Contrary to the version of Church history presented by conservative Roman Catholics, especially fundamentalist versions prevalent among converts to Rome, papal Christianity is only part of the western catholic story specifically, and the story of catholic Christianity in general. Another part of the western catholic story that is no less important, is the story of reformed catholicism.
Just as God has created the human body in such a way that it carries within itself the ability to heal (e.g., when you cut yourself or break a bone), so it is with the Body of Christ. This ability within Christ’s body is the presence of the Holy Spirit Himself. Sometimes this ecclesial healing may mean the miraculous, sometimes it may mean moral renewal, sometimes it may mean educational renewal, and at other it may mean Galatians 2, that is, the public opposing of divinely appointed leaders who stand condemned for not being ”in step with the truth of the gospel” and leading sheep and lambs astray.
This is the story of reformed catholicism. It is not a denomination, nor is it a combination of Calvinism and Roman Catholicism (hence, the lower-case “r” and “c”). Rather, reformed catholicism is a dynamic ecclesial reality whose source of life is the presence of the Spirit of Truth within the Church. Jesus promised that the Spirit would guide His people into all truth. Constitutive of this promise is the guarantee of Eph 4:7-16, namely, that contenders “for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” will always be with the Church, even if at times those contenders would be the minority, such as was the case with Athanasius.
The visibly, discernible, and continuous manifestation of reformed catholicism can be seen in the examples of the Patristic Reformers, and the Monastic Reformers, and the Conciliar Reformers, and the Protestant Reformers. Reformed catholicism became significantly more discernible and important after the split between the East and the West in AD 1054. From AD 1054 until the Great Reformation of the 16th century, reformed catholicism was a movement and reaction of fidelity to the papacy. It was the consistent and annoying plea to the papacy, by those who loved it, to either reform itself or let others reform it. The ever-present tensions between papal and reformed catholicism exploded on the European stage in the 16th century when it became tragically clear, that after centuries of escalating attempts, the papacy could not be reformed and would no longer tolerate such pleas. And thus the two streams of catholicism in the West were ruptured permamently.
Sadly, reformed catholicism broke into confessional camps that hardened against each other, and especially against Rome. Rome, on the other hand, having amputated the reform impluse was able to continue to expand the power of the papacy, and would continue to digress into an ever-greater aberration of catholic Christianity.
In our day a great upheaval and massive shuffling of people is going on within the Western Church, as many search for catholic Christianity. This can be seen not only in the many conversions that are taking place from one ecclesial tradition to another, but also by the various academic, intellectual, and catechetical movements, such as the Evangelical Ressourcement movement headed by D.H. Williams; the Canonical Theism movement headed by William Abraham; and the massive literary efforts of Thomas Oden. For ourselves, we hope to help give voice to, in however small a way, this growing revival of western catholic Christianity by exploring this rich tradition through the ever-present reality of reformed catholicism.
