11-11-2012, 11:36 PM
(10-30-2012, 04:56 PM)SouthpawLink Wrote: "If we use the image of a body to describe 'belonging' we are limited only to the form of representation as 'member'. Either one is or one is not a member, there are no other possibilities. One can then ask if the image of the body was too restrictive, since there manifestly existed in reality intermediate degrees of belonging. The Constitution on the Church found it helpful for this purpose to use the concept of 'the People of God'. It could describe the relationship of non-Catholic Christians to the Church as being 'in communion' and that of non-Christians as being 'ordered' to the Church where in both cases one relies on the idea of the People of God" (Cardinal Ratzinger, Conference given on 15 September 2001).
In Mystici Corporis, non-Catholic Christians were described as "ordered" in desire to the Church. It would appear that they have since been promoted to being "in communion" with her, and now non-Christians are "ordered" to her.
http://www.catholicapologetics.info/mode...eaning.htm
This is an interesting quote. I wonder whether His Holiness really meant to imply that an image used by St. Paul and the Fathers could be in any way thought inadequate. I always thought that "The People of God" as used in V2 was an attempt to apply an Old Testament notion to modern conditions, perhaps to create a sort of new existential authenticity in the face of what some of the Council participants had come to believe was inauthentic Catholic identity. The problem arises from the fact the People of God is conveyed in the Old Testament in a rather rigid way: membership, like the membership of apendages to the body, is a function of birth, as well as continued functioning. Throughout the Old Testament, non-functioning members of the People are expelled from the body as a whole, either juridically (eg, Jezebel) or through divine retribution (the northern kingdom). What one does not see in the Old Testament is the kind of debate over status that characterizes post Vatican 2 relations with other churches.