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evangelicals & catholics

Leonardo de Chirico

Date posted: 1 Dec 2019

The adjective ‘catholic’ and the noun ‘catholicity’ have a bittersweet usage in ordinary evangelical language. They seem too strictly associated with the reality of Roman Catholicism to be used in a way free from cumbersome superstructures of meaning.

The Bible never uses the expression kath’olon (according to the whole) in the theological sense. The only explicit reference, which is used in a negative form, is in Acts 4:18. The profane use of kath’olon has a variegated range including the meaning of ‘total’ and ‘complete’. In borrowing the term, the church began to understand it as describing the universality of the church (made of Jews and Gentiles), the fullness of the gospel (once and for all delivered to the saints), and the global extension of the people of God (from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth).

evangelicals & catholics

Leonardo de Chirico

Date posted: 1 Oct 2019

Many commentators with good intentions, even on the evangelical side, have rightly given attention to a section of the 1999 Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (JDDJ) signed by the Roman Catholic Church and the World Lutheran Federation. No.15 solemnly says:

‘By grace alone, in faith in Christ’s saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit, who renews our hearts while equipping and calling us to good works.’

evangelicals & catholics

Leonardo de Chirico

Date posted: 1 Aug 2019

At the end of September 2018, in the midst of the annus horribilis for the Roman Catholic Church (with the deflagration of the sexual abuses and the growing spiral of inner conflicts within the curia), Pope Francis called his people to pray to Mary in order to ask for her protection.

He asked the faithful to conclude the Rosary with the ancient invocation Sub tuum praesidium (We fly to Thy patronage). The full Marian invocation is recited as follows: