Geneva — In congratulating the newly-elected pope, World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr. Samuel Kobia prayed for “renewed commitment” to “ecumenical openess” and “a dialogue of conversion”. Describing Benedict XVI as a man “known for his theological integrity and ecclesial loyalty, his evangelical simplicity and pastoral sensitivity,” Kobia expressed his hope that his … Read more »… À suivre »
I found this article on the Vatican Information Service about Pope Benedict’s comments at a Rome congress on “The Family and the Christian Community.” I think that he has some positive affirmations to make about families, but I find it interesting that as I was trying to attend to the positives, he kept turning to the negatives. So, for example, he speaks about marriage but ends the section by cautioning about “pseudo-marriage” and divorce.
I wonder whether this gives us some insight into Benedict’s character, or at least some insight into his attitude towards married life. He ends his comments by calling for more vocations to the priesthood and religious life. That’s not exactly a rousing endorsement of marriage.
We should remember that Benedict’s favourite theologian is Augustine of Hippo, who had very similar fears about marriage. It is good and natural in theory, but a risky venture that might imperil your salvation. One is better off avoiding it altogether. … Read more »… À suivre »
“After the first few months of the new pontificate, the general impression is that no one within the Church is seriously criticizing the central theses – philosophical and theological – of Benedict XVI’s preaching. But that’s not the way it is. One Catholic philosopher has disputed one of the main points of Joseph Ratzinger’s thought: the one dealing with the natural law and relativism. The philosopher is Dario Antiseri, a professor of social sciences methodology at the Free International University of Social Studies in Rome.”
The above comes from Sandro Magister, an Italian journalist. The full text can be found at www.chiesa.espressonline.it. Magister’s article includes a translation of a major piece of Dario Antiseri’s original journal article. … Read more »… À suivre »
“Benedict XVI and the Future of Interreligious Theology” is the subject of a talk by Francis Clooney, S.J., at 8 p.m., March 24, 2006 at Sam Sorbara Auditorium in Brennan Hall, 81 St Mary Street, Toronto. The evening is sponsored by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada in collaboration with the University of Toronto’s Centre for the Study of Religion, Regis College, and the University of St Michael’s College. For more information call (416) 926-7115 or (416) 926-1300 ext 3317.
By Nicholas Jesson In his address to a gathering of ecumenical leaders in Warsaw on May 25, Pope Benedict XVI has expressed strong support for pastoral care of interchurch families. Speaking to the Polish Council for Ecumenism and leaders of other religious groups, Benedict encouraged the work of a bilateral commission of the Catholic bishops’ conference … Read more »… À suivre »
Open Letter to His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI by 38 Leading Muslim Scholars and Leaders.
In an unprecedented move, an open letter signed by 38 leading Muslim religious scholars and leaders around the world was sent to Pope Benedict XVI on Oct. 12, 2006. The letter, which is the outcome of a joint effort, was signed by top religious authorities. All the eight schools of thought and jurisprudence in Islam are represented by the signatories, including a woman scholar. In this respect the letter is unique in the history of interfaith relations.
The letter was sent, in a spirit of goodwill, to respond to some of the remarks made by the Pope during his lecture at the University of Regensburg on Sept. 12, 2006. The letter tackles the main substantive issues raised in his treatment of a debate between the medieval Emperor Manuel II Paleologus and an “educated Persian”, including reason and faith; forced conversion; “jihad” vs. “holy war”; and the relationship between Christianity and Islam. They engage the Pope on an intellectual level concerning these crucial topics–which go well beyond the controversial quotation of the emperor–pointing out what they see as mistakes and oversimplifications in the Pope’s own remarks about Islamic belief and practice. … Read more »… À suivre »
On Wednesday April 11, Pope Benedict XVI published a new book in German on the subject of creation and evolution. The book apparently arises out of the Schülerkreis, a group of his graduate students that continue to meet with him each fall. The annual gatherings have attracted a great deal of attention since Benedict was elected pope, particularly because the participants — each a former student of Benedict — represent some of the most well-known and highly-regarded theologians in Germany and around the world. In 2006 the gathering was held at Castel Gandolfo on the subject of creation and evolution.
It should be remembered that, in his 1950 encyclical Humanae Generis, Pope Pius XII taught that the “hypothesis” of evolution does not conflict with Catholic faith so long as it does not deny “that the spiritual soul is immediately created by God.” In 1996, John Paul II went further and stated that new knowledge leads to the recognition that the theory of evolution is more than an hypothesis. He pointed out, as many biologists would also insist, that there are “theories” of evolution rather than one theory. … Read more »… À suivre »
On Saturday, Pope Benedict XVI issued a motu proprio entitled Summorum Pontificum, on the use of the 1962 Latin Mass. The document has been widely expected for some months now. … Read more »… À suivre »
Benedict XVI’s second Encyclical, “Spe Salvi” which is dedicated to the theme of Christian hope, was published today. The document – which has an introduction and eight chapters – begins with a quote from the Letter of St. Paul to the Romans: “spe salvi facti sumus” (in hope we are saved). … Read more »… À suivre »
Aujourd’hui est publiée la seconde Encyclique de Benoît XVI, Spe Salvi, qui comprend une introduction suivie de huit chapitres, et qui s’ouvre passage de l’Epître aux romains où Paul dit que nous avons été sauvés dans l’espérance. … Read more »… À suivre »
Webeditor’s note: The title of this article was changed to more accurately reflect the focus of the papal address. The original title was “Pope Clarifies Luther’s Idea of Justification”. The Vatican Information Service article bears the title “St. Paul: Justification by Christ’s Love”.
[Vatican City • Zenit.org] Benedict XVI says Martin Luther’s doctrine on justification is correct, if faith “is not opposed to charity.”
The Pope said this today during the general audience dedicated to another reflection on St. Paul. This time, the Holy Father considered the Apostle’s teaching on justification.
He noted that Paul’s conversion experience on the road to Damascus “changed his life radically: He began to regard all his merits, achievements of a most honest religious career, as ‘loss’ in face of the sublimity of knowledge of Jesus Christ.”
“It is precisely because of this personal experience of the relationship with Jesus that Paul places at the center of his Gospel an irreducible opposition between two alternative paths to justice: one based on the works of the law, the other founded on the grace of faith in Christ,” the Pontiff explained. “The alternative between justice through the works of the law and justice through faith in Christ thus becomes one of the dominant themes that runs through his letters.”
What is law
But in order to understand this Pauline teaching, Benedict XVI affirmed, “we must clarify what is the ‘law’ from which we have been freed and what are those ‘works of the law’ that do not justify.”
He explained: “Already in the community of Corinth there was the opinion, which will return many times in history, which consisted in thinking that it was a question of the moral law, and that Christian freedom consisted therefore in being free from ethics. […] It is obvious that this interpretation is erroneous: Christian liberty is not libertinism; the freedom of which St. Paul speaks is not freedom from doing good.”
Instead, the Pope said, the law to which Paul refers is the “collection of behaviors extending from an ethical foundation to the ritual and cultural observances that substantially determined the identity of the just man — particularly circumcision, the observance regarding pure food and general ritual purity, the rules regarding observance of the Sabbath, etc.”
These observances served to protect Jewish identity and faith in God; they were “a defense shield that would protect the precious inheritance of the faith,” he remarked.
But, the Holy Father continued, at the moment of Paul’s encounter with Christ, the Apostle “understood that with Christ’s resurrection the situation had changed radically.”
“The wall — so says the Letter to the Ephesians — between Israel and the pagans was no longer necessary,” he said. “It is Christ who protects us against polytheism and all its deviations; it is Christ who unites us with and in the one God; it is Christ who guarantees our true identity in the diversity of cultures; and it is he who makes us just. To be just means simply to be with Christ and in Christ. And this suffices. Other observances are no longer necessary.”
And it is because of this, the Bishop of Rome continued, that Luther’s expression “by faith alone” is true “if faith is not opposed to charity, to love. Faith is to look at Christ, to entrust oneself to Christ, to be united to Christ, to be conformed to Christ, to his life. And the form, the life of Christ, is love; hence, to believe is to be conformed to Christ and to enter into his love.”
“Paul knows,” he added, “that in the double love of God and neighbor the whole law is fulfilled. Thus the whole law is observed in communion with Christ, in faith that creates charity. We are just when we enter into communion with Christ, who is love.”
• Pope Benedict XVI’s address at the General Audience of Wednesday, November 19, 2008. … Read more »… À suivre »
Last November, attention turned once again to comments made by Pope Benedict XVI, this time on dialogue with Islam. Precisely as the Vatican was intensifying efforts to open dialogues with Islam on ethical and other practical issues, a book was published in Italy by Marcello Pera that contained a forward written by the pope. In this text, the pope commended Pera’s argument that interreligious dialogue is not strictly possible. The book, entitled “Why We Must Call Ourselves Christian” was an argument for the indispensably Christian character of Europe. Prior to his election as pope, Cardinal Ratzinger had co-authored another book with Pera about Europe’s identity, and so it is not a great surprise that he would write a forward for another book on the same subject by his academic colleague.
This morning the Vatican announced the publication of the apostolic constitution enacting the canonical provisions for new Anglican ordinariates. As well, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued “complementary norms” to accompany the apostolic constitution.
Benedict XVI: Dialogue and Collaboration among Different Religions
At midday today in St. Mary’s University College at Twickenham, the Holy Father met with leaders from the main Christian confessions and from other religions present in the United Kingdom: Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs. … Read more »… À suivre »
Pope Benedict XVI and Anglican Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury knelt together before the tomb of an 11th-century Christian king after affirming the need for Catholics and Anglicans to give a united witness to society. St. Edward the Confessor, who is buried in the Anglicans’ Westminster Abbey, reigned five centuries before English Christians became divided.
The pope and the primate of the Church of England paid homage together to the Christian king Sept. 17 at the end of an afternoon that included public speeches, a 30-minute private meeting and a joint ecumenical prayer service in Westminster Abbey. Archbishop Williams welcomed Pope Benedict as the first pope ever to visit Westminster Abbey, which was home to a community of Catholic Benedictine monks until 1540 when King Henry VIII dissolved the monastic community. … Read more »… À suivre »
Fifty years after the first meeting of a Pope and an Archbishop of Canterbury in modern times — that of Pope John XXIII and Archbishop Geoffrey Fisher, in December 1960 — Pope Benedict XVI paid a fraternal visit to Archbishop Rowan Williams. … Read more »… À suivre »
You have spoken, Your Grace, of the historic meeting that took place, almost thirty years ago, between two of our predecessors – Pope John Paul the Second and Archbishop Robert Runcie – in Canterbury Cathedral. There, in the very place where Saint Thomas of Canterbury bore witness to Christ by the shedding of his blood, they prayed together for the gift of unity among the followers of Christ. We continue today to pray for that gift, knowing that the unity Christ willed for his disciples will only come about in answer to prayer, through the action of the Holy Spirit, who ceaselessly renews the Church and guides her into the fullness of truth. … Read more »… À suivre »
Last week, the Vatican published a new papal letter from Benedict XVI entitled Verbum Domini, the Word of the Lord. Technically called an “apostolic exhortation,” this letter is the final contribution from the 2008 synod. At over 190 pages in the English text, the new letter is a “must read” for all ecumenists. … Read more »… À suivre »
by Christa Pongratz-Lippitt for The Tablet Pope Benedict XVI has intervened personally to demand more time for ecumenical talks with the Protestant Churches when he visits Germany in September. In a highly unusual move he has written directly to the leader of the Protestant Churches, Chairman Nikolaus Schneider, expressing dissatisfaction with the brevity of the … Read more »… À suivre »
As the Bishop of Rome, it is deeply moving for me to be meeting you here in the ancient Augustinian convent in Erfurt. As we have just heard, this is where Luther studied theology. This is where he was ordained a priest. Against his father’s wishes, he did not continue the study of Law, but instead he studied theology and set off on the path towards priesthood in the Order of Saint Augustine. And on this path, he was not simply concerned with this or that. What constantly exercised him was the question of God, the deep passion and driving force of his whole life’s journey. “How do I receive the grace of God?”: this question struck him in the heart and lay at the foundation of all his theological searching and inner struggle. For Luther theology was no mere academic pursuit, but the struggle for oneself, which in turn was a struggle for and with God. … Read more »… À suivre »
Read the 2015 joint statement of the Evangelical-Roman Catholic dialogue in Saskatoon, Called to Common Witness
Mending a Torn World
Permanent link: https://ecumenism.net/?p=129
On Wednesday April 11, Pope Benedict XVI published a new book in German on the subject of creation and evolution. The book apparently arises out of the Schülerkreis, a group of his graduate students that continue to meet with him each fall. The annual gatherings have attracted a great deal of attention since Benedict was elected pope, particularly because the participants — each a former student of Benedict — represent some of the most well-known and highly-regarded theologians in Germany and around the world. In 2006 the gathering was held at Castel Gandolfo on the subject of creation and evolution.