evangelicals & catholics
Catholics and ‘totality’
Leonardo de Chirico
Date posted: 27 Dec 2024
In my conversations with Catholic friends, I have found it useful to reference the five ‘magnetic points’ expounded by British theologian Daniel Strange.
There are five fundamentals that all human beings are looking for and to which they are magnetically drawn. Because of their universal presence in people’s lives, they can be seen in Catholics too.
evangelicals & catholics
A new theological critique of Roman Catholicism
Leonardo de Chirico
Date posted: 1 Oct 2024
Opening a book by Henri Blocher is like being invited to a wedding dinner. It is a theologically and culturally rich, tasty, and challenging experience. So, the release of his latest book La doctrine de l’Église e des sacrements, vol. 1 (Vaux-sur-Seine: Edifac, 2023), is a feast of theology.
The book consists of two parts. In the first, Blocher expounds on the Biblical data, while in the second, he analyses three types of church conceptions and models: the Catholic, the Reformed (paedobaptist), and the Confessing (credobaptist). Attention will be concentrated on the section regarding Roman Catholic ecclesiology.
evangelicals & catholics
Aquinas for all?
Leonardo de Chirico
Date posted: 1 Jul 2024
Thomas Aquinas died on 7 March, 1274, 750 years ago. This year and next (the eighth centenary of his birth) there will be special occasions to reckon with his legacy.
To approach Thomas Aquinas (1225– 1274) is to encounter one of the all-time giants of theology. Thomas is second only to Augustine in his influence on Western Christianity.
evangelicals & catholics
Mission impossible?
Leonardo de Chirico
Date posted: 1 Apr 2024
Evangelicals have known for centuries that Rome is a ‘mission field’.
It is no coincidence that as soon as the breach of Porta Pia opened in 1870 (when Rome was liberated from Papal power and the Pontifical State ended), Bibles and Christian tracts were immediately smuggled in to further the evangelisation of the city. Rome was a mission field because it prevented the free circulation of God’s word in the vernacular language and suppressed any attempts to bring about a Biblical reformation.
evangelicals & catholics
Catholic confusion?
Leonardo de Chirico
Date posted: 1 Feb 2024
The publication of Fiducia supplicans (18 December 2023) is stirring a hot debate. Some say that nothing changed; others say that all changed. The declaration came from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (the former Inquisition), with explicit approval from Pope Francis.
It provides ‘the possibility of blessings for couples in irregular situations and for couples of the same sex’ (n. 31). The Vatican document also says that there is no question of recognizing gay unions as marriage, that Catholic doctrine on marriage, sex and sexuality does not change, that the blessing is not a sacrament but a sacramental, that it has no liturgical official setting … all important, yet secondary, doctrinal clarifications that do not modify the main point. What had never been officialised in a magisterial document is now part of Rome’s teaching.
evangelicals & catholics
Should evangelicals pray with Roman Catholics?
Leonardo de Chirico
Date posted: 1 Jan 2024
As I speak at conferences on Roman Catholicism worldwide and how Evangelicals should relate to it, a question often arises: ‘What about joint prayer? Could or should Evangelicals pray with Roman Catholics?’
Let me offer my rules of thumb as I wrestle with the issue.
Event asks: is Roman Catholicism a legitimate form of the gospel?
Jim Sayers
Date posted: 24 Jul 2024
'Is Roman Catholicism a legitimate form of the gospel with strange elements added, or is it something which makes contact with the gospel but is not authentic? Are we in Philippians 1 or Galatians 1 territory?'
This was the question Leonardo De Chirico explored in a Saturday morning event recently organised by the Grace Baptist Association. Over fifty leaders and trainees heard Leonardo’s fascinating analysis. Leonardo writes regularly for Evangelicals Now, and pastors Chiesa Breccia di Roma in the heart of Rome.
Rome church faces shock new battle
Iain Taylor
Date posted: 17 Jul 2024
One of Rome’s leading Protestant churches, the Breccia di Roma, is set to take the Italian tax authorities to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) following an unexpected defeat in the Italian Supreme Court.
After Breccia di Roma bought its building in the heart of the capital city it applied to be classed a religious building, which would have exempted it from taxation. But the Tax Agency challenged that ruling, on the grounds that the building lacked the ‘intrinsic features’ of religious buildings, such as altars, images, and statues – clearly based on Roman Catholic conceptions of religious space. The church’s explanation that, as Protestants, the buildings contain no altars because it worships God in spirit and truth, fell on deaf ears. Although two lower courts found in the church’s favour, as they recognised the right of faith communities to design their own spaces according to their own principles, the Supreme Court disagreed.
