Responses to:

As of 26 April 2005… [responses now closed]

I appreciate you writing on this subject and believe it is very significant to us all. We, Protestants and Catholics, have differing views on selected subject matter, but don't we all? Even among our own? Although… there is strength in the overall objective of the Christian Faith.

In addition to your article on the Pope, here is a good little tribute to JP II from a Ph D student here at PTS (just a generally good blog to have on your blog list too): http://scjtoday.typepad.com/scjtoday/

I wonder if the Pope was even Born Again. I heard that he claimed that his “true mother” was Mary. I respect the great leadership he provided but think that all the “extra stuff” of Catholicism is wrong! Did you know that this Pope inducted more “saints” than all the other Pope’s combined?

[DED à I can’t vouch for the reliability of the claims in this response. Don’t have time to fact check em]

I posted your article as my weekly internet column this week…. It is so much what I’d have written that I need write nothing at all this week…

Great article on why Protestants should care about new pope selection. I'll feature it in Wednesday's blog at http://www.jameswatkins.com

I think you'd make a great pope except, of course, for that celibacy thing . . . and transsubstantiation and veneration of Mary and. . . .

Excellent article!! Your points are well stated and accurate. I haven't heard a lot of "Anti-Christ" talk ... perhaps we are viewing the pope through better lens today.

Unfortunately, many of Luther’s 95 Theses still are legit today and the Catholic Church has not done enough to change.

Well, this proves one of us right. The selection of Ratzinger to be Benedict is a matter of concern. I wish him a reign as long as that of John Paul I. The fact that such an odious medeival rat could be the choice of 2/3 of the cardinals (most of them appointed by the late John Paul II) is a telling reminder that the latter's legacy is not all it is pumped up to be, and in the long view of history, will contain plenty to condemn. It also gives me a deep and renewed appreciation for the Protestant Reformation.

[DED à long reply here from one reader]

The body of Christ would benefit from renewed emphasis on the differences between the Roman Church and the churches of the Reformation. Not hostility, not stone-throwing, not mutual extermination, but honest recognition and embrace of the distinctions.

I grew up in a Catholic neighborhood, in an area where about half the population was at least nominally Roman Catholic. I have been to mass a few times with friends who are Catholic, and found it spiritually inspiring -- although out of respect for the rules and traditions of the church I was in, I did NOT take communion. I freely embrace C.S. Lewis's view of the commonality of "mere Christianity." In some respects, the Roman Catholic Church has not yet done so.

I also embrace the separation of church and state, as it was laid out by the heirs of the Reformation, mindful of the persecution of Protestants by Rome, of Quakers by Anglicans and Separatists, of Catholics by Anglicans and Presbyterians, etc., etc., etc. Our nation was founded on a consensus that we would not go to war ever again over spiritual doctrines or allegiances, not between nations, not among ourselves, not by military means, not through our republican civil institutions. The existence of the Vatican as both church and state is an ominous danger to freedom of conscience, however much we may each find to admire about the utterances of the lately deceased Pope. It was an error for the United States to extend diplomatic recognition to this archaic hybrid.

I consider the efforts of Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, Bishop Burke of St. Louis, and of the late Bishop of Rome, to compel public officials to "toe the line" of the church in their conduct AS public officials to be acts bordering on treason (by the first two) and interference by "a certain foreign prince, known as the Pope." They are no less reprehensible than offering a public official a bribe, or threatening to murder their children, in order to influence their conduct in office. I take the same attitude toward a church of the Southern Baptist Convention expelling a Florida judge who did his duty AS a judge by adhering to the law, as it existed, rather than rewriting it to the satisfaction of his pastor and fellow parishioners.

To make a decision in civil politics a touchstone for spirituality is a grievous sin. It pollutes the spiritual purity of the church with a secular agenda. Am I therefore saying that we should each divorce faith and belief from our acts of citizenship? Of course not. Your faith, including your fellowship in worship, informs your conscience, which informs your thought process, which guides your vote or conduct in office. But the final decision is an individual one, not a collective one, nor dictated by an earthly authority.

For example, as to the so-called "pro-life" movement, I believe the legislative policy of the Roman Church, and of many Protestant churches, is blind and misguided. It is entirely possible to believe that abortion is wrong, and at the same time believe that imposing prison sentences on women and doctors is not the best way to reduce the number of abortions. It does not help, of course, that the loudest voices in this debate either imply that abortion is God's gift to women, or that women cannot be trusted to make the right decision without the sanction of severe criminal penalties hanging over their head. As a devout Roman Catholic at Notre Dame recently wrote, the highest rate of abortions in the world is in Latin American countries where it is illegal, while the lowest rates are in European countries where it is entirely legal and unrestricted. Likewise, the number of abortions performed in the USA declined significantly while Bill Clinton was president, while it rose slightly under Ronald Reagan. Let each church condemn those acts it is called to condemn -- and let each member act on that condemnation in whatever way seems best to each.

We need to remember the Protestant roots of democracy -- while crediting the ability of the Roman bureaucracy to adapt itself in some respects over time. Voting replaced the dictates of a hierarchy in Protestant churches before it became the political norm in secular society. Why? Because in Protestant theology, the Bible, not a hierarchy, was the source of authority. The vote of the congregation reflected each individual member's own study of the Bible, irrespective of the teachings of any would-be guide or leader. It is a gross perversion of democracy for any church to attempt (however incompetently) to march its adherents to the polls as a bloc to write church doctrine into general civil and criminal law. (On this point I also freely fault John Calvin, who among other things burned Michael Servetius at the stake for questioning whether God is truly a Trinity by nature).

The experience of John Stoddard -- which inspired the founder of Domino's Pizza to affirm his Catholic loyalty -- had exactly the opposite effect on me. Stoddard became agnostic because he could not justify to himself how the Bible could be accepted as authoritative. He became a devout Roman Catholic in response to the revelation that "Christ didn't write a book, he founded a church, and promised to stay with it and guide it." That account reminded me of why it is so important that the Bible, NOT an earthly hierarchy, is the ultimate authority -- which was precisely Thomas Wycliffe's starting point.

True, no one person's exposition of the Bible can be authoritative. That is where many Protestants are currently going wrong. What God has put into the Bible is far beyond the capacity of any one human mind to fully grasp. What I correctly find in it is not going to be the same as what you correctly find in it. There is simply too much to find. And we will all make some mistakes, being fallible humans. But our own individual study of the Bible is the ultimate authority in spiritual matters -- no Bishop, no Patriarch, no evangelist, no annointed show-off in a television studio, can dictate to any other Christian what God is calling us to do. The discussion of our various insights and beliefs can be edifying to all -- if we are all prepared to listen, reserving our own direct line to God, free of all earthly authority, and respecting that every other participant has their own direct line to God also.

God will judge the results, individually, not according to denomination or nationality.

Some might ask, how I can present this as anything but a bigoted diatribe against the Catholic faith, and every person who adheres to it. The answer is simple. I am confident that the Bishop of Rome has no special authority, neither from God nor from Jesus Christ. Therefore, I can freely accept that the rites, rituals and sacraments of the Roman Catholic faith are a perfectly valid path to God, for those who choose that path. I have no cause to deny the intercession of those saints officially canonized by the Roman church, or of the Blessed Virgin Mother of God and Queen of Heaven, because I am under no compulsion to avail myself of them. I am free, as each and every Catholic is free, to make my own choices. These differences of preference are mere detail -- we can still be of one accord on the essentials. Where do we draw the line? If we cannot agree, it is mere detail. Those who exercise coercion in matters of faith define themselves as the Enemy.

I am confident that the Bishop of Rome inherited nothing from that pompous, vain, cowardly, self-centered, and above all, fallible, apostle, Simon bar-Jonah, also named Kephas, or in Greek translation, Petros or Petra. (Simon also had his good points -- and Jesus commented on both). Therefore, I know that the authority of the Bishop of Rome extends precisely to each and every person who freely chooses to place themselves under that authority. That is essentially the same authority possessed by a retired coal miner pastoring a church of 30 or 40 souls in the hills of West Virginia.

It is of concern to Protestants whether the next Bishop of Rome is a man who will reach out to Protestants, Jews and Muslims as brothers -- which in many ways John Paul II did -- or whether he will grasp for earthly authority (which the deceased bishop also did) and break the potential for unity among our differences. But the fact remains, it is no business of mine, as a Protestant, to participate in choosing the next Bishop of Rome. The cardinals are not soliciting my opinion. My actions, my choices, will be the same no matter who they choose.