Faith Meets Life: Catholics and Protestants unite

During the year 1500 the Roman Catholic Church was the only option for people living in Europe. Breakaway Christian movements were undercut and everyone was considered a member of the church. (I am not a professional historian and I apologize for these over-simplifications.)

Around that time though at least two things came together that spelled the end of the Catholic Church's hold on everyone. First, the original documents of Judaism and the early Christian Church were translated and printed, making them widely available for all to read. This undermined the authority of Catholic leaders who possessed the few copies of the Bible in existence at the time.

Second, church reformers pointed out the moral failings of many of the church's leaders, including popes. The reformers saw some of the church's practices as immoral. Martin Luther, a young monk, for example took offense at the church's selling Indulgences. He saw these sales as a way of people literally paying for benefits in the afterlife for those who were already there or for the purchasers. As if God's love could be earned, bought and sold.

Luther and other key church leaders, notably Jean Calvin (who is smeared along with the popes by Philip Pullman) led a reform movement that resulted in breakaways from the Catholic Church. Thus the organization of the Protestant Churches such as the Anglican Church in England, the Lutheran in Germany and the Reformed in the Netherlands. These breakaways succeeded.

Once again, the Catholic Church is facing criticism. This time it is not for the sale of Indulgences, but again, for serious moral failings of some of its leaders.

I have no influence in what the Catholic Church will do to respond to current difficulties. (I am a Protestant Christian, not a Catholic one, though what the two groups share in common is greater than that on which they differ.) But I do sometimes dream about reconciliation between Catholics and other Christians. What could it look like?

First, Protestant churches could rejoin the Catholic Church. Some Protestants like to talk about the unity of the people of God but if we were serious about it, we would attempt to rejoin the Catholic community.

Second the Catholic Church could welcome back all Protestants. This could be done by drastically stripping down what the Catholic community requires Christians believe. The core of the Christian faith, for example expressed in the Apostles' Creed along with other key tenets would have to apply.

But Protestants have long held that other teachings of the Catholic Church are not at the core and are not necessary or even helpful. Some examples: the great authority given to popes; the doctrine of Transubstantiation; the requirement of priestly celibacy. These are so weakly grounded in those original documents I mentioned above (collected into what we have as the Christian Bible) that they invite controversy and outright unbelief.

Catholic folks I have met throughout Canada have been people of integrity. More than Protestants, many seem to have a strong appreciation for a world-wide community bound together by the love of God, the work of Jesus Christ, and the presence of the Spirit of God - a community that crosses borders not only of states and cultures, but of time.

The Protestant affirmation of married church leadership could be of great help to the Catholic priesthood and might go some way in helping to address the sexual misconduct that tempts a few in Catholic leadership. And a deeper understanding of community, I feel, could help many Protestants, who tend to be a little too accepting of breakaways and independence.

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