The One True Church

[rest_in_thee]

First Things, the journal for which the great, late Fr. Richard John Neuhaus was editor, has published an article he wrote for the magazine just before he died. I have just read it, and it is a wonderful commentary on ecumenism and the nature of the Church, and a Catholic understanding of the One True Church. Here is an excerpt:

My church is

Comments

[crosstherubicon]

I find ti sad that when I stated precisely this you chose to pick out what elements of Church teaching you found divisive.

And "Substit in" is not the final word. It never can be either - it simply has to rest alongside "Est" until the end of the age. And as I said before - having a precise and honest ecclesiology is not a mark of lack of vision, nor of a lack of compassion, nor of a disdain for ecumenism. The problem is so often not from the side of the less ecclesiologically 'liberal' (whatever it means to be liberal in terms of a theology of the Church...) but from the side of those elements in the Church who simply wish to paint everyone who disagrees with them as hateful.

Until they are reminded that Francis himself had no time for a 'liberal' ecclesiology yet managed to almost die from love of neighbour.

[rest_in_thee]

My issues with your posts and comments tend not to be with what you say but with how you say them. You would do well to learn much from Fr. Neuhaus and from his late friend, Cardinal Dulles. I certainly appreciate your passion and your commitment to truth, but your method, in my opinion, leaves much to be desired.

[crosstherubicon]

I think a good part of it is simply that when I first started out here (years ago) there was a considerable degree of anti-Catholic rhetoric which probably affected my approach. As I stated before - what I might say here is rarely how I respond in the real world, where I use humour and a good pair of ears rather than cut-throat apologetics

[rest_in_thee]

Okay. If you think your methods are fine, there's not much I can say to convince you. Perhaps you'll convince a few people, but I believe you alienate far more people than you convince, and unnecessarily. You don't seem to have much of a sense for when it's the right time to proceed with a little bit of sensitivity to the topic at hand. You come across as thinking that just because you're right it doesn't matter how you say it, because you're right, dammit. Unfortunately what you say is not the only thing that matters, and the truth alone isn't enough to convince people or to reach their hearts. We're emotional beings, and you don't ever seem to account for that, not online. As for your real life encounters, it matters little to me since I don't know you in real life. I can only evaluate your exchanges here.

[crosstherubicon]

I don't usually care to extend these disagreements but I think in this case it matters because you're not applying the rules you claim to apply to others