Word: ecclesias
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Catholic Scope. Out of conviction, Luther stood for truth at the expense of unity-but the truths he stood for are essential to the Christian church: the primacy of faith and God's word, the necessity of an ecclesia semper refor-manda (ever-reforming church), and the centrality of Jesus Christ. The Lutheran heritage, sums up Theologian Joseph Sittler of the University of Chicago Divinity School, is "a tradition of profound, relentless, critical Biblical studies, a theological reflection of truly catholic scope, a type of piety nurtured by liturgical continuity with the old Catholic tradition...
...Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity. Signed by Archbishop Pericle Felici, the council's secretary, the letter proposed that the somewhat lackluster declaration on anti-Semitism (TIME, Oct. 9), which a majority of bishops wishes to strengthen, should be reduced to a short chapter in the schema, De Ecclesia (On the Church). Felici also urged that a declaration on religious liberty be rewritten by a special committee of four bishops-three of them conservatives who had already spoken out against the declaration at the council...
...Magno Dolore (With Great Sorrow). It protested Felici's directives on the two declarations, as well as two other recent and repressive curial moves: a threat to end the council at the end of the current third session and an attempt to water down the passage in De Ecclesia defining the authority of the bishops over the church...
...viewpoints, and the gradual unfolding of progressive strength; the second was bogged down by papal indecision and defensive parliamentary maneuvering by Curial forces. But by the end of the third session's second week, the bishops had taken 37 votes on sections of the 219-page schema De Ecclesia (On the Church), rushed through discussion of two other chapters, started debate on a schema outlining the duties of bishops, and drafted declarations concerning religious liberty and antiSemitism. So much was being prodded through the lengthened daily sessions that an African bishop complained: "I feel like...
These unpleasant truths persuaded Pope John XXIII that the council was needed, and gave new force to the traditional understanding of Catholicism as ecclesia semper reformanda-a church ever in need of reform. Christ himself was free of sin; but the continuation of his work, Dopfner pointed out, "has been entrusted to frail, sinful humans." Thus the church has sometimes been guilty of "failing to achieve what God had desired. The presentation of the love of Christ can lag if the church uses the means of power instead of humility, of force instead of service...