Combining Doctrine between Protestantism and Catholicism

In 1975, the growing partnership between Protestantism and Catholicism was demonstrated by the release of The Common Catechism: A Book of Christian Faith. This book offers comprehensive statements of the Christian faith and, according to the editors, was written, “to help ensure that Christians cooperate within their own communities in the common growth of the churches towards that unity in variety, which is the goal of all ecumenical effort.”ⁱ

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This book offers comprehensive statements of the Christian faith and, according to the editors, was written, “to help ensure that Christians cooperate within their own communities in the common growth of the churches towards that unity in variety, which is the goal of all ecumenical effort.

1. The moral directives we might find in the Ten Commandments, as well as in the Sermon on the Mount are, “to a large extent conditioned by their age and their cultural environment.”

2. Many New Testament passages are described as interpretations rather than historic events. The book says that some statements of Jesus were, “put in the mouth of Jesus” by His apostles; sayings that "the historical Jesus never uttered.”

3. Subjects such as the physical resurrection of Jesus are regarded as a “permanent problem” for modern humanity, and “full of difficulties.” “Its message needs to be reinterpreted in a more meaningful manner since the raising of Jesus from the dead is a concept formulated ‘in the language of the Jewish apocalyptic’ which has hardly any relevancy in our modern sociocultural context.”ⁱⁱ

Consider this statement from the Council of Trent documents, which was recently used to cut down Protestantism on a popular Catholic blog:

Furthermore, to check unbridled spirits, it decrees that no one relying on his own judgment shall, in matters of faith and morals pertaining to the edification of Christian doctrine, distorting the Holy Scriptures in accordance with his own conceptions, presume to interpret them contrary to that sense which holy mother Church, to whom it belongs to judge of their true sense and interpretation, has held and holds, or even contrary to the unanimous teaching of the Fathers.

The Roman Church has not changed its attitude and moved closer to the Protestant faith, despite its apparent ecumenical attitude. Rather, the Vatican II Council did not change one doctrine of faith and the Vatican continues its strict policy regarding the preservation of traditional Catholic doctrine.ⁱⁱⁱ

"The mother of the churches" inscription on St. John's Lateran Church.
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i. Johannes Feiner and Lukas Vischer (eds), The Common Catechism: A Book of Christian Faith (New York: Seabury Press, 1975).

ii. Ibid.

iii. Russell Chandler and Don Schanche, “The Papal Visit - Divisive Issues in Church Quickly Confront Pontiff,” Los Angeles Times (September 11, 1987).