A perfect solution. . .

A group of Finnish Lutherans were offered Holy Communion by priests at a mass held in St. Peter's Basilica following a meeting with Pope Francis on January 15, according to a report by the Finnish periodical Kotimaa 24.  Lutheran bishop Samuel Salmi was visiting the Vatican as the head of a delegation that included a youth choir that was to perform there. Salmi says he met privately with Pope Francis.  After the personal audience with the pope, the delegation was present at a celebration of the Catholic mass. According to Salmi, at the time of communion the non-Catholics placed their right hands on their left shoulders, a traditional way of indicating that they were ineligible to receive the Eucharist. However, the celebrating priests insisted on giving them communion. Salmi told Kotimaa 24 that “I myself accepted it [Holy Communion].” He added that “this was not a coincidence,” and nor was it a coincidence when last year the pope seemed to accept the notion of a Lutheran woman receiving communion with her Catholic husband. 

I got it!  A perfect solution!  Francis can become Pope of all liberal Lutherans since that seems to be where his heart is and that will satisfy the rest of Rome as well as giving the liberal Lutherans (from a variety of jurisdictions) a certain cache and legitimacy they cannot find in their confessional documents and their lukewarm subscription to the creeds and confessions that would normally define an orthodox and catholic faith.

Cardinal Kasper and his minions would, no doubt, join the Pope in his ecumenical journey since it is pretty clear that instead of sustaining the faith these kinds of folks are intent upon modernizing the faith and ditching the last gasps of Scripture to condemn the social and sexual GLBT agenda.  But that would hardly be a problem.

Remember when Pope Benedict XVI said that in order to remain faithful the church might have to grow smaller?

Some who accuse me of being a closet Catholic (when the reality is that I am an out and proud catholic of the Augsburg Confession) might think I am happy about the presumed communion and its inherent recognition of Lutheran legitimacy by Rome.  I would be happy IF this meant that both churches were intent upon being fully catholic, apostolic, and orthodox but I am most unhappy when ecumenism happens by forgetting what is believed and confessed and tossing aside Scripture, creed, and confession.  There is no joy for Rome welcoming Lutherans to a table when it means Rome is ignoring what they said they believed and the Lutherans are forgetting what they say they believed.  You should be offended by the same kind of ecumenism lite.