I love the Roman Catholic Church. I’m still a card-carrying Baptist, but I value the Latin rite in the richness of its tradition, the beauty of its liturgy, and the authority of its history. My closest friend, roommate, and co-Bible study leader is a Catholic, and it’s been a real pleasure to partner with him in taking the Gospel to Georgetown’s campus. I even pray for the Catholic Church, the purity of its doctrine, and for God to raise up holy servants to the priesthood. Which is why it hurts so much when doctrinal differences threaten the Christian partnership I’ve experienced with my Roman friends.
The threat to our holy unity began last semester. In the wake of Georgetown’s decision to unwelcome InterVarsity Christian Fellowship from the campus, members of the IV community began meeting daily for prayer. We eventually settled into Copley Crypt for this ritual -- a gothic, Roman Catholic chapel with beautiful icons and arches and stained glass windows and the aroma of incense. It is a small, intimate, and warm room that invites the weary spiritual pilgrim to prayer. We even received permission from the Catholic Campus Ministry to meet there as a group of Christian students seeking out God’s will.
The problem, expressed earlier last semester and re-voiced recently by a few Catholics on campus, is that the crypt is Roman Catholic. It contains a tabernacle (a small container) which holds the Host -- the consecrated bread for the Lord’s Supper, which Catholics believe is the physical body of Christ. The problem for them is that, as a majority-Protestant organization, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship does not show proper respect to the Host when it meets for daily prayer in the crypt. Most Protestants do not genuflect- bend their knee to the altar- or cross themselves when they enter the chapel (as do Catholics) out of respect for the literal presence of Christ. Because most Protestants do not recognize the Eucharistic bread as the physical body of Christ, one fellow argued that they are unable to properly revere the presence of the Lord in the crypt at all (even with the outward signs of respect). Protestants would defile the crypt and disrespect Catholic teaching by their mere presence in the chapel because of their general unbelief in transubstantiation.
This position is extreme. Most Catholics have no problem with Protestants meeting in Roman crypts, chapels, or churches. InterVarsity, after all, gained its approval to meet in Copley Crypt from the Catholic clergy in Campus Ministry. About a third of our fellowship is Catholic, and they have expressed no problem with our meeting in a room containing the precious Host. If anything, as I have been encouraged by some Catholic friends, spending some time in a room with the real transubstantiated body of Christ might win some of us Protestants over to belief in the Roman tradition.
But no. For one Catholic, our meeting in a crypt with the Host present is tantamount to sacrilege. In part of a conversation between him and some friends of mine, he flat-out stated that Protestants are heretics and have no place in the Church Universal. Ouch. Those statements hurt. It hurts still. It hurts very badly.
Here at Georgetown in my ecumenical bubble of Christian faith, I had forgotten that division in the church causes pain. There were reasons for the European wars of religion in the wake of the Protestant Reformation (probably because some poor group of disgruntled Protestant Students declared war on a few crazy conservative Catholics after the former were forced out of a warm crypt for daily prayer, called heretics, and not accepted as fellow believers by the latter!). Anyways, suddenly the divisions between Catholicism and Protestantism felt very real to me. I got upset --- very upset – at the whole situation, and even began to resent my Catholic roommate for his nonchalant attitude toward the ordeal. To my shame, I shared some crazy anti-Catholic Protestant propaganda with Matt so that he could feel the pain and alienation that I was feeling from the crazy Catholics. I became very defensive, too, as if my entire faith and religious upbringing was on trial because of the way some Catholics perceived it. It was all very unchristian of me.
After meeting with some other IV (Catholic and Protestant) leaders, we’ve decided to change the venue of our daily prayer. Our guide is Romans 14- “Therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother… For if your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. By what you eat, do not destroy the one for whom Christ died… So then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding.” And also 1 Corinthians 6:7 “Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded?” And also the example of our Lord in Luke 23:34, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
So, we’re all swallowing our pride. We’re striving to maintain the unity of the body in the bond of peace, even though those attempts aren’t reciprocated. We’re trying to die to ourselves (even though we’ve gotten mad at others and at the situation and have failed so much), but we’re trusting God will use this decision as an opportunity to glorify Himself. And, we’re all really looking forward to the Day when all believers will know that there actually is “one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and father of all who is over all and in all and through all.”
