http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2011/10/westminster-in-the-dock-reflections-on-the-peter-leithart-trial/#comment-23127. This is the heart of the entire struggle. Forget the Catholic conclusion; doesn't matter as much as the question. Answer the question: What is the relation between my visible community, and the allegedly invisible Church? If it doesn't have real authority right there, it doesn't have any. See how the ecclesiology in its ambiguity drives doctrinal relativity? This is Newman's great insight. A person is compelled to find the basis for divine truth, not merely by a claim to possess it, but he understands that he himself must have been mistaken in his manner of apprehending it, in his method.
I once had a friend, a dear friend, who helped me with personal care needs in college. Reformed Presbyterian to the core. When I was a Reformed Presbyterian, I visited their church many times. We were close. I still consider his siblings my friends. (And siblings in the Lord.) Nevertheless, when I began to consider the claims of the Catholic Church to be the Church Christ founded, he took me out to breakfast. He implied--but never quite stated--that we would not be brothers, if I sought full communion with the Catholic Church. That came true; a couple years later, I called him on his birthday, as I'd done every year for close to ten of them. He didn't recognize my number, and it was the most strained, awkward phone call I have ever had. We haven't spoken since. We were close enough that I attended the rehearsal dinner for his wedding. His wife's uncle is a Catholic priest. I remember reading a blog post of theirs, that early in their relationship, she told him of the p
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