"The Obligation to Return"

Over at Called To Communion, a recent comment on the thread concerning Doug Wilson's take on the fate of faithful Catholics really had some eloquent and really challenging words - in a good way. Bryan Cross comments:

"John Armstrong writes about his encounter with someone making a claim similar to Doug Wilson’s.

What follows from granting that Catholics who believe Catholic doctrine, can be saved? According to Trueman, the answer seems to be this: the obligation to return. At that point, any reforming that one believes still needs to be done, can be done from within the Church. Schism from the Church can no longer be justified as necessary for salvation. Hence Matt’s statement in this post:

The Protestant, to remain Protestant, must hold that the issues that still divide Rome and Geneva are issues where salvation is at stake. If they are not, they are issues that do not justify continued schism …

Chris, you wrote in comment #33, in response to that statement by Matt:

I’m not so sure about this. There are other obstacles that have cropped up since the Reformation (dogmatizing papal infallibility; increased emphasis on the theotokos being co-redemptrix; scandals covered from the top down).

I agree that these would be obstacles, i.e. matters that make it more difficult, all other things being equal, for Protestants to return to full communion with the Church from which they separated in the sixteenth century. But it seems to me that that is fully compatible with Matt’s statement. If a present-day Protestant comes to recognize that perhaps he was wrong about the Council of Trent being wrong, that it didn’t “anathematize the gospel,” that one can believe what the Church teaches and be saved, and that therefore Protestants were not right to leave the Catholic Church, he realizes that had Protestants remained in the Catholic Church in the sixteenth century as faithful Catholics, it would have been incumbent on them as Catholics to “believe and profess all that the holy Catholic Church believes, teaches, and proclaims to be revealed by God” — not only what the Church taught definitively at the Council of Trent but also, three centuries later, what she taught in 1854 about Mary’s Immaculate Conception, what she taught about the Papal office at the First Vatican Council, and what she has taught since the sixteenth century regarding Mary’s role in our salvation. He would understand that to be a Catholic is to exercise faith in Christ by receiving in faith and humility what Christ’s Church teaches, as St. Thomas explains. And he would understand that the Church has in fact continued to teach and define dogmas, over the nearly five hundred years since Protestants separated from her. Therefore, he wouldn’t necessarily view the subsequent Catholic teachings as things to be retracted by the Church in order for him to return to full communion with her, but instead, as matters for him to believe by faith, in order to ‘catch up’ to be rejoined to her.

He would recognize that had Protestants remained in the Church as faithful Catholics, they would have known that even when individual bishops cause scandal by their sins, the worst possible thing to do in response is to leave the Church and form a schism, as the Donatists did. The disciples were not justified in running away from Jesus in the Garden, just because Judas betrayed Him. If Protestants had remained faithful Catholics, they would have known that the right thing to do, in such cases, is to remain within the Church, pray for her, and make reparations for the sins of others. And so he would see it as his responsibility to do the same. That’s why, I think, John Gerstner was able to say, “[I]f we’re wrong on sola fide, I’d be on my knees outside the Vatican in Rome tomorrow morning doing penance.” There is an inconsistency, in such a statement, because to recognize the Church’s authority regarding these other doctrines is inconsistent with denying her authority with regard to Trent 6. But, I think he was trying to get at the idea that if the Catholic Church was right at Trent, then the rest follows, in the way I just described. And then he should be “doing penance.”

And what penance we [who were Protestant] must do. Like Saul who became Paul, we fought against the Church in many ways, for so many years, and led others to do the same, by our example of remaining separate from her, and by our words against her and her doctrine. Now we must serve her all the more."

I think that this is the type of dialogue and charity that we are called to do with one another, so that all may be convinced of the sincerity of our Truth.

St. Joseph, patron saint of the Church Universal, ora pro nobis!