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A Pope for All Christians

Why believers of all stripes should care about the new head of the Catholic Church.
Christopher Furlong / Getty

A Pope for All Christians

When the new pope is consecrated, he will inherit a troubled global church. Internal scandal and unaddressed external problems pose great risks to the vitality of Catholicism. But the consequences of success or failure are huge for the church universal, the world's 2.1 billion Christians of every denomination.

This is more than a butterfly effect. Rome is not Las Vegas—what happens in Rome will not stay within the borders of Vatican City. One consequence of globalization is that the walls that have long divided Catholics from Orthodox, mainline Protestants, evangelicals, and Pentecostals are eroding.

Brian Stiller,a global ambassador for the World Evangelical Alliance, commenting about Catholic and evangelical relations, wrote on his blog recently, "Not in 500 years have the two sides been so close and friendly."

The challenges inside the Vatican and the Catholic Church are familiar, and they are of concern to every Christian who longs for a healthy body. Two cardinals, Keith O'Brien (Scotland) and Roger Mahony (Los Angeles), are just the latest Catholic leaders who stand accused of wrongdoing. Several priests allege that O'Brien initiated "inappropriate" behavior, possibly sexual, with them. Court documents reveal that Mahony relocated priests, known to be sexually abusive, to shield them from prosecution. In addition, a money-laundering scandal has tainted the Vatican's reputation of integrity. And the so-called Vatileaks scandal has pulled back the curtain on infighting and factionalism within the potent Catholic curia, the leadership core.

Our point is not to kick an institution that's already downed by scandal. Protestants, after all, are well acquainted with ...

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From Issue:
April 2013, Vol. 57, No. 3, "A Pope for All Christians"
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Comments

Displaying 1–3 of 46 comments

jacob israel

April 06, 2013  7:32am

The Papal system is antichrist. This is easily discerned from the Bible by those who can read. Some things never change: “From the earliest ages of the catholic church a Christian people, whether in time of triumph or more especially in time of crisis, has addressed prayers of petition and hymns of praise and veneration to the Queen of Heaven” Ad caeli reginam 1 Pope Pius XII Also hymns Salve Regina and Ave Regina Caelorum. Jeremiah 44:25, 27 KJV “ 25 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, saying; Ye and your wives have both spoken with your mouths, and fulfilled with your hand, saying, We will surely perform our vows that we have vowed, to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her… 27 Behold, I will watch over them for evil, and not for good: and all the men of Judah that are in the land of Egypt shall be consumed by the sword and by the famine, until there be an end of them.” Also Gal 1:8-9 and 1 Tim 4:1-3

Ken Richard

April 01, 2013  6:18pm

Very sad to see some of the hostile comments regarding the Catholic Church on this thread. Actually, I was there too, once. Having been born into the Church, leaving it for 10 years and attending some very wonderful evangelical churches here in Southern California, I have returned for the past 25 years in full enthusiasm. It was much ignorance, pride, and unwillingness to deem not myself the final arbiter of truth and historical and traditional teaching and fact that allowed me to recognize, with all Her warts, (like all Churches) She is, like it or not, the entity what was delegated "all truth" as in Matt Ch 16. Audrey, citing dissenting former priests is not very credible. So examine with an open heart, and you may be surprised what you find. Scary, I know. I've been there. God Bless.

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EDWARD R LEE

March 28, 2013  12:16pm

Here is a quote from Pope Francis' first homily following his election. He states that the Church must profess ""the one glory, Christ Crucified"(1 Corinthians 1:23). "The same Peter who confessed Jesus Christ, says, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God(Matt. 16:16) I will follow you, but let us not speak of the Cross. This has nothing to do with it.” He says, “I’ll follow you on other ways, that do not include the Cross.” When we walk without the Cross, when we build without the Cross, and when we profess Christ without the Cross, we are not disciples of the Lord. We are worldly, we are bishops, priests, cardinals, Popes, but not disciples of the Lord. I would like that all of us, after these days of grace, might have the courage – the courage – to walk in the presence of the Lord, with the Cross of the Lord: to build the Church on the Blood of the Lord, which is shed on the Cross, and to profess the one glory, Christ Crucified. In this way, the Church will go forward."

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