The claim of possessing a unique authority, which the Catholic Church unabashedly makes, must be understood within this context of authority as love if believers on each side are to move towards unity. To many Protestant ears, the most radical claim the Catholic Church makes is that she alone can authentically and infallibly interpret Scripture. This claim, however, when considered from a thoroughly Biblical view of authority, is not so much a statement about the Catholic Church’s right to assert her own interpretation of Scripture, as it is a statement about God’s love. Before a believer begins to consider the truth or falsity of this particular Catholic claim, the claim first has to be understood for what it is: an assertion about the extensiveness of God’s love. When Catholics boast that their Church is the infallible interpreter of Scripture, they are saying, “God has not abandoned us, He has not left us to wonder if our own interpretation of Scripture is the right one.” They are saying, “He has not done what love forbids…He has not left us to ourselves.”

How can Protestants and Catholics move towards unity? First, Catholics must ask Protestants for forgiveness. As I thought through the question of how Protestants and Catholics can make progress toward unity, I realized that Catholics must reach out first. As a student of the Reformation, and now as one coming into the Catholic Church, I have no problem conceding that in part, the Reformation was a response to serious sin and often heinous abuses of the Catholic Church. As seen in the sex scandal over the past decade, the Catholic Church continues to struggle with grave sin. For this reason, Catholics must ask Protestants for forgiveness for the sin of misrepresenting to the world the loving authority of God.

via The Authority of Divine Love | Called to Communion.

The winning article in a contest at Called to Communion in this Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, written by a Protestant who has just decided to enter full communion with the Catholic Church.

I am considering quoting his second paragraph in my book or at least incorporating its exhortation to Catholics to ask forgiveness for the sins of scandal that we have often given, obscuring the gospel to the world. The whole essay is heart-felt and yet reasonable–well worth reading.