Lutheran, Baptist, Catholic...What's the Difference?

 CNA Staff, Feb 26, 2021 / 04:00 am MT (CNA).- The president of the German Catholic bishops’ conference said on Thursday that he would continue to give Holy Communion to Protestants who ask for it.

Bishop Georg Bätzing told journalists at a press conference on Feb. 25 that it was necessary to respect the “personal decision of conscience” of those seeking to receive Communion.

Bishop Batzing

CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner, reported that Bätzing was responding to a question about a controversial proposal for a “Eucharistic meal fellowship” between Catholics and Protestants.

The proposal was made by the Ecumenical Study Group of Protestant and Catholic Theologians (known by its German initials, ÖAK) in a 2019 document entitled “Together at the Lord’s Table.”

OAK arrives for another meeting

The ÖAK adopted the text under the co-chairmanship of Bätzing and the retired Lutheran Bishop Martin Hein. 

Asked how he would respond if a Protestant came to him seeking the Eucharist, he told reporters: “I have no problems with it and I see myself in line with papal documents.”

The 59-year-old bishop added that this was already a “practice” in Germany “every Sunday” and that priests in his Diocese of Limburg would not face negative consequences if a case were reported to him.

He underlined that one should not “simply invite everyone.” But while a general invitation to receive the Eucharist was not permitted, he said it was important to show “respect for the personal decision of conscience of the individual” seeking Communion.

“I do not deny Holy Communion to a Protestant if he asks for it,” he said.

The ÖAK was established in 1946 to strengthen ecumenical ties. It is independent of both the German Catholic bishops’ conference and the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), an organization representing 20 Protestant groups. But the ÖAK informs both bodies about its deliberations.

The ÖAK document raised concerns at the Vatican, prompting an intervention by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) in September 2020.

In a four-page critique and letter to Bätzing, the doctrinal congregation emphasized that significant differences in understanding of the Eucharist and ministry remained between Protestants and Catholics.

“The doctrinal differences are still so important that they currently rule out reciprocal participation in the Lord’s Supper and the Eucharist,” it said.

“The document cannot therefore serve as a guide for an individual decision of conscience about approaching the Eucharist.” 

Devoted Catholic Joe Biden's SHHS Nominee

 Washington D.C., Feb 24, 2021 / 03:28 pm MT (CNA).- President Joe Biden’s nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services declined at a hearing Wednesday to state if he would support any theoretical type of restriction on abortion. 

Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) questioned California’s Attorney General Xavier Becerra during his confirmation hearing with the Senate Committee on Finance. Daines said he had “serious concerns” with Becerra’s “radical views” on abortion, and noted that many Montanans, as well as national pro-life groups, had voiced their opposition to their nomination.

In an effort to give Becerra a chance to “push back” against this view, Daines asked him if he could “name one abortion restriction that you might support.” 

“I have tried to make sure that I am abiding by the law, because whether it’s a particular restriction, or whether it’s the whole idea of abortion, whether we agree or not, we have to come to some conclusion,” said Becerra.

Washington D.C., Feb 24, 2021 / 02:24 pm MT (CNA).- On Wednesday, President Biden’s health secretary nominee explained his support of coercive contraceptive and abortion coverage mandates against Catholic nuns, claiming he had never “sued any nuns.”

“I have never sued any nuns. I have taken on the federal government, but I have never sued any affiliation of nuns,” said Xavier Becerra—currently California’s attorney general—before members of the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday, at his confirmation hearing to be the next health secretary.

While Becerra has not directly filed lawsuits against Catholic nuns in his time as California attorney general, two different orders of Catholic nuns have claimed religious freedom violations by government mandates that he supported in his official capacity.

In 2017, Becerra sued the Trump administration over its religious and moral exemptions granted to groups affected by the HHS contraceptive mandate. These objecting groups included the Little Sisters of the Poor, who fought the mandate for years in court.

Joe Biden is a "Devote Catholic". And I am the Queen of Romania

 President Biden signed an executive order Thursday afternoon reversing the Mexico City policy, permitting U.S. aid money once again to fund groups that provide or promote abortion around the globe.

The policy was first put in place by President Ronald Reagan in an effort to ensure that taxpayers were not required to indirectly fund abortion procedures performed in other countries. The policy has been undone via executive order by every subsequent Democratic administration and reinstated by each Republican one.

The Trump administration expanded the policy to include not only family planning funds distributed by the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development but also all foreign-health assistance provided by government agencies, including the Office of the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator, and the Defense Department. That expanded policy, “Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance,” increased the amount of U.S. funding covered by the abortion prohibition from about $600 million to nearly $9 billion.

Abortion advocates and interest groups in the U.S. oppose the Mexico City policy; Planned Parenthood, for instance, has labeled it a “global gag rule.” During the presidential primary, the Biden campaign promised that his administration would undo the policy and permit U.S. aid money to fund abortions. 

Noted Theologian Joe Biden

But according to public-opinion polls, most Americans don’t want the U.S. to fund abortions in other countries. A new poll out yesterday from Marist and the Knights of Columbus found that more than three-quarters of Americans oppose using U.S. aid money to fund abortions overseas. The same survey shows that voters in Biden’s own party disagree with him on this issue: A slight majority of Democrats said they do not want the U.S. funding global abortions, and nearly two-thirds of self-described pro-choice Americans agreed. Eighty-five percent of independent voters, meanwhile, said they oppose U.S. funding of overseas abortions.

“These pro-abortion executive orders from President Biden shock the conscience,” Senator Ben Sasse (R., Neb.) said in a statement shortly after Biden signed today’s executive orders. “Our government shouldn’t be funding abortions at home, let alone overseas. Unity is important at times like these, but waging a culture war is only going to deepen divides and hurt innocent victims. Human dignity matters — President Biden should rethink this move.”

Senator Steve Daines (R., Mont.), who founded and chairs the Senate Pro-Life Caucus, said in a statement that Biden’s pro-abortion orders show “a complete lack of respect for the sanctity of human life.”

“These actions will enrich Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry at the taxpayers’ expense, while endangering the most vulnerable,” Daines added. “The United States should not be promoting a radical abortion agenda throughout the world, we should be leading the fight to protect the unborn and all life.”

House minority leader Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) also criticized Biden’s move. “Killing unborn children isn’t health care, and violating the rights of conscience of millions of Americans by using taxpayer money to help promote abortions isn’t freedom of choice,” McCarthy said in part of his statement. “The Biden Administration’s so-called ‘unity’ agenda continues to fail the American people. These one-sided orders are another move by the current administration to appease the liberal activists and neglect the most basic moral and fundamental principles of our nation’s founding.”

I KNEW IT!

 

U.S.—The CDC is suggesting lots of weird ways to avoid contracting coronavirus, such as "washing your hands" and "not licking doorknobs." These methods sound kind of sciencey, so we were immediately suspicious of them.

Sure enough, it seems the best way to avoid getting infected is supernatural: many have found that if you paint Chick-fil-A sauce on your doorposts, the virus will pass right over you and your household.

Research seems to indicate that the Angel of Coronavirus passes through each town and city every night and looks for the telltale sign that you are one of God's elect, Chick-fil-A sauce. Those with the correct sign of being one of God's people are passed over, while those without the sign are visited and immediately infected.

"We have no explanation," said one so-called "scientist." "This must be some kind of miracle from God." The scientist said that they tried other substances, such as liberal tears, hand sanitizer, and essential oils, but only Chick-fil-A sauce proved 100% effective at staving off the Angel of Coronavirus.

Islamic Outreach, Part CXVIII

 From an earlier post on this blog:

Pope Francis spoke to the diplomatic corps and amongst other things, said, "Hence it is important to intensify dialogue among the various religions, and I am thinking particularly of dialogue with Islam."

MEANWHILE...

Bogotá, Colombia, Feb 8, 2021 / 08:54 pm MT (CNA).- The president of the Department of Missions at the Colombian Bishops’ Conference marked the fourth anniversary of the kidnapping of Sister Gloria Cecilia Narváez by requesting continued prayers for her.

 Bishop Francisco Múnera recalled that February 7 marked the fourth anniversary of the nun’s kidnapping in Mali. Authorities have determined that the kidnapping was carried out by the Support Front for Islam and Muslims (SGIM), a Mali-based branch of Al Qaeda.

“The Church continues to pray for her health and her release,” said Munera, who is the bishop of San Vicente del Caguán.

Sister Noemí Quesada, former Superior General of the Congregation of the Franciscan Sisters of Mary Immaculate, to which Sister Gloria Cecilia belongs, noted that efforts to free her have been unsuccessful.

 

Noted Theologians

I guess noted Theologians Nancy Pelosi and Dick Durbin (CINOs) voted "NO". 

Washington D.C., Feb 5, 2021 / 08:05 am MT (CNA).- On Thursday evening, the Senate rejected a measure requiring care for babies who survive abortion attempts.

As part of consideration of a budget resolution on Thursday, Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) tried to insert an amendment based on his Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. The legislation requires that babies born alive during botched abortions receive the same standard of care that other newborns of the same gestational age would.

Sasse’s amendment failed to receive the necessary 60 votes to be included in the budget resolution, receiving only 52 votes in favor and 48 votes against.

Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Bob Casey (D-Penn.) were the only two Democrats who joined Senate Republicans in supporting Sasse’s amendment.

Oh, Brother

 

Joe Biden, Practicing Catholic

 

The Catholic Thing

 The American bishops drew a crucial distinction in a statement on President Biden’s Inauguration Day between things on which they can cooperate and “dialogue” with the new administration and those on which they cannot. Those distinctions were absolutely necessary to avoid the impression – amounting to grave scandal – that they had no problem with a self-proclaimed “Catholic” taking steps to further abortion, homosexuality, or transgenderism, all of which have been criticized by Pope Francis as a kind of “ideological colonization” in the developing world, but also in developed nations.

So far, however, almost no one has paid attention to potential dangers in the other half of the bishops’ Inauguration Day statement, those issues on which the Biden administration is supposedly “good” – immigration, environment, racism, etc. – as if other approaches to dealing with these matters than the usual progressive pieties are “bad.”

The bishops need to pay careful attention to what they and the administration mean – and even the wisdom of entering into various controversies – when they “dialogue” about social problems in this highly polarized period. For example, they just commended Biden for promoting “racial equity” in housing and prisons.  Equity sounds like good-old American equality. But in the current lexicon of Critical Race Theory and Critical Legal Theory, “equity” means something far different, and far closer to the ideological extremism of Black Lives Matter than Liberty and Justice for All.

In fact, racial “equity” is in multiple ways the antithesis of “equality.” That the bishops do not seem to be aware of this shift in meaning – or may even have advisers who are deliberately advancing this novel notion of justice, which President Biden was already pushing in his Inaugural Address – bodes ill for how they are going to enter into truthful “dialogue.”

To put this in a somewhat simplified form, according to “racial equity” wherever a group – defined by “race” – is “over-represented” or “underrepresented” in some sector, it must mean that there’s some concealed injustice because equality of opportunity has not produced “equity” in outcomes.

The slightest reflection, however, shows that this is a crude way to evaluate the complexities present in a whole society.

To take a relatively neutral example, 70 percent of the players in the Superbowl last night (and the NFL generally) are black, even though black people make up only 13 percent of the population. (Should Colin Kaepernick apologize to the NFL, since football is one of the most “progressive” sports?)

When Salvation is a Phone Call Away

 It is not likely that anyone will have heard of Heywood Broun, but he was a once very well known, well-connected newspaper columnist. His take on the world was fairly cynical, especially on the subject of organized religion, which he held in some contempt. But everyone will have heard of Fulton Sheen, the world’s first and most famous televangelist, whose TV ratings nearly equaled those of Milton Berle and Frank Sinatra. “If I’m going to be eased off the top by anyone,” said Berle, “it’s better that I lose to the One for whom Bishop Sheen is speaking.” 

In addition to dozens of books, retreats and, of course, countless TV shows, Sheen had a reputation as a convert maker, among whose conquests included high-profile people such as playwright Clare Booth Luce, industrialist Henry Ford II, and violinist and composer Fritz Kreisler. But perhaps the hardest nut to crack was Heywood Broun, in whom one would be hard pressed to find anything remotely religious. One day, Sheen simply called him up and said he wanted to meet with him. “About what?” demanded Broun, in his usual gruff manner. “Your soul,” Sheen replied.

A meeting was arranged and, strange to say, within minutes Broun had unburdened his entire life, revealing the deepest, darkest secret of all: “I do not want to die in my sins.” What lent a special urgency to the matter, of course, was the fact that he did not have long to live. So, cutting right to the chase and after a session or two, Sheen received him into the Catholic Church—the only “the” Church, as Lenny Bruce, another cynic, would put it years later. Within a few months Broun was dead, and it fell to Father Sheen to preach his Requiem, which took place at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in December of 1939. Exactly 40 years to the month, by the way, before Sheen would himself would face the same summons.

In thinking about Broun’s conversion, it is important that we not lose sight of the fact that Sheen himself felt a great urgency to reach out—to try and win this man’s soul for God. His mission, of course, came directly from Christ, to whom he had given his whole life and priestly service. “If Jesus Christ thirsted for souls,” he asked, “must not a Christian also thirst? If he came to cast fire on the earth, must not a Christian be enkindled?”

The finale:

Is it too much to ask, therefore, that maybe one or two of them might begin with Joe Biden? Besides being their president, he happens also to be their brother in Christ, who stands in peril of losing his soul for his refusal—both obdurate and longstanding—to protect innocent, unborn human life. Does Joe Biden not have a phone number that they might use to call him up? Who knows, perhaps catch him on the fly next time he shows up for Mass?

“Mr. President? I need to talk to you. It’s about your soul.”

Is that going to happen anytime soon, do you think? The answer is no—which should tell you everything you need to know about the state of the Church in this country; about the level of prophetic leadership in the episcopate.

What would it cost for, say, the Cardinal-Archbishop of Washington, D.C. to make that call? To schedule a meeting in which he, the chief Shepherd—they live in the same neighborhood after all—were to sit down with a member of his flock who has gone astray and try and bring him back to a right relationship with Almighty God? An hour of his day maybe, in order to (as they like to say in social justice circles) speak truth to power? And not just to save his soul, which is irreducibly precious, but to put an end to a scandal that grows graver by the day.