Vatican II Implementation

 

What Catholic and Non-Catholic Christian Readers Will Want To Know About How This Website Concerns Vatican Council II

 

Catholic Christian Readers will learn how to think about the Church like a post-Vatican II Catholic Christian should; Non-Catholic Christian Readers will want to know that Vatican Council II went back to the Sources and Defined the Church according to the Lived Reality of the  Undivided Early Church, paving the way for true Church Reform and Reunification as in the Undivided First Millennium Christian Church

 

Vatican II listened to the legitimate concerns of the Protestant Reformation and Protestant Christians since and, once its ecclesiology (teaching on the Church) is fully known and properly understood (by Catholic Christians as well as non-Catholic Christians), it may well help the Catholic Church and its “separated brothers” in non-Catholic churches to together succeed in what the 16th Century Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation attempted to do but failed in – restoring the Church to its Undivided First Millennium ideal, when the Church was One as Jesus prayed for and the whole ancient pagan world was “turned upside down” and transformed with the love of God the Holy Trinity expressed in orthodox Christian faith. 

 

Catholic Christian readers will want to know that from the Catholic perspective, this website and ministry is all about Vatican II implementation. This website promotes the full understanding and implementation within the Catholic Church of the reforms of both the Catholic Church and of Catholic habits of thinking which were called for by the Catholic Church’s 21st Ecumenical Council, Vatican Council II (1962-5) – particularly in its emphasis on Ecumenism, the universal call to holiness, and engaging our secular culture for Jesus. 

 

How Vatican Council II relates to the Early Ecumenical Councils Which Settled the Early Controversies with Christian Heretics by Clearly Defining the Fundamentals of Christian Faith

 

The first four Ecumenical Councils of Eastern and Western (Greek, Egyptian, Syrian, Roman) ordained Christian overseers (bishops or eparchs, patriarchs and pope) within the Undivided Early Catholic (Universal) Church, as the leaders of the Body of Christ the Church led into “all the truth” (John 16:13) as per Jesus’ promise to his Apostles (and to the overseers they ordained to guide the church after them), following the pattern of the Acts 15 Council, settled the first four major controversies within the Early Christian Church over the nature of Jesus.  The 1st Ecumenical Council, held at Nicea in 325 AD, dogmatically defined, against the Arian Christian heretics, that Jesus is God, “one in being with the Father.”  The 2nd Ecumenical Council, held at Constantinople in 381 AD, further dogmatically defined, against the Apollinarian Christian heretics, that Jesus is also truly human (and dogmatically defined the Divinity of the Holy Spirit, completing the dogma of the Holy Trinity).  The 3rd Ecumenical Council, held at Ephesus in 431 AD, further dogmatically defined, against the Nestorian Christian heretics, that Jesus is one Person with two natures, Divine and human.  The 4th Ecumenical Council, held at Chalcedon in 451 AD, using the formula of Pope Saint Leo the Great, finally clarified more specifically (against the Monophysite Christian heretics) that Jesus is in fact fully God and fully human.  All of these Ecumenical (worldwide) Councils of ordained Christian overseers from different culturally-based ’Sister Churches’ which together formed one Universal (Greek: Catholic) Christian Church, met together under the guidance of the Holy Spirit (as in the very first Church Council in Acts 15) to more precisely determine something that had not been so precisely defined within the Church beforehand, which in each case had led to a major controversy among Christians.

 

Vatican II, the 21st Ecumenical Council of the Catholic Church, was attended not only by ordained Roman Catholic overseers (bishops) but by the ordained overseers (also called eparchs) of ALL of the Undivided Early Church’s different culturally-based Rites or ‘Sister Churches’ and their later missionary ‘daughter churches’ still within the Catholic (Universal) Christian Communion (there are 26 such Rites, Eastern and Western, within today’s Catholic Church, though by numbers of Christians the other 25 are dwarfed by the huge Roman Rite of the Catholic Church). With the help and insight of the minority non-Roman Catholic overseers, under the Holy Spirit’s guidance, this was the very first Ecumenical Council ever to consider and dogmatically define the nature and structure of the Church of Jesus Christ as it existed in the Undivided Early Church – and this has many implications for the eventual restoration of Christian unity, which was “one of the principal concerns of the Second Vatican Council.” As Roman Rite Catholic Christians, who are the majority of all Christians today (Catholic and non-Catholic), gradually have the Council’s recent teaching filter into their minds and hearts, and as non-Catholic Christians (Orthodox and Protestant/ Evangelical) also gradually come to learn the extremely significant recognitions about the Undivided Early Church which the Catholic Church’s Communion of 26 Rites or ‘Sister Churches’ from the Undivided First Millennium Church has now had, there is real long-term hope of restored Christian unity in diversity “so that the world may believe” as Jesus prayed.

 

Eastern Orthodox Christian readers will want to know that Vatican II formally corrects the overly-Roman misconceptions of the nature of the Catholic Church among Roman Catholic Christians, misconceptions which came about from Eastern Rite Catholic Christians being a small Minority of Catholic Christians since the Muslim Conquests of the Catholic East.  Vatican II in principle officially corrects the past un-Catholic (un-Universal Christian) “Romanization” of the Eastern Catholic Rites which still fuels the Eastern Orthodox schism from the ancient Catholic (Universal) Christian Communion of East and West.  Vatican II officially corrects the un-Catholic, un-Universal Christian notion that there is only one proper or best way to worship God, a notion completely against the Undivided Early Catholic Church’s Lived Unity in Diversity, a notion which the Protestant Reformation churches sadly inherited from the overly Romanized (and not truly Catholic/Universal enough) 16th Century Roman Rite of the Catholic Church they left, resulting in the vast amount of schisms within Protestant Christianity since.

 

Protestant Christian readers will want to know that Vatican II in many ways completed the Catholic Counter-Reformation following the Protestant Reformation of the 16th Century, dealing officially and in depth with many areas of legitimate Protestant complaint and concern, and moreover, it dealt with issues and themes related to why the Protestant Reformation itself despite certain genuine reforms of 16th-Century Roman Rite abuses utterly failed to actually Re-Form the Church to its Early Church ideal but rather totally splintered the Church’s First Millennium unity (there are over 35,000 distinct Protestant/ Evangelical denominations registered worldwide today), and in the long-term resulted in a massive loss of basic, traditional Christian orthodoxy precisely in the oldest and largest Protestant “mainline” churches (which often are not even certain that Jesus is God, that he was really resurrected from the dead, and so on).  Vatican II listened to the legitimate concerns of the Protestant Reformation and Protestant Christians since and, once its teaching is fully known and properly understood (by Catholic Christians as well as non-Catholic Christians), it may well help the Catholic Church and its “separated brothers” in non-Catholic churches to together succeed in what the 16th Century Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation attempted to do but failed in – restoring the Church to its Undivided First Millennium ideal, when the Church was One as Jesus prayed for and the whole ancient pagan world was “turned upside down” and transformed with the love of God the Holy Trinity expressed in orthodox Christian faith.

 

You see, in many respects Vatican II is the result of the Catholic Church listening to and learning from the legitimate concerns and complaints of Protestant Christians (and Eastern Orthodox Christians) from before and after the Protestant Reformation, fixing problems and further clarifying misunderstood secondary doctrines and practices in the light of the common Christian fundamentals (which Protestant Christians took with them when they left the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church).  But Vatican II is also the result of observing the prolific problems with unity and with maintaining basic, traditional Christian orthodoxy within Protestant Christianity since the Protestant Reformation, clarifying those many things from the Undivided Early Church which the Catholic Church still maintains and holds onto dearly, which were lost by Protestants during the tumultuous Protestant Reformation – things which have protected Catholic Christianity from losing unity and basic Christian orthodoxy the way Protestant Christianity has.

 

Thus, despite its own failings under the onslaught of God’s Enemy who constantly attacks all branches of Christianity, the Catholic Church is still an ancient Christian Communion which still maintains full Christian unity among 1.1 Billion Christians in 26 ‘Rites’ or ‘Sister Churches,’ of which the Roman Catholic Rite or Sister Church is only one, though currently by far the largest (though in the Undivided Early Church only one quarter of all Catholic Christians were Roman Catholic Christians).  Though some individual Catholic Christians may be more or less “nominal” (“in name only”), as indeed individual Protestant Christians may be, unlike many now “doctrinally liberal” or unorthodox Protestant church denominations, none of the Catholic Communion’s 26 distinct Rites or ‘Sister Churches’ have ever denied any of the basic, fundamental tenets of traditional, orthodox Christianity listed in the Common Creed of Christianity on this website as long as they were within the Catholic Communion (although the Chaldean Rite of the Catholic Church is made of once-5th Century Nestorian heretics excommunicated from the Catholic Church after the 3rd Ecumenical Council, who recanted their heresy and were received back into the Catholic Christian Communion in the 16th Century). 

 

Vatican II, BECAUSE it respects what non-Catholic Christians have preserved from the Undivided Early Church and is learning from them (for example, the Catholic Church is re-learning to love Bible reading as the Early Church did because of the Protestant example), AND BECAUSE it clarifies just what the Catholic Church has preserved from the Undivided Early Church which was lost in the Protestant Reformation, resulting in the prolific divisions and increasing unorthodoxy within Protestantism, HAS TREMENDOUS IMPLICATIONS for the long-term restoration of First Millennium Christian unity in diversity, if non-Catholic Christians are willing to learn from the Catholic Church as the Catholic Church has learned from non-Catholic Christians (and if Catholic Christians will take the time to educate themselves in this recent wonderful teaching from the highest level within their own Church).

 

 

[The following sections concerning Vatican II are adapted from some of the books available on this website, particularly So That The World May Believe and The Bible's 'Big Picture', to whet the reader’s appetite for really learning the teaching of Vatican II, especially pertaining to Ecumenism and re-establishing the character and structure of the Undivided Early Church.  These excerpts are ‘TEASERS’ only – the books, which include more quotations from Vatican II and post-Vatican II Church documents, will have to be read to really understand and appreciate the Catholic Church’s wonderful Ecumenical teaching]

 

 

Since Vatican II the Catholic Church Is Officially Re-Discovering its Undivided Early Church Nature as a Catholic (Greek for Universal) Communion of Orthodox Christian Sister Churches Sharing a Vast Unity of Common Christian Faith Expressed in a Great Diversity of Ways Which Mutually Enrich Each of the Different but United ‘Sister Churches’– the Catholic Church Is Re-Discovering its Ancient Unity in Diversity Hidden for Centuries by the Numerical Dominance of the Huge Roman Rite of the Catholic Church, with Tremendous Implications for Restored Loving Christian Unity in Diversity in General, Even While Our Formal Divisions Remain

 

The Undivided Early Church was not the Roman Catholic Church which Protestants dramatically left centuries ago but was a Catholic (Universal) Christian Communion which included the Roman Catholic Church and which had certain characteristics best preserved in today’s Catholic Church Communion (which still includes the Roman Catholic Church as currently its largest ‘Sister Church’), characteristics lost in the Protestant Reformation (resulting in Protestantism’s problem with whole churches often losing basic Christian orthodoxy, a problem Catholicism does not have), although Protestantism has also best preserved other aspects of the character and spiritual life of the Undivided Early Church which it should share with today’s Catholic Church.  Today’s Catholic Communion is slowly but actively in the process of re-discovering itself as a communion of “fully equal Sister Churches” since its 21st Ecumenical Council (Vatican Council II).  In fact, today’s Catholic Communion since Vatican Council II has by far the most sophisticated official position on its own substantial participation with the One Church of Jesus Christ and of that continued very significant participation of the non-Catholic Christian Churches which are no longer part of the Undivided Early Church’s Universal (Catholic) Communion, a sophisticated position which any Christian who values the Christian unity Jesus values cannot afford to ignore but must learn and seriously consider, a position which recognizes how both Catholic and non-Catholic Churches today still genuinely participate (in different ways) in the saving mission of the One Church and Body of Christ, a position that is dealt with in detail in the later chapters of So That The World May Believe –  Volume III.  However, the “average Catholic” as yet is little more aware than non-Catholics of the wonderful Catholic teaching since Vatican II which officially recaptures the understanding of the lived reality of the Undivided Early Catholic Communion’s unity in diversity and just how much non-Catholic Churches despite their formal divisions still have a definite, if imperfect, communion with today’s ongoing Catholic Communion of Orthodox Christian Sister Churches unbroken since ancient times.  Thus this website and many of the books available on it are intended to teach Catholic Christians the amazing things the Catholic Church has officially done to pave the way for restoring the Early Church’s unity in diversity as much as it is intended to teach this to non-Catholic Christians.  Today’s non-Catholic Churches (which all once belonged to the Catholic Communion in history) should be working together with the Catholic Church’s Sister Churches (of which the Roman Catholic Church is only one, though currently the largest) on the basis of our vast common faith listed in the Common Creed so that all of us can pool together those things which each branch of divided Christianity has best preserved from the Undivided Early Church, for the enrichment of all, for all of us to become all we were meant to be as Christ’s Body the Church on Earth, and most importantly for the sake of the world which needs Jesus Christ, the world which Jesus indicated would believe if we were united as we once were, with phenomenal missionary success, in the First Millennium of the Undivided Early Church.

 

 

This Website Is a Catholic Contribution to the Ongoing Ecumenical Dialogue between Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant/ Evangelical Christians, Presented with the Sincere “Respect and Affection” for Non-Catholic Christians Which Since Vatican II is the Official Attitude of the Catholic Church Towards its “Separated Brothers” in Christ

 

 

This website is intended as part of the sincere and loving ecumenical dialogue between the divided Christian churches which is necessary if Jesus’ prayer for our unity “so that the world may believe” is ever to be granted.  Though writing from the Catholic perspective in my contribution to this dialogue, I have the utmost respect and affection for my Conservative or Evangelical Protestant and Eastern Orthodox brothers and sisters in Christ with whom Catholics share a true and extremely profound Christian communion on the basis of vast common faith even though we are currently separated from full Christian communion with them.  My personal connection with these “separated brothers” (as Vatican Council II described non-Catholic Christians) is even more intimate.  As a former Evangelical Protestant, I still maintain my Evangelical zeal for God’s truth and my Evangelical heart for spreading the Gospel to a needy world as a Catholic.  As an Eastern Rite Catholic, I even celebrate the same liturgy and rituals as my Eastern Orthodox brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus.  But my ecumenical openness to and love for other Christians is in no way simply personal but Catholic, part of what is now the official position of the Catholic Church with respect to Christians who do not belong to the Catholic Church’s huge Christian Communion.  The Catholic Church has officially declared at its highest level of authority in its 21st Ecumenical Council (Vatican Council II) that:

 

“The [Catholic] Church knows that she is joined in many ways to the baptized who are honored by the name of Christian, but who do not however profess the Catholic faith in its entirety or have not preserved unity or communion under the successor of Peter [the pope] … these [non-Catholic] Christians are indeed in some real way joined to us [Catholic Christians] in the Holy Spirit … and the Catholic Church accepts them with respect and affection as brothers … [because] it remains true that all who have been justified by faith in baptism [see Mark 16:16] are incorporated into Christ; they therefore have a right to be called Christians, and with good reason are accepted as brothers by the children of the Catholic Church … The restoration of unity among all Christians is one of the principal concerns of the Second Vatican Council … [The Catholic Church is] moved by a desire for the restoration of unity among all the followers of Christ, [and so] it wishes to set before all Catholics guidelines, helps and methods, by which they too can respond to the grace of this divine call … The sacred Council exhorts, therefore, all the Catholic faithful to recognize the signs of the times and to take an active and intelligent part in the work of ecumenism … The concern for restoring unity involves the whole Church, faithful and clergy alike. It extends to everyone, according to the talent of each, whether it be exercised in daily Christian living or in theological and historical studies.” (Vatican Council II: LG 15, UR 3, UR 1, UR 4, UR 5, emphases added)  

 

Though not all individual Catholic Christians have yet followed their own Church’s lead here, the huge Catholic Church now officially models the loving ecumenical attitude all churches need in order for Jesus’ prayer for Christian unity to ever be granted, that even though “our” Church denomination believes that “other” churches which do not agree with some of our secondary doctrines and practices are missing something, still those “other churches”

 

“have been by no means deprived of significance and importance in the mystery of salvation. For the Spirit of Christ has not refrained from using them as means of salvation … [other Christian churches than “ours” indeed have] access to the communion of salvation … Catholics must gladly acknowledge and esteem the truly Christian endowments for our common heritage which are to be found among our separated brethren. It is right and salutary to recognize the riches of Christ and virtuous works in the lives of others who are bearing witness to Christ, sometimes even to the shedding of their blood. For God is always wonderful in his works and worthy of all praise.  Nor should we forget that anything wrought by the grace of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of our separated brethren can contribute to our own edification … [and] can always bring a more perfect realization of the very mystery of Christ and the Church.”  (Vatican Council II, UR 3, UR 4, emphases added)

 

It is therefore as a Catholic Christian representing the official position of the Catholic Church towards non-Catholic Christians that I write this website and the books available on it for both my fellow Catholics and for non-Catholic Christians “with respect and affection as brothers.” 

 

 

The Catholic Church’s 21st Ecumenical Council (Vatican Council II) Which Recently and for the First Time in an Ecumenical Council of the Church Clearly Defined the Nature and Structure of the Ancient Undivided Early Church (Which Has Tremendous Implications for the Eventual Re-establishment of the Undivided Early Church’s Unity in Diversity), Officially Recognizes the Holy Spirit as the Source of the Church’s Unity and “Places its Hope [For Reunification] Entirely in the Prayer of Christ for the Church, in the Love of the Father for Us, and in the Power of the Holy Spirit”

 

In any case, it is only the Holy Spirit of God’s Divine Love who can unify currently divided Christianity, who can help us to overcome our human sin and weakness in love, even with the Undivided Early Church model of Christian unity in diversity (discussed in depth in So That The World May Believe – Volume III) clearly in view.  All currently divided Christians need to be open to the various unexpected and divine ways the Holy Spirit may choose to bring us closer together towards the eventual fulfillment of Jesus’ prayer for our unity.  The Catholic Church officially recognizes this, and Vatican II’s Decree on Ecumenism (Unitatis Redintegratio, UR) states:

 

““There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Eph. 4:4–5). For “all you who have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ …for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:27–28). It is the Holy Spirit, dwelling in those who believe and pervading and ruling over the entire Church, who brings about that wonderful communion of the faithful and joins them together so intimately in Christ that he is the principle of the Church’s unity.” (UR 2)

 

“Today, in many parts of the world, under the influence of the grace of the Holy Spirit, many efforts are being made in prayer, word and action to attain that fullness of unity which Jesus Christ desires. The sacred Council exhorts, therefore, all the Catholic faithful to recognize the signs of the times and to take an active and intelligent part in the work of ecumenism.” (UR 4)

 

“There can be no ecumenism worthy of the name without interior conversion. For it is from newness of attitudes of mind, from self-denial and unstinted love, that desires of unity take their rise and develop in a mature way. We should therefore pray to the Holy Spirit for the grace to be genuinely self-denying, humble, gentle in the service of others and to have an attitude of brotherly generosity toward them. The Apostle of the Gentiles says: “I, therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and meekness, with patience, forbearing one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:1–3).”  (UR 7)

 

“This sacred Council firmly hopes that the [ecumenical] initiatives of the sons of the Catholic Church, joined with those of the separated brethren [Protestant and Orthodox], will go forward, without obstructing the ways of divine Providence, and without prejudging the future inspirations of the Holy Spirit. Further, this Council declares that it realizes that this holy objective—the reconciliation of all Christians in the unity of the one and only Church of Christ—transcends human powers and gifts. It therefore places its hope entirely in the prayer of Christ for the Church, in the love of the Father for us, and in the power of the Holy Spirit. “And hope does not disappoint, because God’s love has been poured forth in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Rom. 5:5).”  (UR 24)

 

 

 

© 2008, 2009 Peter William John Baptiste, SFO

 

 

[The following are a few other excerpts concerning Vatican II from some of the books available on this website, especially from So That The World May Believe and The Bible's 'Big Picture', presented as further ‘TEASERS’ for reading the books to learn Vatican II Ecumenism]

 

 

We Should Be Trying to Consciously Re-Establish (Permanently) the Kind of Christian Unity the Undivided Early Church Lived Instinctively for Centuries Which it Lost Because it Never Consciously Defined the Nature of its Unity the Way the 21st Ecumenical Council (Vatican II, 1962-5) Finally Did… 

 

The Catholic Church’s 21st Ecumenical Council (Vatican II, 1962-5) Already Laid the Groundwork for the True Re-Formation of the Undivided First Millennium Catholic Church’s Instinctively-lived Loving Unity in Diversity, but the Council’s Teaching Has Not Yet Settled Deeply into the Minds and Hearts of Most Catholic Christians, Which it must Before this Ecumenical Council Can Bear the Fruit of Christian Reunification.    So That The World May Believe (Especially Volume III) Is Meant to Help Catholic Readers Come to Fully Understand, Accept and Appreciate the Council’s Holy Spirit-led Teaching as They Are Already Obligated to Do as Good Catholics.  This Book Is Also Meant to Help Non-Catholic Christians Understand the Wonderful Official Teaching of Vatican II Towards Christian Reunification So They Can Hold Catholic Christians Accountable to it and Thus Participate in the True Re-Formation of the Catholic Church as in its First Millennium of Undivided Christian Unity…

 

Vatican II Formally Corrects Overly-Roman Misconceptions of the Nature of the Catholic Church Which Came about from Eastern Catholics Being a Small Minority of Catholics since the Muslim Conquests of the Catholic East…Vatican II in Principle Officially Corrects the Past Un-Catholic “Romanization” of the Eastern Catholic Rites Which Fuels the Eastern Orthodox Schism from Catholic (Universal) Communion…

 

All Three Major Branches of Christianity Have to Give up Any Remaining Conceptions That There Is Only One Proper or Best Way to Express and Celebrate the Common Christian Faith, Which Is Totally Against the Undivided Early Church’s Unity in Diversity…The One Half of All Christians Who Are Roman Catholic must Take Ecumenical Leadership in this by Actively Seeking to Conform Their Minds to the Mind of the Catholic Church Expressed in the Holy Spirit-Guided 21st Ecumenical Council (Vatican II) Which at Last Clearly Expresses the Proper Nature and Structure of the Catholic Church as it Was Lived in the First Millennium of the Undivided Early Church…

 

Since the 21st Ecumenical Council (Vatican II) in the 1960s, “Average Catholics” Have Not Yet Had the Council’s Dogmatic Teaching on the Nature and Structure of the Church, Which Clearly Articulated the Lived Reality of the Unity in Diversity of the Undivided Early Church, Sink Deeply into Their Minds and Hearts.  When this Happens and the World’s 1 Billion Roman Rite Catholic Christians Start Thinking about and Working Towards Christian Unity like the Undivided First Millennium Catholic Church Lived It, the Non-Catholic Christian Churches Will Seriously Examine Vatican II’s Advanced Ecclesiology and See How its Holy Spirit-Guided Teaching Brilliantly Paves the Way for the Third Millennium Re-Establishment of the First Millennium Christian Unity in Diversity Lost in the Second Millennium.  There Is Real Hope for the Third Millennium Fulfillment of Jesus’ Prayer to His Father “That All [Christians] May Be One. . . So That the World May Believe That You Have Sent Me. . . May [Christians] Be Brought to Complete Unity to Let the World Know That You Sent Me and Have Loved Them Even as You Have Loved Me” (John 17:21, 23)…

 

Ecumenical Conclusion

The ancient Living Body of Christ the (Catholic) Christian Church in its 1st Ecumenical Council at Nicea (325 AD) dogmatically and irrevocably clarified, against the Arian Christian heretics with their sophisticated and thorough but not Traditional interpretation of “the Bible Alone,” the vital Christian belief that Jesus is God, “one in being with the Father.”  The 2nd Ecumenical Council of 381 AD (which Pope Saint Damasus declared to be of Ecumenical (worldwide) authority although no Western overseer/bishops were present), first authoritatively articulated and clarified the Divinity of the Holy Spirit as well and thus the primary Christian doctrine of the Trinity, ending all the previous disputes among Christians about the Trinity.  The 4th Ecumenical Council at Chalcedon (451 AD) under the direction of Pope Saint Leo the Great similarly precisely clarified in the Holy Spirit, against the Monophysite Christian heretics, the central Christian belief in the Incarnation, that Jesus is in fact “fully God and fully man.”  Vatican Council II (1962-5) was the 21st Ecumenical Council of the same Catholic Church, and it likewise precisely articulated something that had always been part of the Christian faith at least implicitly but had never been explicitly clarified, which had likewise resulted in some Christians coming up with incorrect notions that caused many problems (and divisions).  Vatican II was the very first Ecumenical Council of the Living Body of Christ the Church to dogmatically clarify the nature and structure of the Christian Church, precisely articulating the instinctively lived reality of the Undivided Early Church of the First Millennium (a reality continued in the Catholic Church today but much harder to see since unlike in the First Millennium, the great majority of Catholics today are Roman Rite Catholics).  This has tremendous implications for the eventual reunification of Jesus’ Body the Church which became divided in the Second Millennium, in fulfillment of Jesus’ prayer for Christian unity.  As all Christians, including majority Roman Rite Catholic Christians who often have a more particularly Roman and less truly Catholic (Universal) understanding of their Church, come to fully understand and appreciate the nature and structure of the Undivided Early Church, it will become easier for today’s different Christian churches already united  in the above vast common saving Christian faith to better reflect the Undivided Early Church’s loving and mutually enriching unity in diversity, “so that the world may believe” (John 17:21) in Jesus when it sees the love of Christians for “one another” (John 13:35) – even for as long as our current formal divisions remain…

                                                                                   

 

The Historical Fact That All of the Christian Churches Which Still Hold to the Essential Fundamentals of Christian Faith listed in the Common Creed Either Still Belong to the Ancient but Ongoing Catholic Communion of Sister Churches, Eastern and Western (The Catholic Church in its 26 Already-Unified Eastern and Western Rites) or Once Did (The Eastern Orthodox and [Western] Conservative Protestant Churches), Means That a Reunification must Be Possible, as the Holy Spirit of God Continues to Fill Our Hearts with Love for All Our Christian Brothers and Sisters United in this Faith and We Seek Forgiveness and Reconciliation for Our past Sins Against Each Other Due to Our Failures in Love (And as the Catholic Church Gradually Implements its Own Recent Reforms in Vatican II to Make Today’s Catholic Church Consciously and Visibly Much less Roman and More Truly Catholic (Universal) like the Undivided Early Catholic Church, Despite the Current Numerical Dominance of the Roman Church among the 26 Unified Sister Churches Which Together Make up Today’s Catholic Church)…

 

With the guiding help of Vatican II, its implications fully understood by Catholic and non-Catholic Christians (which is a major purpose of the books on this website), now Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant/ Evangelical Christians together, as true brothers and sisters in Christ already united in vast common faith, though currently separated by misunderstandings and lesser doctrines, have a chance to really and effectively work towards what the 16th Century Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation originally intended to do but failed in doing – restoring the Body of Christ the Church to its Early Church unity in orthodox Christian faith “so that the world may believe,” as Jesus prayed, when it sees our “love for one another.”

 

Go To the Forum

 

Go To So That the World May Believe:  A Call to Christian Unity

 

© 2008, 2009 Peter William John Baptiste, SFO