Sunday, November 28, 2010

This Identity is Self-Awareness: A Study of Ecumenism and Novelty

Through all epochs the Catholic Church and only the Catholic Church shows itself to be the Church of Christ.  by Doctor Wolfgang Schüler
Personified Representation of Mother Church

 (kreuz.net)The Communion-Ecclesiology of the early Church -- so far as I see -- never answered the question if the Church of Jesus Christ and the Catholic Church are one and the same.

Because this identity is self-evident to it.

That goes not only for the early Church Communion-Ecclesiology, but the whole tradition of the Church up to the Pastoral Council.


No Renewal, Rather a Novelty

Alexandra von Teuffenbach in her book which appeared in 2002 in Munich "The Meaning of 'subsistit in' (LG 8) -- in the Self-Consciousness of the Catholic Church" came to the following conclusion:

"When we let our glance glide through the epochs of Ecclesiological History, we recognize, that it's always the Catholic Church and only the Catholic Church  that shows itself to have been the Church of Christ."

Therefore one can say: With the doctrine that the Church of Jesus Christ and the Catholic Church not being one in the same, the Pastoral council constitutes a break with the complete teaching tradition of the Church.

The understanding of the Pastoral Council of the Catholic Church is not reconcilable with the self-conception of the Church.

For that reason the Communion-Ecclesiology of the Pastoral Council is not a renewal of the early Church Communio-Ecclesiology, but it is nothing to this but complete novelty.


The End of Ecumenism

The overdue correction of 'subsistit-in' teaching could have far reaching consequences.

This teaching  had opened the door to the Ecumenism of the Pastoral Council.

Really this door will be closed again, if Rome returns to the traditional teaching of the Church, which means, that the Catholic Church is the Church of Jesus Christ.

The entire Ecumenical Decree would then be decrepit.

Benedict XVI. has hinted at this understanding, as he held his lecture over "the ecclesiology of the Constitution of Lumen Gentium", which was held on 27.2. 2000, saying:

"In the difference between 'subsisit' and 'est' conceals the entire ecumenical problem".

Read original, here...

1 comment:

JD said...

Let's hope that this happens. I have been going through a crisis of faith lately and thinking of becoming Orthodox because of all the novelty I have been seeing out of Rome. I keep asking myself, "if the Catholic Church is really the Church of Christ and not the Orthodox than why all the novelty and why has Vatocan II practically been canonized in the new Catechism." At this point I want to have faith that things will get better eventually but I am simply losing it.

It sometimes seems like the traditionalist movement is turning into simply a form of Catholic "High Anglicanism" where we can have the traditional Mass but that is it. Honestly, how do you keep your faith when it seem slike there is novelty and heresy coming out of practically every corner of the catholic Church and when little if anything seems to be changing for the better? I ask this with all respect.