Speaker respects Pope's 'conviction', but disagrees with him on Mariology

Presbyterian General Assembly: Gratitude has been expressed to Pope John Paul at the Presbyterian General Assembly in Belfast for "his insistence that truth has objective reality".

Rev Dr Warren Porter said that he respected the Pope's conviction, as well as his courage in proclaiming that only in Rome is truth held in all its fullness.

However, he said he doesn't agree with him on Mariology (devotion to Mary) and he said he rejected his undiluted Granting theology. "But I respect him," he added.

Rev Porter said the Pope wanted, according to his light, to do our souls good.

"We desire the same for him and for all who follow him, and it is for that end alone that we hold forth Christ alone and the gospel of free and sovereign grace as the all-sufficient remedy for sinners," he added.

Rev Porter was speaking in a debate on a motion amendment which "positively" encouraged Presbyterians "to foster friendships with Roman Catholics who have, in the sectarian tradition of this society, been seen as 'the other side' ". Supporting the amendment, Rev Porter felt however that it would be a mistake to give Catholic neighbours and friends the impression "that our separation from Rome is ultimately a matter of little moment".

He did not wish to see measures that "could impinge on the clarity of our witness to the gospel as it was rediscovered and proclaimed afresh at the Reformation".

But he pointed out that Presbyterians shared "much in faith with our Roman Catholic brethren.

"In fact, we hold the entire Catholic Creed shorn of the accretions of (the Council of ) Trent and the subsequent decrees of 1864, (the Immaculate Conception of Mary), 1870 (the Infallibility of the Pope), and 1950 (the Assumption of Mary)," he said.

He continued: "I would with equal force seek to maintain our absolute duty to love our Roman Catholic neighbours and the same applies to all our neighbours of any creed, or none."

But it was "a poor kind of love which for the sake of ecclesiastical political correctness fails to bear a clear witness to the need of all men everywhere to repent and believe in Jesus Christ that they may be saved and to the fact that there is none other name under heaven whereby we must be saved," he said.

The amendment was passed.