In digging into it, I found a link to Aquinas’ “Whether Determinate Things Are Required For a Sacrament“[1] and I was reminded why I love Aquinas so much. He can pack SO much truth into just one sentence, it’s insane. The question he’s dealing with is basically ‘since Sacraments are spiritual in nature, they don’t need any physical thing at all (no stole, no wafer, no oil, etc)’. Aquinas answers (in short) that we as humans don’t have the power to sanctify anything. That is totally God’s. So God alone can determine what, if any, physical items are required for sanctification through the sacraments.

But buried in there, is this sentence: “Since, therefore, the sanctification of man is in the power of God Who sanctifies, it is not for man to decide what things should be used for his sanctification, but this should be determined by Divine institution.” That’s beautiful.

I may be dedicated enough to start reading the Summa again through this. Unfortunately, getting a printed copy of it is prohibitively expensive. I should have just had it printed while I was at GaTech… I’m pretty sure I had a soft copy at the time…

[1] Note for those new to the Summa Theologica: Each article is put together in this order: First is a question which Aquinas seeks to answer. Then there are some (usually 3) objections, which are usually very well argued, but subtly wrong thoughts on the matter at hand. Then there is ‘On the Contrary’ which is a basic statement of the true answer (according to Aquinas), and then answers to each of the objections.

In this series of posts, I’ll attempt to answer some of these questions. These will also be posted in the comment box over at imonk.

The first question:

1) Do Roman Catholics consider Protestant ministers like myself valid ministers? More particularly, if a good friend becomes Roman Catholic, are they now confessionally required to believe that I was never called of God to be a minister?

I might be able to shed some light on some of these (ok, this is getting a lot longer than I thought. This post will tackle the first question. I’ll attempt to get to the rest later):

I believe this hinges on what you mean by ‘valid ministers’. The Catholic concept of Holy Orders brings with it several other things of note. The first would be the ability to be ministers of the sacraments, and the second would be the three ‘levels’ of holy orders (diaconate, priesthood, and bishopric).

Each ‘level’ can do different things. The Diaconate’s main job is ‘proclaiming of the word’. That is bringing the scriptures to the people by reading and preaching. They also may be ministers of the sacrament of marriage and baptism. Priests can do all the above, plus Reconciliation, Holy Communion, and Anointing of the Sick. Bishops may do all of the above, and in addition may confirm[1] and may be the minister of Holy Orders.

So, knowing all of this, we come back to the initial question: would a Protestant minister be a ‘valid minister’.

If by ‘valid minister’ you mean ‘partaking in the graces of Holy Orders’, then I believe the answer would have to be an emphatic ‘no’[2]. If by ‘valid minister’ you mean ‘Someone who preaches the word, and attempts to bring his/her fellow people to holiness’, then I believe the answer would be somewhere between ‘it depends’, and ‘yes’.

The Catholic Church has a long tradition of people being preachers who are outside the sacrament of Holy Orders. Should you ever run into a ‘brother’ or ‘friar’[3], you’re most likely not talking to someone who has Holy Orders, but someone who is trying to live a life of holiness, and bringing others to that life.

Should a Protestant minister convert to Catholicism, and show sufficient knowledge and fidelity to the teachings of Catholicism, it wouldn’t surprise me if they could be brought quickly into the Diaconate. Note: This would be a pastoral decision made by the local bishop, rather than a specific procedure/ruling from Rome. It would depend on many other factors as well.

So, the brief answer to the question is that a Protestant minister could be akin to a minister without Holy Orders within the Catholic Church.

[1] Priests may confirm when given direct permission from the Bishop for that instance of Confirmation.
[2] For the record, I’m leaving aside the more tangled questions of ministers from the Eastern Orthodox, Anglican/Episcopalian, and (some?) Lutheran traditions.
[3] Though ‘friar’ may be a more generic term for someone in a religious order, regardless of their ‘level’ in Holy Orders or lack there of.

(hat tip to Jimmy Akin who linked to this article on how Ratzinger has developed from an active participant in Vatican II through his life, and now as Pope Benedict XVI).

Marian Maximalism is a great Marian devotion, which contends that since Mary is the most perfect of all of creation, and as the ‘masterpiece of God’, any praise and adoration given to her reflects off, and is actually praise of her Creator. For people who adhere to this theory, no devotion can be too great.

Marian Minimalism also grants all the historical titles that Mary as been acclaimed by through the centuries. However, it is uncomfortable with the extremes of devotion that some in the Marian Maximalism camp partake in.

This debate has been raging in my heart for years. By nature, I am inclined more towards the minimalist side of the debate, but I can understand the argument that Marian Maximalism puts forward.

What brought this debate up recently is a discussion I was having with someone from Latin America. She was telling me that in the culture that she had experienced, “The Virgin was everything.” That they barely even think of Jesus and the Father, and the Spirit at all.

This bothers me greatly.

Jesus, and His sacrifice was the focal point of history. (the Maximalist responds that ‘No Mary = No Jesus’, and follows up with Mary sharing in Cavalry, and pointing to the ‘sword that will pierce your heart’.)

The thought that I came up with at lunch today was a little twist on the first argument that the maximalists reach for… What mother wants praise, when her Son is more worthy of it?

More to come, but these were just some thoughts tumbling through my head.

Why should we follow this?

On the surface, all religion concerns itself with the finding of ultimate truth. By the very nature of truth, anything that is not ‘truth’ is by definition ‘false’; so anyone who feels that their religion is the full truth must also feel that anything opposed to their religion is false. How people and cultures deal with that which is felt to be false /errant /heretical /etc drives a suprising amount of our history.

This brings me to Pope Benedict XVI’s (B16, or the German Shepard are good nicknames) Christmas address, which can be found here. In there (well, the section that I’m referencing… it’s a longish talk), he discusses the mandate of Vatican II, which was to take the truth that the Church has had for all time, and presenting them in a way that is accessable to the modern era.

Basic decisions, therefore, continue to be well-grounded, whereas the way they are applied to new contexts can change. Thus, for example, if religious freedom were to be considered an expression of the human inability to discover the truth and thus become a canonization of relativism, then this social and historical necessity is raised inappropriately to the metaphysical level and thus stripped of its true meaning. Consequently, it cannot be accepted by those who believe that the human person is capable of knowing the truth about God and, on the basis of the inner dignity of the truth, is bound to this knowledge.It is quite different, on the other hand, to perceive religious freedom as a need that derives from human coexistence, or indeed, as an intrinsic consequence of the truth that cannot be externally imposed but that the person must adopt only through the process of conviction.

I was intriqued by this thought. We allow religious freedom from a Catholic perspective because in the long run, the Church is enriched by the dialog offered by adherents of other religions. But how much has society been duped into implicitly believing what B16 offered as a FALSE example of why we allow religious freedom? How many believe that we CAN’T find any truth, and therefore, all pursuits are in vain?

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