After Nearly 500 Years Pope Admits Luther was Right: Salvation is by Faith Alone
ROME ITALY - Luther would have been amazed at the efforts of the Vatican today to put the Bible back into the heart of the Roman Catholic Church. In October last, bishops from around the world were called to Rome for a three-week synod to discuss how to promote prayerful reading, understanding and proclamation of God's Word. Pope Benedict XVI himself kicked off the synod with a round-the-clock Bible reading marathon lasting a whole week, by reading the opening verses of Genesis. Twelve hundred readers took part, including Orthodox and Evangelical leaders.
Last week, briefly passing through Rome, my wife and I stood in an empty Saint Peter's Square, where the chairs were still laid out for the 20,000 who had attended the pope's weekly public audience on the Wednesday before. On our return to Holland, we read in the newspaper what the faithful had been told that day. The headline read: Pope quotes Luther: Sola Fide. Luther, the pope had told his audience, had been right to insist in sola fide, that a believer was justified by faith alone!
Disagreement over this doctrine had been at the heart of the Reformation in the 16th century, splitting Christianity in western Europe. Yet, said the pope, it was indeed biblical to say, as did Luther, that it was the faith of a Christian, not his works, that saved him. Such faith however could not be separated from love for God and for neighbour, he qualified. Paul wrote about this balance in his letters, especially the letter to the Philippians, he added.
The pope defined faith as 'identification with Christ expressed in love for God and neighbour'. Such love fulfilled the law. Being justified meant simply being with Christ and in Christ. Christ alone was sufficient. Living by faith had radical consequences for the Apostle Paul after his conversion on the road to Damascus, explained the pope. Prior to that, his life had been regulated by all sorts of Jewish rules and commandments. Paul's new lifestyle, based on faith in Christ alone, surfaced in his various letters, especially his letter to the Romans.
Luther had correctly translated Paul's words as 'justified by faith alone', the well-known sola fide, Benedict affirmed, as reported in the newspaper. Some have blamed the widespread lack of biblical knowledge among Italians, on the Catholic Church due to its monopoly on the teaching of the Bible. The Italian newspaper, La Stampa, responded to a recent survey showing that only 14% of Italians questioned were able to answer questions about the Bible correctly, with the headline: 'In the beginning was the Word - but the Italians don't read it'.
Only one in four Italians had read a passage from the Bible in the past year, the survey revealed, compared to three out of four in the USA. Few even knew whether or not the Gospels were part of the Bible. Philosophy graduates confused Paul with Moses and thought that Jesus wrote Genesis, according to the survey. This despite the encouragement of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) for the faithful to rediscover Scripture as the primary source of spiritual life.
So now Benedict is personally leading the way to encourage Catholics to engage with Scripture. The theme of the synod was The Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church. The pope told the gathered bishops that true reality was to be found in the Word of God. Many had put their trust in money as the true reality, observed the pope, but this was evaporating in the current global financial crisis.
The Bible Society of the UK has been assisting the Vatican to promote the reading of Scripture through the Lectio Divina Project. This new resource for Catholics provides notes and prayers to go with weekly lectionary readings of the Sunday Mass. I flew to Switzerland last week for an interconfessional gathering of Together for Europe. Talk of the synod there prompted someone to quote Cardinal Kaspers' recent statement: 'The Word divided us; the Word must unite us'.
We began to dream about how Christians in Europe could celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Reformation in 2017 - less than nine years away - as a prophetic statement by Catholics and Protestants together that the Word that once divided us is now uniting us again. That would be a giant step toward the fulfilment of Luther's original dream of a Bible-centered Church!
2 comments:
Jeff Fountain, the source of this 31 January 2009 article, wrote: "Last week, briefly passing through Rome, my wife and I stood in an empty Saint Peter's Square, where the chairs were still laid out for the 20,000 who had attended the pope's weekly public audience on the Wednesday before. On our return to Holland, we read in the newspaper what the faithful had been told that day. The headline read: Pope quotes Luther: Sola Fide. Luther, the pope had told his audience, had been right to insist in sola fide, that a believer was justified by faith alone!"
Fact check.
The weekly General Audience is held indoors at Paul VI Hall and not outdoors in St.Peter's Square. The full text of Pope Benedict XVI's Wednesday General Audiences are published on the Vatican website at:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2009/index_en.htm
A 28 or 21 January date, moreover, would have coincided with the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. A cursory reading of the 3 addresses from 14 to 28 January 2008 indicate to me that no such thing was said. I see no evidence from these official translations that the Pope is in agreement with Luther and that the Catholic Church suddenly accepts the doctrine of sola fide as it is classically understood by Protestant christians.
This quote taken directly from the January 28 , 2009 General Audience clearly presents a classical Catholic perspective on the matter:
"The writer faces these doctrines with two basic reminders. The first consists in an exhortation to a spiritual reading of Sacred Scripture (cf. 2 Tm 3: 14-17), that is to a reading which considers them truly "inspired" and coming from the Holy Spirit, so that one can be "instructed for salvation" by them. The correct way to read the Scriptures is to enter into dialogue with the Holy Spirit, in order to derive a light "for teaching for reproof, correction, and for training in righteousness" (2 Tm 3: 16). This, the Letter adds: is "so that the man of God may be fully complete and equipped for every good work" (2 Tm 3: 17). The other reminder is a reference to the good "deposit" (parathéke): a special word found in the Pastoral Letters and used to indicate the tradition of the apostolic faith which must be safeguarded with the help of the Holy Spirit who dwells in us. This "deposit" is therefore to be considered as the sum of the apostolic Tradition, and as a criterion of faithfulness to the Gospel message. And here we must bear in mind that the term "Scriptures", when used in the Pastoral Letters, as in all the rest of the New Testament, means explicitly the Old Testament, since the writings of the New Testament either had not yet been written or did not yet constitute part of the Scriptural canon. Therefore the Tradition of the apostolic proclamation, this "deposit", is the key to the reading of the Scriptures, the New Testament. In this sense, Scripture and Tradition, Scripture and the apostolic proclamation as a key, are set side by side, and almost merge to form together the "firm foundation laid by God" (cf. 2 Tm 2: 19 ). The apostolic proclamation that is, Tradition is necessary in order to enter into an understanding of the Scriptures, and to hear the voice of Christ in them. We must, in fact, "hold firm to the sure word as taught" by the teaching received (Ti 1: 9)."
I wonder if the author was relying on the misleading and false reporting of a secular journalist without ever going to the primary source - the Pope's actual address.
Please refer to the "Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification" by the Lutheran World Federation and the Catholic Church that can be found at:
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/documents/rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_31101999_cath-luth-joint-declaration_en.html
I think the above caption is clearly misleading unless someone otherwise can show me primary source evidence.
Lessons learned.
Don't believe the journalistic spin one finds in secular, especially Dutch, newspapers! Check the source when it comes to matters of religion.
A
I wish to update my last post.
After some further digging, it looks like the comments about justification were made during a General Audience on 19 November 2008. Many of the blog articles leave the impression that these comments were made in late January 2009. This is what happens when stuff is reposted and made to look like it is recent.
The spin only now being put on it, however, still remains unjustified in light of what was actually said by B16.
For an English translation of the remarks go to:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2008/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20081119_en.html
Of interest is the Pope's comment: "For this reason Luther's phrase: "faith alone" is true, if it is not opposed to faith in charity, in love. Faith is looking at Christ, entrusting oneself to Christ, being united to Christ, conformed to Christ, to his life. And the form, the life of Christ, is love; hence to believe is to conform to Christ and to enter into his love. So it is that in the Letter to the Galatians in which he primarily developed his teaching on justification St Paul speaks of faith that works through love (cf. Gal 5: 14).
I also direct you to an article by Jimmy Akin an apologist at:
http://www.cin.org/users/james/files/faith_al.htm
In light of this, it is clear that B16 is only repeating the traditional Catholic position. There is nothing new here.
Why all the sensation now?
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