Catholics and Pentecostals: Miles to go to bridge the divide

   Catholics and Pentecostals – commonly known as Protestants – recently concluded the sixth phase of their international dialogue, aimed at promoting better relations between the two communities started over four decades ago. Are we anywhere close to unity? The answer is no, but everyone agrees that a continuous dialogue is necessary to achieve unification in the not-so-distant future.

  The theme of this sixth phase, held in July, focused on "Charisms in the Church: Their Spiritual Significance, Discernment, and Pastoral Implications" with sessions dedicated to common ground, discernment, healing and prophesy. The final session, which took place in Rome from July 10-17, was dedicated to drafting a final report, due for publication early next year. Daily prayer services, led alternately by Catholics and Pentecostals, have been an important feature of the meeting and participants on Sunday attended Mass at the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls.
  The two co-chairs of the dialogue were Bishop Michael Burbidge, head of the US diocese of Raleigh in North Carolina and Rev Cecil (Mel) Robeck representing the Assemblies of God, a professor of Church history and ecumenics at Fuller Theological Seminary in California.

 Christians in general are curious about the impact of the first Latin American pope on relations between the two communities.

  Historically, Christianity is divided into three broad categories – Roman Catholic, Protestants and Eastern Orthodox Church. The Orthodox Church is an ancient community with many things in common with Roman Catholics except that there’s no Pope in the community. Protestant denominations – they number around 30,000 -- reject the notion of papal supremacy over the Church universal and generally deny the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation and a host of other things, but they disagree among themselves regarding Christ's presence in the Eucharist.

  In another two years, 2017 will mark the 500^th anniversary since Martin Luther published ‘The ninety-five theses’ and started opposing the Catholic Church teachings which eventually led to the formation of Protestant churches.

  That said, the goal of the latest Dialogue, started in 1972, is to promote mutual respect and understanding in matters of faith and practice, says a press statement issued by Vatican. Genuine exchange and frank discussion concerning the positions and practices of the two traditions have been guiding principles of these conversations.

 According to Bishop Burbidge, through the scholarly papers that were presented, honest and respectful discussion throughout the Dialogue, and our prayer time together we grew to a deeper understanding of areas of agreement as related to charisms, healing, prophecy, and discernment, as well as points of divergence. “We also identified together pastoral challenges and opportunities as we go forth to invite others to a deeper reliance on the gifts of the Spirit who is always at work within us,” he said.
 Pentacostals say that on most issues they are in agreement.

 Rev Robeck said, "this current round of dialogue has revealed that the teaching of Pentecostals and Catholics on the charisms or gifts of the Holy Spirit have many points of agreement. Both traditions recognize that every believer has been given one or more gifts by the Holy Spirit to be used to build up the Church and to minister to the world. These gifts have been present in the Church since the time of the New Testament.”

  “Given the problems posed by society in the current culture, we acknowledge that we face common challenges in which our people must rely upon the help of the Holy Spirit to exercise these charisms in thoughtful and creative ways as they seek to extend the message of love and forgiveness that Jesus Christ brought to the world,” Rev Robeck said.
  The first major difference between Catholics and Protestants is the issue of the sufficiency and authority of Scripture. Protestants say that the Bible alone is the source of God’s special revelation to mankind and teaches us all that is necessary for our salvation from sin. Catholics reject the doctrine of sola scriptura and believe that both the Bible and sacred Roman Catholic tradition are equally binding upon the Christians. Roman Catholics believe in purgatory, praying to the saints and veneration of Mother Mary.

 Apart from transubstantiation, the major bone of contention, another disagreement between Catholicism and Protestantism is over the office and authority of the Pope. Further, Catholics teach that the Christian must rely on faith and seven Sacraments --  baptism, confirmation, the Eucharist, penance, anointing of the sick, holy orders and matrimony – for salvation. Protestants believe that, on the basis of faith in Christ alone, believers are justified by God, and all their sins are paid for by Christ on the cross and His righteousness is imputed to them.

 As a Christian, this writer hopes that Catholics and Protestants will thrash out all contentious issues and come together in the not so foreseeable future. If this happens, Jesus will be the happiest person.

Authoritarianism in Church: When is the next major reform coming?

  Can you hold on to a position of power indefinitely in the Church? No you can’t. That’s a dangerous proposition and the idea of clinging on to the chair comes from the devil.
  Pope Francis has amply made it clear that Church doesn’t favour and want dictators  “The only one who is indispensable is the Holy Spirit, and no one is Lord, except Jesus Christ,” Pope Francis said to a group of 30,000 people at an inter-denominational rally of charismatic Christians in St. Peter’s Square. Why is Pope reminding Church members about indispensability and authoritarianism. Is it time for the next major reform in the Church?
  It's a clear indication from Pope Francis -- it’s abundantly clear that he doesn’t favour clergy or laity to rule for a long time like dictators. In fact, in some countries this is happening. There’s no retirement age for top church leaders and religious. Pope Francis has been on a mission to reform the Vatican curia and introduced several changes. Much more remains to be done. Pope Francis established the Council of Cardinals just a month into his pontificate to help him reform the Curia and govern the universal church.
 His statement against indispensability and authoritarianism could be an indicator of long-awaited reforms in the Church. The Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) and the revised Code of Canon Law (1983) were two major occasions when Catholic Church witnessed major reforms. While the first led Pope Paul VI to reform the Roman Curia, the second step was initiated by Pope John Paul II. When is the third major reform coming?

 When a person gets a position of power, he enjoys it, but slowly and steadily starts making mistakes one after another. He develops vested interests, acts as per his whims and fancies and like a drunk man, power goes to his head. He gets the feeling of indispensability. What follows is dictatorship and chaos.   
In other words, Pope is saying that Church doesn’t want people occupying the same position ad infinitum. “It is appropriate that all services in the Church have a time limit,” he said. Leaders for life happen in countries under a dictatorship. We have many such countries in this world. History tells us that dictators who ruled such countries had a violent end.   
  Dictatorships can create problems in the church as well. “Believing yourself to be indispensable is a great temptation for leaders, and it comes from the devil,” said Pope Francis. “Authoritarianism and personalism easily enter in when leaders desire to hold onto their position forever” and “one slides from being a servant to being a master,” he said.
  Is the statement of Pope directed at church leaders who have been holding powerful positions for a long time? Is he hinting that Church leaders should make way for new generations and leaders or an indication of a major reform in the Church? The 78-year-old Pontiff has said on other occasions that he would be prepared to resign instead of ruling for life if he felt he could not continue running the 1.2 billion-member Church for health or other reasons.
 Pope Francis said Pope Benedict’s retirement decision “should not be considered an exception, but an institution.” “Nowadays an emeritus pope is not a strange thing, but it opened the door for this to exist,” he said. Pope also said, however, that he did not like the idea of an automatic retirement age for popes, for example at age 80.
 

70 per cent of Indians live in villages, most are poor

 Why is a democratic country which got independence in 1947 is still poor? Successive governments poured billions of dollars into social welfare schemes, but majority of people remain poor.
  New data released on Friday showed that that more than 70 percent of people in India live in villages, with the majority extremely poor and dependent on manual labour. The data from India's socio-economic and caste census was collected between 2011 and 2013. It's the first time India has studied caste data since 1932.
 One doesn’t have to look far for reasons for this sorry state of affairs. The country lacks strong, upright and efficient political leaders. They simply failed in uplifting the people and giving them good living standards. They enriched themselves through corruption and scandals. They tightly controlled the economy and refused to open up the country for development. In 1947, the situation in S Korea was worse than India. Now they are far ahead of India.The Church needs to look into these aspects.
 When you go deep inside interior regions in states like UP, Bihar, Orissa, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Maharashtra and  W Bengal, the abysmal living conditions are really appalling. There’s no electricity, no transport, no proper houses, no drinking water and no facilities for education and healthcare. Then where’s the budgetary allocations going?
On the other hand, rich people are getting richer. The number of billionaires is expanding. If you analyse the net worth of most members of parliament or state assemblies, they are filthy rich. There’s no real concern for the poor.   
 Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the data was provisional and the final data would be updated over the next few months to help the government to properly channel its welfare spending to benefit those who needed help the most. It’s not that the conclusion will show any improvement when the final data comes in later.
  India conducts a national census every 10 years and that document delves into the wealth, living conditions and other personal details of the country's 1.2 billion people. The previous government initiated a separate process of studying caste and analyzing socio-economic progress based on those divisions.

  Caste, the Hindu custom that for millennia has divided people in a strict social hierarchy based on their family's traditional livelihood and ethnicity, is deeply sensitive in India. The practice was outlawed when India gained freedom from Britain in 1947, but is still pervasive. Studies show low-caste Indians and dalits face daily challenges for decent schools, medical care and jobs.  While the data shows how low-caste Indians fare overall on various economic indicators, the government has said that the final data would not show specific caste details.

 The data released Friday revealed that of India's nearly 244 million households, more than 179 million are rural. At least 56 percent of those rural households do not own any land and depend on manual labor. Among the lowest castes in rural India the number of landless was as high as 70 percent. Nearly 107 million rural households are what the government terms as "deprived", meaning they either live in a single room made of mud and straw, have no earning adult male, or no literate adult member.