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L e t t e r s
CONCILIAR CONFUSIONS
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This Rock
Volume 6, Number 3
 March 1995 
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ON several occasions you have used
the participation by some Eastern Orthodox bishops in the
Council of Florence (1438-39) and their acceptance of its
decrees as proof that Roman Catholic jurisdictional and
dogmatic claims were fully accepted by the Eastern Churches
and thereby given legitimacy. In fairness, however, I think
the point should be made that the validity of this council
and its decrees is open to question.
Although the Roman Catholic Church considers the Council of
Florence an ecumenical council whose decrees are binding,
Orthodox Christians view it more as a failed "unity council"
whose proposals were rejected. Although both sides have
differing definitions of the term ecumenical, when placed
within its historical context the result of this council are
suspect at best. Unlike the seven ecumenical councils
accepted as such by both East and West, the Council of
Florence was convened more for political than religious
reasons. Its overriding objective was to reunify the Eastern
and Western portions of the Roman Empire so that
Constantinople could defeat the Turkish armies at its gates.
The validity of Florence's decrees was further undermined
when almost all of the Eastern signatories retracted in the
face of overwhelming opposition from other Eastern bishops,
clergy, and laity.
Can the validity of an ecumenical council and its findings
be questioned? Historically, it has happened on several
occasions. For example, the councils of Rimini (359) and
Ephesus (449) were once considered ecumenical by the Church
but later relegated to the category of local councils. And
the Eastern Churches are not alone in withdrawing their
support for a council and its findings. A good example of
this is the Council of Constantinople (879-80), which sealed
the reconciliation between Pope John VIII and the Patriarch
of Constantinople, Photius. This council reached two major
decisions: first, there would be no papal "jurisdiction" in
the East (canon 1), but the traditional honorary primacy of
Rome would be recognized as well as the traditional
territorial limits of the Roman Patriarchate; second, all
parties agreed to accept the original text of the
Nicaea-Constantinople Creed (without the Filioque) and
clearly condemned any additions.
In this particular case all the criteria of ecumenicity
accepted for the previous seven councils were present:
imperial convocation; representation from the five
patriarchates, including Rome; it is called "holy and
ecumenical" in its documents; and almost 400 bishops from
the East and West were present. Modern scholarly research
indicates that John VIII accepted the findings of the
council, despite previous assumptions, and for over 200
years Rome recognized this council as legitimate, if not
ecumenical. It was only with the renewal of papal
jurisdictional claims in the eleventh century that Rome
revoked its acceptance of what many Orthodox and some Roman
Catholic scholars consider the "eighth ecumenical council."
Indeed, at the Council of Florence the Eastern bishops
attempted to use the decrees of Constantinople as the basis
for discussion, only to be rebuffed.
David Allen Filtz
Manassas, Virginia
Editor's reply:
The eighth ecumenical
council was the fourth to be held at Constantinople; it met
in six sessions from 869-870. The reigning pope was Adrian
II. The Eastern churches rejected this council and accepted
the 879-880 council as ecumenical; they consider this
"Photian synod" to be the eighth ecumenical council.
At the Council of Rimini the orthodox
bishops were outfoxed by the Semi-Arian bishops. The council
adopted a formula concerning the relation of the Son to the
Father, and Pope Liberius, who had not been present at the
council, rejected the formula, at which point many of the
orthodox bishops repudiated their signatures. Since the pope
never approved the council's decisions, the council could
not be considered an ecumenical council.
The council held at Ephesus in 449 should
not to be confused with the ecumenical council held there in
431. When he rejected the decisions of the 449 council (the
story is too complex to go into here), Pope Leo I called it
the "Latrocinium" or "Robber Council." It was never
considered an ecumenical council.
Ultimately there is but one thing needed for
a council to be considered ecumenical: a pope's declaration
that it is. So far there have been 21 ecumenical councils.
The Eastern churches accept only the first seven.
In the next issue Fr. Ray Ryland will begin
a series of articles examining the history, teaching, and
present status of the Eastern churches. The first article
will look at what attracts Evangelicals to the Orthodox
churches.
Clueless cardinal
LAST year I read an article by an
Italian cardinal on how to handle the Church's loss of
faithful in the Philippines. He obviously didn't have a clue
to understanding the problem. His big misunderstanding
revealed itself in the statement "We do not have enough
priests to counter all the pastors that they [the
Fundamentalists] have." We will never be able to counter
them until we have educated (religion-wise), dedicated lay
people who are willing and able to evangelize, as the others
do.
The young and old, every dedicated member of Fundamentalists
groups, also Evangelical churches, can and do evangelize at
every opportunity. Their whole life is rooted in the
practice of the presence of Jesus, the Bible, and the coming
of the Kingdom. Right or wrong, they are spreading the Word.
They believe, know, and can express what they believe. They
have been reared to believe that Catholics are lost and they
are going to save us (in their minds). While our Church
leaders seem to think that priests are the only answer!
We as a Church pray for more vocations to the priesthood and
religious life. Rarely, if ever, have I heard a prayer from
the altar for discernment and openness to encourage willing,
dedicated lay people to evangelize (or better yet, programs
on local levels to teach evangelization). I am simply
pointing out what these Fundamentalists groups are doing and
doing well.
Eleanor Di Bernardo
Keene, New Hampshire
"Call off your work"
I HAVE been an occasional reader of
This Rock for years (I cannot afford a subscription so I
see the magazine only infrequently). I have used a number of
your tracts and your excellent book in my study of
Fundamentalists and religious cults in America.
The Catholic Church makes no organized effort (that I can
see) to refute the heresies, erroneous doctrines, and
outright lies of today's false prophets. Indeed, it is hard
enough to find out what the Church actually teaches. (It's
only been 400 years since the Church last published a
catechism). This is why organizations like Catholic Answers
are so important--for you are teaching the faith in a way
that reaches a great number of people. The Church itself has
few programs to address questions related to Church history,
doctrines, and practices.
We must ask ourselves why Church doctrine is so
inaccessible. I have given the matter a great deal of
thought, and I believe it is because of hypocrisy, laziness,
and cowardice (with a good measure of ignorance) on the part
of today's clergy, who have arrogated unto themselves all
religious authority. Since I was "born again" nearly a
decade ago, I have delved into Church doctrine, practice,
organization, and history, and with a passion. While by no
means an expert in any of these fields, I can honestly say I
have dedicated a great deal of time to these matters. And I
have come to realize that the Catholic Church today faces
what is probably its most serious crisis in history.
I have watched as the audience fawned over New Age icon (and
former Dominican priest) Matthew Fox, who was appearing on
stage with his pet witch, Starhawk, and a retinue of
homosexuals at the University of San Diego (a Catholic
University).
I have heard Catholic university instructors rail against
the Church's pro-life teachings.
I have been upbraided by a Catholic bishop for "undermining
the stability of the American economy" for preaching the
truth about the evils of economic exploitation and usury.
I have seen the demons of hell in the eyes of a Catholic
priest as he raged that my visions and inspirations were not
of God (as if he would know).
I have watched Catholic nuns lead pro-abortion
demonstrations and political crusades advocating special
rights for homosexuals.
I have endured Holy Mass in our nation's capital at which
the presiding Jesuit priest (obviously a hate-filled
homosexual) was drowned out by a manic transvestite who
blasphemed continuously (and loudly) throughout the service,
it would appear on instructions from the pastor. (I did not
receive Communion, for I was afraid to touch a host which
had been consecrated by a demon).
Most telling, in response to my own inquiries regarding a
priestly vocation, I was advised by an openly homosexual
diocesan vocation director that preparation for today's
priesthood required a grounding in humanistic psychology--in
a word, secular humanism.
I can document all of this and more--from murderous nuns and
child-molesting priests to occult practices and pop
psychology at Jesuit retreat houses. I myself have been
slipped mind-altering drugs by the son of the pope's own
security director (who also slipped me a New Age book
entitled Cosmic Consciousness which appears to be
authored by the Freemasons) when I went on Easter retreat
with a religious order in England a few years ago.
I could never have imagined such evil as I have seen behind
the scenes in the Catholic Church.
It gets much worse than this.
I have been haunted by demons and hounded by demoniacs. I
have been followed, drugged, poisoned, tortured, and
tormented unceasingly by a world-wide network of fascists
and flakes and sexual deviants, from neo-Nazis to femi-Nazis
(many serving in various capacities in the Catholic Church).
Why? Because I believe in God and the plain truth of the
gospel of Jesus Christ--anathema to today's New Age
Catholics, pagans at heart.
I have seen all this and more, and I have also seen you
speaking at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Hagerstown,
Maryland a few years back. You strike me as sincere and
seriously concerned about the state of the world and the
condition of Mother Church. That is why I am writing to you
personally to ask you to call off your work. I know your
intentions are good. But, as they say, the road to hell is
paved with good intentions.
The Catholic Church does not need any apologists.What the
Church really needs is just the opposite. The Church today
needs critics who are not afraid to speak the truth--to
challenge the Church to refute the mass of errors,
speculation, and assumption--accretions, if you will--that the
Church has accumulated over the centuries and today teaches
as doctrine.
Jesus taught that his followers were to reject the world and
take up their cross daily and follow him in humility and
service. Jesus never intended a Church like today's Catholic
Church--a ponderous bureaucracy riddled with spies, perverts,
and political intrigues, with a pope living in a palace and
bishops living in mansions.(Catholic clergy are looking more
and more like Protestant churchmen every day.)
Wake up! Rather than stubbornly insisting that the Church's
lies, speculations, and assumptions are true or, worse yet,
that the Catholic Church is incapable of error, why not
stand back and take a thoughtful look at the state of the
Church and Church doctrine today?Then read the gospel of our
Lord again, carefully, imagining that you are living the
faith and experiencing the development of Christianity
during the earliest days of the Church, while the apostles
were still alive.You will come to realize that so many of
the accretions (the Fundamentalists like to use the word
"inventions") the Catholic Church has accumulated are
totally unnecessary, and only complicate what should be a
simple subject.
The world desperately needs the Church. But before the
Church can fulfill her prophetic mission, serving as God's
instrument on earth, the Church needs to "reinvent itself"
(to use a popular phrase). The Church needs to rediscover
her roots--to get back to the basics.
Many of the Church's teachings are not true. Many more are
groundless. Some are totally unsupported by any sort of
evidence. Rather than claiming that it is infallibly true
that Mary was assumed bodily into heaven--which is sheer
speculation--why not say "we assume Mary is in heaven"? Why
does the Church insist that Mary was a virgin before,
during, and after the birth of Christ? This is stupid.
How can the Church expect to win the hearts and souls of the
people when it says such stupid things?How can the Church
expect to be taken seriously in this skeptical and cynical
age? It's not the virgin birth that bothers people--most
people believe in miracles (according to reliable surveys,
90 percent of Americans believe in communication with the
dead, ESP, astrology, psychic phenomena, or ouija boards).
People will believe anything so long as it is within the
realm of possibility. So why is it that the Church has to
push credibility to the limit and come up with things that
people just can't accept? Why not leave well enough alone?
It's a beautiful story ... all the more so when we read
about Jesus' brothers and sisters.
Indeed, it would not in any way detract from the dignity of
Jesus' character or the force of his words were his Jewish
detractors' whispered calumnies to be true--that Jesus was
the illegitimate son of a Roman soldier and a Jewish peasant
girl.
That would be far less humiliating than the popular
"Christian" teaching (which, incidentally, Jesus pointedly
refuted) that our Lord was descended from the line of
Israel's King David, who was, in truth, nothing less than a
human swine.
I encourage you to make the most of your considerable talent
and energy--not to mention organizational ability. Forget
about Catholic apologetics.Put on instead the mantle of
prophecy and call the Church to preach the gospel and
repudiate erroneous teaching--starting with a careful
examination of the doctrines of the Church and a repudiation
of the Church's own errors.
Charles H. Sulka
Charles Town, West Virginia
Editor's reply:
I appreciate your
confidence in me as a prophet. It is a confidence no one
else seems to share. The same can be said, I suppose, for
many of your opinions, which we quote here at length (but
not interminable length: portions of your letter have been
excised).
While some of your complaints are valid,
most are exaggerated or just bizarre. There may have been
several good reasons not to take Communion at that Mass, but
fear that a "demon" (I presume you mean that literally)
could consecrate a host is misplaced. Demons don't have the
power to consecrate. But they do have the power to "haunt"
you, and they have done so, you say.
However that may be, it is certain that your
prescription for "renewal" is misplaced. We don't "renew"
the Church by tossing out doctrines that some think are
"stupid." (Some might use that adjective to describe the
idea that the Assumption of Mary should be understood as
meaning we assume she is in heaven.)
You close by saying I should call on the
Church to "preach the gospel." I don't have to call on it to
do that --it's been preaching the gospel for twenty
centuries, and it will continue to do so long after you and
I are gone. Part of that preaching entails insisting on some
truths, such as the perpetual virginity of Mary, that you
find hard to accept.
You point a finger at the Church and accuse
it of error. Please remember that whenever we point at
another with our forefinger, our other fingers are pointing
back at ourselves.
Seven problems with sola
PROTESTANTISM is not just a set of
beliefs within Christianity. Protestantism is also a system
of beliefs. The doctrine that is the cornerstone of the
Protestants' system is sola scriptura. This doctrine
asserts that only those doctrines found in the Bible should
be accepted. The reason that sola scriptura is the
cornerstone of Protestantism is because it is the doctrine
by which all other doctrines are to be judged. There are
seven problems with sola scriptura:
1. The doctrine of sola scriptura is itself found nowhere
in the Bible and is therefore unbiblical and should be
rejected by its own standard.
2. Sola scriptura is also anti-biblical because it
contradicts a number of verses in Scripture and is therefore
heresy (2 Thess. 2:15, 2 Tim. 2:2, Acts 2:42, 1 Cor. 11:2, 1
Thess. 2:13, Matt. 2:23).
3. What good is an authoritative Bible if it cannot be
authoritatively interpreted?
4. The heresy of sola scriptura has led to chaos in the
Body of Christ. There are over 22,000 different Protestant
denominations and at least as many different sets of beliefs
among "non-denominational" Christians.
5. No one for the first 1,500 years of Christianity believed
in the heresy of sola scriptura.
6. Jesus did not write one word of the New Testament. He
could have, but he had full confidence that the one Church
he founded (the Catholic Church) would faithfully and
correctly hand down his teachings. The Bible comes down to
us by means of two authorities, the Church and Sacred
Tradition. If these authorities are rejected, by whose
authority do Protestants select which books should be (or
not be) in the Bible?
7. In order to accept the Bible as the sole authority on
doctrine, you actually have to accept two authorities, the
Bible and private interpretation, which is non-biblical and
a contradiction unto itself, so no wonder that Protestantism
has a split personality of over 22,000 denominations.
Tom Anderson
Brookings, Oregon
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