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The Pastor's Heart with Dominic Steele
Christian leaders join Dominic Steele for a deep end conversation about our hearts and different aspects of Christian ministry each Tuesday afternoon.
We share personally, pastorally and professionally about how we can best fulfill Jesus' mission to save the lost and serve the saints.
The discussion is broadcast live on Facebook then available in video on our website <u><b><a href="http://www.thepastorsheart.net">http://www.thepastorsheart.net</a></u></b> and via audio podcast.
The Pastor's Heart with Dominic Steele
Same words, different worlds: Reaching Roman Catholics - with Leonardo De Chirico and Rachel Ciano
Most of us evangelical pastors, theological colleges, indeed the whole of evangelicalism - we have a blind spot when it comes to Roman Catholicism in our theology, missiology and practice.
Where do we as Evangelicals make mistakes in our engagement with the Roman Catholic world?
What can we change? What should we change?
How do we best see our Roman Catholic friends come to a personal saving relationship with Jesus Christ?
Leonardo De Chirico has been at the forefront of theological education of evangelicals in this space internationally for over a decade.
Leonardo is a church planter, pastor in Rome, and Director of the Reformanda Initiative.
Rachel Ciano is the Dean of Academic Development at Mary Andrew's College, Sydney.
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It is the Pastor's Heart and Dominic Steele, and this week we bring you a best of edition of the Pastor's Heart Reaching Roman Catholics with Leonardo DiCirico and Rachel Ciano. The thesis is that, while using the same words, evangelicals and Roman Catholics mean completely different things. Most of us as evangelical pastors, as theological colleges, indeed really the whole of evangelicalism we have a blind spot when it comes to Roman Catholicism, in our theology, missiology and in our practice. Where do we, as evangelicals, make mistakes in our engagement with the Roman Catholic world? What can we change? What should we change? How do we best see our Roman Catholic friends come into a personal, saving relationship with Jesus Christ?
Speaker 1:Leonardo de Chirico has been at the forefront of theological education of evangelicals in this space internationally for over a decade. He's a church planter, a pastor in Rome and director of the Reformanda Initiative. Rachel Ciano is the new Dean of Academic Development at Mary Andrews College in Sydney. Leonardo, thanks for coming in. Rachel, thanks for coming in. Rachel, thanks for coming in. Let me start with you and your pastor's heart for the Roman Catholic.
Speaker 2:I'm Italian and I've been ministering in Italy and in Europe for the whole of my life, meeting thousands of neighbors and colleagues and students, and most of them living breathing Roman Catholicism in their lives, and I've seen many of them, if not the majority of them, lacking a grasp of basic gospel truth, couched in a religiosity that oftentimes is obscuring the gospel, if not distorting it. So it was out of you know, compassion and the desire to see the gospel shining through in people's lives who have been so much influenced by the traditions, the teachings, the practices of the Roman Catholic Church. And traveling abroad, I've seen the same challenge globally. It's not just an Italian-European thing. If you go to Latin America, if you go to many different countries, indeed throughout the world, that's the same reality. Roman Catholicism at best obscures the Gospel, at worst it distorts the gospel, at worst it distorts it. And so there is a need to feel the compassion, the desire for the gospel to be clearly presented in its biblical shape and with a Christian heart.
Speaker 1:At best obscures, at worst distorts. You said somewhere, I think are we dealing with Galatians 1, it's a false gospel, or Philippians 1, it's a true gospel, with wrong, faulty motives? What's your take there?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that, as far as the system, roman Catholicism is a system, it's not just a bunch of isolated doctrines and practices, but it's a well-crafted theological, doctrinal as well as devotional system that shapes whole cultures and adapts to different cultures in order to take a distinct Catholic form.
Speaker 2:The system is the of a commitment to scripture alone, christ alone, but it has been built over the centuries, over multiple commitments and, in the end, leading to something of a Galatian type of narrative gospel, plus that in terms up with a different type of gospel In terms of individual lives. That is more, I think, the case of a Philippians 1 scenario. There are, of course course, individual Catholics who are believers in Christ, but I would say, you know, in spite of their being consistent Catholics and not because they are consistent Catholics. So they pick and choose, and they're picking, choosing for, by God's grace, some of them, they focus their lives on Christ alone and they trust Christ alone for their salvation and life. But this is not what the Church teaches them to do. They do it in spite of it, not because of it.
Speaker 1:I mean, I'm thinking of myself growing up as a Roman Catholic and then understanding grace, and so I'm agreeing. I'm immediately agreeing with what you've just said. But I see so many and I want to bring you in here, rachel so many of pastor friends around the place who have been evangelical, grown up in evangelical church, wanting to downplay the differences between Roman Catholicism and evangelicalism. Do you have that same take and same frustration?
Speaker 3:Yes, absolutely so. In my work at SMBC training up people for ministry in pastoral work in Marrickville with friends and family members, there's a downplaying of the difference and there's a number of ways that that can happen. Saying we agree on the Nicene Creed, so that's enough. Saying we agree on two-thirds of the Roman Catholic Catechism, so that's enough. Saying that Rome is moving in a different direction in the last 50, 60, 70 years after Vatican II, that's enough. Looking at evangelical Catholicism but not understanding what the word evangelical means in that context, it's not the way that we're using the word at all. So all these things are used, I think, out of a good heart. We would love, we would love them catholics to be saved, and sometimes, in downplaying the difference, it's out of that heart of surely they understand the gospel. But actually when you look under the surface, at the roots, it's it's a very different gospel. It's a galatians one gospel, and so they need to hear the message of faith alone in christ, alone so I mean just to pick up on what Rachel just said there.
Speaker 1:Leonardo, the same words, different meaning. You've written extensively on this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that is what really happens. The vocabulary is the same, apart from a few specific Roman Catholic terms introduced in the Catholic tradition, you know, transubstantiation or the Immaculate Conception of Mary. These are not biblical words or Christian words, these are Catholic words. But as far as you know, 90% of the vocabulary is concerned. The words are the same Sin, grace, cross, jesus, gospel, salvation, faith and hope. And we could go on and on and on. The problem is that they are meant in a very different way because they are not. Their meaning is not taken from the Bible as the ultimate authority, the ultimate authority and the ultimate interpreter of itself. The meaning is the result of a complex historical process where the biblical meaning has been blurred and with other meanings and not being committed to Scripture alone as the ultimate authority. The result is a combination of things that for each word, then if you put, put them each word in relationship to the other, the whole meaning of the Christian faith is diverted, quite different, quite different.
Speaker 1:So it's not only just one word but it's all the words and the result is, yes, something different, and you're saying you want us to understand this whole, and the whole includes well, it's the doctrine, it's the institution, it's the history, it's the culture. It's a big project to get you around that.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, because that's the way in which Catholicism has understood itself over the years, not as a, you know, pick-and-choose type of religious option, but as an integrated whole. And so it is for us. It is not that we want to see it as a whole, you know from outside, but because Catholicism sees itself as a whole, so it's fair to try to address it in its own terms and having then theological, spiritual lenses to read it. And so, doctrinally speaking, it's all part of an integrated whole.
Speaker 1:And yet, Rachel, most individual Roman Catholics are pick-and-choose Catholics or cherry-picking Catholics. It's not that they're adopting that whole, they're just kind of how do we do that? How do we engage with them?
Speaker 3:How do we engage with Catholic friends?
Speaker 1:The cherry-picking person. Yeah yeah. Well, the average person you meet in Marrickville.
Speaker 3:The average person I meet in Marrickville. So yeah, I do have lots of Catholic friends and neighbours, family members in the community.
Speaker 1:And really your suburb.
Speaker 3:that's your suburb, yeah, yeah yeah, and so I try a few things with them. So, because one of the difficult things in the Catholic system is that it is not founded on Scripture alone. Scripture contains the Word of God, but it is not all of God's words. So I'm wanting to try and shift and soften, very slowly, very prayerfully, their confidence to God's words. I offer to read the Bible with my Catholic friends, or we'll talk about things?
Speaker 1:Which part of the Bible? Where do you go?
Speaker 3:Depends what they want to talk about.
Speaker 1:So with some of my friends, mary and so, you're a theological college lecturer, you're a genius in this place. Of course you flex, but if somebody's watching and think I don't know exactly what to do, what's your? Oh, that's not the Bible.
Speaker 3:So it's not a complex theological argument, but I guess what I'm wanting to do is I'm wanting to one, bring their eyes to the Word of God. Two for many Roman Catholics, jesus feels very distant, feels very far, which is why he must be accessed through Mary.
Speaker 3:She has the ear of her son, so approach her and she will bring your requests. So if I can present Jesus as the one who is close by his spirit in believers, then that is very attractive. So, for example, with friends who are very devoted to Mary in their practices, I will take them and I'll tell them the story of the wedding at Cana.
Speaker 3:And as we talk through that story I'll say at the end look, mary says, listen to my son, do whatever he tells you. So I say if I want to respect Mary, which we do, then I need to listen to her. And she tells me to listen to her son. Mary as well, in this system is protected from original sin. In the Immaculate Conception is bodily assumed as she nears death. So really she's very disconnected to my everyday life in that system. She doesn't understand the full intensity of temptation to sin. She doesn't understand the full agony of death. Jesus understands both completely.
Speaker 3:So in my hour of need I need Jesus. He's so much more attractive. So I think that's what I do. I try and paint in the scriptures the attractiveness of Jesus, and remembering that it's a conversation. It's not me slamming the Bible, it's a conversation. And the other thing I do with my Catholic friends and relatives and neighbors is I pray with them, because prayer is often just contained to a set space at a set time for them. So if we're having a conversation, they're sharing something that's difficult in their life in their very kitchen. I say can I pray for you?
Speaker 3:now about that and that is a wonderfully moving experience for them to see faith in action. It's actually deeply theological because right then and there we're saying we have access to the Father. We don't need the hierarchy of the saints, but it's just that simple task of praying with them in their kitchen shows that we can have access to God through Christ.
Speaker 1:What do you teach Leonardo as your go-to in terms of taking people to the Scriptures?
Speaker 2:the Catholic person as your go-to in terms of taking people to the Scriptures. The Catholic person? Yeah, it varies according to context and situations, but I have found that Matthew's Gospel is a Gospel that resonates with an average Catholic reader, because there we find Jesus dealing with the Jewish audience or Jewish context, and very much into this view whereby, in order to be received by God, you have to comply with the law of Moses and do good works and so on. And so there Jesus speaks about the Gospel in terms of Him being the new Moses and him being the fulfillment of the law, and us having to receive his work and to respond to it. So, as far as one gospel is concerned, matthew seems to be a good place to start a not an occasional conversation, but a more intentional series of conversations.
Speaker 1:Leonardo, I've heard you say that we evangelicals we've really dropped the ball in our engagement with Roman Catholics, that we could be doing more. Theological colleges should be doing more. This is a major blind spot for us. Can you just give us that call?
Speaker 2:Well, there are 1.3 billion Catholics around the world. We find them everywhere, from north to south, from west to east, and it is by far the largest religious institution in the world, very much engaged in mission work and cultural work, political work, media and so on, with its problems and tensions, of course, but it is as if we don't see it. We are very much interested in all kinds of different issues, challenges and topics, and it is right that we should be interested in all of these topics, but when it comes to the Catholic Church, it is as if we already know what it is. It's out of our radar and yet, if we don't address it intentionally, in a theological, responsible way, the Catholic Church is addressing us, is trying to posture itself in such a way as to include us in its post-Vatican II attempts at embracing, absorbing, attracting evangelicals but not only evangelicals into its more used Catholicity.
Speaker 1:You talk about? Is Catholicism synchronistic?
Speaker 2:Yes, it is by nature, because Catholicity, catholic means universal and the Catholic way of being Catholic is Roman Catholic. So it's not syncretism in its pure form, but it's a Catholic type of syncretism. It's a Roman type of syncretism because it always tries to then put the syncretism into the Roman structures of Roman dogma, roman hierarchical, the Roman hierarchical church and so on. And so you find the Latin American Catholicism is syncretistic because it has absorbed the pre-Christian and non-Christian practices and it has put them into this Catholic Roman shape. The same is true as far as Europe, africa, australia. So it's Catholic syncretistic, but not at the expense of it being Roman. And the genius of Roman Catholicism has always been to maintain the tension between the Roman and the Catholic, the Roman-centered and the syncretistic intention, and to maintain and not to make it a static wooden type of system. It is dynamic, although it is not fluid. It is crafted in such a way as to maintain both the Catholic breath absorption, syncretism and the Roman structure centered around the hierarchical principles and institutions of the Church.
Speaker 1:Would you say Benedict was more Roman and Francis is more Catholic.
Speaker 2:Yes, these are, to use your terminology. Yeah, two clear examples of different ways of handling the tension. The system is not static, so they don't duplicate it, but according to different challenges, different situations and contexts and personalities, and you can have a more Roman point of balance or a more Catholic point of balance. Certainly, what we are observing, especially with Pope Francis, is an intentional desire to expand the Catholicity, not to the point of breaking the Roman aspect, otherwise we would have the end of Roman Catholicism. There could be a time in the Roman Catholic Church when what Pope Francis is doing in pushing the Catholicity will then need a reverse move towards a more Roman settlement.
Speaker 1:I take it that that memo from George Pell criticizing Francis, as Pell is essentially saying that anonymous memo come back to Rome, come back to Rome. Less of this synchronistic Catholicity.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's a kind of Catholic prophetic voice, wishing that this reverse tide would happen now.
Speaker 1:I was actually quite surprised at. I mean, even though Pell did it under the guise of anonymity, I was surprised that somebody was prepared to actually say the Pope is wrong. I mean, we're used to that in the Anglican Church but we're not used to that in the Catholic Church.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there have been attempts by other cardinals to send the message of a brotherly correction that's the technical term and the Pope never responded to those voices. And there have been other voices trying to raise the issue, some issues, but so far they have not received any hearing rachel, um, if I'll come back to you and then ask you for your response on this too.
Speaker 1:Leonardo, um, uh, I have felt a rebuke the last couple of moments, um on. I mean, in our church we've just had staff planning for the year. We've talked about ministry and reaching out to divorcees. We've talked about reaching out to same-sex attracted people. We've talked about reaching out to youth, to kids. We never talked about Roman Catholics, and yet we don't have as many as you, but we have quite a few. And what? As a senior pastor and we've get a lot of senior pastors watching, listening what strategic things would you be encouraging us to do as we organize our church calendar life together?
Speaker 3:let's start with you, rachel, and then go so I would be wanting to encourage all church members to be actively engaging with their communities, and as they do that, they will naturally encounter people from a Roman Catholic background. So in inviting those people to church, I think as churches we need to strategically think about the things we're saying, doing visually, what's going on through the eyes of a Catholic person who could join us.
Speaker 3:So, for example, the Lord's Supper, the Eucharist, in the Roman Catholic system is the high point, is the center of the Christian life is the high point is the centre of the Christian life, and so, in order that we're not perceived as a cult, except participating in the Lord's Supper regularly gives something of weightiness to Christian gatherings, I think preaching systematically is something that can be very powerful for Catholics, because they're often used to verses lifted out and like a fourfold reading of scripture that you know can be allegorical and moral. And so, just as you're preaching, what does it say? What does it mean?
Speaker 1:What's it saying? I remember being horrified. I read through all the readings on a Sunday in the Roman Catholic lectionary, for I don't know whether it was year A, b or C in the lectionary cycle, but I could not find grace in the year of readings and I thought they have so cherry-picked. It was almost. I don't know how you could pick a year of 52 Old Testament, 52 New Testament, 52 Gospel and not yeah because Gospel, and not yeah, because the focus is not on grace.
Speaker 2:The focus is on the Church administering you what you need to hear and to know and so leading you to receiving, you know, the sacramental grace that the church administers. And so the mass doesn't need, in order to be performed, doesn't need a homily technically, but it needs the Eucharist because that is where, and it's not a something that is based on something that you hear, something that you listen to, but it's based on something that you taste and when you see, watch their gestures. There are all kinds of rituals, but the message of grace Taught us in Scripture and preached to us us in Scripture and preach to us is not the focus, and even the arrangement of the readings doesn't seem to be focusing on grace.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's come back to that question of organizing the church that I just asked Rachel. What's your thoughts on that? As you plan I mean, you're a pastor of a church what do you do?
Speaker 2:Well, for us, you know, it's not so much in terms of having a specific plan, but to arrange the life of the church in order for it to be a welcoming church and to be aware of some of the issues that people coming from a Catholic background might go through, for example, in preaching as we preach, and they're not used to have long sermons. You know, a typical homily in the Roman Catholic Church is an eight-minute homily. So if we and I think we should have a longer sermon, but we should not presume that people are used to listen to longer sermons and so, as preachers, we have to be aware listen to longer sermons and so, as preachers, we have to be aware I don't mean we have to restrict our time, but we have to be aware of not overdoing it. And then, as we preach it, it's okay for them to listen to God's Word, but as we preach the Bible, we should find ways to emphasize the finality of Scripture, the fact that this is God's Word.
Speaker 2:But as we preach the Bible, we should find ways to emphasize the finality of Scripture, the fact that this is God's Word and it's not just a, you know, divine advice or something that is part of what the Church tells you to do. It is the Word of God, in order to help them to appreciate the fact that we're dealing with God's Word as our final authority, the words of the Lord for us, and also then arrange our church life in terms of displaying the fact that we are a community, we are a body, we are a family. It's not just a bunch of individual believers happening to come together randomly on a Sunday morning or Sunday evening, but we are a family that speaks to Catholics more than words in their initial stages of coming closer to the faith. They see that the gospel shapes communities and not only individuals. They see that the gospel is preached out of the Bible, through the Bible, with the Bible, and not through an external authority voice telling you what to do and why.
Speaker 1:I was hearing somewhere that the promotion of Mary is at the expense of the Holy Spirit. Do you want to just elaborate on that? And therefore the faulty doctrine of the Trinity.
Speaker 2:Yeah, one of the outcomes of the explosion of Mariology over the centuries has been that the role of the Holy Spirit has been diminished because, as Rachel was saying earlier on, in order to approach Christ, mary is the one who helps you to do that.
Speaker 2:But this is exactly what the Holy Spirit does for us, bonding us to Christ, opening for us. You know the relationship with Christ, and so the spirit was put in a kind of by the margin, in on the margin, and Mary became a kind of replacement of the Holy Spirit, and also not only of the Holy Spirit but also of Christ himself, because Christ Was then considered to be too high to divine, to glorious, to distant, to remote to divine, and Mary was presented as the mother, the carer. There is an interesting sentence, not only by Pope Francis but Pope Benedict, who is often considered as being more biblical, more Christocentric. He says in one of the interviews he gave to Peter Sevald, the German journalist asking him about his Marian spirituality, and he says Jesus is near, mary is nearer. That also as a Christological huge problem, because if Mary is nearer than Jesus, we're actually undermining the full humanity of Jesus and we are dismissing the Holy Spirit, making him redundant, and we are undermining the humanity of Jesus. So we are dealing with a Trinitarian issue, not just a Mariological issue.
Speaker 1:Just think in Revelation 1, I believe he's here now standing in our midst, amen. You've been listening to an interview on the Pastor's Heart. That's Leonardo DiCirico, and he is a church planter, a pastor in Rome and director of the Reformanda Initiative. Rachel Ciano is the new Dean of Academic Development at Mary Andrews College in Sydney. We will be back with a fresh edition of the Pastor's Heart next Tuesday afternoon.
