblica, he called celibacy a “problem” for the church and promised to find solutions.

“(Ordaining married lay leaders) has nothing to do with extinguishing the type of priest we have now,” Krautler said. “But that besides this type we would have other experiences and other possibilities to attend to the need of 90 percent of the communities of the Amazon.”

Authentic Anglicanism: Catholic and Evangelical

A Traditional Anglican response to George Weigel's call... from 2008.

1. Communion with Jesus Christ, Personal and Real: ‘Are you born again?’ 'Do you have a personal relationship with Jesus?’ We often hear from our evangelical protestant brethren that we ought to have a ‘personal relationship’ with Jesus Christ to be faithful Christians, and that this relationship is prerequisite for salvation. Although we must not confuse our personal relationship with Our Lord in daily conversion and faith with being ‘born again’ or ‘born from above’, regeneration, which mystery of grace is conferred sacramentally in Holy Baptism, there can be no doubt that our evangelical friends are right, and that they should have no monopoly on the truth that living Christian witness requires a personal communion with Our Blessed Saviour. Every orthodox Anglican should be able to say most earnestly that he has a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ, the Eternal Word, the Incarnate Son of God and Son of Mary, is the crucified, risen and glorified Redeemer of all mankind – only in a personal and intimate communion with the Lord Jesus Christ, God made Man, can any human being be capable of ultimate fulfilment or of the discovery of the true meaning, purpose, end, dignity and glory of human life. As the Holy Fathers of the Church teach us, Jesus Christ not only reveals God to man; as Man, He reveals man to himself. We must know, adore and love Jesus; it is not enough merely to know about Our Lord in an intellectual or cognitive sense. Either Jesus is Lord of all, or He is not Lord at all…

2. Personal Holiness - the Greatest Attractant for Evangelisation. The Holy Fathers of the Church affirm that the greatest means of evangelism is holiness of life. One person sanctified by divine grace and advancing in the way of holiness is more powerful for evangelism than a thousand unconverted or nominal, ambivalent souls. People at large will be attracted to the Church more by the holiness of our lives than by anything else, for personal holiness has an inherent power to attract, convert and transform: the power is the Holy Ghost, Who makes the Saints His icon, His image. Saint John of Damascus instructs that the Son is the Image of the Father and the Holy Ghost is the Image of the Son. But where or who is the image of the Holy Ghost? It is the Saint, the human being who partakes of the divine nature (2 St Peter 1.4) and is changed from strength to strength and from glory to glory, who bears the image of that invisible Spirit Who ‘goes where He wills’ (St John 3.8). The invisible Spirit is made visible in His Saints. To escape a corrupt and hedonistic world, the ancient Desert Fathers retreated into the wilderness for the sweet solitude of prayer and communion with God; but the holiness of their lives was so compelling that men and women by the thousands flocked to the desert to be near them and learn Christ from them. We can and should learn from the example of the Fathers. Encouraged by their examples and aided by their prayers, we ought to turn to the Saints and follow the trail of holiness blazed by our forefathers in the Faith. The degree of our evangelism will be successful only to the degree that we seek to cultivate holiness in our own lives. We sanctify ourselves so that others may be sanctified.

3. Bible-Centred, Bible-Saturated Religion. Jesus Christ, the Word of God, lives mystically and salvifically in His written Word. Saint Jerome pronounces, ‘Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.’ A living Christian witness demands more than a simple profession of faith or regular church attendance; we are called to move from passive observance to full participation in the Christian life. God beckons us to submit our whole selves to the authority and Lordship of Jesus Christ and to gauge our lives by the standard of the Gospel, rather than attempting to mould the Gospel to our own limited experience. It is the Christian Faith that should transform us; we should not seek to change the Gospel into a projection of our desires and attitudes, that is, to re-make the Gospel in our own image based on our own experience. We all know painfully well the result of the exchange of the Gospel for subjective or emotional experience, as we have seen its consequences so vividly as of late in mainline ecclesial bodies and in society in general. We are summoned to be lovers and students of the Holy Scriptures: if we want to know how God works in our own lives, in our relationships with other people, and in the Church and Sacraments, we will be assiduous readers of the Holy Bible and will take its Word into our hearts and lives. If we do not read, mark, learn and inwardly digest the Holy Scriptures with the most careful dedication, we shall never grow or mature in our faith, nor shall we become the Christians and Saints God wants us to be. The Bible, in its theological, spiritual and moral application, should serve as the unique, indispensable and inexhaustible resource for the faithful Anglican Catholic. Let’s go to Bible Study!

4. The Sacramental System - the Covenantal Means of Grace. Our Anglican and Catholic Faith teaches us that we are not people of the written Word only; we are united to Our Lord by the Sacraments of the New Testament. The Seven Holy Sacraments of the Catholic Church, Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist, Penance, Matrimony, Orders and Unction, are the direct and most effective means of becoming holy, becoming what God wants us to be: they are given by Our Lord and the Apostles to serve us as covenantal means or channels of grace that assure and guarantee the grace and power of Christ in our lives. We should seek to receive the Holy Sacraments regularly and frequently, with faith, love and repentance. If we are to allow ourselves to be more closely conformed to the image and likeness of Jesus Christ, and to be empowered to serve as His faithful evangelists and disciples, we should be absolutely unfailing in our attendance at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass on every Sunday and great Feast of the Church, and we should receive the Precious Body and Blood of Christ in Holy Communion with the greatest fervour. By the Blessed Sacrament, we become one Body with Christ, that He may dwell in us and we in Him. We should also strive to make a consistent and devout use of the Sacrament of Penance. By our sacramental communion with Christ, the life of Our Lord will be actualised in us and we shall be truly elevated into faithful disciples of the Saviour. A true Christian life is one nourished with the Sacraments, an Altar-centred life in which we live a Eucharistic fellowship - in the deepest communion with our Eucharistic Lord. Genuine evangelism is Baptismal, Confirmational and Eucharistic evangelism.

5. Orthodox Liturgical Worship. ‘Do this in remembrance of Me.’ The liturgical life of the Church, the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, through which the Holy Sacraments are administered and the Divine Office of the Church is offered, anamnetically makes present the Lord Jesus Christ in His saving Person and Work. The liturgy should therefore be celebrated ‘in the beauty of holiness,’ the ars celebrandi, in which the fullness of the Apostolic Tradition is expressed and embodied with all the reverence, transcendence, dignity, and the sense of the numinous that it deserves. The liturgy is not only the work of the People of God; it is the Incarnate Lord Himself present to us in mystery and sign. Only the very highest forms of music, architecture, ceremonial and Common Prayer are fitting for the celebration of the worship of the Church, elements which unite seamlessly to render unto the Holy Trinity what we call ortho doxa, right glory, the right worship of Almighty God. The Holy Eucharist, the Daily Office and personal prayer should routinely combine in the Christian life to create a dynamic and graced renovation of the believer. ‘It is the Mass that matters!’

6. Active and Involved Christian Formation. The administration of the Sacraments must also be accompanied by a living and active presentation of the Gospel message in preaching, teaching and catechesis: in order for the Sacraments to be fruitful and efficacious, they must be received purposely with faith, hope and love. To divorce the preaching of the Gospel from the ministration of the Sacraments is to empty the Sacraments of their potential power and transformative energy and to reduce the sacramental life to the mechanical and superstitious. All Churchmen should therefore take the most conscientious care that those who receive the Sacraments be afforded the maximum level and best quality of Christian formation. Especially the Sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Eucharist and Matrimony require that those who sponsor or receive them do so in a committed and devoted way and that those who desire them know the basic truths of the Gospel and manifestly intend to live a Christian life.

7. 'The Obedience of Faith' - Fidelity to Holy Tradition and Avoidance of Private Judgement. Catholic Christianity is a revealed Religion. Human convention or philosophy has not contrived the Gospel, for the Christian Faith is a divine revelation directly communicated by God. The fullest expression of the Gospel is located in Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition, one divine revelation communicated to the Church in two modes but containing the same Rule of Faith. As Saint Basil the Great professes, ‘Holy Scripture is fulfiled, clarified and interpreted by Holy Tradition.’ The Anglican axiom is: the Bible and the primitive Church. For Anglicans, the Holy Scriptures, the Holy Tradition and the Holy Church are absolutely inseparable and together transmit the saving Word of God for mankind’s salvation. If we are faithfully to live the Gospel and receive it in its entire truth, we must submit all private judgement in matters of doctrine, faith and morality to the authority of the universal, ancient and consentient Tradition of the Undivided Church. We are the children of the Church, called to live, worship, work, obey and pray in the heart of the Church. We are Churchmen, not sectarians. We are called to what Saint Paul characterises as the obedience of faith (Romans 1.5, 16.26).

8. Faithful Discipleship. Through Jesus Christ, present in His Word and Holy Sacraments, we are drawn by supernatural grace into a sanctifying and divinising union with Him: justified by faith working in love, we are called to an ever-deepening holiness and equipped by the Holy Ghost for good works in the life of grace. ‘For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them’ (Ephesians 2.8-10). In the Church, the School of Sanctity and the Ark of the New Covenant, we should learn to be faithful disciples and to eschew and reject all that is not of God, Who has brought us to the New Life of Christ. Christ’s life, death and resurrection have made us a New Creation.

9. Personal Evangelism. The New Testament Church, which is the New Israel, the ‘Israel of God’ (Galatians 6.16), is ‘a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people’ (I St Peter 2.9). In Christ, we are kings and priests unto God and His Father through our Baptism and Confirmation. Therefore, the common priesthood of the baptised shares in Christ’s Messianic Offices of Prophet, Priest, and King, and is given the Great Commission so that all the faithful, the sancta plebs Dei, the holy people of God, may be true witnesses of Christ to the whole of creation. We are all to be sent out, ‘apostled,’ to preach Christ and Him Crucified, and thus we should be formed and readied by the Church to teach the Gospel in word and action. Our determination to welcome others into the Church and to encourage them to follow Jesus Christ, as well as our eagerness clearly to teach the Faith Once Delivered unto the Saints, should be essential components of our Christian witness. Let us perfect the Saints and the work of the ministry, and edify the Body of Christ (Ephesians 4.12).

10. Unswerving Commitment to the Anglican Tradition. God has remarkably blessed us and we have a goodly heritage. Our special privilege and responsibility as orthodox Anglicans is to cherish thankfully, preserve unimpaired and transmit assertively those tremendous gifts which have been entrusted to us as children of the Ecclesia Anglicana. Rigorous commitment to the classical Book of Common Prayer and to the theological, doctrinal, moral, spiritual, liturgical and pastoral patrimony and ethos of orthodox Catholic Anglicanism should define our mission and our evangelistic efforts. To whom much has been given, much shall be required. Part of our vocation surely lies in our commission boldly to proclaim the Gospel as incarnated and inculturated in our Branch of Christ’s Church and to recall our accountability for that rare treasure which has been commended to us. Nothing evangelises like integrity and authenticity. Let us keep the Faith – and pass it on to the world!

 The Right Reverend Chandler Holder Jones

FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

Be a part of the Restoration of the Church

One of the Ministry of Christ is HEALING. Let us be one of those who will contribute for the restoration of the WOUNDED Body of Christ!

Traditional

How do you define 'traditional'? There is a spectrum of worship in Anglicanism:

1. Churches which use the Sarum Rite (Rite of Mass used before the English Reformation)
2. Churches which use the traditional (pre-Vatican II) Roman Catholic Mass (in the vernacular)
3. Churches which use the modern (post-Vatican II) Roman Catholic Mass
4. Churches which use the 1662 Book of Common Prayer (possibly with outward trappings of Roman Catholicism such as vestments, incense, 6 candlesticks on or behind the altar)
5. Churches which use a liturgy from a modern prayer book based on the BCP, but with the most traditional options, and the outward trappings of Roman Catholicism mentioned in no. 4.
Note: All of the above would (most likely) have traditional hymns accompanied by an organ.
6. Churches which use a modern prayer book liturgy without the outward trappings of Roman Catholicism (priest wears cassock, surplice and stole, for example).
7. Churches which have a 'contemporary' worship service with modern music played with guitar, drums etc.

Where would you place your church? Is it down low on the list or relatively high? The church I go to is category number 5, and it is still described as an Anglo-Catholic church. If you're currently attending a category 7 church, then you would have a good reason for wanting to move. Please rate your church for us, please, so we know what you're dealing with.

New Bible Version ?

NEW BIBLE VERSIONS REMOVE ‘FATHER’ AND ‘SON OF GOD’ BECAUSE IT OFFENDS MUSLIMS

by OCP on JANUARY 30, 2012

in FEATURED NEWS,NEWS

30/1/2012
Jihad Watch

American Bible translators bowdlerize scriptures to avoid offending Muslims: no “Father” and “Son”

If this is true, for the parties they are trying not to offend, anything short of Islam — of professing that there is no god but Allah, and that Muhammad is his messenger — would be “offensive.” This is not making Christianity more palatable. It is de-Christianizing it. It is manufacturing yet another Christian heresy.

Indeed, for many denominations, the validity of baptism depends on the words used: “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” No euphemisms, no nicknames: for example, trial balloons aiming to portray a more gender-neutral God have already been burst: the use of “Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier” in baptism has been rejected by the Catholic Church, if not others.

Those who truly believe they are winning souls for Christ would not risk the validity of baptism, and those who are genuinely convinced that they possess the truth will not apologize or worry it is offensive.

As a technical matter, one wonders how the translators handle the words: “Who is a liar but he that denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denies the Father and the Son” (1 John 2:22). And “But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 10:33).

One last bit of holy writ: “You might as well fall flat on your face as lean over too far backward.” – James Thurber

“‘Father’ and ‘Son’ Ousted from the Trinity in New Bible Translations,” by Hussein Hajj Wario for the Yahoo! Contributor Network, January 27 (thanks to CGW):

A controversy is brewing over three reputable Christian organizations, which are based in North America, whose efforts have ousted the words “Father” and “Son” from new Bibles. Wycliffe Bible Translators, Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) and Frontiers are under fire for “producing Bibles that remove “Father,” “Son” and “Son of God” because these terms are offensive to Muslims.” Concerned Christian missionaries, Bible translators, pastors, and national church leaders have come together with a public petition to stop these organizations. They claim a public petition is their last recourse because meetings with these organizations’ leaders, staff resignations over this issue and criticism and appeals from native national Christians concerned about the translations “have failed to persuade these agencies to retain “Father” and “Son” in the text of all their translations.”

Clearly, they fail to appreciate the far-reaching ramifications that Christians not only may dare, but are commanded to call on the Creator of the Universe as “Father.” That fundamentally re-wires one’s relationship with God and describes a unique intimacy and bond of love that ought not be squandered to score short-term points.

Biblical Missiology, a ministry of Boulder, Colorado-based Horizon International, is sponsoring the petition.

The main issues of this controversy surround new Arabic and Turkish translations. Here are three examples native speakers give:

First, Wycliffe and SIL have produced Stories of the Prophets, an Arabic Bible that uses an Arabic equivalent of “Lord” instead of “Father” and “Messiah” instead of “Son.”

Second, Frontiers and SIL have produced Meaning of the Gospel of Christ , an Arabic translation which removes “Father” in reference to God and replaces it with “Allah,” and removes or redefines “Son.” For example, the verse which Christians use to justify going all over the world to make disciples, thus fulfilling the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19) reads, “Cleanse them by water in the name of Allah, his Messiah and his Holy Spirit” instead of “baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Rev. Bassam Madany, an Arab American who runs Middle East Resources, terms these organization’s efforts as “a western imperialistic attempt that’s inspired by cultural anthropology, and not by biblical theology.”

Third, Frontiers and SIL have produced a new Turkish translation of the Gospel of Matthew that uses Turkish equivalents of “guardian” for “Father” and “representative” or “proxy” for “Son.” To Turkish church leader Rev. Fikret Böcek, “This translation is ‘an all-American idea’ with absolutely no respect for the ‘sacredness’ of Scripture, or even of the growing Turkish church.”

SIL has issued a public response stating “all personnel subscribe to a statement of faith which affirms the Trinity, Christ’s deity, and the inspiration of Scripture.” However, in the same statement, which is similar to Wycliffe’s, it claims “word-for-word translation of these titles would communicate an incorrect meaning (i.e. that God had physical, sexual relationships with Mary) [sic],” thus justifying substituting “Father” and “Son” in new translations. Calls and emails to Wycliffe and SIL to clarify their positions were not returned. Frontiers responded to calls with articles that critics have already dismissed as skirting omissions of “Father” and “Son” in new Bible translations.

The point about sexual connotations is baloney. Many of these countries have, or once had indigenous Christian populations with scriptures in indigenous languages where this was not a problem. If they’re coming up with something untoward, they need better translators.

Source:

Be Sociable, Share!