THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND ECUMENISM

Ecumenism is about fostering greater religious agreement, ethical agreement and, to a little extent, community relations between different religions. It tends to be more about bringing religious systems into bigger unity than about uniting the people that comprise the different faiths.　

The Roman Catholic Church entered the ecumenical movement at Vatican II in the 1960’s for the first time. Against the accusation that ecumenism involves the Catholic Church treating other religions as good as itself, it is said that prayer in common is not the same thing as worship in common. Worship in common is forbidden by the Church.

The Church from the beginning was anti-ecumenism shows that Vatican II was altering Catholic teaching and this is heresy for the constant traditions of the Church from its beginning are infallible for the Church cannot be taught error by the Holy Spirit. To teach that one religion is as good as another is the most serious heresy possible and makes you an apostate, one who has abandoned Christian faith entirely. Christian acts and beliefs are replaced with preferences and feelings so that the apostate looks like a Christian. This is the heresy of Modernism condemned by Pope St Pius X who warned that Modernists sound like Catholics and call themselves Catholics but indeed are not.

Leo XIII taught that Anglican orders were invalid for they didn’t intend to ordain priests that could offer the sacrifice of the Mass. The disbelief in dogma or the voice of God implied by Vatican II is a far more serious departure from the faith meaning that Vatican II ordinations and sacraments can’t be valid. That the Church didn’t break in two - though there was a small schism in 1988 - at Vatican II over the new heresies being officially being taught by the Church certainly makes one wonder if there is any sincerity at all in the clergy of this religion.

Protestants ceased to be classified as heretics at Vatican II. They are now separated brethren. This is rubbish for the word heretic means choice, choosing to go your own way and not Christ’s and Protestantism teaches private interpretation of the Bible allowing each one to think and interpret scripture as he pleases. The short Second Epistle of John (supposedly the apostle John) to the elect lady and her children says that if anybody comes to the Christian without agreeing with all the doctrine taught by Christ, he isn’t to be allowed into their house or greeted and he who greets him shares his wicked work. It doesn’t say that such persons are deliberate deceivers or anything. It would be clear on that if it did refer to such. But it says that such people are dangerous because they can mislead. This was written to a lady who learned from the apostles themselves so how much more dangerous is it to risk your faith today by praying with people of a different faith and listening to them preach? It is certain then that ecumenism is declared sinful by the God of the Bible.

The Catholic Church claims that it has not altered its claim to be the one true Church and yet it inconsistently says if you are a sincere member of another faith you can be saved. But then if you can be saved in a false religion, then that religion is good enough for as long as it gets you into Heaven who cares? One false religion then will often be as good as another. So being the right religion doesn’t matter. If being the right religion doesn’t matter then one religion is as good as another. That is why the Catholic traditionalists who accuse the Vatican II Church of looking Catholic but really being indifferentist are correct. Ecumenism is a sin and a heresy for Christ commanded us to believe that he was the way the truth and the life and to make disciples of all nations. True Christianity is a divisive troublemaker.

If it doesn’t matter what religion you believe in then the only thing that matters is sincerity. How can ecumenists place so much value on sincerity? If it is okay to believe what you want and encourage error then insincerity can’t be that bad for it only harms yourself! What about the people who believe that religious insincerity isn't a bad thing? St Teresa of Liseux admitted that there were times she did not believe in God. But yet she prayed and remained a nun. And she is praised for her pretence.

A priest once said, "Let us work to rid society of corruption and drugs and suicide and its problems. It does not matter who we have to work with. We must all work together. It matters not if we are Catholic or Protestant or Hindu or atheist. We have good hearts and a willingness to help." But for a Catholic who knows his faith properly, it does matter. The Catholic Church is supposed to be God's only real Church, the one ark of salvation, therefore the good works of the Church will have to be emphasised and the good works of outsiders ignored. The Catholic would say this is not spite but so that people get attracted to the one true religion and enjoy the blessings that being part of it bestows.

A Catholic priest said, "When people say that one religion is as good as another, they are usually referring to a series of platitudes: Be kind to one another. Help the weak and needy. Respect the other person as a person. Tell the truth. These are indeed common to all religions because they are part of the moral law. This is religious indifferentism."

The problem with it is that it confuses good and evil with moral and immoral. Good and evil are not about duties and the threat of punishment or retribution. Morality is. Some religions say we must be given encouragement to do good and deny that we should use the concept of duty to pressure anybody. We should not punish.

The Catholic Church says that division and hostility between the denominations of Christianity is a scandal and so all Christians must work for unity.

The Church today still claims to be the one true Church. It says this does not mean that God cannot influence other religions towards the truth. The Church says that God has revealed his law to us through reason and intuition and the result is that this truth to varying degrees exists in every religion. Ecumenism is said to be a celebration of what is true in other Churches. For Catholics, that means other religions are welcomed only in so far as they concur with Catholicism. How then can Buddhists or Hindus then feel comfortable with that?

Catholic ecumenism is not to be confused with Pluralism. Pluralism holds that no religion has all the answers so all should be accepted and welcomed. The more the religions come together the more they can learn from each other.

Another notion is that each religion is the same at its core. It is thought that it is only in the details that we will find contradictions.

To go to a Protestant Church gives that Church a reason to exist. If the Church had no members but merely people who liked to worship there it would continue to worship. Attending then implies approval for the central tenets of Protestantism. That would be okay if Protestant errors were not serious. But they are for Protestantism promises that serious sinners can go to Heaven without repenting as long as they are washed in the blood of Jesus. And it might be okay but it is not a 100% okay. This implies that Catholics cannot attend Protestant worship.

To reject worship with Protestants is not rejecting people but the system of ideas that they follow.

The huge majority of those who dismiss or ignore or deny the truth claims of Christianity are from other religions. As it claims to be the truth, this makes Christianity raise a rather nasty question. "Are they doing it on purpose?" Also if Jesus is the uncompromising way, truth and life so is his religion then it follows that there is no such thing as ignoring or dismissing. It's rejecting. It is sectarian to even raise the question of whether it is the people of the other religion's fault.

If you have a problem with religion and its purely cosmetic service of peace, then leave religion. Don't be a participant in its problem-making.