PopeWatch is amused that the Pope cited the Council of Jerusalem in his General Audience yesterday:
Dear Brothers and Sisters: In our catechesis on the Acts of the Apostles, we now consider Saint Paul’s first missionary journey. Following a fierce persecution, Paul and Barnabas – prompted by the Holy Spirit – set off to spread the Gospel abroad. As a result, the Good News was also preached to the Gentiles. This initially caused a lively controversy, as to whether a strict adherence to the Mosaic Law was required of these converts. To discern God’s will in these matters, the Apostles gathered in Jerusalem, and came to a new and shared understanding. The “Council of Jerusalem” shows us that the way of resolving issues among Christians is an attentive listening to others, yet always under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Let us pray that God will strengthen in us the desire to embrace the path of dialogue, and to listen patiently to one another, and to the voice of the Lord.
Go here to read the rest. PopeWatch can only assume that the command of the Council of Jerusalem against idols slipped the Pope’s mind.
[13] And after they had held their peace, James answered, saying: Men, brethren, hear me. [14] Simon hath related how God first visited to take of the Gentiles a people to his name. [15] And to this agree the words of the prophets, as it is written:
[16] After these things I will return, and will rebuild the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down; and the ruins thereof I will rebuild, and I will set it up: [17] That the residue of men may seek after the Lord, and all nations upon whom my name is invoked, saith the Lord, who doth these things. [18] To the Lord was his own work known from the beginning of the world. [19] For which cause I judge that they, who from among the Gentiles are converted to God, are not to be disquieted. [20] But that we write unto them, that they refrain themselves from the pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood.
[21] For Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him in the synagogues, where he is read every sabbath.
Acts 15: 13-21
.PF: “Let us pray that God will strengthen in us the desire to embrace the path of dialogue, and to listen patiently to one another, and to the voice of the Lord.”
Response: The Pope’s words are belied by his actions. He does not listen to others let alone the Holy Spirit, he dictates. If there is a spirit involved it clearly is not holy.
More to the point, the Council of Jerusalem was about removing stumbling blocks to the conversion of the gentiles, whereas the Synod of the Amazon seems to be largely about liberalizing clerical discipline, married priests, women deacons, in a the Rhine flows into the Amazon flows into the Tiber kind of way.
In the Old Testament the prophets foretold the coming of Christ and a new covenant. The Council of Jerusalem in Acts is an integral part of the enacting of the Church of the New Covenant. Christ’s New Covenant is eternal. The only passages there are in the New Testament are warnings to be on guard against false teachers.