On Tuesday, the head of the SWB released a document in which he said that Protestant churches were not, after all, churches as they did not accept that he himself is the head of the church. This is pretty much restating what he said, as Cardinal Ratzinger, in 2000. However, as head of the SWB I suppose he felt that it was worth restating.
Of course, today is the anniversary of the excommunication of Henry VIII. While the Anglican Church has faults (a whole load of ’em), not paying any mind to Benny the Rat is not one of those faults.
I suppose that in time the ecomenical dialogue that has been developing since the 1950’s will continue, with or without the mackerel-snappers.
This takes me back to my mom’s Catholic high school books. Her mom was excommunicated for marrying a Southern Baptist of French protestant descent.
Catholicism is trying to show its teeth again — pity. People who believe in anything transcendent have more in common with each other these days than with the secular, which some people were beginning to understand in the last couple of decades. (I see myself as secular with some sympathies for the transcendent).
Stephen Boursy pointed me to Cardinal Ratzinger’s web pages a couple of years back now and I thought they were parodies when I first read them.
Be fun to see him and some Mormons locked in the same room.
I must admit to a snort or two when I heard of these assertions coming out of the Vatican. Strikes me as peeing on the fire hydrants. after all, if you’re a senescent man head of a large but diminishing in some areas organisation, I spoze it makes you feel better to make claims of the ME! ME! I’m the important one! ME! ME!
then again this cartoon in the Mop&Pail you might find amusing (URL good for about 2 weeks, I think)