Benedict XVI, Address to Protestants at World Youth Day

How do you explain this?


Benedict XVI, Address to Protestants at World Youth Day, August 19, 2005: “And we now ask: What does it mean to restore the unity of all Christians?... This unity, we are convinced, indeed subsists in the Catholic Church, without the possibility of ever being lost (Unitatis Redintegratio, nn. 2, 4, etc.); the Church in fact has not totally disappeared from the world. Other the other hand, this unity does not mean what could be called ecumenism of the return: that is, to deny and to reject one’s own faith history. Absolutely not!” (L’Osservatore Romano, August 24, 2005, p. 8.)

He bluntly states that he absolutely rejects “ecumenism of the return.” He absolutely rejects that Protestants should be converted to the Catholic faith for unity. He absolutely knows what the Church teaches on these issues and where salvation lies for the souls that do not convert.

Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos (#10), Jan. 6, 1928: “… the union of Christians can only be promoted by promoting the return to the one true Church of Christ of those who are separated from it…”
I see Columba has asked you a couple of questions. It will be interesting to read your response.

Fatima FOT said:

Benedict XVI, Address to Protestants at World Youth Day, August 19, 2005: “And we now ask: What does it mean to restore the unity of all Christians?... This unity, we are convinced, indeed subsists in the Catholic Church, without the possibility of ever being lost (Unitatis Redintegratio, nn. 2, 4, etc.); the Church in fact has not totally disappeared from the world. Other the other hand, this unity does not mean what could be called ecumenism of the return: that is, to deny and to reject one’s own faith history. Absolutely not!” (L’Osservatore Romano, August 24, 2005, p. 8.)

He bluntly states that he absolutely rejects “ecumenism of the return.” He absolutely rejects that Protestants should be converted to the Catholic faith for unity. He absolutely knows what the Church teaches on these issues and where salvation lies for the souls that do not convert.

This is twisting what good Pope Benedict has said. The following line that was omitted says what the Pope was talking about when he mentioned “ecumenism of the return.” He said, “It does not mean uniformity in all expressions of theology and spirituality, in liturgical forms and in disciplines." The Catholic Church has always been rich in its diverse expressions in all these areas. Nothing unCatholic about it.

This Pope in particular, who has been criticized for overtly setting up an organized welcome for Anglicans to come into the Church, certainly believes in uniformity of belief and in Protestants becoming Catholic for true ecumenism and unity of Christians. And he clearly states it. Such lies against the Pope.


Mark 8:15-18: “He enjoined them, "Watch out, guard against the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod. . . . Do you not yet understand or comprehend? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes and not see, ears and not hear?”

“I will strike the shepherd and the sheep will scatter.” (Jesus said this about Himself, but Satan is striking the visible shepherd He gave us and so many faithful are listening to the lies and scattering.)

Fatima FOT said:

Benedict XVI, Address to Protestants at World Youth Day, August 19, 2005: “And we now ask: What does it mean to restore the unity of all Christians?... This unity, we are convinced, indeed subsists in the Catholic Church, without the possibility of ever being lost (Unitatis Redintegratio, nn. 2, 4, etc.); the Church in fact has not totally disappeared from the world. Other the other hand, this unity does not mean what could be called ecumenism of the return: that is, to deny and to reject one’s own faith history. Absolutely not!” (L’Osservatore Romano, August 24, 2005, p. 8.)

#1 This is not an infallible document.
#2 One's own "faith history" could mean a lot of things. For example, with regards to the Orthodox when they return to the Catholic Church they don't have to change anything in their Liturgy. That could be part of their "faith history." With regards to Protestants this could mean certain hymns would be allowed for them to be sung in their Masses if they were to convert, or they could keep their same Church buildings, etc. My point is this quote is not really proof of anything because it can be interpreted every which way.

Elisa wrote:
This is twisting what good Pope Benedict has said. The following line that was omitted says what the Pope was talking about when he mentioned “ecumenism of the return.” He said, “It does not mean uniformity in all expressions of theology and spirituality, in liturgical forms and in disciplines." The Catholic Church has always been rich in its diverse expressions in all these areas. Nothing unCatholic about it.

Good point. One thing that I find funny about the Dimonds is that, for example when they debated Vin Lewis, they started to "prove" their position to him by almost immediately quoting a whole slew of quotes from St. Robert Bellarmine and St. Francis De Sales, and a bunch of other FALLIBLE sources. They just rattled off these quotes as if they all had the same teaching authority. It is amazing that they will point out that these saints are not infallible when talking about baptism of desire and baptism of blood (I agree), but then when they want to prove sedevacantism they rely heavily on these saints and doctors.

Also since the sedevacantist theory does not have very strong dogmatic grounds, they have to get into theories about Sr. Lucy and their interpretations of the Book of Revelations.

The Church does not even require the faithful to believe in private apparitions such as Fatima (I am not saying I don't believe in it, just stating the facts) so who really CARES if there was a Sr. Lucy impostor or not anyway?

I should also point out that basing your conclusions on photos is really just constructing the arguments on sand. Photos can be taken out of context more easily then text. Also with the technology available with PhotoShop and other even more advanced software, you can modify a photo very easily.

Elisa wrote:For what reason are these things allowed? So that we can have an open “debate” and so that these sedes and sede leaners can be convinced of their errors? Not likely. You see they are not listening and not open to the truth and are arrogant in their insults against the Holy Father. We wouldn’t allow a Protestant to disrespect our faith this way. Actually, the stuff Dominion wrote here isn’t any worse than this stuff. The twisting of our Holy Father’s words and inferring heretic intent and meaning. And the insults against the Pope aren’t limited to this sede section of the forum.

I try to monitor the forum as best as I can, sometimes things fall through the cracks.

If you look at some website analysis sites you will see that the Dimond's site gets a lot of traffic (probably due to the amount of Google Ads they buy). I think the Catholic Answer Forums policy of just banning the discussion of sedevacantism altogether is just going to make that error grow. Given the current situation where in most of the Western world everyone has absolute religious freedom, banning the discussion of a certain error or religion on a little-known forum isn't going to do much to stop it. Not allowing it to be discussed actually only strengthens their position because they can claim "See, you guys won't even debate the issue." I think given the current situation with "freedom of expression" in the Western world, if the true Catholic faith and other religions/sects/and errors are given an even playing field the Catholic faith will win out. If it doesn't it will be because the Catholics are not doing their homework and studying on their own to bring out new arguments.

Another thing I wanted to point out there is a lot of people create super long posts that ramble on and on. I kind of doubt that most people even read the entire posts when this happens. (IMHO, even this post is TOO LONG.) I actually wish that I could put a post limit like other forums but this is impossible. Stick to a few solid arguments refuting the other side's points and move on. As Vin Lewis says "Always know what you are doing. Distinguish between apologetics, evangelization, and instruction. If you are doing apologetics then concentrate on destroying the other person's argument, if you are evangelizing then evangelize, if you are instructing then instruct. If at any point it is unclear what you are doing DO NOT PROCEED."

Elisa if this kind of stuff is unsettling to you then you're in the same boat as many of us here. Two years ago I knew absolutely nothing of sedevacantism; in fact I didn't even know it existed. I did however know that there was something wrong within the Church solely from the witness of my own eyes and ears. I thought I was the only one who noticed this as when I tried to talk to good Catholic friends about it I got strange looks and bewildered shakes of heads.
My main source of unease was with the Mass and sitting there in the pew cringing at what was taking place while believing all the time that I was being judgemental and hypocritical thinking that the priest can't be wrong in saying this or doing that.

Well after certain priests in question left their vocations either for a woman or another man, I began to realize that I wasn't completely insane in what I was thinking and feeling. There really was something wrong in the Church.
It was only when I got involved on a Catholic Chat site did I realize (to my relief) that I weren't the only one so troubled.

To cut a long story short I found that these things weren't just confined to my own parish but in act were world wide. The worst aspect of all (and this caused me many sleepless nights) was the fact that nothing was being done to correct the problems but rather the very people in charge who could possibly do so were in fact contributing to the confussion by their own consenting words and deeds.

Sedevacantism is a natural consequence of the abandonment of the sheep by the shepherds and a bid by some to preserve their Catholic faith from total ruin in light of the complete lack of any solid leadership in the form of doctrine from the highest to the lowest.

Up until a few months ago, No one. Not even one single person I know in my own parish believed the Catholic Church to be the one true Church established by Christ for the salvation of souls. At least three or four believe that now because I told them but not one priest I know believes this.

Elisa while getting upset with the likes of Fatima you ignore the reasons why he thinks as he does and completely absolve from any guilt the very ones who have it within their power to give by their authority what the sedevacants hope to give with only the dubious authority of fallible statements by Saints and Doctors that seem back their stance.

If you can counter their arguments with substantial proofs of your own, then I for one will take a back seat and watch on. Ad Hominem doesn't work for any of us and only gives more credence to the view being opposed.