"Somewhere in Pope Francis’s office is a document that could alter the course of Christian history. It declares an end to hostilities between Catholics and Evangelicals and says the two
traditions are now “united in mission because we
are declaring the same Gospel”. The Holy Father is thinking of signing the text in 2017, the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, alongside Evangelical leaders.
Francis is convinced that the Reformation is already over. He believes it ended in 1999, the year the Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation issued a joint declaration on justification, the doctrine at the heart of Luther’s protest.
In 2006, the World Methodist Council also adopted the declaration. But not one major leader of “born-again” Christians has publicly endorsed the text. So most of the world’s 600 million Evangelicals don’t realise that the protest is over.
Francis .......An old-school Argentine Jesuit,
You can imagine his discomfort when, in 1999, he first celebrated Mass for charismatic Catholics. They spoke in tongues, like their Pentecostal counterparts, when he elevated the Host. But, as Archbishop of Buenos Aires, he began attending noisy, praise-filled gatherings of Evangelicals and Catholics.
But in 2006 he went on stage, where he knelt as Protestant leaders prayed over him. A pastor with a microphone hollered: “Fill him with your Holy Spirit and power, Lord! In the name of Jesus!” The image of the cardinal kneeling, head bowed, beneath the outstretched hands of Evangelicals was so startling that a traditionalist magazine ran the headline: “Buenos Aires, sede vacante. The archbishop commits the sin of apostasy”.
Ulf Ekman, a Swedish megachurch pastor who became a Catholic last year, agrees that many Evangelicals are afraid of “a Superchurch”. Still, he believes that old wounds can be healed by what he calls “a parallel approach”. “That is, both sides coming closer on equal terms and recognising each other with an approach of avoiding any appearance of submission and triumphalism, more converging then conversion.” This, of course, fits well with Francis’s own thinking, which he captures in pithy phrases such as “reconciled diversity” and “unity without uniformity”.
Thanks to Francis and the Catholic Charismatic Renewal movement, the faithful are likely to look considerably more like Evangelicals by the end of the century than they did at the beginning. But whether Evangelicals will be more Catholic remains to be seen." CatholicHerald
Francis is convinced that the Reformation is already over. He believes it ended in 1999, the year the Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation issued a joint declaration on justification, the doctrine at the heart of Luther’s protest.
In 2006, the World Methodist Council also adopted the declaration. But not one major leader of “born-again” Christians has publicly endorsed the text. So most of the world’s 600 million Evangelicals don’t realise that the protest is over.
Francis .......An old-school Argentine Jesuit,
You can imagine his discomfort when, in 1999, he first celebrated Mass for charismatic Catholics. They spoke in tongues, like their Pentecostal counterparts, when he elevated the Host. But, as Archbishop of Buenos Aires, he began attending noisy, praise-filled gatherings of Evangelicals and Catholics.
But in 2006 he went on stage, where he knelt as Protestant leaders prayed over him. A pastor with a microphone hollered: “Fill him with your Holy Spirit and power, Lord! In the name of Jesus!” The image of the cardinal kneeling, head bowed, beneath the outstretched hands of Evangelicals was so startling that a traditionalist magazine ran the headline: “Buenos Aires, sede vacante. The archbishop commits the sin of apostasy”.
Ulf Ekman, a Swedish megachurch pastor who became a Catholic last year, agrees that many Evangelicals are afraid of “a Superchurch”. Still, he believes that old wounds can be healed by what he calls “a parallel approach”. “That is, both sides coming closer on equal terms and recognising each other with an approach of avoiding any appearance of submission and triumphalism, more converging then conversion.” This, of course, fits well with Francis’s own thinking, which he captures in pithy phrases such as “reconciled diversity” and “unity without uniformity”.
Thanks to Francis and the Catholic Charismatic Renewal movement, the faithful are likely to look considerably more like Evangelicals by the end of the century than they did at the beginning. But whether Evangelicals will be more Catholic remains to be seen." CatholicHerald
.....and they worshipped the beast, saying,
Who is like unto the beast?
Revelation 13:4
