Extra Ecclesia....

"Pope Benedict has approved a new text asserting that Christian denominations outside Roman Catholicism are not true Churches in the full sense of the word."

From the Beeb tonight.

...Well, you have to admit the old trout has a point. Not a happy one to be heard by Protestant ears it must be said, and certainly likely to cause fires to burn in Orthodox circles. Yet "Tu es Petrus..." and all that jazz.

If you understand these things then you will, and if you don't you may walk away now.

Either Christ did found his Eternal Church on Earth - pending His return - or he didn't. That is the essence of the thing. Feel free to believe that the whole thing never happened - and personally I find that a more credible notion than the Muslim angle, which seems to be that Jesus was a Prophet for sure and yet somehow didn't actually die on the Cross because Prophets are meant to be conquerors not dead people - but don't go thinking that just because the Church over millennia somehow fails to live up to your own high moral standards it can be rejected and you start all over anew.

There is the notion of course that the Anglican Church is but the Catholic Church in England and environs. But could anyone other than an unreconstructed imperialist actually believe that holds any water?

H and I are currently holding talks about this whole Rome question. We are not far from an agreement in truth. Time is coming one senses for a somewhat radical move. Watch this space is the best I can offer for now.

'Extra ecclesia nulla salus' as the old text goes. My abiding anchor in all of this is my dear Catlick friend - Prior of Quarr Abbey and friend to the world - who opined that one always knows where the Church is to be found, but one never knows where it isn't present in some form hidden from human eyes but known to God.

We monkish chaps had quite a lively debate one night on the validity or not - in Catholic sacramental terms - of a quasi-communion service that would be celebrated by prisoners-of-war in WWII: said by the senior officer, though but a layman no priest being present, and using the only available biscuits and water for the offerings of the Body and the Blood of Christ.

Was it the Mass? Quite probably - nay definitely - it was not. But was it the Real Presence? I bet my life it was.