Pope Francis vs Pope Benedict XVI on the “Anglican Ordinariate”

Continuing Anglican Father Robert Hart

One item that’s been in the news off-and-on recently is the papal “Apostolic Constitution” called “Anglicanorum Coetibus”, “Providing For Personal Ordinariates For Anglicans Entering Into Full Communion With The Catholic Church”. What this means is that Rome is willing to allow Anglican Bishops have the ability to become Roman Catholic, kind of along the lines of the “Eastern Rite Catholic Churches” – those Eastern churches who independently have aligned themselves with Rome.

Father Robert Hart, an Anglican, has argued strenuously against this (most notably that the Anglicans would lose their particular identities and morph into Roman Catholics). I’ve cited his articles here once or twice. (Click on the “Anglicanorum Coetibus” link at the bottom of this article for more on this).

This week, Father Hart published a first-hand account of what “Pope Francis” has said about this “Ordinariate”. As it turns out, before he was Pope Francis, the Anglican Archbishop Gregory Venables, from Buenos Aires, relates what Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio said this about the Ordinariate:

“Many are asking me what Jorge Bergoglio (now Pope Francis) is really like. He is much more of a Christian, Christ centered and Spirit filled, than a mere churchman. He believes the Bible as it is written. I have been with him on many occasions and he always makes me sit next to him and invariably makes me take part and often do what he as Cardinal should have done. He is consistently humble and wise, outstandingly gifted yet a common man. He is no fool and speaks out very quietly yet clearly when necessary. He called me to have breakfast with him one morning and told me very clearly that the Ordinariate was quite unnecessary and that the Church needs us as Anglicans [emphasis in original]. I consider this to be an inspired appointment not because he is a close and personal friend but because of who he is In Christ. Pray for him.”

Maybe he should call a council.

HT: Embryo Parson

“The Real and True Nature of Anglicanism”

There are Anglicans who still believe this:

The Real and True Nature of Anglicanism
Our ultimate question does not concern the real and true nature of Anglicanism but the real and true nature of Christianity and as to how well the Anglican tradition of Christian faith comports with the revealed faith of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christendom (faith and institution) is far greater than mere Anglicanism. A minister of the Church of England, for example, is not ordained into the Anglican Communion as such, but into the Church of God. The Church of God is not measured by institutions and statistics, bishops, patriarchs, metropolitans, and jurisdictions but by the reality of faith which only the Lord himself can measure. The visible church and the invisible church are not co- extensive, "For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel" (Romans 9:6). The true Israelite in Old and New Testament terms is the person with the circumcised heart ("No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a man's praise is not from men, but from God" Romans 2:29) and only God can read the heart and count his true people, "The Lord knows who are his" (2 Timothy 2:19).

Externalities, however important, are not of the essence of the Christian faith, but rather union with Christ. The Church of God must be gathered, organized, and administered, but the external phenomenon is not an accurate representation of the true people of God and it consists of "wheat and tares" at every level of participation from leadership through tenuous membership.

“Everything outside Holy Scripture, not being of faith, is sin.”

Embryo Parson put up a recent blog post that I’ve wanted to share:

The English Reformation and the Early Church Fathers:

“We and our people - thanks be to God - follow no novel and strange religions, but that very religion which is ordained by Christ, sanctioned by the primitive and Catholic Church and approved by the consentient mind and voice of the most early Fathers.” (Queen Elizabeth I)

I. Justification

Clement of Rome (30-100): “All these (saints of old), therefore, were highly honoured, and made great, not for their own sake, or for their own works, or for the righteousness which they wrought, but through the operation of His will. And we, too, being called by His will in Christ Jesus, are not justified by ourselves, nor by our own wisdom, or understanding, or godliness, or works which we have wrought in holiness of heart; but by that faith through which, from the beginning, Almighty God has justified all men; to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.”

Source: Clement, First Epistle to the Corinthians, 32.4. (Discussion of works follows.)

Epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus (c. 130): “He gave His own Son as a ransom for us, the holy One for transgressors, the blameless One for the wicked, the righteous One for the unrighteous, the incorruptible One for the corruptible, the immortal One for them that are mortal. For what other thing was capable of covering our sins than His righteousness? By what other one was it possible that we, the wicked and ungodly, could be justified, than by the only Son of God? O sweet exchange! O unsearchable operation! O benefits surpassing all expectation! That the wickedness of many should be hid in a single righteous One, and that the righteousness of One should justify many transgressors!”

Source: The Epistle to Diognetus, 9.2-5. (Quote occurs in discussion about the atonement, God’s objective act of “taking on the burden of our iniquities.”)

Justin Martyr (100-165) speaks of “those who repented, and who no longer were purified by the blood of goats and of sheep, or by the ashes of an heifer, or by the offerings of fine flour, but by faith through the blood of Christ, and through His death.”

Source: Justin, Dialogue with Trypho, 13.

St. Irenaeus: “Human beings can be saved from the ancient serpent in no other way than by believing in him who, when he was raised up from the earth on the tree of martyrdom in the likeness of sinful flesh, drew all things to himself and gave life to the dead.”

Source: (Against the Heresies, IV, 2, 7)

Origen (185-254): “For God is just, and therefore he could not justify the unjust. Therefore he required the intervention of a propitiator, so that by having faith in Him those who could not be justified by their own works might be justified.”

Source: Origen, Commentary on Romans, 2.112.

Origen: “A man is justified by faith. The works of the law can make no contribution to this. Where there is no faith which might justify the believer, even if there are works of the law these are not based on the foundation of faith. Even if they are good in themselves they cannot justify the one who does them, because faith is lacking, and faith is the mark of those who are justified by God.”

Source: Origen, Commentary on Romans, 2.136.

Hilary of Poitiers (300-368): “Wages cannot be considered as a gift, because they are due to work, but God has given free grace to all men by the justification of faith.”

Source: Hilary, Commentary on Matthew (on Matt. 20:7)

Hilary of Poitiers: “It disturbed the scribes that sin was forgiven by a man (for they considered that Jesus Christ was only a man) and that sin was forgiven by Him whereas the Law was not able to absolve it, since faith alone justifies.”

Source: Hilary, Commentary on Matthew (on Matt. 9:3)

Didymus the Blind (c. 313-398) “A person is saved by grace, not by works but by faith. There should be no doubt but that faith saves and then lives by doing its own works, so that the works which are added to salvation by faith are not those of the law but a different kind of thing altogether.”[31]

Source: Didymus the Blind. Commentary on James, 2:26b.

Basil of Caesarea (329-379): “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord, that Christ has been made by God for us righteousness, wisdom, justification, redemption. This is perfect and pure boasting in God, when one is not proud on account of his own righteousness but knows that he is indeed unworthy of the true righteousness and is justified solely by faith in Christ.”

Source: Basil, Homily on Humility, 20.3.

It goes on like this for another six or eight feet down the page. It’s a great source of early church citations on the topic of “justification by faith”.

One more:

“What is the mark of a faithful soul? To be in these dispositions of full acceptance on the authority of the words of Scripture, not venturing to reject anything nor making additions. For, if ‘all that is not of faith is sin’ as the Apostle says, and ‘faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God,’ everything outside Holy Scripture, not being of faith, is sin.”

- St. Basil the Great (The Morals)