What Is Christianity?: The Last Writings by Pope Benedict XVI

Author:Pope Benedict XVI
Format: epub

For Luther, the serious error of Catholic tradition is that, over the course of the first centuries, it once again transformed the New Testament pastoral ministry into sacerdotium [Latin: priesthood], so that the German word Priester, which is a Germanicization of the word presbyter [Greek: elder], contrary to its original New Testament meaning, today in fact means sacerdos [priest]. In his view, the Catholic Church had radically falsified the message of the New Testament by abolishing the sola fide and putting justification by the Law back in its place. For this reason, Luther considered the Catholic Mass to be as mistaken as the Old Testament sacrifice, and he exhorted his followers to combat it, even with acts of violence.

It is quite clear, therefore, that “Last Supper” and “Mass” are two completely different forms of worship, which by their nature exclude each other. Anyone who preaches intercommunion today ought to remember this.

Luther’s entire construct is founded on his concept of the reciprocal relation between the two Testaments, based on the contrast between Law and Gospel, between justification by works and by faith. A Catholic naturally notices that this concept cannot be right; therefore he perceives the Holy Mass, not as an illegitimate relapse into the sacrificial worship of the Old Covenant, but rather as our inclusion in the Body of Christ and therefore in his self-gift to the Father, an act that makes us all become one with him. The conciliar decree on the priesthood, as well as the Vatican II constitution on the liturgy, are supported by this calm certainty, even though, in the concrete implementation of the liturgical reform, Luther’s theses silently played a certain role, so that in some circles it could be maintained that the Council of Trent’s Decree on the Sacrifice of the Mass had been tacitly abrogated. The harshness of the opposition to the admissibility of the old liturgy was certainly based in part also on the fact that it was viewed as perpetuating a no longer acceptable concept of sacrifice and expiation.

Historical-critical exegesis in turn demonstrated that the New Testament ministries initially did not have a priestly character, but were instead pastoral services. The fusion with the sacerdotium of the Old Covenant, however, was then accomplished in a surprisingly rapid way and was not criticized by anyone. This was possible on the basis of a different concept of the relation between Old and New Testament. The early Church never thought of this relation as a contrast between justification by works and justification by faith alone. In the early Church, Luther’s theology finds a counterpart only in Marcion, whose theory, however, was immediately ruled out in the early Church because it was considered heretical. The idea of the Law, the Torah, as God’s action ex contrario is totally foreign to the early Church and directly opposed to its fundamental relation with the Old Testament. For this reason, the sola fide, as understood by Luther, was never taught in the early Church. Instead, the relation between

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