To my Roman Catholic friends: Compassion and Exhortation.

August 28^th, 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.     

     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 4^th 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

pastorwarner@outlook.com

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[1] First error: The requirement of the celibacy of priests. 

     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 16^th 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 12^th 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.    

[2] Second error:  The doctrine of infallibility of the Pope and the Councils

     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:

  

[3] Third error:  The doctrine of the Apostolic succession as taught by Rome.

     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.