This looks like an interesting project:

I am very excited about the prospects of this new college (and frankly, any college that proclaims it is pursuing Truth is a major step ahead of most institutions of higher learning today); however, I do think it will be hard to pull off in an ecumenical setting. They will need to be sure to get faculty who are truly ecumenically minded while still being faithful to their respective confessions. Touchstone magazine has shown that this is possible in the media, but who is to say it will work in a college setting?

There are many traditions surrounding what the apostles did after the ascension of Christ – where they evangelized, who they converted, and how they died. However, many of these traditions were not written down until centuries later and after they had accrued many mythical – and even contradictory – details.

However, we have a very strong and reliable tradition when it comes to the activities of St. Thomas. Every account has him traveling to India to evangelize and our best proof of the veracity of that tradition is the fact that there has been an uninterrupted community of Christians in that predominantly Hindu land which has always considered itself founded by St. Thomas. Unfortunately, they have not been able to avoid the divisions of the larger Church and today there are Catholic, Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox churches which come from that original Thomistic foundation.

Happily, it has just been announced that these churches have come to an agreement which will unite them more closely:

The bishops of Kerala– the home of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church and the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church– have reached an agreement with Syrian Jacobite and Syrian Orthodox leaders to share churches outside Kerala for Sunday Mass and to consider sharing cemeteries and the use of priests at funerals. All four churches trace their origin to the evangelization of St. Thomas the Apostle.

Underscoring the agreement’s ramifications beyond India, the Catholic delegation was led by Bishop Brian Farrell, LC, the secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity since 2002.

Although the sacred liturgy in both the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church and the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church is celebrated in Malayalam, the former uses the Chaldean rite, while the latter uses the Antiochan rite. The Syrian Jacobite Church and the Syrian Orthodox Church are not among the Eastern Orthodox churches that ceased communion with the Holy See in 1054; rather, they are among the Oriental Orthodox churches that ceased communion with the Holy See following the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon in 451.

Pray for these Christians that they might be an example to us all of how we can live in a more united Church.

You know a topic is complex when a “very basic introduction” to it runs over 8,000 words. But when the topic is the filioque, it is difficult to reduce the subject to sound bites.

For those who are unaware, the filioque is Latin for “and the Son” (contrary to my post title) and it refers to the part of the Nicene Creed (which is actually the Creed of the Council of Constantinople) in which Catholics state, “I believe in the Holy Spirit…who proceeds from the Father and the Son” . In the original text, the phrase “and the Son” was not included (technically, the truly original text of the Creed, this whole line wasn’t even included). Many centuries later it was added in the West in response to heretical tendencies which wanted to subordinate the Son to the Father. This addition caused all sorts of problems between the East and the West and became one of the key points of division between the two.

Dr. Peter Gilbert, an Orthodox professor of Church History, gave the above-linked introduction to the filioque recently and I recommend it to anyone interested in East-West relations. Dr. Gilbert mostly focuses on the history of how the filioque came to be inserted into the Creed, noting both why the West came to accept it as theologically valid and why they felt it was legitimate to add it to the Creed.

My only complaint with Dr. Gilbert’s introduction is that it is too short! I think Dr. Gilbert would do a great service to the Church if he were to expand on this introduction and make it a complete book on the subject.

Update: I am currently reading “I Believe In The Holy Spirit” by Yves Congar, and he has an in-depth analysis of the entire filioque issue. I think this passage sums it up nicely:

What we have to aim at and what can, in fact, be reached is a recognition both of the unity of faith on both sides of Catholicity and of the legitimate difference between the two dogmatic expressions of that mystery. Each expression is consistent in itself, and each is impossible in the categories and vocabulary of the other side. In the course of ten centuries of discussion, neither side has succeeded in convincing the other or in persuading it to accept its point of view. There is no chance that this goal will be reached in the future. In fact, we may say quite unambiguously that this is not a goal to be pursued.

Both Eastern and Western Christians are baptized in a common faith. For both, ‘the Spirit is confessed as the third Person-hypostasis of the one divine nature-essence and consubstantial with the Father and the Son’. Both confess the Father as the Principle without principle or beginning of the whole divinity. Both profess the Son as not unrelated to the Father in the production of the Holy Spirit.

The expressions of this faith, however, are different, especially in the matter of the third of these points…

I would conclude…with a statement by Mgr. Damaskinos of Tranoupolis, who is the Director of the Orthodox Centre at Chambesy… ‘It is both possible and necessary to explain, on the one hand, the formulations of the Greek Fathers and, on the other, those of the Latin Fathers, including the Filioque, and while respecting the originality of each, to draw attention to the ways in which they are in agreement. From the fourth century onwards, the Filioque came to form part of the Western tradition, but it was never regarded as an obstacle to union until that union was ended for other reasons.’
I Believe in the Holy Spirit, Volume 3, Yves Congar, pp. 201-202

I have blogged previously that I think a reunion between the Catholic Church and the Russian Orthodox Church right now would be unwise, because most Orthodox believers (and many Catholics ones as well) would reject the reunion, throw out the bishops responsible, and the division would just become more entrenched.

However, I now see there is another reason we should fear a Catholic-Russian Orthodox reunion: it will lead to the rise of the Beast of Revelation! That’s right, if Christians are united, that sets the stage for the end-times, at least according to a Mr. Bob Thiel, the “Church History & End Prophecy Examiner” at examiner.com. A few choice excerpts:

The Bible clearly warns of a dictator rising up in Europe (Daniel 9:26-27; 11:27-39; Revelation 13), but contrary to the implication of the Orthodox Archbishop Hilarion, this dictator will feign some type of religious background (Daniel 11:36-38). Both Catholic and Orthodox prophecies tell of a time when an ecumenical dictator (sometimes referred to as “the Great Monarch”) will rise up–we are getting closer to that time.

The Bible warns of a coming European Beast power ridden by an ecumenical church (Revelation 17:1-3). Events are lining up on a regular basis for these and other prophecies to be fulfilled.

Russian and other Orthodox should not try to unite with the Vatican and Catholics should not try to unite with the Orthodox as the Bible warns against this upcoming ecumenical religious power.

Furthermore, private prophecies from both Orthodox and Catholic mystics suggest dire consequences as well.

Christian Unity: the devil’s playground. Really, I couldn’t make this stuff up even if I wanted to.

I know that not everyone reads the comments on a blog – I often don’t in other blogs either. However, you really will miss out if you don’t read the comments from my “What would Catholic-Orthodox reunion look like?” post. They really are thoughtful insights into the issue of East-West relations.

There have been a flurry of news stories recently about the thawing of relations between the Catholic Church and the Russian Orthodox Church (the two largest Christians Churches in the world). Here are a few examples:

New hints of movement toward Vatican-Moscow ‘summit’

Vatican-Russian Relations Upgraded

Russian Orthodox publish book of Pope Benedict’s Writings

Kremlin Calls…Vatican Answers

I have blogged previously (here and here) that I don’t think reunion will happen anytime soon – there is just too much baggage that needs to be overcome and there are a lot of details in any reunion that are still not close to being achieved. But I want to take a moment to consider: what would reunion actually look like?

There are two concrete proposals that have circulated within East-West ecumenical circles over the past few years which address this question. They are the Zoghby Initiative and the Ratzinger Proposal.

The Zoghby Initiative is named after the late Melkite Catholic Archibishop Elias Zoghby, who proposed a “double-communion” between the Melkite Catholic Church and the Antiochian Orthodox Church (from which the Melkite Catholic Church originated). The Initiative was basically a profession of faith, which stated:

1. I believe everything which Eastern Orthodoxy teaches.
2. I am in communion with the Bishop of Rome as the first among the bishops, according to the limits recognized by the Holy Fathers of the East during the first millennium, before the separation.

This profession was endorsed by 24 of 26 Melkite bishops at a 1995 Synod, but it found a cold reception both from Antiochian Orthodox officials as well as from Rome (including from then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger). Fundamentally, Zoghby felt that the Catholic and Orthodox faiths were essentially the “same faith” and therefore communion could be established now.

The Ratzinger Proposal refers to a speech made by then-Father Joseph Ratzinger in 1976 which was included in his book “Principles of Catholic Theology” published by Ignatius Press in 1987. In the speech, he proposed the following, which is very similar to Archbishop’s Zoghby’s profession (emphasis added):

Certainly, no one who claims allegiance to Catholic theology can simply declare the doctrine of primacy null and void, especially not if he seeks to understand the objections and evaluates with an open mind the relative weight of what can be determined historically. Nor is it possible, on the other hand, for him to regard as the only possible form and, consequently, as binding on all Christians the form this primacy has taken in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries…Although it is not given us to halt the flight of history, to change the course of centuries, we may say, nevertheless, that what was possible for a thousand years is not impossible for Christians today. After all, Cardinal Humbert of Silva Candida, in the same bull in which he excommunicated the Patriarch Michael Cerularius and thus inaugurated the schism between East and West, designated the Emperor and people of Constantinople as “very Christian and orthodox”, although their concept of the Roman primacy was certainly far less different from that of Cerularius than from that, let us say, of the First Vatican Council. In other words, Rome must not require more from the East with respect to the doctrine of primacy than had been formulated and was lived in the first millennium. When the Patriarch Athenagoras, on July 25, 1967, on the occasion of the Pope’s visit to Phanar, designated him as the successor of St. Peter, as the most esteemed among us, as one also presides in charity, this great Church leader was expressing the essential content of the doctrine of primacy as it was known in the first millennium. Rome need not ask for more. Reunion could take place in this context if, on the one hand, the East would cease to oppose as heretical the developments that took place in the West in the second millennium and would accept the Catholic Church as legitimate and orthodox in the form she had acquired in the course of that development, while, on the other hand, the West would recognize the Church of the East as orthodox and legitimate in the form she has always had.

This is an incredible statement and one I’m not even sure if Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict, would still endorse. He is basically saying that reunion can occur if we both treat the situation of the 1st millennium as normative for relations and accept the separate developments of each other during the 2nd millennium as valid if not normative on the universal Church. If you take a minute you can see how radical that proposal really is.

Neither of these two proposals have gotten much traction lately, but I think we would all do well to prayerfully consider if they are a road to reunion. What are we willing to concede for the greater good of unity? Are we Catholics willing to accept a form of primacy different than that which has been practiced since Vatican I?

More discussion of this issue can be found here and here and here (PDF).

Sts. Peter and Andrew, pray for us!

When I was growing up, my father advised me to never sign petitions. He felt that they tied you too much to a group and could at some point be used against you. I admit that this advice stuck with me and sometimes I react negatively to petitions. At the very least, I always read them carefully and never sign unless I am 100% behind the cause.

That being said, I just signed the Manhattan Declaration. Even though it was endorsed by many outstanding Orthodox, Catholic and Evangelical leaders, I didn’t want to sign it until I read it myself. Now that I have read it (download it here), I can say that it is a powerful document defending our pro-life and pro-marriage beliefs, as well as our liberty to hold to and live out those beliefs. I also note that my own ordinary, Archbishop Wuerl, signed the Declaration.

I recommend that you read the Declaration as well and urge you to consider signing it. Even if my father would recommend against it.

Throughout Pope John Paul II’s pontificate, the pope had a great desire to visit Russia. For a number of reasons, the Russian Orthodox Church was cool to this idea and the Pope wisely decided to abide by their wishes and refrained from making the trip. The relationship was so problematic that there was never even a meeting between Pope John Paul II and Russian Patriarch Alexis, even though JPII met with just about every other Orthodox (and Protestant and non-Christian) leader in the world.

However, now there is a new Pope and a new Patriarch, and the two men know each other and have much in common personally. Furthermore, Pope Benedict – again, for a number of reasons – is seen more favorably in Russia than his predecessor. So hopes have been building that there can be a meeting between these two men – and now the influential Russian Archbishop Hilarion, the head of the patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations, has confirmed that a meeting might very well take place soon. This would be an extraordinary meeting between the leaders of the two largest Christian Churches in the world and could have incredible consequences.

One thing that Archbishop Hilarion said that I found interesting, however, was that Pope Benedict is a “very reserved, traditional man who does not seek the expansion of the Catholic Church to traditionally Orthodox regions”. This seems to me to be a swipe at Pope John Paul II, who was seen as more of a “charismatic” figure whose very presence in Russia could possibly cause many Russians to consider joining the Catholic Church. I think his point about Pope Benedict not seeking expansion in Orthodox countries is true to a certain extent. The Pope does not wish to work towards the “conversion” of Orthodox believers to the Catholic Church, but instead towards a corporate reunion between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. There is a difference.

Pray for the continued relations between these two Churches and that all Christians might one day be united in one communion.

One hundred years ago last Friday, an Anglican religious order (yes, the Anglicans do have religious orders) was received into the Catholic Church in its entirety. The Franciscan Friars and Sisters of the Atonement was the first group to be received into the Church while maintaining “their original name, their original religious habit and their original mission”. For 100 years they have been praying for a deeper unity between the Catholic Church and the Anglican communion, and many see the pope’s recent announcement of a “fast-track” for other Anglican groups to join the Church as a fruit of that prayer.

Do not ever forget the power of prayer!

Christianity Today just posted a fascinating article on their website entitled “Not All Evangelicals and Catholics Together“. It talks about the resistance in some Protestant circles to growing agreement between Evangelicals and Catholics on issues such as justification. I found the following segment particularly interesting:

The committee’s study of the New Perspective focused largely on N.T. Wright, the Anglican bishop of Durham and a prolific biblical scholar. This year Wright published Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision. The book counters his critics, especially John Piper, who published The Future of Justification: A Response to N.T. Wright in 2007. (See “The Justification Debate: A Primer,” CT, June 2009.)

Another bombshell hit in May 2007, when Francis Beckwith, then president of the Evangelical Theological Society, reverted to Catholicism. The Baylor University philosopher has since published an account of his journey, titled Return to Rome.

“I have no doubt that the New Perspective and Federal Vision have had an effect on the Protestant-Catholic debate,” Beckwith told Christianity Today. “I have met several former evangelical Protestants who have told me that Wright’s work in particular helped them to better appreciate the Catholic view of grace.”

Taylor Marshall went even further. Now a Ph.D. philosophy student at the University of Dallas, he started reading Wright while attending Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. He said Wright’s work shifted his assumptions so he could understand the Council of Trent’s position. Marshall does not believe Wright holds to the full Catholic view. But he said Wright’s critique led him to conclude that the Reformers departed from Scripture by teaching “forensic justification through the imputed alien righteousness of Christ.”

Marshall briefly served as an Anglican priest before converting to Catholicism in 2006 and becoming assistant director of the Catholic Information Center in Washington, D.C. Marshall said he speaks with new Catholic converts every month, about half of whom have been “deeply influenced” by Wright.

“If you buy into Wright’s approach to covenantal theology, then you’ve already taken three steps toward the Catholic Church. Keep following the trail and you’ll be Catholic,” said Marshall, who blogs at PaulIsCatholic.com. “Salvation is sacramental, transformational, communal, and eschatological. Sound good? You’ve just assented to the Catholic Council of Trent.”

Wright himself finds strange the notion that he’s leading people to Rome. “I am sorry to think that there are people out there whose Protestantism has been so barren that they never found out about sacraments, transformation, community, or eschatology. Clearly this person needed a change. But to jump to Rome for that reason is very odd,” he said. The best Reformed, charismatic, Anglican, and even some emerging churches have these emphases, he said.

You can see Marshall’s posts about N.T. Wright leading one to Catholicism here and here, as well as his response to this article here. I briefly discuss my own view of Wright’s writings here.

I think the resistance of some Protestants to his dialogue should not be surprising, simply due to the fact that there is no such thing as a single, unified “Protestant theology” on anything, including such core items as justification. As the article notes about the internal debate among Protestants: “Again and again, it has caused division among Protestants.” It is simply impossible to have agreement between Protestants and Catholics because you don’t have agreement between Protestants. But I’ve been very encouraged by the progress made in recent years to clarify what exactly Catholics and Protestants believe when it comes to justification and other important issues. At the very least, it can define how far apart individual Protestants are from the Catholic view. As is obvious from this article, some are closer than others.

Yet again there is talk of an imminent reunion between Rome and the Russian Orthodox Church. This time, it is TAC bishop John Hepworth, who says, “they’re probably apocryphal, but we do know that the Russian Orthodox Church is very close to achieving unity with Rome.” Many Catholics are speculating that the recent overtures of Rome to the Anglicans will be looked at as a possible model for this potential East-West reunion.

I want to be clear in my next statement which is directed towards my fellow Catholics about this possible “reunion”:

IT IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.

I don’t want to be spoil-sport, and I don’t want to discount the possibility of a miracle from the Holy Spirit. Of course a miracle could occur and a reunion could happen, but the miracle would not be some announcement of reunion by hierarchs, it would be the acceptance of that announcement by millions and millions of the faithful. As I’ve mentioned before, there is little grassroots support in the East for reunion at this time, and so any premature announcement would be doomed for failure.

I also think the comparisons between the Anglican situation and the Russian Orthodox are faulty; they are completely different realities. For one thing, Anglo-Catholics belong to an ecclesial community which has been headed for self-destruction the past 50 years. It is a sinking ship and the Pope is mercifully throwing its remaining traditional members a life-line. This is not the case with the Russian Orthodox Church; it is a vital Church with over 1,000 years of history behind it. Its origins predate the East-West schism and they have no external “need” for reunion with Rome.

The Anglican outreach by Pope Benedict cannot be a model for the Church’s work for reunion with the East, and I’m sure the Pope realizes that. With the Anglicans you have a community that has a rich and beautiful spirituality, but it is essentially a variant of Roman Catholicism. They are very Western and the Anglo-Catholics being courted are very close to Rome on many theological fronts. But the Russian Orthodox Church, unlike the Anglicans, have a theological outlook that is quite different from the Western view; the differences between the East and the West are very deep and will need a long time to sort out. A “personal ordinariate” is a wonderful construct for returning Anglicans, but it would be an insult to Orthodox believers, as it would turn their true Church into just a “spirituality” within the Roman (Western) Church.

I pray daily for the reunion of the apostolic Churches of the East and the West and I hope that much progress is made in my lifetime towards that end. However, I am under no illusions about the barriers to union that currently exist. Like any persistent sin, our divisions will only be overcome by a whole lot of prayer, penance and hard work. Let us look to those three tasks rather than some “quicky” solution.

Two interesting stories about relations between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, via the wonderful blog Eirenikon :

Bulgarian Orthodox Leader Affirms Desire for Unity

Archbishop Hilarion (Alfeev) on Catholic Sacraments

Catholics might read these stories with a somewhat “ho-hum” attitude, but they are both important. It is common in the Catholic Church for us to speak of reunion with the Orthodox like it is just around the corner and to easily acknowledge the validity of Orthodox sacraments. This is not the case in the East; they are, in general, much more hesitant in their ecumenical pronouncements. But the fact that Orthodox bishops are publicly desiring reunion “as soon as possible” and are acknowledging the validity of Catholic sacraments is a necessary step in the right direction. I still believe that reunion won’t occur for a long time (most likely long after I’ve left this place of exile), but it will only occur if we are moving in the right direction: towards each other instead of away from each other.

There is no question that one of the biggest divisions between Catholicism and Protestantism is the role of the Virgin Mary in God’s plan of salvation. When I was an Evangelical I didn’t understand why Catholics made such a fuss about Mary; she seemed to me to be a somewhat insignificant player in the drama of Christ’s life, one who was brought out every Christmas and then packed away until next year with the ornaments and candles.

As I drew closer to the Church, I put Mary on the back-burner. I knew I would have to deal with her sooner or later, but I figured I would deal with other items like purgatory, the role of the saints, papal authority, and the Eucharist first. But I always knew I would eventually have to settle in my mind what was Mary’s role in God’s divine plan. Eventually, I came to see her as essential to the redemption of mankind and the mother of disciples everywhere.

Fortunately, today there are Evangelicals who are taking seriously the role of Mary. Just a few weeks ago, the group Evangelicals and Catholics Together released a joint statement in which they discuss Mary and where they disagree and agree regarding her. I am fortunate to know one of the members of this group (Fr. Francis Martin) and it was fascinating to hear him talk about the document’s progress. They are involved with real ecumenism at ECT and we should pray for their ongoing efforts. Be sure to read the document on Mary linked above; it is worth the time and effort.

Our Lady, seat of wisdom, pray for us!

When the history of the pontificate of Benedict XVI is written, I think one word will be used over and over: bold. This pope has been astonishingly bold in his outreach to disaffected Christians, especially those who are more traditionally-minded.

• He liberalized the use of the Latin Mass, against the wishes of many within the Church who thought that was a return to “pre-Conciliar” days.
• He lifted the excommunication of the leaders of the traditional Society of St. Pius X, even though in some ways these men didn’t seem to deserve such action.
• He has now created a canonical structure to receive Anglicans en masse into the Church, although many will say that this goes against “ecumenical progress”.
• Not content to just lift the excommunication of their leaders, he has begun discussions with the Society of St. Pius X with the purpose of their eventual reunion with the Church (possibly in the same format as the Anglicans – a “personal Ordinariate”).

There is no question that Pope Benedict desires greatly to bring as many souls back into the fold as possible, and he has taken decisive action to achieve that desire.

Pray for our Pope that he might continue to be given the strength to boldly proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Today Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew is arriving in the United States for a pastoral visit. He will be here from October 20th to November 5th, visiting New Orleans, New York, Atlanta, and Washington, DC (full itinerary here). I heard His All Holiness speak in Baltimore in the late 1990′s and I was impressed with the man. I also have have been greatly impressed with his efforts to achieve a closer unity between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. I especially was touched at his participation in the opening of the Year of St. Paul with Pope Benedict back in 2008.

But what Bartholomew has become most known for in recent years is his environmental crusade. Many have been calling him the “Green Patriarch” because of his focus on this issue. In fact, the first item on Bartholomew’s agenda in the United States is to attend the “Religion, Science and The Environment Symposium” held in New Orleans. I do not have a problem with Christian leaders advocating a responsible use of our world’s resources (God knows that our country too often puts personal comfort above any other consideration when using the resources God gives us), but I do wish he would be more outspoken about other moral evils such as abortion, which ravages traditionally Orthodox countries.

Let us pray that Bartholomew’s visit is a time of great blessing for Orthodox Christians and that His All Holiness will have the courage to be a prophetic voice in the world.