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Pope Benedict has thrown a significant spanner
in the ecumenical works by his reassertion that the Roman
Catholic Church is “the only true Church” but true
Protestants will not lose a minute’s sleep over this
claim.
In fact Benedict has performed a useful service to the Reformed
Churches by his description of churches other than the Roman
Catholic variety as being “either defective or not true
churches.”
That’s because it explodes the cherished argument of
ecumenists in the Protestant denominations who have been claiming
for years that Rome has accepted Protestants as fellow-Christians,
with only a thin dividing line between them.
In fact, Protestants, including Orangemen, who are proud
to be of the Reformed faith, and are not ashamed to use the
word Protestant have never changed their belief that Rome
has not altered its ‘true faith’ stance.
Protestants worthy of the name have known that Rome’s
view of Christian Unity is “a return” by what it
calls ‘separated brethren’ to the one true fold.
It does not recognise the Anglican Church, for example,
as being an equal, and this was underlined by the uproar a
few years ago when Irish President Mary McAleese, was reported
as receiving communion in the Protestant St Patrick’s
Cathedral in Dublin.
Of course relationships have improved considerably in the
past few decades, at official as well as personal level, between
Protestants and Roman Catholics. They now talk to one another
in civilised fashion at top level – the recent meeting
of Orange leaders and Archbishop Brady and other Roman Catholic
clergy proved the point.
Relationships between Protestants and Roman Catholics have
remained cordial and indeed friendly in many parts of Northern
Ireland, in spite of the Troubles, and this is to be welcomed.
But it is foolish of those who want to see Protestantism
surrender its identity in order to facilitate a single Christian
Church, to imagine that ecumenism can influence Rome in watering
down its dogma and its assertion that it is the true voice
of Christianity.
Protestant churches have varied in their response to Pope
Benedict’s declaration. Some have remained predictably
quiet, no doubt deeply embarrassed by the Pope’s declaration.
But the Lutheran Church, traditionally a champion of Protestantism,
has not hesitated to speak out, denouncing the Pope’s
hard-line attitude.
And the World Alliance of Reformed Churches has said “It
makes us question the seriousness with which the Roman Catholic
Church takes its dialogues with the Reformed family, and other
families of the church.”
The lesson for all Protestants should be that Rome never
changes, and it would benefit all the Reformed Churches if
they were to strive to get the Christian message across without
being unduly concerned with achieving a form of ‘Christian
unity’ – a unity which would be only a sham, and
certainly not in the interests of the Churches of the Reformation.
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