Pope Francis And Ecumenicide

Ecumenicide - any dialogue between Catholics and those of other faiths in which Catholics participate without the express purpose of converting those of other faiths to the Roman Catholic Church, that is, the One True Church.

I cannot claim credit for coining that term. I saw that on the facebook wall of Pat Archibald, one of the bloggers of Creative Minority Report.  It is a brilliant term and it is an accurate description of what politically correct Catholics do when they "dialog" with no intent of bringing others home to Rome.

Here is a curious and telling post from Rorate Caeli.  CMR commented on it too.  It seems that some Italian Pentecostals and Evangelicals held a round-table discussion on July 19th as they discussed "contemporary Catholicism".  In their statement, they list key differences between them and us; I urge you to read it.  While they obviously fail to accept that the errors behind the differences lie squarely on their shoulders, at least they acknowledge the significance of the differences and that these differences render impossible any real "ecumenical opening" with the Church.  On that score they understand that error needs to be addressed first before any talk of unity can occur, for unity must be based on the whole truth.

This past Monday the Pope went to Caserta and visited several Italian Pentecostals.  He made the statement that "the Holy Spirit is the source of diversity in the Church. This diversity is very rich and beautiful. But then the same Holy Spirit creates unity. And in this way the Church is one in diversity. To use a beautiful Gospel phrase that I love very much, reconciled diversity is the gift of the Holy Spirit."  Forgive me, but who can make sense out of this glop?  We're talking about breaks in the Body of Christ, breaks occurring due to heresy and dissidence from the One True Church.  That is not "rich and beautiful".  And as far as that "gospel phrase" goes, can anyone cite chapter-and-verse the phrase "reconciled diversity"?  I've read through the Bible several times and have never come across that one.

Here are some more relevant details.  Apparently the local bishop of Caserta was never advised of the pope's visit to his diocese.  The Holy Father also scheduled his visit on the Feast of St Anne, a saint held in high honor in that town.  Why would it have taken much persuasion to convince the Holy Father to celebrate a Mass in honor of the grandmother of Our Lord?  Considering both these facts, we see here on the part of the pope an apparent downplaying of the Catholic church in that town.

Most distressing, especially from the Chief Shepherd of the Church, is this statement:  "I’m not interested in converting Evangelicals to Catholicism. There are so many doctrines we will never agree on. Let’s be about showing the love of Jesus.”  If he, the Successor of Peter is not interested in conversions to Catholicism, he is not showing any "love of Jesus", but rather a feel-good, shallow counterfeit of the same.  Our Lord's commission to his Apostles was to baptize the nations and to "teach them all that I have commanded you".  He does them, and all the world, a gross disservice to dismiss Catholic truth as "doctrines we'll never agree on".  One of the Spiritual Works of Mercy is to "instruct the ignorant".  Did that happen?  All indications point to "no".

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is ECUMENICIDE.