What does it mean for an Evangelical theologian to say that the next pope should be Catholic? Is this a joke? Actually, no.
As one involved in various church dialogues over the past thirty years, I have come to see the crucial role played by the Bishop of Rome in helping all Christians everywhere to work together for Christian unity. Far more than anything in the mainline Protestant world, the Second Vatican Council made possible the springtime of ecumenism among Christians today.
John Paul II invited Christians throughout the divided Church to advise him on how he could best carry out his office in faithfulness to Jesus’ prayer that his disciples “may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that You sent me” (John 17:21). Benedict XVI deepened this emphasis. To be truly Catholic, the next pope must continue to build on the work of his two predecessors.
The key difference dividing Catholics from other Christians—Orthodox and Protestants alike—is authority in the Church. Catholics believe that the next pope will be the 265th successor to St. Peter as the unique Vicar of Christ on earth. Evangelicals stress the continuity of apostolic teaching and fidelity to the sacred Scriptures. This is an important but in some ways an intramural discussion. Against relativism and secularism, all committed believers in every Christian tradition share a common quest for truth based on divine revelation.
Before he became pope, Benedict wrote that “our quarrelling ancestors were in reality much closer to each other when in all their disputes they still knew that they could only be servants of one truth which must be acknowledged as being as great and as pure as it has been intended for us by God.” The unity of the Church for which Jesus prayed will only be advanced by an ecumenism of conviction, not one of accommodation.
True catholicity does not consist of historical continuity, numerical quantity, and cultural variety alone. Ignatius of Antioch, an early martyr, gave us the first use of the word: “Where Jesus Christ is,” he wrote, “there is the Catholic Church.” As Christians come closer to Christ, they draw closer to one another. In selecting the next pope, theology and spirituality should count for more than geography and style.
Of the world’s population, 68.5 percent claim no Christian faith of any kind. Christian unity does not exist as an end in itself but in the service of evangelization. Today Christian witness is faced with many obstacles, including the denial of God and the loss of basic values of decency and respect for life.
Through the process of globalization this spiritual virus has spread throughout the world. It affects all Christians everywhere. Meanwhile, religious freedom is under assault both in the West and in the fast-growing global South. Not since the French Revolution has a new pontiff faced so many challenges: Church reform within and both indifference and hostility without.
The new pope will require the wisdom, courage, and humility of Christ himself for such a time as this. May God grant such a pope.
Timothy George is dean of Beeson Divinity School of Samford University and general editor of the Reformation Commentary on Scripture.
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Comments:
Imperfect unity - i.e. disunity - in its various configurations is found within the Catholic Church itself (acceptance by some and rejection by others of the moral teaching on contraception for example), and among the rest of the Christian world in its seeming limitless varieties of denominations.
We should not be discouraged by persistent disunity. Like sin, it is a consequence of the Fall, and will always be with us until Christ comes again to unify us. But, like virtue, unity is an ideal to which the pope, bishops and protestant leaders can point all of us no matter our religious affiliation.
For what it's worth, what Ignatius actually wrote was "Where the Bishop appears, there let the people be, just as where Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church." St. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Smyrneans 8, 107 A.D.
Really? This seems to imply a merely functional ecclesiology. If the church is Christ's body, then its unity is ontological (Jesus does not have multiple bodies) and exists as an end in itself.
frame of reference most valuable in thinking about Scripture, Tradition, and the Church.
I'll grant you, theology and spirituality is the basis of effective leadership in the church (no less in the papacy, as I think history demonstrates). But that is because the current major schisms that persist are based more on theology and spirituality than on ecclesiology. It simply means different things to "be a Christian" among Protestants, Roman Catholics, and Orthodox, and this is expressed in - but not limited to - three rival ecclesiologies. The test of truth is going to be which one survives the modern age, and on that note I'd say the next pope should simply be a Christian.
As for ecumenism, I side with Christos Giannaras: it begins with repentance for our sins against unity. "Conviction" is a subjective vacuum, and accommodation is vapid indeed, but repentance is love incarnate, and that is the stuff unity is made of. This is the new commandment, by which the world will know who are the Lord's disciples.
That being said, like all forms of sin it does harm the Church, those who disobey, and those who are scandalized. However, that's not quite the same as declaring oneself in communion with a competing, equally valid (or improved) and separate congregation.
A candidate for believers baptism was troubled by the occurance of catholic in the creed he recites at the end of the day. Universal I said! The unity of which is both gift to be cherished and goal to be attained. Ephesians 4:3,13
Amen. Though it would be better to say it's both an end and a means.
We are so inured to the divisions within Christianity (and some even celebrate them) that we fail to recognize how these divisions cripple our truth claims when speaking with the other 68.5% in the world. Let us not be complacent about Christian unity, but work hard so "Ut Unum Sint"--that they may be one--in the words of Bl John Paul II's encyclical, which this post echoes so well.