Crossing the Street. Robert R LaRochelle
this particular work, I seek to draw upon my experience and my study to offer suggestions to Catholics and Protestants alike. It is my intention that congregational leaders and church officials will find this material useful in both advocating for and shaping courses of action. Likewise, I would be most pleased if what is contained herein might serve as a useful discussion starter among friends, spouses, partners and all of those whose lives have been influenced by their connection and affiliation with these two branches of the institutional Christian church. It is to this end that I provide discussion questions at the conclusion of each of this book’s chapters.
As we have already noted, this book has as a central focus the relationship between Protestant and Roman Catholic traditions. One might legitimately ask whether this focus is too narrow in this increasingly complex and pluralistic world of religious choices and paths. After all, within Christianity itself, the Orthodox churches form an incredible body with a magnificent history, offering tremendous resources to both Christianity and the wider world. One might wonder why we are looking solely at these two Christian groupings of Protestant and Roman Catholic as we all really need an ever more detailed understanding of and dialogue with such religious traditions as Judaism, Islam, and the great religions of the East as well as with the multiple approaches to spirituality existent both within this great vast world and right here on North American soil!
In my view, it IS crucial that serious work be done on all of those fronts. As a matter of fact, it is important to me that Protestants and Catholics alike engage in that enterprise, take it to heart and do it well. Having said that, I must also contend that the relationship between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism is an area that continues to need detailed exploration. It is a relationship that suffers from severe misunderstandings and a terribly troubled history, one that has affected many individuals in intensely personal ways. It is a relationship that must never be overlooked.
It strikes me as well that those who take Jesus seriously in his plea that ‘they may all be one’5 will likewise find most troubling the divisions and misunderstandings that have plagued these two great religious traditions. It is my hope that this book may contribute, in some way, to a greater appreciation of the commonality and shared mission between these two distinct approaches to the one Christian faith. Likewise, I believe that a healthy ecumenism between Protestants and Roman Catholics in turn will make a massive impact on other ecumenical, interfaith and universal spiritual dialogue in this, God’s most needy world!
Throughout this work, the language I use will be important and thus it is crucial that, from our very beginning, I am very clear. For the most part, I will refer to Roman Catholicism as ‘Catholicism,’ though I will at times use the phrase ‘Roman Catholic.’ While doing so most certainly cuts down on the wordiness of this text, I think it is also clear that it refers to that church community which acknowledges the Bishop of Rome as its leader. In popular parlance, I am talking about ‘the Pope.’ Likewise, ‘Catholicism’ is a preferred, popular self designation for those who are part of the Roman Catholic tradition. So, while I will on many occasions, use the phrase ‘Roman Catholic,’ please understand ‘Catholic’ to be interchangeable with it!
Contemporary Protestantism is hardly a monolithic enterprise. As a matter of fact, from Protestantism’s very inception, there has been considerable diversity of thought and practice within it. The modern Protestant movement, in my view, is less divided by denomination than it is by approach, especially to theology and its understanding of the Bible. This, in turn, has implications for the ways in which Protestant congregations and denominations deal with intrachurch issues (e.g. women and homosexual clergy) and political issues. Within modern Protestantism, there are multiple approaches to these matters.
In this work, I will distinguish between ‘mainline’ or ‘mainstream’ Protestantism and what I will call ‘evangelical’ Protestant Christianity. My use of the term evangelical is intended to include those who consider themselves to be fundamentalists.6 I make this distinction fully cognizant of the reality that many conservative evangelicals would eschew the term fundamentalist and that many ‘mainline’ Christians consider themselves to be truly evangelical and are troubled by the fact that the word itself has been co-opted by what they would see as the ‘religious right.’7 In using these terms, I am intending to distinguish between those established churches which have generally been in numerical decline in the last several decades and that multiplicity of other church communities which, in many cases, are growing considerably. A very incomplete list of these ‘mainline’ churches would include (and not be limited to) the Protestant Episcopal Church in America, the United Church of Christ, the United Methodist Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the American Baptist Churches, the Disciples of Christ and the Presbyterian Church, USA. The more ‘evangelical’ churches would include both established denominations such as the Southern Baptists or the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (among many others) and also the plethora of independent churches or those affiliated with associations and alliances. I also distinguish between mainline churches and the growing number of ecclesial communities within the Pentecostal tradition. Likewise, there is a vibrant Emergent/Emerging Church movement which has burst onto the church scene in recent years which is marked by a unique eclecticism of practice and often theology.8 As we all know, much of the language can be confusing. I am the pastor of a New England church which has been called ‘Congregational’ since 1738. In 1961, we joined the larger ‘United Church of Christ,’ a church body in existence only since 1957. Not far down the road from us remain several churches who call themselves ‘Congregational,’ but also happen not to be ‘UCC.’ It would be fair to distinguish us and place us in the mainline category with the others more accurately described by the term evangelical as it is used within this context. Of course, having said all of that, I would also contend, quite vociferously, that, in the purest sense of the term, ours is an ‘evangelical church’ as well as is expressed in such a formal ritual as the ordination of our pastors.9 As muddled and confusing as this can be, I hope all this is helpful to you, the reader!
Likewise, I think that, as you begin this book, it would be useful if you were to get a thumbnail sketch of who I am. More will be revealed later on, especially in Chapter 3. As I have indicated, I am currently the pastor of a United Church of Christ congregation in Union, Connecticut. Parenthetically, I am a part time pastor engaged in bivocational ministry, often referred to as ‘tentmaking’ ministry.10 My current full time work is as a school counselor in a Connecticut public high school. I have worked in educational settings as either a full time teacher or counselor for thirty five years.
I was ordained in the United Church of Christ in 2002, several months after I was licensed to serve as pastor of a local church. From the day of my Baptism in January of 1953 to just before Lent in 1998, I was a Roman Catholic. While you will read a lot more about the specifics of my ecclesiastical life as you go through this book, suffice it to say that I was quite active and involved in the Catholic Church for the first forty five years of my life. Educated in Catholic elementary and prep school, I also served for nine years as an altar boy, rising to the ranks of leader of the altar boys in a convent of nuns, actually the place that served as the national headquarters of a distinguished order of religious sisters.
From there, I moved on to a Roman Catholic college (College of the Holy Cross) which was run by the Jesuit Fathers, seriously considered the Catholic priesthood but decided against it, earned a graduate degree in the area of religious education from another Jesuit school (Boston College) and then embarked upon a career teaching theology in Catholic schools, working for a while in a diocesan office traveling the state of Rhode Island, consulting with local parishes, conducting literally hundreds of youth retreats and leading dozens of workshops, and serving several Catholic parishes in the capacity of Religious Education Director and/or Youth Minister.
In 1989, I was ordained to the Permanent Diaconate in the Catholic Church and served as a member of the clergy (oftentimes people do not realize that Catholics consider clergy to be bishops, priests and deacons)11 on a parish staff from 1989 to that day in 1998 when I decided that I needed to move out of the Catholic Church and search for where I might worship and potentially serve in my future.
In the interest of straightforward disclosure, I must say that when I ultimately