The first principle of the Ordinariate is then about Christian unity. St. Basil the Great, the Church’s greatest ecumenist, literally expended his life on the work of building bridges between orthodox brethren who shared a common faith, but who had become separated from one another in a Church badly fragmented by heresy and controversy. He taught that the work of Christian unity requires deliberate and ceaseless effort...St. Basil often talked with yearning about the archaia agape, the ancient love of the apostolic community, so rarely seen in the Church of his day. This love, he taught, is a visible sign that the Holy Spirit is indeed present and active, and it is absolutely essential for the health of the Church.

- Msgr. Jeffrey Steenson, Homily on the Occasion of his Formal Institution as Ordinary

Monday, December 21, 2009

Outside the Truth No Union Can Ever Be Attained

Dec 21st
by Christian Campbell

Yesterday was the sixtieth anniversary of the publication of the Instruction On the “Ecumenical Movement” by the Holy Office (as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was formally known). Addressed to Catholic ordinaries of places, the Instruction laid out the principles by which the Catholic Church should approach the matter of ecumenism. Within a few short years of the publication this Instruction, these sound principles would largely be abandoned, giving way to the empty “ecumenism” of the progressives with its scandalous interfaith gatherings, ambiguous joint statements, and interminable ‘dialogue’.

In stark contrast to the false ecumenism born of the ’spirit of Vatican II’, through his Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus, the Holy Father seeks to attain the proper end of the only genuine ecumenism: the reconciliation of separated brethren with the Church on the basis of Catholic Truth...

Read the rest at The Anglo-Catholic.

No comments:

Post a Comment