You are right to observe that the Church won’t achieve true unity before Rome reforms. However, little progress will be made if all we do is complain about the other parties’ faults. Unity will never be achieved without movement by all parties. My concern is that we do what we ought to do. I leave the situation in the Roman Catholic church in God’s hands. If He desires to bring about unity He will reform the Roman Catholic church. In the meantime we ought to do what we can to pray and work towards a truthful unity from our side.

I desire a visible unity for the Church. I also believe that God desires such unity for His Church. However, a compromised unity is not something to be desired. I do not desire full unity with Rome as she is now. As things now stand in that communion, we do well to keep a degree of distance. Nevertheless, the desire for a future, truthful, unity is a biblical one.

All the talk about eventual reunion, ecumenical prospects, ever-deepening mutual understanding, etc. is just that: TALK.

True catholicity does not consists in yearning for unity with Rome as long as the Gospel of Justification by Faith is glossed over. True catholicity consists in unity in the Truth, something which over-eager Protestants never seem to understand, thus betraying the cause of the Protestant Reformation over and over again.

Is your assertion more authoritative than that made by Catholics? The silliness of the entire post is that some Protestants spend a lot of time dreaming that the unity of the Church depends on their little opinion or how they feel about it. When the Christian Church finally unites, it is very possible no one will invite your denomination to the discussion or even recognize that it exist. However, no meaningful discussion about unification will ever take place without the Catholic Church driving it.

I’m curious what exactly he is referring to here? Is it the Mass? If so, then that is still alive and well, thank you, and the Catholic Church is not (from this critical perspective) one whit less “idolatrous” than it was in 1517.

The problem then becomes: “how does one accept as brothers and sisters in Christ a communion that (so the criticism goes) enshrines rank, gross idolatry at the very center of its worship?” It makes no sense to take a middle position of “sure, Catholics are Christians” but then hold that they commit idolatry every Sunday.

The other thing about the sacrifice of the Mass is that it has considerable patristic support.

I’m assuming that the idolatry referred to is the Mass, but say it was the Catholic doctrine of Mary instead. If so, then again, our Mariology is considerably more robust now than it was then, with the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption now ex cathedra binding doctrines.

So you would have to say (from a Reformed perspective) that Catholics are far worse on both scores now than they were then. Even papal infallibility is far more defined now than then (even conciliar infallibility — in the fully Catholic, papal sense — saw significant development in Vatican II).

As you can see, I’m trying to trap the ecumenical Reformed position on the horns of a dilemma. I would contend that anti-Catholic Protestantism (much as I loathe and detest it) is actually more consistent than an ecumenical Protestant position that continues to regard the Mass as idolatry and blasphemy (I’ve pressed Lutherans on this, too, and they seem to have no ready reply). The anti-Catholics call a spade a spade. That’s how they view Catholics and so, consistently, they read them out of Christianity altogether.

To do ecumenism with Catholics, and to be halfway consistent, you will have to find a way to “tolerate” the Mass as the Mass, and to not have the schizoid view described above. The Mass would have to be, it seems to me, regarded as not essentially different in kind of degree of error than other Protestant forms of worship that differ from reformed (say, Penetecostal or Mennonite).

On a more positive note: I agree wholeheartedly with your remarks about the definition of “gospel”. Indeed, I have been making virtually an identical argument for many years now, both as a Protestant and as a Catholic. It’s refreshing to see some Reformed Christians agreeing and refusing to redefine the gospel as TULIP.