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SKIRTING THE REFORMATION

So how does the new Catechism of the Catholic Church handle the issues of justification and believers' assurance? Unfortunately, they are not legitimately addressed at all. In fact, justification is treated as something of a nonproblem, which leads me to confess a real degree of concern. The Roman Catholic reader of this catechism will learn little, if anything, of the Reformation debates over this matter or of Protestant sensitivities over Roman Catholic teaching.

While emphasizing that salvation takes place by grace, on the basis of the work of Christ rather than human effort or achievement, the catechism seems reluctant to engage with the questions raised above and does little to reassure the anxieties of any readers familiar with the sixteenth-century debates. It is clear that the agenda of the Reformation remains with us on these issues. And a cluster of other controversies are associated with these contentions of the Reformation era. Two are of remaining importance: indulgences and purgatory.

The official theology of indulgences was somewhat confused in the sixteenth century. Particularly at the popular level, an indulgence was understood to be a means of obtaining forgiveness of sins through human achievement, particularly through financial means. In 1517, Luther's wrath was kindled by the activities of the indulgence peddler Johann Tetzel, whose marketing strategy included the following memorable slogan: "As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs!"

Luther regarded this as outrageous. The doctrine of justification affirmed that forgiveness rested on the grace of God, not the payment of money! The posting of the 95 Theses on Indulgences on October 31, 1517, is widely regarded as marking the beginning of the Reformation and is still celebrated as Reformation Day in parts of Germany. Some ecumenical documents - most notably, the unsatisfactory Second Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commissions report, Salvation and the Church (1987) - seem to suggest that indulgences are no longer important. Reading the catechism makes it clear that this judgment is ill-informed and premature.

For example, the section on indulgences reveals that the Roman Catholic Church is still committed to the idea that indulgences may be obtained by the living for the faithful departed. This idea would be regarded with both skepticism and alarm by evangelicals.

This also raises the second issue that is historically linked with the doctrine of justification - purgatory. Purgatory is a sort of intermediate state in which the souls of the penitent dead are believed to remain until they have been purified of their sins. For the English Reformer John Frith and others, the doctrine of justification by faith totally undermined the concept of purgatory. Through the grace of God, our sins are totally forgiven, declared Frith, making it unnecessary for them to be purged in a subsequent state. As a result, Protestantism as a whole deemed belief in purgatory as being both unbiblical and unnecessary. The catechism defends this doctrine, partly on the basis of the practice of praying for the dead. Once more, evangelicals would be opposed to both the practice and the doctrine.

Other areas in which evangelicals will find themselves wishing to enter into Reformation-type debates will include the following:

1. The canon of Scripture. The Roman Catholic canon continues to include documents that evangelicals regard as deuterocanonical or apocryphal. It was at the Council of Trent that the Roman Catholic Church first declared its acceptance of 78 biblical books as canonical; the catechism endorses this decision. This also reopens the much-debated question of whether Scripture is recognized as inherently authoritative (Protestantism) or received by an authoritative council (Roman Catholicism), thus making its authority derivative and dependent on the authority of the church.

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December 12 1994, Vol. 38, No. 14