October 17, 2005
They were another class of Jehovah’s Witnesses. That is, although we were seated together in coach class, the couple next to me were more well-educated than most of the JW’s I’ve met in New York and Newark. They were, in fact, instructors on their way to talk at a JW conference. They weren’t interested in defending the name “Jehovah” because they recognized the various possible renderings within Hebrew itself and when translating to English or other languages. They knew a little about the early history of the Church, enough to make the false statement that the Catholic Church came to be known and formed as such by Constantine in the early fourth century.
“To be Catholic is to be historical” is a statement that cannot be understated. Much of the theological misunderstanding of the authority of the Church, particularly by Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons, comes from a lack of knowledge of the Fathers of the Church. God continues to write the history of salvation, not skipping over hundreds or thousands of years as He turns the pages of time, but continuously. This is part of the reason that we are reminded each week in the Creed that the Church is apostolic – that the authority given to the Apostles by Jesus has been passed on through the ages, not stopping when the first Apostles died as some Mormon missionaries told me they believed. We can trace our family tree, not only with Saint Peter’s line in Rome as the first in the brotherhood of Apostles, but also with their other immediate disciples like Ignatius of Antioch, or Paul’s disciples Timothy and Titus, or John’s disciple Polycarp. At what point did the power of the keys get shut down instead of getting passed along? Never. It continues within the Church as the Lord Jesus intended.
It may be true that after Constantine legalized Christianity in 313 AD, the number of mediocre and nominal Christians increased, since it became “in vogue” to be Christian. However, there is also a continuous line of saints in the Church in every age, not just unilaterally, but multilaterally – that is, in every nation where the Gospel has been heard. The Church is “Catholic” (universal), especially in Her saints. The mistaken identification of the Church with mediocre Christianity by some zealous non-Catholics is unfair, but it is also a challenge for us to dispel that notion by authentic faith, heroic virtue, and greater zeal. By the way, it was Saint Ignatius of Antioch, who was martyred in 107 AD and whose feast day we celebrate today, who was the first on record to refer to the “Catholic Church” (not Constantine, in case you run into some “educated” friends).
Fr. Richard Roemer, CFR
_________________________________________________
www.franciscanfriars.com
comments: fromthefriars@
franciscanfriars.com
