August 28th, Year of Our + Lord
2018
To my Roman Catholic
friends: A Compassionate and Hope-filled
Word, and an Exhortation.
1. All of Christendom, that is the Church catholic,
mourns with you.
The Church catholic mourns with you. All members of the Christian Church, the congregation
of true believers that extends to every place and across all time, mourn with
you. I mourn with you, and you continue
in my prayers.
Just as the
Church catholic, that is all Christians, mourned with the Coptic Christians
martyred by ISIS, and prays for the oppressed Church in China, so also
Christian solidarity means that our hearts break for the millions of Roman
Catholics, laity and clergy, who are reeling from the latest series of
revelations of sexual abuse and scandal amongst the Roman Catholic clergy. Is this simple misconduct? Have there been errors in judgement? No, it is much worse. The overwhelming evidence points to gross
sin, and wicked evil, all too often intentionally covered up and allowed to
fester, in order, it seems, merely to protect the hierarchy.
The appetite of
Satan and the World to denigrate the Church will not be sated until the Last
Day, and so I fear that the current troubles will multiply and continue. As we struggle and mourn in the face of great
evil within the Church, and as we are shamed by the world´s celebration of our
struggles, I pray that by God’s grace and guiding, we may all learn to confess
our sins and bring them into the light of the eternal day, the place where the
Holy Spirit promises to shine the redeeming light of Christ, which alone has
the power to make all things new.
2. Do not give up Hope.
Speaking of the
redeeming light of Christ: Do
not give up hope. Despair is
half a step from unbelief, but it is also the place of the smoldering wick and
the bruised reed, that is to say, the very place the Savior goes to seek and to
save. God who did not spare His Son, but
gave Him up to save us, is certainly more than ready to lift you up, wash your
wounds, and bring you into His good pastures.
As our Lord taught us, the Christian Way is the way of the Cross, and so
we cannot expect this road to be easy.
But Jesus Christ walks with you.
Fix your eyes on Him, by filling your ears with His Word. He will not abandon you; this is His promise
to you in your Baptism.
Jesus promised His
apostles that “in the world you have tribulation; but take courage; I
have overcome the world.” And so, the
Apostle John reminds us: “You are from God, little children, and have
overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in
the world.” You have no reason to give
up hope, because Jesus Christ is your Hope, and in Him the victory is already
complete.
3. Our Resolution to do better is not the Way.
Like many, Kathryn
Jean Lopez of National Review is rightly calling for a return to true holiness,
and for the bishops of the Roman Catholic Church to demonstrate heroic love
like that of a mother. She is not wrong.
All Christians are called to live holy
lives.
I encourage you,
however, based on the experience of the last 30 years, and more importantly based
on the Word of God, to consider the possibility that no matter how seriously we
dedicate ourselves to the cause, we cannot generate the holiness we desire.
Our re-dedication
will not save the Church. But do not
give up. Rather, consider the possibility that when St. Paul said Christ Jesus
has become to us wisdom from God, and righteousness
and sanctification, and redemption (1 Corinthians 1:30), he literally
meant Jesus is our 100% righteousness, sanctification and redemption, without
any contribution from us. As the same
Apostle says in Philippians 2:13, it is God who is at work in you, both to
will and to work for His good
pleasure. Even though it is counter
intuitive, consider the possibility that true Christian living, by clergy or
laity, depends not on our efforts, but rather on our constant connection to and
repentant reliance upon Jesus, who alone can empower us to live more holy lives
tomorrow than we lived today, by the power of His forgiveness.
To fail to
understand this truth will always lead us to greater and greater failure as we
attempt to realize the impossible. As
Jesus said: Abide in me, and you will
bear fruit. Apart from me, you can do
nothing. (St. John 15:5) In our Baptism, in the Absolution, and in the Holy
Supper, the foremost thing is His blood bought forgiveness, delivered to us
again, and again, which binds us to Jesus and makes our good works possible. Our resolution to lead holier lives cannot
produce holiness, but rather only repentant faith in the forgiveness of
Jesus. So, for each of us, improvement
starts and continues only in repentance and the forgiveness of sins, delivered
through the Gospel in Word and Sacrament.
4. Neither is our anger
the Way.
Many people are understandably
angry at the horrible sins against the most vulnerable that have been revealed,
and with the official cover-up of these travesties. Be careful with your anger. Remember what St. James wrote: But everyone must be quick to hear, slow
to speak and slow to
anger; for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God. James 1:20-21
Earthly justice
belongs to the state, and we should all support a just application of the law. Given the gravity of the current situation, Christian
citizens may well loudly call for the full extent of the law of the land to be
applied to those guilty of these terrible crimes.
As Christians, as
baptized children of the Lord, we remember that ultimate justice belongs to
God, and His justice is given to each of us in Jesus Christ. Vengeance is mine, sayeth the LORD, and on
the Cross Jesus has expiated the entire wrath of God against human sin. As forgiven sinners, who deserve God´s wrath
but in Jesus have received His mercy, we are called to love our enemies and
pray for their conversion.
Take care not to
let your anger overcome you. Anger at
the Church, at the priests, at the bishops, at the Pope, may be used by Satan
to lead you into anger at Christ, the One who has taken our sins into His own
body and extinguished them. Be careful
not to allow your anger to turn you against the only true source of consolation
and hope that there is, the crucified and resurrected Son of God.
5. Consider what may seem
Impossible:
I am a concerned
but not well-informed observer, and so my litany of places where the current
scandal has been revealed is incomplete, but still numbing: Pennsylvania, Boston, Australia, Chile, Rome,
Ireland… Suffice it to say that the
suspicion of many that this problem is endemic in the Roman Catholic Church is
by no means irrational. Nor is it
contrary to good theology. Part of my
prayer and exhortation is that you recognize and deal with the possibility that
these problems that keep recurring have their roots not simply nor solely in
the frailty of mankind, but rather are also due to fundamental theological errors
and contradictions of God´s Word that are officially taught by the Roman
Catholic Church, which compound and multiply the perverse power of human
sinfulness.
To whom am I speaking? As a baptized Christian, I have a fraternal
concern for the faith of all who confess the Triune God, so when I exhort “you”
to consider the possibility of fundamental errors in Roman doctrine, my “you”
could be understood to mean the whole Roman Catholic Church. But, beyond my baptism, I have no special vocation
to speak to all of Rome. What is more,
the mutual consolation of the brethren and pastoral care are both inherently
personal Christian activities. And so, I
most especially mean you, singular, whatever your place in the church is:
priest, deacon, nun or laity.
What do I mean by “errors”?
The requirement of the celibacy of priests,[1]
the doctrine of infallibility of the Pope and the Councils, [2]
the doctrine of the Apostolic succession
as taught by Rome,[3]
and the indelible character of priests,[4]
to mention four. You can consider my reasoning for naming these errors
in the footnotes.
But to say it briefly, I pray the current moral crisis will lead you to reconsider the example of Peter in Matthew 16, who went from being lauded as the confessing rock of Christ´s Church to being called Satan by the same Jesus in the space of five verses, because he denied the coming Cross of Jesus. Apostolicity has to do with faithfully proclaiming the doctrine of Christ the Crucified. It is not dependent on any particular person. You should also consider Peter´s later betrayal of the Gospel, which again required his rebuke and correction, which Paul describes in Galatians. You should think about the implications of Paul´s self-defense in 1 Corinthians 9:5, or the reality of Peter having a mother-in-law in Matthew 8. Most importantly, I pray you will consider the possibility that the office of the apostolic ministry is defined, limited and empowered by Christ and His Word, and not by any specific sinner who may be called to serve in that office, nor by any particular bishop in any important See who claims a unique authority not mentioned in the Bible.
But to say it briefly, I pray the current moral crisis will lead you to reconsider the example of Peter in Matthew 16, who went from being lauded as the confessing rock of Christ´s Church to being called Satan by the same Jesus in the space of five verses, because he denied the coming Cross of Jesus. Apostolicity has to do with faithfully proclaiming the doctrine of Christ the Crucified. It is not dependent on any particular person. You should also consider Peter´s later betrayal of the Gospel, which again required his rebuke and correction, which Paul describes in Galatians. You should think about the implications of Paul´s self-defense in 1 Corinthians 9:5, or the reality of Peter having a mother-in-law in Matthew 8. Most importantly, I pray you will consider the possibility that the office of the apostolic ministry is defined, limited and empowered by Christ and His Word, and not by any specific sinner who may be called to serve in that office, nor by any particular bishop in any important See who claims a unique authority not mentioned in the Bible.
The demand
sounding loudly today that “this time” there be a truly significant lay voice
in the planning of needed reforms has the ring of hopelessness to my ear. Structure, tradition and culture within and
outside the Roman church will continue to make a churchwide reform extremely
difficult. But every soul can, by God´s
grace, grapple with the Word of God and pray for the enlightenment of the Holy
Spirit, that He lead us into all Truth. And
there are faithful pastors who will humbly walk with you to understand more
fully the Truth recorded for us in Scripture.
I am willing to serve you in this way, within my limitations. And, if I cannot walk with you in this
journey to find the Truth, I will work to find someone who can.
There is
unlimited Hope in the Truth who is Jesus Christ. Do not be afraid to dig into His Word,
without the filters you have learned from Rome.
The temporal risks may be significant for you, but the reward of the
Truth is eternal, and the Church catholic, that is, the whole body of believers
in every place, is privileged to walk with you, and to pray with and for you.
To turn to Kathryn
Lopez again, I found it salutary that in one of her articles on this sad topic,
she quoted and called on us to consider the wisdom of Bishop Gregory of Nyssa
from the 4th century, who hailed from what is today Turkey. Gregory has much to teach us, and significantly,
he would never have understood the concept that catholicity runs by necessity
through Rome. This leads me to exhort
you: Consider the possibility that the
Roman Catholic Church and the Church catholic are not coterminous. Meditate and pray upon the proposition that
perhaps, as has been long protested by voices rejected and at times persecuted by
Rome, the authority of the Bishop of Rome is a man-made authority, which cannot
claim the blessing of the Triune God, and so true catholicity should be defined
differently and will be found in unexpected places.
6. Understand Suffering under the Gospel:
Finally, be
warned, there is no perfect Christian institution on earth, just as there are
no perfect Christians, only Sinner-Saints, in and of ourselves completely
sinful and without hope. But clothed in
Christ by Baptismal faith, and strengthened by Him through the Eucharist, we
are truly Saints, completely holy and righteous because God has
declared this to be true. We are pleasing
in the Father´s eye simply and solely because we are covered by the perfect
righteousness of Christ, whose blood takes away all sin. (See Romans chapters 1 - 6 and especially 7, and simply take
Paul at his word to better understand this truth).
The Church catholic
is the church that confesses and preaches the full truth about human sinfulness
and inability to contribute to salvation, and the full truth that the blood of
Jesus is the once for all time and for all people 100% atonement for sin, which
is given as a free gift to repentant sinners who, through the ministry of the
Word and Sacraments, are brought to trust in Jesus as their Savior. While it certainly should be that the
ministerium of the Church catholic is faithful and that all clergy lead
Christian lives, true catholicity does not depend on the ministerium, but
solely on Christ and His Gospel.
I am privileged
to belong to and serve a church that teaches and practices according to these Truths. Imperfectly to be sure, and not without our own
gross failures. But we suffer these
failures under the pure Gospel, and that makes all the difference. Our institutions are feeble, our clergy and
our laity are poor miserable sinners.
But we live from the forgiveness of sins, distributed freely and
frequently, by Christ, through His Spirit empowered Word. And so, although we suffer from the attacks
of Satan and the world, and the cross of our own sinful flesh, we do so with a
constant hope, the hope which surpasses all understanding. The hope of the pure, free Gospel is what gives
us the courage to confess our sins daily, which God then forgives, freely, and
daily, for the sake of Jesus. And so we
are set free, to seek to lead holy lives here in time, and to look forward to
living in perfect holiness in eternity, when we will finally be freed from sin and
live in the nearer presence of Christ, forever.
I firmly believe
that by God´s grace there are many members of the true Church catholic within
the Roman Catholic Church. This is not
by virtue of them being under the authority of the Bishop of Rome, but rather
by the true faith that the Holy Spirit has created and maintains in their
hearts by His Word and Sacraments.
Blessed are those who hear the Word of God and keep it. (Luke 11:28) I invite you to deal with the sorrow, anger,
and scandal you now face by reconsidering the Good News that Jesus is for you,
and He is all you need.
By the pure
Gospel, we are together, united, with the whole Christian Church of every time
and every place, the Church catholic, which can never fail, because her groom
is Christ, who reigns forever and ever.
The Peace of Christ and His forgiving love be with you.
Pastor David
Warner
Sexual
immorality by clergy will be a problem until Christ returns because we Christians continue
to be sinners in this life. But Phillip Melanchthon
in 1531 wrote in his Apology of the Augsburg Confession about the particularly
grave problems of enforced priestly celibacy in the Roman Church. ( http://bocl.org?AP+XXIII ) His description of the situation in the 16th
century and his cautions about the problems that will come from forcing men
into a status for which they have not been equipped by God still rings true
today. The 12th century decision
at the second Lateran Council to declare the requirement for priestly celibacy greatly
exacerbated the problems of sexual immorality by the clergy, with increasingly bitter
fruit today.
While the
Roman Church upholds the authority of Scripture, the effect of the doctrine of
the infallibility of Popes speaking ex cathedra, of the councils and of the Holy Tradition, is to render the opinions of men as a higher authority than Scripture. If the New Testament teaches us that Apostles
and other ministers can be married, (as in 1 Corinthians 9:5, Matthew 8, 1 Timothy
3, etc), but the Church decides differently, the teaching of Scripture loses,
and the Church suffers from the errors of men.
The doctrine of infallibility of Popes and Councils (which was only
declared to be dogma in 1870, although the idea is medieval), also makes it
nearly impossible for the Church to fully correct the errors of the past. For, how can the hierarchy admit a
theological error in the past if theological errors are impossible? Which leads us to consider the third error on
my list:
Jesus chooses men, once immediately, in the
case of the Apostles, and today through the means of the Church, to fill the
Apostolic ministry. This is clearly
taught throughout the New Testament Scriptures.
Jesus Christ, present with His Church through the Apostolic ministry of
Word and Sacrament, does not need a Vicar on earth; he needs faithful pastors and
bishops, who preach, baptize, absolve and feed God´s people according to the Word
of Christ.
Faithfulness
in proclaiming the true doctrine of Christ is required for one to remain in the
Apostolic ministry. Jesus chose Peter,
and Eleven other men, in order to teach them to fish for men, through the
proclamation of His Cross and Resurrection.
It was faithfully confessing the divine identity of Jesus that led our
Lord to praise Peter in Matthew 16:17-19, and to predict the future of his Apostolic
office. It was Peter´s denial, in
Matthew 16:22, that led Jesus to rebuke him as Satan. The Roman doctrine of Apostolic succession
that must run through the Bishop of Rome is a man-made tradition that lacks
Biblical warrant. Furthermore, it has
enabled the aggrandizement of the Roman See, with many terrible consequences in the course of history, but more importantly enabled the abandonment of pure
teaching and faithful Gospel ministry as the fundamental measuring stick of
Church authority.
[4]
Fourth error: The indelible character of priests received through ordination.
The
teaching that in proper Apostolic ordination a priest receives an indelible
character that elevates him to a holier status and gives him the special power to forgive or retain
sins, consecrate the elements, etc., minimizes the central role that Jesus
gives to the power of His own Word, (Isaiah 55, Luke 10:16, James 1:21. Romans
1:17-18). This doctrine teaches people that the man who has been made a priest
has the power of eternal life or death. Aside
from lacking Biblical basis, the teaching of the indelible character of priests
both puts them in a position of power from which they may prey on the weak, and
it makes the impact of clergy abuse all that more horrible. The victim, and their family, must struggle to
understand why God, who supposedly made this man special and holy, then allowed
him to abuse one of his members. The
blow to the faith of the victims is greatly multiplied by the teaching that
ordination makes priests into a holier class of people, instead of what clergy
rightly should be understood to be: sinful
men who have been called by God´s grace to serve in His office, in order to
preach and distribute His Gospel, by which God saves sinners.
