Part II Catholic and Protestant Differences Section II

PART II Section II
A More Detailed Background

For those who might desire more detail than the PART II Section I Overview:

Johann Eck (a Dominican friar) debated Martin Luther (and others) during the famous (and wide-ranging) Leipzig Debate in June and July of 1519. Luther had started the Reformation in 1517 (if we set aside the story of Jan Hus in Bohemia 100 years before 1517) by nailing his 95 Theses on a church door on 31 October 1517, in Wittenberg, Saxony. (Initially, of course, he had no idea how far it all would go;  but he was certainly a “man on a mission”.)

Most Protestants today probably never heard of Luther, though his name has been in the news because of the 500-year anniversary. But then, most "Protestants" wouldn't call themselves that, just "Christians". So in a sense, going into detail about Martin Luther is flogging a dead horse, one that isn't even there. But for the curious, I'll relate a few facts about him. He's sort of the King Lear of the Protestant Reformation, so important in its beginning, colorful, powerful, full of bombast, yet cast aside by smarter men (Zwingli first, then Calvin) and finally left behind by the tides.

In any event, during the course of this Leipzig debate, Luther admitted he would have to accept the Bible over a Church Council.

• At that moment I would think a number of gasps would have been heard from every corner of the room.
• Obviously, if you lay a Bible on the desk in front of you, it won’t open of itself and begin teaching you in a voice of its own. 
• Even if you open it and prod it a bit, it will just lie there. 
• Someone has to actually READ it and draw their own conclusions, or read it with associated learning materials containing his own denomination’s take on what the Bible would speak about if it could.

So by his assertion, did not Luther clearly set himself against a parliament of learned clergymen? (And one hopes an assembly of wise ones, but at least as a group having a collective understanding and insight, as any congress would).

• You see the hubris? 
• It’s actually staggering. 
• Martin Luther knew better than a Council with members from all sorts of backgrounds and indeed, from different nations, collectively possessing an extremely wide-ranging experience “skill set” regarding the Christian Faith. 
• Yet such a senate of elders could not collectively be smarter than he himself, Martin Luther, a 36-year-old academic who had been trained in a small, in-bred academic circle in two provincial universities in Thuringia and what is now Saxony-Anhalt.

It has to be one of the most hubristic statements ever made.

And as the apple never falls very far from the tree, so Protestantism asserts any individual can read the Bible for himself and chart his own Salvation course. Or at least Luther talked that up, but soon found it didn’t work very well. We’ll discuss that more in Part III, the section on the Bible. Here I’ll just point out the curious fact that Protestant Bible Societies have pushed Bibles on all sorts of folks, even leaving them in motel rooms (as do the Gideons, a group I myself am thankful for). Yet most folks getting these Bibles are not very educated in such a field as Biblical Studies. So it’s an odd thing to do when you consider that learned Protestants themselves have recourse to Protestant Bible commentaries, of which many have been published. They don’t push the commentaries, though, on the people who would need them most. Interesting.

• Compare that attitude to Romans 10:15 “How then shall they call on him, in whom they have not believed? Or how shall they believe him, of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear, without a preacher?” Or that great scene in Acts 8, (Acts 8:31 ‘"How can I," he said, "unless someone guides me?" And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.”)

Significance

Luther’s astoundingly arrogant claim is where things get complicated. The Holy Bible is a wide selection of books, a portable library, and this library's volumes were written over thousands of years by a people living quite differently than people do today.

• So, naturally enough, some of its books are easier to read and understand than others, and among the New Testament authors, you also have the same reality. 
• St. Paul is hard-to-read, often leaving one clueless, and often seemingly contradicting himself (much to the delight of atheists in debate). 
• St. James is easy to read; couldn’t be easier. Yet I’ve read exegesis (Biblical commentary and explanation) done by Lutherans that stand James on his head. (And quite plausibly, too; I mean, they seem to make a good case for themselves, until you go back and read James himself again. The effect is startling.)

Now, Luther was a 34 in 1517 (his birthday was November 10), having studied theology and advancing through the academic ranks in about 7 years (he had earlier briefly studied to be a lawyer, and all his early higher education was at Erfurt, a city worth visiting today, both for its Lutheran heritage and the fact it is one of the best preserved medieval towns in Germany). He had begun to teach theology in 1508 (age 25) and made chair of the theology department of the newly established Wittenberg University in 1512 (age 29). These ages and dates of Luther are important here because they show how young he was and how much of a total academic he was. In other words, as an Augustinian friar never removed from the Cloister, Luther had no pastoral experience, living in a parish and dealing with everyday people. Nor, beside a short trip to Rome, did he travel much. So, as they didn’t have the Internet in those days, Luther’s world was a bit small. (Today his area of Germany makes up the states of Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt.)

Indeed, the medieval University of Erfurt (closed in 1816 by the Prussians and reopened in 1994 after German re-unification), was in Luther’s young days a center of Nominalism, a late medieval school of thought that stressed God as essentially unknowable, remote, and imperious. (Sort of like the Islamic conception of Allah, actually; the idea was to stress the Sovereignty of God, something Calvin would become famous for.)

• Luther embraced Nominalism (which rejected Aristotle – and thus Thomas Aquinas – and he, Luther, used to say that William of Occam, a major 14th century Nominalist, was his master teacher. 
• It’s more than fair to say Herr Doctor Martin’s education was very one-sided.

Biblical Background to the Church’s Authority

Ironically enough for “Bible-only Christians”, as noted in Section one of this Part II of the differences between Catholicism and Protestantism, the Living Magisterium predates the actual New Testament. In Acts of the Apostles, chapter 15, St. Luke records the Council of Jerusalem. This council met around 50 A.D. and before the New Testament was written. (St. Matthew might well have written his earliest version of his Gospel by then, in either Aramaic or Hebrew, and St. Paul probably had begun writing, as well.)

• But before the Council of Jerusalem, while Jesus was still on Earth, He had clearly mandated a hierarchical system. He had chosen 12 Apostles, which not only mirrored the 12 tribes of Israel, but also the ancient Israelite kings, who often had 12 councilors (again representing the 12 tribes). 
• Christ also signaled out three men of the Apostles, Peter, James and his brother John. They were at the raising of Jairus’s daughter (Mark 5:37, etc.) and at Christ’s Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1–8, Mark 9:2–8, Luke 9:28–36) and the Second Epistle of Peter refer to the latter (2 Peter 1:16–18) as perhaps does the first chapter of the Gospel of John (John 1:14).
• Also, beyond the Twelve, there were a group of Seventy that St. Luke mentions; he might have been on of them (see Luke 10).

Now, the famous scene in Matthew, where in the region of Caesarea Philippi, Jesus gives Peter the Keys of the Kingdom in Matthew 16:17-19, every Jew present, and every Jew who heard of it later, would recognize Jesus as acting like an ancient Israelite king. Those kings had a special advisor who was given the keys of the palace and thus became a Grand Vizier or prime minister. Jesus actions could be taken – by the Jews who knew the old stories – that Peter was being given a very special place, indeed. A unique one.

• Read Isaiah 22, especially the verses 21-23, particularly verse 22, “And I will lay the key of the house of David upon his shoulder: and he shall open, and none shall shut: and he shall shut, and none shall open.”

Or simply read through St. Paul’s writings with an eye toward how often the Apostle himself asserts his own authority. It’s on every page, almost every sentence. Galatians 2:9 “And when they had known the grace that was given to me, James and Cephas (Peter) and John, who seemed to be pillars, gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship: that we should go unto the Gentiles, and they unto the circumcision…”.

• He, Paul, has AUTHORITY, and so do the others, Peter, James, John – they’re recognized as leaders of the Church, indeed, overseers, or episkopos – and their recognition of Paul reinforces him authority. They are the Church’s overseers, or (singular) episkopos. 
• Our English word for episkopos is “bishop”.

Or see St. John in his Gospel, in Chapter 20:21-23, where he writes, ‘…Again Jesus said to them, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent Me, so also I am sending you.” When He had said this, He breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you withhold forgiveness from anyone, it is withheld.”’

• All these passages point to the Biblically-based fact that the early Church had a hierarchy, and was understood by everyone in the Church to have a hierarchy, one that had Authority. This is even proven by St. Paul’s boasting how he stood up to Peter and James.

Throughout the early Church, then, the episkopos of each city would refer back to the chain of bishops before him, going back to an Apostle. When the Gnostics disputed Church teaching, the Catholics, or those of the “Universal” Church (Catholic means universal) would say, “Our bishop is so-and-so, who succeeded Bishop Such-and-such, who followed Bishop X who was a student of the Apostle John (or Peter, or whomever). Where is your bishop list back to the Founder? By what right do YOU teach what the Faith is?”

• And of course they couldn’t argue that.

In the same way, one could argue with Protestants: “Where do YOU get your Authority from? What’s the line of YOUR bishops?”

But there of course the whole Protestant Project falls apart. It has no such history. It's all individuals, each believing what he will (sort of like Progressive Catholics, actually!). Against this ecclesial corporate history it does have arguments, ranging from “You’re wrong! Peter and James and the rest with just buddies or relatives of Jesus! He set up no organized body!” to the older, long-standing, “Well, Jesus set up the Church but then came the Great Apostasy, when everyone fell away from the Faith, except for a minority who are nameless but to God.”

In the end, in our current state of civilizational crisis, all this might seem too trivial to matter. But knowledge is a good in itself, true knowledge. And we're having a civilzation crisis precisely because people don't know this information.

An Préachán

The Church's Constitutional System and the Modernist War Against It

(Partly from a blog post I wrote for OnePeterFive)

We live in a time of Ecclesiastical troubles: The Church's system isn't working, clearly, but what is it, that system, exactly?

The Catholic Church's "constitution" is a three-legged support system, as is the U.S. Constitution's, curiously, except the U.S. Constitution stipulates the three supports of government are specifically designed to counter-balance each other, to be a self-correcting mechanism, whereas the Church's three supports: Holy Writ, Sacred Tradition, and the living Magisterium, are supposed to be MUTUALLY SUPPORTIVE.

Curiously enough, it is plain from the New Testament that the living Magisterium is the oldest of the three: what else is the Council of Jerusalem in Acts except the living Magisterium of that day meeting to decide an important issue? Then came Holy Scripture, written mostly by VIP's in the initial Magisterium: two epistles by St. Peter, head of the Apostles and Christ's Prime Minister of the New Israel (and one gospel by his secretary and amanuensis, John Mark, later bishop of the 2nd largest city of the empire, Alexandria), one by St. James, bishop and presider at the Jerusalem Council, which was held in his city, and the lion's share of the NT books were of course written by St. Paul, another VIP at the Council.

     Rembrandt's Paul the Apostle

It always dumbfounds me – and I grew up among Protestants, mostly rural Methodists and Lutherans – that Protestants just don't get this; apparently Baptists believe as a matter of essential Baptist dogma (haha, BAPTISTS having DOGMA? But they DO!) that the various attendees at the Council were just buddies and followers (or relatives) of the departed Jesus, and had no hierarchy in any sort of actual institutional "Church". But whatever. I make this point because nothing the current pope and the Modernists do is so shocking to me (I mean, what would one EXPECT Modernists to do but such stuff, right?) as how Protestants can call themselves Bible Christians and NOT get this.

Sacred Tradition came last, and is the "Constitutional Case Law) of the Magisterium living the Biblical teachings out over 2,000 years. The difference is: whereas the U.S. Supreme Court is not bound by case law (which is contrary to the original English law system ) the Magisterium IS bound by Sacred Tradition (and the Bible as understood via the decisions of past Magisteriums, i.e., Sacred Tradition).

The whole thing operates as a mutual support system. The living Magisterium has tons of "case law" to guide it and the pope has essentially carte blanc authority to legislate and enforce to support the Bible and Tradition. But naturally, were he to depart from supporting the other two legs of authority, then HIS authority evaporates: oh, he's still "pope" until some validly appoint Council removes him, but who would listen to or trust him?

Now first, I need to talk a little bit in political terms. Catholics (and others) often say they don't want politics and religion mixed, but here I am just talking about the nature of the U.S. Constitution, its Three Branches of Government, and not "politics" per se.

What we're dealing with today in the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church is that a specialized party (acting very much indeed like a political faction or party – and remember James Madison, author of the U.S. Constitution, LOATHED such!) has been working assiduously for over 100 years now to overturn the entire system. These are the Modernists, so called, also known today as Progressives. They organized originally to try to come up with a solution to a collapse of the Faith in Europe. The Intellectuals left Christianity (Prot or Catholic) in the 18th century, the working masses left if – or began to – in the 19th century for the new Christian heresy of Socialism. And then at the end of the 19th century, the middle classes began to show signs that they were leaving, too; i.e., the lose morals and "free thinking" and "Bohemian living" of the "Gay Nineties" was only put on hiatus by "The Great War" and reappeared in in the 1920s. Again on hiatus because of Fascism and Communism and World War II, it began again in the 1950s (Beatniks) and finally came into full flower in the infamous 1960s.

The Modernist solution to all this was to relax the moral teachings, their idea being that Christianity's moral strictures (Catholic or Protestant, but especially Catholic, which of course wouldn't allow divorce, etc.) was too strict for "Modern Man". They had various roots, often Protestant ones, such as the Tübingen School during the mid-19th century. Their ideas and personalities included:

• Easing off on traditional morals. "Relativism" is a key word to understand their thinking (and remember that Benedict 16 condemned the "Dictatorship of Relativism" before he was forced out of office). "Relativism will keep people in church!" they essentially said. 
• But naturally, to "ease off" on morals, one had to argue for relativism; i.e., everything is relative. To do that, they then had to do a lot of tinkering with the Church's authority structure and the roots of the Church in its origin; basically, all this was soon seen by the hierarchy as quite dangerous, as it could unravel the whole system. 
• If one were to "ease off" on the morals, (relatively, if I may say it that way), for example, then one would have to "reinterpret" Sacred Scripture, and to reinterpret Sacred Scripture, one would have to negate, undo, and generally rewrite Church Tradition! It all would just avalanche out of control, in other words.  
• Charles Darwin was an essential but indirect influence, naturally enough, because science seemed to be saying we were evolved from lower forms, and if so, then we could certainly "evolve" further and further: there could be no "baseline".
• Adolf von Harnack (1851 – 1930) a liberal German Lutheran, was an influence.
• His contemporary, Louis Duchesne (1843 – 1922), a Breton priest, polymath (linguist, archaeologist, historian, etc.) helped to influence the Modernists, and his Early History of the Christian Church was put on the Index of Forbidden Books in 1912. Duchesne was one influence on...
• Alfred Loisy (1857 - 1940) who is considered a founder of the Modernists, and who argued Scriptural elements might be only metaphorically true, not literally true (a Baptist friend is always telling me Catholics read Biblical metaphor literally, for example), and
• The Jesuit-influenced Bollandists, who were refounded about 1845: their research led to a lot of Vatican II ideas on the liturgy (though subsequent scholarship cast doubts on much of their work, Pope Francis still even today finds the time to praise them). 
• Another Jesuit, the Dubliner George Tyrrell (1861 – 1909), is an interesting and sad case of a Modernist, and who sort of encapsulates the whole movement, as it were.

So Modernism had a lot of intellectuals involved in it. But Leo XIII worked to counter it, and Pius X tried to blast is out of existence in 1907. In Lamentabili Sane Exitu of that year (the finely phrased "A Lamentable Departure Indeed"), His Holiness condemned 65 Modernist ideas, and in his famous encyclical Pascendi dominici gregis (or "Feeding the Lord's Flock"), he described Modernism as the "synthesis of all heresies". Then he promulgated Sacrorum antistitum, an anti-Modernist oath all clerics had to take, and which of course the "spirit of Vatican II" abolished in 1967 when the Holy Office of that time, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) rescinded it. (Priests ordained in the Trad Orders often take it voluntarily, however.)

The next pope, Benedict XV, had his hands full because of WWI, and it wore him out. Pius XI, an exemplary pope, tried to combat both Communism and Fascism. So it was the next pope after him, Pius XII, who, after WWII, tried to put the brakes on some budding Modernist-type theologians, such as Henri de Lubac, by putting some of his writings on the Index. It pretty much tells you all you need to know that John Paul II made de Lubac a cardinal!

After that, a series of weak popes simply didn't understand what they were dealing with; however, Pius XII started the earthquake by letting some "liturgical reformers", including the infamous devotee of Ba'al (Hannibal) Bugnini loose in the Vatican's "Deep State"; also, Pius didn't assiduously appoint orthodox, young, highly intelligent cardinals during the last decade of his life: thus, when the Conclave that met in October 1958 to vote on his successor, its cardinals had a very small pool to choose from.

With that, the ball began rolling down the bowling alley toward the long-standing pins of Catholic dogma. "Cry havoc! And let slip the Modernists of War!"

1. Starting with poor John 23, who was honestly too old and not vigorous enough to manage a Council, so the Modernists organized and simply took it from him (this is a well-known, exhaustively researched bit of history, btw)...
2. Then the "Weeping Pope Hamlet" Paul 6, who was trying to be a supporter of the Progs but ultimately horrified at where they wanted to go...
3. Then poor Albino Luciani, who might well have died of fright. 
4. Karol Wojtyla was an amazing Nazi-era survivor and hero against Communism, a wonderful world evangelizer but a prelate who steadfastly held to Vat 2 principles – which were innately bad (the foundational thesis of all Traditionalists is that whatever the merits of Vatican II's documents, their over-all effect and many of their specific teachings are, sadly, actually bad doctrines and need to be excised). Because of JPII's reliance on Vat2, then, and unavoidably – since they're teachings are defective, resulted in his downfall – they left him a very bad Church manager because he "didn't get it"; i.e., I mean that while occasionally he appointed a good bishop, he also steadfastly appointed Progressive Modernists to important sees (can anyone say Cardinal Archbishop Bergoglio? I once read where Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz told JPII to his face that he was appointing bad bishops!) The sex scandal, which grew on JPII's watch, and finally the infamous, depraved debacle of the Legionnaires of Christ, killed him. 
5. And finally we had the deeply intelligent and subtle theologian, Josef Ratzinger. In his early days, he was an ardent Vat2 reformer, but of the "milder" Cummunio faction (along with Henri de Lubac and Hans Urs von Balthasar, and thus an enemy of the rival "Terminator reformer school" known as the Concilium coven...er, school (these two groups were named for competing theological journals that published the papers of the two factions) that consisted of that old fornicator Karl Rahner, and Edward Schillebeeckx, and the infamously hyper-boring Hans Küng. 

So, to sum up: I think Pope Benedict 16 knew VERY well what was going on, but the Modernists' long-term War of Position (i.e., working incrementally and unnoticed to put their own supporters in important places in the hierarchy) left him in a strategically bad place: when they went to an open War of Maneuver against him (and I firmly believe they did so with Obama's help), they brought him down.
I pray that understanding this past and present background can, along with the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, help us to deal as effectively as we can with this ecclesiastical mess we find ourselves in.

An Préachán