Servants Preparation Program

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• Servants Preparation Program
• CMP 102, Denominations

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The Catholic Church After Vatican II

• And you shall know the truth, and the truth
  shall make you free.
• (John 832)
• Fr. Marcus Mansour
• St. Mark Coptic Orthodox Church
• Phoenix, Arizona
• Servants Preparation 2005-2006

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Introduction

• In addition to the dogmatic differences we
  discussed in the previous lecture, the Catholic
  Church has introduced new concepts in
  understanding their faith during its last
  Catholic Council known as Vatican II, 1964-1968.
• Careful study of these new concepts is a must
  before entering into any dialogue with the
  Catholic Church.

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The Catholic Church After Vatican II

• 1. Faith and Reason
• The Roman Catholic Church places a high value on
  human reason. Its history shows the consequence
  of that trust.
• For example, in the Latin Middle Ages, the 13th
  century, the theologian-philosopher, Thomas
  Aquinas, joined "Christianity" with the
  philosophy of Aristotle.
• From that period till now, the Latins have never
  wavered in their respect for human wisdom, and it
  has radically altered the theology, mysteries and
  institutions of the Christian religion.

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The Catholic Church after Vatican II Faith and
Reason

• Following the Holy Fathers, Orthodoxy uses
  science and philosophy to defend and explain her
  faith.
• Unlike Roman Catholicism, she does not build on
  the results of philosophy and science.
• The Church does not seek to reconcile faith and
  reason. She makes no effort to prove by logic or
  science what Christ gave His followers to
  believe.
• If physics or biology or chemistry or philosophy
  lends support to the teachings of the Church, she
  does not refuse them.
• However, Orthodoxy is not intimidated by man's
  intellectual accomplishments. She does not bow to
  them and change the Christian Faith to make it
  consistent with the results of human thought and
  science.

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The Catholic Church after Vatican II Faith and
Reason

• St. Basil the Great advised young monks to use
  Greek philosophy as a bee uses the flower.
• Take only the honey, the truth, which God has
  planted in the world to prepare men for the
  Coming of the Lord.
• However, the Catholic Church does not mind
  teaching that the story of creation in the book
  of Genesis is merely symbolism in order to
  reconcile with the theory of evolution.

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The Catholic Church after Vatican II The
Development of Doctrine

• The teaching of the Church has always been that
  Christianity has remained unaltered from the
  moment that the Lord delivered the Faith to the
  Apostles (Matt 2818-20).
• She affirms that "the faith once delivered to the
  saints" (Jude 3) is now what it was in the
  beginning.

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The Catholic Church after Vatican II The
Development of Doctrine

• On the other hand, the Roman Catholic Church is
  unable to show a continuity of faith.
• In order to justify new doctrine, it erected in
  the last century, a theory of doctrinal
  development.
• Basically, Catholicism began to define and teach
  the idea that Christ only gave us an original
  deposit of faith, a seed, which grew and
  matured through the centuries.

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The Catholic Church after Vatican II The
Development of Doctrine

• The Holy Spirit, they said, amplified the
  Christian Faith as the Church moved into new
  circumstances and acquired other needs.
• Consequently, Roman Catholicism pictures its
  theology as growing in stages, to higher and more
  clearly defined levels of knowledge.
• The teachings of the Fathers, as important as
  they are, belong to a stage or level below the
  theology of the Latin Middle Ages
  (Scholasticism), and that theology is lower than
  the new ideas which have come after it, such as
  Vatican II.

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The Catholic Church after Vatican II The
Development of Doctrine

• All the stages are useful, all are resources the
  theologian may appeal to the Fathers, for
  example, but they may also be contradicted by
  something else, something higher or newer.
• On this basis, theories such as the dogmas of
  papal infallibility and the immaculate
  conception of the Virgin Mary are justifiably
  presented to the faithful as necessary for their
  salvation.

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The Catholic Church after Vatican II The
Development of Doctrine

• On the other hand, Orthodoxy recognizes external
  changes (e.g., vestments of clergy, monastic
  habits, new feasts, canons of ecumenical and
  regional councils, etc.), but nothing has been
  added or subtracted from her Faith.
• The external changes have a single purpose To
  express that Faith under new circumstances.
• For example, the Bible and divine services were
  translated from Hebrew and Greek into the
  language of new lands, or new religious customs
  arose to express the ethnic sensibilities of the
  converted peoples, etc.
• Nevertheless, there has always been "one faith,
  one Lord, one baptism" (Eph 44).

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The Catholic Church after Vatican II God

• Roman Catholicism teaches that human reason can
  prove that God is, and, even infer that He is
  eternal, infinite, good, bodiless, almighty,
  all-knowing, etc. He is a most real being, a
  true being. Humans are like Him (analogous),
  but we are imperfect beings.
• The God of Roman Catholicism, born in the Latin
  Middle Ages, is not the God of Abraham, Isaac
  and Jacob, but the God of the savants and the
  philosophers, to adapt the celebrated phrase of
  Blaise Pascal (1623-1662).

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The Catholic Church after Vatican II God

• Following the Holy Fathers, Orthodoxy teaches
  that the knowledge of God is planted in human
  nature and that is how we know Him to exist.
• Otherwise, unless God speaks to us, human reason
  cannot know more. The saving knowledge of God
  comes by the Savior.
• Speaking to His Father, He said, And this is
  life eternal, that they might know You, the only
  true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent
  (John 173).

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The Catholic Church after Vatican II God

• Roman Catholicism teaches, also, that, in the Age
  to Come, man will, with his intellect and with
  the assistance of grace, behold the Essence of
  God.
• However, the Fathers declare that it is
  impossible to behold God in Himself. Not even
  divine grace will give us such power.
• The saved will see, however, God as the glorified
  flesh of Christ.

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The Catholic Church after Vatican II God

• Finally, Roman Catholicism teaches that the Holy
  Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son
  (filioque).
• In so doing, it spurned the Apostolic Tradition
  which always taught that God the Father is the
  single Source (monarchy) of the Son and the
  Spirit.
• Thus, the Latins added words to the Nicean Creed.
  They made this change on the authority of the
  Pope, in the 11th century, not via a Council of
  the whole Church (Ecumenical Council).

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The Catholic Church after Vatican II The Church

• The Roman Catholic view of the Church
  (ecclesiology) differs from the Orthodox teaching
  on this subject in several ways.
• The Latins teach that the visible head of the
  Church is the Pope, the successor to St. Peter,
  who was appointed to that sacred position by the
  Lord Himself with the words, you are Peter and
  upon this rock I shall build my Church . . .
  (Mat 1618).

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The Catholic Church after Vatican II The Church

• According to their understanding
• The Pope is then, the Bishop of the Catholic
  Church, her teacher, the vicar (agent, deputy)
  of Christ on earth.
• He is the interpreter of the Christian Tradition.
• When he speaks for the whole Church from his
  throne (ex cathedra), the Holy Spirit does not
  permit him to err.
• He is, therefore, infallible on matters of morals
  and doctrine. Other bishops are his lieutenants.
  He is the symbol of the episcopate's unity.

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The Catholic Church after Vatican II The Church

• The Orthodox Church, on the other hand, teaches
  that all bishops are equal. To be sure, there are
  different ranks of bishops (patriarch,
  archbishop, metropolitan, bishop) nevertheless,
  a bishop is a bishop.
• Such differences apply to the administration of a
  church or group of churches, not to the nature of
  the bishop.
• The president of a synod of bishops is called
  archbishop (Greek custom) or metropolitan
  (Russian custom).

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The Catholic Church after Vatican II The Church

• According to Latin ecclesiology, each local
  parish is part of the universal or whole Church.
  The totalities of Catholic parishes form the body
  of Christ on earth. This visible body has a
  visible head, the Pope.
• This idea of the Church implies that the local
  parish has two heads the Pope and the local
  bishop. But a body with two visible heads is a
  monster.
• Also, the local bishop seems stripped of his
  apostolic authority if the Pope may contradict
  his orders.

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The Catholic Church after Vatican II The Holy
Canons

• A canon is a rule or guide for governing the
  Church.
• Canons were composed by the Apostles, the
  Fathers, the local or regional and general or
  ecumenical Councils.
• Only the bishop, as head of the church, applies
  them. He may use them strictly (akreveia) or
  leniently (economia). However, strictness is
  the norm.

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The Catholic Church after Vatican II The Holy
Canons

• The Catholic Church continues to change its
  canons, ignoring the old for the new.
• Not more than two decades ago, Rome revised its
  Canon Law. It composed new canons to keep up with
  the times.
• On the other hand, Orthodoxy, albeit adding
  canons from time to time and place to place,
  never discards the old ones, for they, too, are
  inspired by the Holy Spirit.
• In any case, human problems and spiritual needs
  do not really change. New canons are generally
  simple refinements of old canons.

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The Catholic Church after Vatican II The Nature
of Man

• Human nature was created good, even in communion
  with the blessed Trinity which made him. Male
  and female were created in the image and
  likeness of God (Gen 126)
• likeness in virtue image meaning to rule
  the earth rationally, to act wisely and freely.
• The woman was made as a helper to the man (Gen
  218 1 Cor 118-9). They were to live together
  in harmony and mutual respect.

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The Catholic Church after Vatican II The Nature
of Man

• Roman Catholicism differs with Orthodoxy on the
  nature of mans fall and the human condition.
• Following Augustine of Hippo, the Latins teach
  that Adam and Eve sinned against God. The guilt
  of their sin has been inherited by every man,
  woman and child after them.
• All humanity is liable for their original sin.

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The Catholic Church after Vatican II The Nature
of Man

• Following the Holy Fathers, the Orthodox Church
  holds that when Adam sinned against God, he
  introduced death to the world.
• Since all men are born of the same human stock as
  Adam, all men inherit death.
• Death means that the life of every human being
  comes to an end (mortality) but also that death
  generates in us the passions (anger, hate, lust,
  greed, etc.), disease and aging.

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The Catholic Church after Vatican II Marriage
Between Catholics and Non-Believers

• The Roman Catholic Church may perform the
  sacrament of matrimony between one of its members
  and a non-believer.
• The excuse they use is the permission St. Paul
  gave to a believer to stay with the unbelieving
  spouse (1 Cor 713).
• The Catholics went as far as performing the
  marriage on the Catholic member without the
  presence of the spouse if he/she does not want to
  enter the Church, or allow the priest to place
  the cross on his/her head!
• They claim that the unbelieving husband is
  sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife
  is sanctified by the husband (1 Cor 714).

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The Catholic Church after Vatican II Marriage
Between Catholics and Non-Believers

• The Orthodox Church does not accept this kind of
  marriage, affirming that St. Paul was talking
  about a married couple prior to accepting Jesus
  Christ.
• This is very clear from the same chapter of the
  first letter to the Corinthians A wife is bound
  by law as long as her husband lives but if her
  husband dies, she is at liberty to be married to
  whom she wishes, only in the Lord (1 Cor 739).
  
• In addition, the Scriptures teach us that man is
  the head of the woman who should obey him as the
  Church obeys Christ. So, how can this take place
  if the husband is an unbeliever?

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The Catholic Church after Vatican II Salvation
of Non-Believers

• Vatican II declared Finally, those who have not
  yet received the Gospel are related in various
  ways to the people of God But the plan of
  salvation also includes those who acknowledge the
  Creator. In the first place amongst these there
  are the Mohamedans, who, professing to hold the
  faith of Abraham,

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The Catholic Church after Vatican II Salvation
of Non-Believers

• The Catholics use St. Paul again to justify their
  new dogma for when Gentiles, who do not have
  the law, by nature do the things in the law,
  these, although not having the law, are a law to
  themselves (Rom 214).
• Actually, this verse proves exactly the opposite
  of what the Catholic Church has approved!

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The Catholic Church after Vatican II Salvation
of Non-Believers

• They use also a verse from St. Peter But in
  every nation whoever fears Him and works
  righteousness is accepted by Him (Acts 1035).
• It seems that they overlooked the fact that St.
  Peter said this at the house of Cornelius who was
  a Gentile and the people in his house had
  accepted the Lord and were baptized.
• The Scriptures are clear that those who were
  justified were justified by faith (Rom 43
  321,22 326 51 )

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The Catholic Church after Vatican II Salvation
of Non-Believers

• Catholics support their position by what St. Paul
  did in Athens when he said, Men of Athens, I
  perceive that in all things you are very
  religious for as I was passing through and
  considering the objects of your worship, I even
  found an altar with this inscription TO THE
  UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore, the One whom you worship
  without knowing, Him I proclaim to you (Acts
  1722-25).
• They overlooked the fact that St Pauls spirit
  was provoked within him when he saw that the city
  was given over to idols (Acts. 17 16).

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The Catholic Church after Vatican II Salvation
of Non-Believers

• Catholics also argue that not all people received
  the message of Jesus Christ overlooking the fact
  that it is Gods responsibility to call upon all
  those who diligently seek Him, and that He did
  not leave Himself without a witness (Acts 1417).

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The Catholic Church after Vatican II Salvation
of Non-Believers

• Not only have the Catholics used wrong
  interpretations of the Scriptures, they ignored
  the general message of the Scriptures regarding
  this issue. For example
• Jesus Christ said Most assuredly, I say to you,
  unless one is born again, he cannot see the
  kingdom of God (John 33). So, how may the
  unbelievers enter the Kingdom of God?
• John the Baptist said, He who believes in the
  Son has everlasting life and he who does not
  believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath
  of God abides on him (John 336).

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The Catholic Church after Vatican II Salvation
of Non-Believers

• St. Paul said to his disciple Timothy Remember
  that Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, was
  raised from the dead according to my gospel, for
  which I suffer trouble as an evildoer, even to
  the point of chains but the word of God is not
  chained. Therefore I endure all things for the
  sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the
  salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal
  glory (2 Tim 28-10).

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The Catholic Church after Vatican II Salvation
of Non-Believers

• St. Paul also said Rather, that the things
  which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to
  demons and not to God (1 Cor 1020).
• David the psalmist said, Let all be put to shame
  who serve carved images, who boast of idols (Psa
  977).

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The Catholic Church after Vatican II Salvation
of Non-Believers

• St. Paul says about the Jews who did not believe
  in the Lord Jesus Christ For you also suffered
  the same things from your own countrymen, just as
  they did from the Judeans, who killed both the
  Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and have
  persecuted us and they do not please God and are
  contrary to all men (I Thes 214-16).

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The Catholic Church after Vatican II Salvation
of Non-Believers

• The Scriptures teach us that unbelievers will go
  to Hell It is done! I am the Alpha and the
  Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give of
  the fountain of the water of life freely to him
  who thirsts. He who overcomes shall inherit all
  things, and I will be his God and he shall be My
  son. But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable,
  murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers,
  idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in
  the lake which burns with fire and brimstone,
  which is the second death (Rev 216-8).

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The Catholic Church after Vatican II Other
Differences

• There are other differences of lesser importance
  between Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism, such as
• The absence of almost all fasts from the Catholic
  Church.
• Although Catholics do baptize infants, the
  sacrament of confirmation is delayed until at
  least the age of 8.
• The above point leads to not serving communion to
  little children until they are confirmed.

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The Catholic Church after Vatican II Other
Differences

• Baptism is mostly by sprinkling the water on the
  head of the person and not necessarily by
  immersion.
• The use of unleavened bread instead of leavened
  bread for communion.
• It is the choice of the person to receive the
  Blood of Christ receiving only the Body is
  sufficient.
• Giving permission to the deacons and the nuns to
  serve communion at hospitals.

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The Catholic Church after Vatican II Other
Differences

• Not allowing divorce, even in cases of adultery.
• Not necessary for churches to face East at the
  time of prayer.
• A priest may serve more than one liturgy per day,
  on the same altar, and participate in the
  communion each time.
• Catholics may participate in the communion
  provided that they fast at least two hours from
  food and one half hour from drink.

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The Catholic Church after Vatican II Other
Differences

• Two other major differences between Catholics and
  Orthodox
• The Catholics allow any person (even a
  non-Christian) to perform baptisms
• They may administer communion to anyone, even
  unbelievers.