Protestants Need the Pope!

The following comes from The Jagged Word:

We do. We really, really do. We Protestants need the papacy. We need it for our theology. We need it for our politics. We need it more than we want to admit.

And this is a good thing. (Yeah, I said it Rev. Hess, the papacy is a good thing!) For those Lutherans and other Protestants who think Pope Francis, Pope Benedict XVI, and Saints John Paul II and John XXIII are the antichrist, you should probably stop reading this post right now, because I am a Lutheran pastor who is utterly captivated by the papacy.

Let’s take Saint John Paul II. Part of me gives credit to one of our nation’s great presidents, Ronald Reagan, for the fall of the Soviet Empire. I also give credit to Lady Thatcher of Great Britain and to the inherent failure of the communist system to sustain itself. But any student of theology, history, and politics, must give enormous credit to John Paul II in bringing down this evil regime. John Paul’s role in Poland’s solidarity movement offers a textbook case in how the Church ought to involve herself with politics. It is the Gospel that changes people’s hearts. Only the freedom of the Risen Christ offers people true hope when confronted with the perils of this world. John Paul the Great preached this and his message was instrumental in freeing millions throughout the world.

This same approach to politics is what draws many to Pope Francis. His way of dealing with and speaking to people is certainly different than his most of his predecessors, but the message remains the same. Francis’ language reminds me a lot of my own church’s bishop, Rev. Matthew Harrison. They both speak a lot about mercy – Christ’s mercy – and how this mercy is the foundation of the Christian faith. And both of these shepherds engage people in every station of their life, regardless of their situation or past transgressions. To the best of their sinful ability, they both model the love of Christ to others – with believers and unbelievers alike increasingly drawn to their message.

Then there is my favorite pope, Benedict XVI.

A Bavarian who understands Lutheranism more than any of those who preceded him as Bishop of Rome, I am absolutely convinced that history will regard this man as one of the foremost intellectual giants of Christendom.

I would put him on par with Thomas Aquinas. He’s that good. Probably better. His writings cover a great deal and never disappoint. I think he is most solid on the Liturgy. But we Protestants should also love him for his insight into the greatest evil today’s world knows, “The Dictatorship of Relativism”. Benedict understands how deceptively threatening relativism is to our world and challenges us all to confront it head on, with the Law of God to be sure, but even more with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Read the rest here.

Catholic Apologetics: The Papacy

The Papacy - Was St. Peter the first "pope" as the Catholic Church claims?  Yes, for Jesus Christ said it was upon St. Peter that He would build His Church and Christ gave him authority over His whole "flock" (Matthew 16:18-19; John 21:14-17).

Archbishop Fulton Sheen on Peter, the Vicar of Christ

Scott Hahn explains Papal Infallibility

Fr. Robert Barron on the Golden Age of the Papacy

The following comes from Zenit:

On Divine Mercy Sunday, in the presence of Pope Francis, his living predecessor Benedict XVI, and hundreds of thousands of pilgrims from around the world, the Church celebrated the canonization of Saint John XXIII and Saint John Paul II.

In the weeks leading up to Sunday's event, the faithful were invited to recall the examples of holiness demonstrated by these 20th century leaders of the Church, as well as their significant historical legacies.

Fr. Robert Barron is the rector of the Chicago Archdiocese's Mundelein Seminary, and the founder of the online initiative Word On Fire Catholic Ministries. While he was in Rome for the canonizations, he sat down with ZENIT to speak about these two newly-declared saints.

ZENIT: What can we learn from John XXIII and John Paul II about sainthood? Obviously, they had extraordinary lives insofar that they were both popes. At the same time, not all popes are saints…

Fr. Barron: …and not all saints are popes. To be a saint is to be a person of heroic virtue. These are world historical figures, but if that was the qualification for sainthood, then the Little Flower [St. Therese] wouldn’t be a saint, for example.

That’s a good point of meditation. What makes them saints is that they are people of heroic virtue. You’re looking at the cardinal virtues of justice, and prudence, and temperance and courage. The theological virtues of faith, hope, and love. The Church says these men exemplify those virtues in a heroic way.

A couple of examples: think of John XXIII saving upwards of, they think, 24,000 or 25,000 Jews during the Nazi period, all at great risk to himself. Justice and courage are both on pretty strong display there.

[Look at] John Paul’s commitment to justice: he’s one of the great spokespersons of the 20th century. He displayed extraordinary courage: as a young kid dealing with the Nazi occupation, as a young priest, dealing with the communists, going to Poland as Pope and speaking truth in the midst of this oppression.

Read the rest here.

Habemus Papam: White Smoke

Priorities for New Pope: The New Evangelization

What do Cardinals look for in the next Pope?

George Weigel on the Sede Vacante

The following comes from George Weigel at NRO:

Rome, March 1 — The elderly Carmelite who concelebrated the 9 a.m. Mass at the Church of S. Maria in Traspontina this morning was doing fine until he got to that part of the second Eucharistic Prayer where the commemoration of the pope is made. Then he paused, verbally thrashed a bit, and finally said “tutti i nostri vescovi [all our bishops]” before moving on.

It was a reminder that the Sede Vacante, the period when the Chair of Peter is empty, strikes home with particular force in Rome — and not just because it creates a bonanza for stamp and coin collectors, who scramble to obtain Vatican postage and Vatican coins with that rare “Sede Vacante” mark on them. Everywhere else in the wide world of Catholicism, the Church prays, every day, “for . . . our pope and . . . our bishop” at the Eucharist, its central act of worship. But here in the Urbs, the city blessed by the blood of the two great apostles (as a slogan emblazoned on a tower of the North American College proclaims), there is no “our bishop.” The pope is the bishop of Rome. And when he dies, or renounces the Chair (as Pope Benedict XVI did at 8 p.m. Rome time last night), the Church of Rome is singularly bereft. Kinshasa and Cracow and Ho Chi Minh City and Lincoln, Neb., still have their local bishops; Rome is uniquely orphaned. For the Universal Pastor of the Church is its local bishop, and when the Chair is empty, Rome is empty. And you can feel it.

That same swirl of emotions was evident in Rome on February 22, the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter in the liturgical calendar. How does one celebrate that feast eleven days after the successor of Peter has announced that, in conscience and after long prayer, he is going to renounce the Chair? How, under these circumstances, were preachers to interpret the Bible readings at Mass that day: from Peter himself, instructing the elders of the Church in what amounts to the first papal encyclical, to shepherd the flock of God, and from the Matthean account of Christ’s giving the power of the keys to Peter after his confession of faith?

There is not the slightest doubt that Pope Benedict XVI had the right to renounce the Chair, which is clear in canon law. There should not be the slightest doubt that he did so for the reason he gave on February 11: that, after long prayer and a deep examination of conscience, he had reached the conclusion that, as he could not give the Church the service it deserved because of what he described as his waning physical and mental capacities, he should renounce the Chair and retire to a private life of prayer in intercession for the entire Church. Reckless Italian media speculations that Benedict abdicated under pressure from others, or that he just couldn’t take it anymore, should be treated with the contempt they deserve. If the world ought to have learned anything about Joseph Ratzinger in the past eight years, it is that he is a man of conviction and conscience. And his conscientious decision ought to be honored as just that: a conscientious decision that was an act of self-abnegation, not of willfulness or self-assertion or, conversely, cowardice.

Nonetheless, by doing what has never been done before — none of the analogies to previous renunciations of the papacy really work, as they all involved various pressures and craziness — the pope who embodied the solidity and endurance of Catholic tradition for tens of millions has shaken the Church as it has not been shaken in a long time: perhaps since May 13, 1981, when John Paul II was shot in his front yard, St. Peter’s Square. Roman theologians and scholars whom I respect believe that something has been broken in the existential relationship that many Catholics have long had with the papacy. I think that’s a premature judgment; but it may be prove to be prophetic. Much will depend on Benedict’s successor and the decisions he makes about both his predecessor and his own longevity.

Benedict XVI’s

 advisers have not made that successor’s already-daunting task any easier by convincing the outgoing pope that he should be known as “Benedict XVI, pope emeritus”or “Roman pontiff emeritus” and that he will continue to wear the white cassock, albeit without the mozzetta, that white half-cape. So to underscore the obvious that has been made a bit obscure by what seem to me ill-advised decisions, it must be stated, on this first day of the Sede Vacante, that there is no bishop of Rome, no Roman pontiff, no pope: today, and until the College of Cardinals elects the next holder of that office. And then there will not be “two popes.” There is only one pope, one bishop of Rome, one Roman pontiff, one holder of the power of the keys, one source of authority in the Church. Period.

Read the rest here.

Fr. Robert Barron on Papal Infallibility

The History of the First Popes