Gift of Truth

Glory Be To Jesus Christ! Glory Be Forever!

The Institute for Promoting the Gift of Truth is an Institute of Christian Research and Education, providing Christian resource materials, education and training in many topics about the Gift of Truth entrusted to Christ’s Church, which, embraced, brings the life-changing Love, power, peace and joy of Jesus!

Our Motto: CARITAS ET VERITAS – LOVE AND TRUTH “So That The World May Believe”

Our Goals:

1. Mature Christian Education in the Life-Tranforming Depths of God the Holy Trinity of Love and God’s Plan for His Adopted Family the Church (see CATCH THE VISION); and

2. Vatican II Implementation, that is, the full implementation of the 21st Ecumenical Council of the Catholic (Universal) Communion of Orthodox Christian ‘Sister’ Churches, for the benefit of the whole Church and the whole world, since this Ecumenical Council paved the way for **true and complete Church Reform and Reunification by dogmatically defining the Lived Reality of the Undivided Early Church of the First Millennium**

See Donum Veritatis – The Gift of Truth Ministries Mission Statement

The Gift of Truth from the Father Comes into the world by the Written Word & the Holy Spirit of Jesus the Living Word through His Body the Church

“I love the Church, because Jesus loves the Church as His Bride, and because in the profound marital “one flesh” mystery of “Christ and the Church” (see Ephesians 5:22-32) all of us members of the Bride of Christ the Church become members of the very Body of Christ the Church, we become His hands and feet and heart reaching out to the world with His love. The Institute for Promoting the Gift of Truth exists to help teach all Christians their true identity as the Bride and very Body of Jesus Christ on Earth “so that the world may believe” when it sees our Beloved Jesus’ Love in us His Bride and Body.”

– Peter William John Baptiste SFO, Founder

(The Following are Quick Links to Topics From the Free Catalog Published on the Institute’s Christian Unity in Diversity Central Website, followed by an article on Vatican Council II’s Tremendous Contribution Towards Fully Restoring the Undivided Early Church, the Undivided First Millennium Catholic Commmunion of Orthodox Christian Rites or ‘Sister Churches’, and then an article on Pope Benedict XVI’s Roles within the Catholic Communion)

QUICK LINKS: CATCH THE VISION; Vatican II Implementation; Revolutionizing Your Bible Reading; Trinity of Love; the Body of Christ the Church; Power of Prayer; Family Theology; Love Unbounded: How does Jesus’ Death Save Us?; The Universal Call to Holiness; Sacred Tradition is The Bride of Christ Dancing with Him Throughout History; Ecumenism (Recapturing the Early Church’s Unity in Diversity); Divided Christians Must Always Confirm Our Vast Common Ground Before Discussing Our Differences; The Common Creed of Christianity; Together Transforming Culture for Jesus; Deciphering the ‘Language Barrier’ Between Catholic and Protestant Christians; Evangelicals Believe in Purgatory But Call it by Another Name; The Spread of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the First Millennium of the Univided Early Universal (Catholic) Christian Church; Science & Faith; Bible Inerrancy; the Image and Likeness of God; Adam and Jesus Versus the Dragon; Beauty of Faith; The Gospel of Jesus Christ – You were Made to be Drenched in Love!; Prima Scriptura or Sola Scriptura (the Bible First or Alone); What is Sacred Tradition?; What is the Magisterium?; Prima Scriptura: Closer than We Think; Bible Canon History; Who is Mary in the Church?; WHAT IS THE CATHOLIC CHURCH?; The Patriarchates; Reborn Jewish Christianity; The Eastern Churches and the Papacy Throughout History; Proposal for Reunification

Vatican Council II’s Tremendous Contribution Towards Fully Restoring the Undivided Early Church, the Undivided First Millennium Catholic Commmunion of Orthodox Christian Rites or ‘Sister Churches’

To recapture the phenomenal success of the Undivided Early Church which “turned the [pagan] world upside down” with the love of God while pursuing its Mission from Jesus, it is important to understand that the Catholic Church is much more than merely the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church which Protestant Christians broke away from in the 16th Century, which is currently the largest Catholic Rite (though in the Undivided Early Catholic Commmunion of Orthodox Christian Rites or ‘Sister Churches’ only 25% of both Orthodox (non-heretical) and Catholic (Universal) Christians were Roman Catholic Christians, the other 75% being Eastern Orthodox and Catholic Christians of different Rites). Today’s ongoing Universal (Greek: Katholikos or Catholic) Christian Communion of Orthodox Sister Churches, since the time of the Apostle John’s direct disciples, the beloved early Christian martyrs Saint Polycarp of Smyrna and Saint Ignatius of Antioch who coined the term, has been known collectively as the Catholic Church. This Communion of currently 26 ancient and semi-ancient Christian Rites or ‘Sister Churches’ of East and West represent different nations/cultures as renewed in Jesus Christ IN FULFILLMENT OF GOD’S PLAN since He told Adam and Noah to “multiply and fill the Earth” and since He scattered the nations at Babel to ensure they would in fact ”fill the Earth” with different cultures. Saint Augustine said, “the Church is the World, redeemed,” and the Rites or Sister Churches which make up the ancient Catholic (Universal) Church Communion are the nations or cultures of the world, redeemed.

The Wisdom of God’s plan for humanity scattered abroad in different cultural groups since Adam and Babel is seen in how each of the different ancient cultures (initially Jewish, Syrian, Egyptian, Roman, and Greek) as renewed in Jesus Christ as different ‘Sister Churches’ or Patriarchates (Church Provinces, initially centered in Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, Rome, and Constantinople) of the one Undivided Early Catholic Christian Church had a different cultural perspective on the infinite Truth of God revealed in Jesus Christ. This meant that each different culturally-based Sister Church lovingly and theologically reflected upon the Bible, the Written Word of God, and upon their living relationship with Jesus the Living Word of God, from different angles of approach, and they emphasized different aspects of this inexaustable Truth and this inexaustable Love relationship in their loving devotional practices and formal worship rituals and liturgies, such that only together did they know the most about God. Together they were “greater than the sum of their parts” and only together as one Catholic (Universal) Christian Church, one Living Body of Christ the Church with all its parts, could they fight many early heretical interpretations of the Bible and only together, by pooling together their different insights coming from their different cultural perspectives and approaches, could they precisely define the essential content of God’s infinite Self-Revelation in Jesus Christ the Living Word of God and in the Bible, the Written Word of God, in ways that excluded heretical misinterpretation. This they did at the Ecumenical (worldwide) Councils of the Undivided Early Christian Church, the early Catholic Communion of Orthodox Christian Sister Churches of East and West, which officially and dogmatically defined (against many heretics through the centuries) the only proper way to interpret the Bible so as to answer the new questions of new eras yet also stay true to the Christian faith as passed down at least implicitly within the Apostolic Christian Church Community since Apostolic times.

The 1st Ecumenical Council, held at Nicea in 325 AD, as an expression of the Church as the Living Body of Christ guided by the Holy Spirit into “all the truth” (John 16:13) as per Jesus’ promise, dogmatically defined, against the Arian Christian heretics with their very thorough and sophisticated but not traditional interpretation of the Bible, that in order to stay true to the Christian faith as passed down within the Living Faith Community of the Church the Bible must be interpreted to mean that Jesus is God, one in being with the Father. The background painting on this website is of the Early Church Fathers of the 1st Ecumenical Council together with the ancient Nicene Creed this Council produced (still the minimal common standard of Christian faith used in most Ecumenical events). The 2nd Ecumenical Council in 381 AD dogmatically defined that the Bible must be interpreted to mean the Holy Spirit is also Divine (updating the Nicene Creed to the form we know today, which includes this), completing the non-negotiable Christian Dogma of the Trinity. This Council also defined that Jesus had two natures, human as well as Divine, against the Apollinarian Christian heretics who agreed Jesus was God but said He only appeared to be human. The 3rd Ecumenical Council in 431 AD, presided over by Saint Cyril, the Patriarch of Alexandria who had been deputized by Pope Celestine, dogmatically defined that in order to stay true to the Apostolic faith passed down within the Church the Bible must be interpreted to mean that Jesus is one Person with two natures, Divine and human, against the Nestorian Christian heretics, who interpreted that Jesus was two persons, the merely human Jesus possessed by the Divine Christ.

At last dogmatically defining the basic orthodox Christology of the Christian Faith against the heretics, the 4th Ecumenical Council in 451 AD, at Chalcedon, particularly demonstrated the pooling together of the different insights of the different Rites or Sister Churches in the Ecumenical Councils, in its response to the popular Monophysite (“One-nature”) heresy held by Christians who agreed Jesus had initially been one Person with two natures, Divine and human, but interpreted that His finite human nature was immediately swallowed up in the infinite Divine nature “like a drop of water in the ocean,” leaving Jesus with only one nature, the Divine. The Antiochian Rite of the Catholic (Universal) Church had for centuries previously emphasized and developed the theology of the human nature of Christ (and the Literal Sense of the Scriptures), while the Alexandrian Rite or ‘Sister Church’ had emphasized and developed the theology of the Divine Nature of Christ (and the Spiritual Senses of the Scriptures). Over the centuries a number of heresies had arisen within the Church when some heretical Christian theologians had emphasized one of Christ’s two natures to the exclusion or diminishment of the other, and the popular Monophysite heresy was the latest example of this. Pope Saint Leo the Great, who called and directed the Council, in his famous Tome (or Decree) of Leo drew from the magnificent previous work of both the Antiochian and Alexandrian Schools, adding his Roman Rite perspective as the Patriarch of the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church, in order to at last relate the theologies of the humanity and Divinity of Jesus to each other in a way that captured the previously more implicit faith of the Church while also specifically excluding any heretical interpretations which failed to properly express Christ’s two natures. Leo’s Tome, drawing from the theology of both the Antiochian and Alexandrian Schools, brilliantly articulated and explained explicitly the previously more implicit orthodox faith of the Christian Church, clarifying just why Monophysite Christianity was heretical, because it violated the fundamental Christian truth (in the Bible but not explicitly) which Leo had at last clearly articulated and explained: that Jesus Christ is one person in two natures, Divine and human, that exist in Jesus Christ without confusion or change (versus the Monophysite heresy), without division or separation (versus the Nestorian heresy), such that Jesus is consubstantial (of the same substance) with the Father with respect to His Divinity, and consubstantial with us with respect to his humanity. The 4th Ecumenical Council’s 681 gathered Christian Overseers (Bishops or Eparchs and Patriarchs) from all of the different Eastern and Western Rites or Sister Churches of the Catholic Church, after hearing Pope Leo’s Tome read, unanimously declared “this is the faith of the Church” and the Council under Leo’s direction went on to dogmatically proclaim this faith, against the Monophysite heresy and any other Christological heresy that subordinates one of Jesus’ natures to the other: that Jesus Christ is FULLY DIVINE and FULLY HUMAN, which remains the standard mature expression of orthodox, Apostolic Christianity to this day. The Bride of Christ the Church (in all her Rites) had danced with her Lord for centuries and so together recognized a theological formula that more specifically described Him when they finally heard it, putting to rest the questions raised by the heretics.

Vatican Council II, the 21st Ecumenical Council, was also attended not only by all the Roman Catholic Overseers (Bishops) but also by all the Eastern Catholic Overseers (Bishops or Eparchs) who remain within the ancient and ongoing Catholic (Universal) Communion of Orthodox Christian ‘Sister Churches.’ This latest Ecumenical Council (which even invited Protestant Christians to attend) listened to the legitimate concerns of the Protestant Reformation and Protestant Christians since and, once its ecclesiology (teaching on the Church) is fully known and properly understood (by Catholic Christians as well as non-Catholic Christians), it may well help the Catholic Church and its “separated brothers” in non-Catholic churches to together succeed in what the 16th Century Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation attempted to do but failed in – restoring the Church to its Undivided First Millennium ideal, when the Church was One as Jesus prayed for and the whole ancient pagan world was “turned upside down” and transformed with the love of God the Holy Trinity expressed in orthodox Christian faith. The Oneness was never a uniformity within one single monolithic Church body, but a unity in diversity — a unity of faith expressed in a great and mutually-enriching diversity of ways within the Undivided First Millennium Catholic (Universal) Communion of Orthodox Christian ‘Sister Churches’ of East and West. Since the decimation or forced separation of the majority of the Eastern Orthodox and Catholic Churches from the Catholic Communion by militant Islam, the huge Catholic Church has been “overly Roman” in its numbers and has not readily displayed its continuing true Catholicity or Universality (although there are still enough Eastern Catholic Christians to populate entire countries). Since Vatican Council II the Catholic Church is in the process of rediscovering itself as the truly Catholic or Universal Christian Communion of Orthodox Sister Churches of East and West. The Institute for Promoting the Gift of Truth exists in large part to aid and support the full implementation of Vatican II’s dogmatic ecclesiology within the Catholic Church’s structure and within the minds and hearts of all Catholic Christians through education, “so that the world may believe” in Jesus Christ our Head when we His Body the Church are more fully displaying the beauty of our Christian Communion in the Love of the Holy Trinity.

Pope Benedict XVI’s Roles within the Catholic Communion

Pope Benedict XVI is the Chief Overseer and Head Pastor of the entire Catholic (Universal) Communion of Orthodox Christian Sister Churches of East and West (commonly known simply as the Catholic Church). Pope Benedict is also the Patriarch (Head Overseer) of the Western, Roman Rite or Sister Church of the Catholic Communion (commonly called the Roman Catholic Church) which is currently by far the largest Sister Church, though in the Undivided Early Church only one quarter of all Catholic Christians were Roman Catholic Christians, the rest of the Catholic Church being made up of both Eastern Orthodox and Catholic Christians of the various Eastern Rites and Patriarchates. Pope Benedict is also the local Christian Overseer (usually translated Bishop or Eparch, from the New Testament Greek title Episkopos) of the City of Rome.

Though in his capacity as Chief Overseer, Successor to Peter the “First” or “Chief” Apostle (Greek Protos in Matthew 10:2), the Pope is the Head Pastor of the entire Catholic Communion, in his capacity as Roman Patriarch the Pope is “first among equals” of the ancient Catholic Patriarchs of East and West. The majority of the things the Pope does, he does in his capacity as Roman Patriarch, not “as Pope,” that is, not as head of the entire Catholic Communion of East and West. For example, most things to do with Liturgy or Canon Law (the current guidelines or regulations for worship practices and clerical disciplines within one Rite) are Patriarchal functions, which each Patriarch looks after for their own Sister Church within the Catholic Communion, the Pope as Roman Patriarch ordinarily looking after these matters for the Roman Rite only (the Patriarchates or Church Provinces pastorally guided by a Patriarch first developed in the Early Church to settle disputes and to set guidelines to ensure no heresies crept into the worship practices of each Sister Church of the Catholic Communion, that is, of each distinct cultural response to and celebration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ). In his third capacity as local Overseer of the City of Rome, the Pope casts only one vote in an Ecumenical (worldwide) Council of Christian Overseers (Bishops or Eparchs), like any other Overseer.

The three distinct offices of Christian overseership the Pope holds, as local Overseer (Bishop) of Rome; as Patriarch (Head Overseer) of the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church; and “as Pope,” as Chief Overseer (Successor of Peter) and Head Pastor of the entire Catholic Communion of Orthodox Christian Sister Churches of East and West (commonly known simply as the Catholic Church), are traditionally represented by “the Papal Tiara,” a bishop’s mitre (special hat) with three crowns denoting the Pope’s three distinct offices. This symbol still appears on the Vatican Flag (above), although it is no longer worn by popes since this headgear came into use when political leaders also typically wore crowns to represent their offices, but today crowns are considered antiquated and even pretentious. At the Institute for Promoting the Gift of Truth we highly recommend that “the Papal Tiara” be updated to have three “bands” of office in place of crowns, and once again be regularly worn by the Pope, since it is such a powerful and important symbol of the structure of the Catholic Church as the Catholic (Universal) Communion of Orthodox Christian Sister Churches. This structure has been constant throughout history though hidden for many centuries since the decimation or forced separation of the majority of the Catholic Eastern Orthodox Churches by militant Islam (Eastern Orthodox means “not Eastern Heretic,” it does not mean “not Catholic.” All of the Eastern Orthodox Churches were part of the Undivided First Millennium Catholic Church Communion of East and West and at least portions of all of them remain ‘Sister Churches’ within today’s ongoing Catholic Church Communion – see Chapter 5: The Papacy’s Solid Foundation in Undivided Early Church History Since Apostolic Times: The Papacy’s Long and Wide Acceptance in the East Before the 2nd Millennium Schism of the Largest Portions of the Eastern Orthodox and Catholic Churches from the Catholic (Universal) Christian Communion of Orthodox Eastern and Western Catholic Sister Churches Collectively known as the Catholic Church).

At the Institute we suggest that the Pope’s regularly wearing the Papal Tiara again, in an updated form, will remind the world that the Catholic Church is not just the Roman Catholic Church which Protestant Christians broke away from during a difficult time in its history and which the no-longer-Catholic Eastern Orthodox Churches were forced by their Muslim conquerors to break Communion with, but is in fact (and has always been) the truly Catholic (Universal) Communion of Orthodox Christian Sister Churches. For more detailed suggestions of how to update the Papal Tiara, see Discussion 4, the last of the Four Discussions to Help Roman Catholic Christians to Fully Adopt the Catholic Church’s Self-understanding (based on the Undivided Early Catholic Church) Irrevocably Decreed at its 21st Ecumenical Council of Vatican II (And to Help Non-Catholic Christians Fully Understand the Official Catholic Understanding of the Structure of Christ’s Church), within Chapter 6: The Full Implementation of Vatican Council II, the 21st Ecumenical Council of the Catholic Church, Will Make Roman Catholic Christians Generally Much More Truly Catholic (Universal) and less Roman in Their Understanding of Their Church, Which Will Aid the Restoration of the First Millennium Christian Unity in Diversity in One Undivided Catholic (Universal) Church.

Note on the Background Painting

The background painting is of The Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council (held at Nicea in 325 AD), together with their famous Nicene Creed, which is still the standard Creed of orthodox Christianity used for Ecumenical events today (click here for a more detailed modern Common Creed of Christianity). In this first of the Ecumenical Councils, patterned after the Acts 15 Council of Jerusalem, the Living Body of Christ the Church, organized in the world as the Catholic (Universal) Communion of Orthodox Christian Sister Churches, declared, against the Arian Christian heretics with their thorough and sophisticated but not traditional Bible interpretation, that the only proper way to interpret the Bible so as to answer the new questions of the day yet also remain true to the sense of the Apostolic Deposit of Christian Faith handed down within the Church, the Bible must be interpreted to mean that Jesus is God, one in being with the Father. Vatican Council II is the 21st Ecumenical Council of the same ongoing Catholic Christian Communion of Orthodox Sister Churches of East and West, and the very first Ecumenical Council ever to dogmatically define the nature and structure of Christ’s Churchas it manifested itself in the First Millennium of the Undivided Early Church, a particular and particularly beautiful kind of unity in diversity which has tremendous and wonderful implications for the unity of Jesus’ Church which He prayed for “so that the world may believe” (John 17:21-23). As it took a long time for the 1st Ecumenical Council to be fully implemented within the Church (Arian Christian heretics remained powerful for most of the 4th Century within the Roman Empire and continued to exist beyond the Roman Empire until the time of Charlemagne in the 9th Century), so it will take time for the 21st Ecumenical Council’s Holy-Spirit-guided teaching to fully take root and blossom in the minds and hearts today’s divided Christians. The Institute for Promoting the Gift of Truth exists in large part to aid and support the full implementation of Vatican Council II, the 21st Ecumenical Council within today’s Catholic Communion of 26 Orthodox Christian Rites or Sister Churches (the Roman Catholic Church is only the largest of these Rites) and to share Vatican II’s wonderful teaching with the non-Catholic Christian sects orginally “sectioned off” of the ongoing Catholic Communion in history, so that we might work together to restore what we lost in the Second Millennium of Christian Divisions and become all that Jesus meant us to be as His Church testifying in the world to the Loving Communion of the Holy Trinity of Eternal Divine Love through our loving Communion with each other.

The Institute for Promoting the Gift of Truth

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Our Motto: CARITAS ET VERITAS – LOVE AND TRUTH “So That The World May Believe”

1. Mature Christian Education in the Life-Tranforming Depths of God the Holy Trinity of Love and God’s Plan for His Adopted Family the Church (see CATCH THE VISION); and

Vatican Council II’s Tremendous Contribution Towards Fully Restoring the Undivided Early Church, the Undivided First Millennium Catholic Commmunion of Orthodox Christian Rites or ‘Sister Churches’

Pope Benedict XVI’s Roles within the Catholic Communion

Note on the Background Painting

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