| Are Protestant Ministers True Ambassadors of Christ? |
During the height of the Protestant Reformation, Saint Francis de Sales was embroiled in the many controversies surrounding its dissemination. We will be reflecting upon articles he wrote defending Catholicism. Here is a snippet from the translator’s preface, by way of introduction. Then the article will be below.THE FOLLOWING TREATISE is the message or teaching of S. Francis de Sales to the Calvinists of the Chablais, reluctantly written out because they would not go to hear him preach. The Saint neither published it nor named it. We have called it “The Catholic Controversy,” partly to make our title correspond as nearly as possible with the title “Les Controverses,” given by the French editor when the work was posthumously published, chiefly because its scope is to state and justify the Catholic doctrine as against Calvin and his fellow-heretics. It is the Catholic position and the defense of Catholicism as such. At the same time, it is incidentally the defense of Christianity, because his justification of Catholicism lies just in this that it alone is Christianity, and his argument turns entirely on the fundamental question of the exclusive authority of the Catholic Church as the sole representative of Christianity and Christ. This is the real point at issue between the Church and the sects, and therefore he, as officer of the Church, begins by traversing the commission of those who teach against her. ___________________________________________To prepare for our chat, please read the article, which is reproduced below, and review the questions at the end.Click for Living Jesus Chatroom  Photo by Mateus Campos Felipe on UnsplashFirst, then, your ministers had not the conditions required for the position which they sought to maintain, and the enterprise which they undertook. Wherefore they are inexcusable, and you yourselves also, who knew and still know or ought to know this defect in them, have done very wrong in receiving them under such colors. The office they claimed was that of ambassadors of Jesus Christ Our Lord; the affair they undertook was to declare a formal divorce between Our Lord and the ancient Church his spouse, to arrange and conclude by words of present consent, as lawful procurators, a second and new marriage with this young madam, of better grace, said they, and more seemly than the other.For in effect, to stand up as preacher of God’s Word and pastor of souls—what is it but to call oneself ambassador and legate of Our Lord, according to that of the Apostle [St. Paul]. (2 Cor 5:20) We are therefore ambassadors for Christ. And to say that the whole of Christendom has failed, that the whole Church has erred, and all truth disappeared—what is this but to say that Our Lord has abandoned his Church, has broken the sacred tie of marriage he had contracted with her? And to put forward a new Church—is it not to attempt to thrust upon this sacred and holy Husband a second wife? This is what the ministers of the pretended church have undertaken; this is what they boast of having done; this has been the aim of their discourses, their designs, their writings. But what an injustice have you not committed in believing them? How did you come to take their word so simply? How did you so lightly give them credit? To be legates and ambassadors they should have been sent, they should have had letters of credit from him whom they boasted of being sent by. The affairs were of the greatest importance, for there was question of disturbing the whole Church. The persons who undertook them were extraordinaries of mean quality and private persons, while the ordinary pastors were men of mark, and of most ancient and acknowledged reputation, who contradicted them and protested that these extraordinaries had no charge nor commandment of the Master. Tell me, what business had you to hear them and believe them without having any assurance of their commission and of the approval of Our Lord, whose legates they called themselves? In a word, you have no justification for having quitted that ancient Church in which you were baptized, on the faith of preachers who had no legitimate mission from the Master. Now you cannot be ignorant that they neither had, nor have, in any way at all, this mission. For if Our Lord had sent them, it would have been either mediately or immediately. We say mission is given mediately when we are sent by one who has from God the power of sending, according to the order which he has appointed in his Church, and such was the mission of S. Denis into France by Clement and of Timothy by S. Paul. Immediate mission is when God himself commands and gives a charge, without the interposition of the ordinary authority which he has placed in the prelates and pastors of the Church: as S. Peter and the Apostles were sent, receiving from Our Lord’s own mouth this commandment: “Go ye into the whole world, and preach the Gospel to every creature,” and as Moses received his mission to Pharao and to the people of Israel. But neither in the one nor in the other way have your ministers any mission. How then have they undertaken to preach? How shall they preach, says the Apostle, unless they be sent. Reflections: Why is it important for representatives/ministers of the Church to be “sent,” to have a connection to authority in the Church?Why is the Bible insufficient for laying down the mission of the Church?Does St. Francis’s concerns here contradict Our Lord when he said: “For he that is not against us is for us” (Matthew 9:40)?Discuss this image that Protestantism is like divorcing Christ from His Bride.Does all of this mean that what Protestants do is in vain or without merit?Today, we refer to Protestants as “our separated brethren.” Can we find some common ground? Pray together? Work together somehow, especially when it comes to strengthening Christian values in society?Have you known siblings, children, or friends who have left the Catholic Church? Have they left with a good conscience? Was there some other reason, such as a disagreement with the Church’s moral teaching in some area? How can we win them back? 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