"Our earthly liturgies must be celebrations full of beauty and power: Feasts of the Father who created us—that is why the gifts of the earth play such a great part: the bread, the wine, oil and light, incense, sacred music, and splendid colors. Feasts of the Son who redeemed us—that is why we rejoice in our liberation, breathe deeply in listening to the Word, and are strengthened in eating the Eucharistic Gifts. Feasts of the Holy Spirit who lives in us—that is why there is a wealth of consolation, knowledge, courage, strength, and blessing that flows from these sacred assemblies." unknown source possibly YOUCAT Mal.1.11 For from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same my name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering: for my name shall be great among the heathen, saith theLord of hosts.

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Pope explained

http://www.cin.org/users/james/files/papacy.htm

http://www.catholicapologetics.info/apologetics/general/Universal.htm

http://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/2133/when-does-the-pope-speak-ex-cathedra here

and here http://www.catholic.com/tracts/papal-infallibility here is a bit from this:
Other people wonder how infallibility could exist if some popes disagreed with others. This, too, shows an inaccurate understanding of infallibility, which applies only to solemn, official teachings on faith and morals, not to disciplinary decisions or even to unofficial comments on faith and morals. A pope’s private theological opinions are not infallible, only what he solemnly defines is considered to be infallible teaching. 
and an objection that is often made here:
According to Fundamentalist commentators, their best case lies with Pope Honorius. They say he specifically taught Monothelitism, a heresy that held that Christ had only one will (a divine one), not two wills (a divine one and a human one) as all orthodox Christians hold. 
But that’s not at all what Honorius did. Even a quick review of the records shows he simply decided not to make a decision at all. As Ronald Knox explained, "To the best of his human wisdom, he thought the controversy ought to be left unsettled, for the greater peace of the Church. In fact, he was an inopportunist. We, wise after the event, say that he was wrong. But nobody, I think, has ever claimed that the pope is infallible in not defining a doctrine."
and a good point here:
Of course, infallibility does not include a guarantee that any particular pope won’t "neglect" to teach the truth, or that he will be sinless, or that mere disciplinary decisions will be intelligently made. It would be nice if he were omniscient or impeccable, but his not being so will fail to bring about the destruction of the Church. 
But he must be able to teach rightly, since instruction for the sake of salvation is a primary function of the Church. For men to be saved, they must know what is to be believed. They must have a perfectly steady rock to build upon and to trust as the source of solemn Christian teaching. And that’s why papal infallibility exists. 
 "He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me, and he who rejects me rejects him who sent me" (Luke 10:16). 
below, me:

I just wanted to say that I do hold to the Pope's infallibility (I will explain what I mean by this below). I don't  really want to get into our differences when I fellowship with ya'll---Instead I try to fellowship around those things we hold in common. Besides , it would take too long to explain all the whys and wherefores.
  But basically I do believe God has given this authority. I do believe that Christ instituted His Church to be the  means to preach the gospel, administer the sacraments,  to guard his truth. to make disciples & to continue until the consummation of the world .  I believe this Church is a visible organization and not just an invisible one: "A city built on a hill cannot be hid" (St. Matt. 5, 14). When Jesus prayed in John 17:21 "that they may all be one; even as Thou , Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be in Us; that the world may believe that Thou didst send Me"--I have to believe that God answers that prayer. There has to be this tangible unity on display so the world may believe that  God sent the Son. Jesus prayed for this. Being visible, Christ's Church possesses a hierarchical authority to govern it  which is invested with His own mission  to teach ,, to rule , and aids in the  sanctification process of  the faithful . I Tim 3:15 refers to the church as the pillar and ground of the truth. I do believe this.
I do believe that Christ founded a church and gave authority to it and that  Peter was given special authority,  which is passed down :
"And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build My Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of Heaven, and whatsoever You shall bind on earth, it shall bound also in heaven: and whatsoever Thou shalt loose on earth, it shall be Bound also in heaven: and whatsoever Thou shalt loose on earth, It shall be bound in heaven." - MATHEW 16:18 -19  
 When he says in Mathew 28:
18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.
---I believe this is his promise to be with them until the end of the age ---it is a promise made to the church and in particular to those leading it.
I like what this one guy has said: 
This is why the demon said, “I recognize Jesus, and I know about Paul, but who are you?” (Acts 19:15)The demon is speaking about authority (and the lack thereof), not about his depth of social knowledge. When we consider the various heresies throughout the history of the Church, we can see that any one of them could say, “Follow me because my interpretation is right.” But only the Church could say, “Follow us because we have the authority by sacramental succession from the Apostles to say definitively which interpretations are right and which are not.”

The gift of infallibility is one that is often misunderstood by people. It does not mean that he is infallible in all he does, nor does it mean he is infallible in all that he says. The object of the pope's infallibility is  in matters of  dogmatically  stated faith and morals.   It does not mean that the Pope is impeccable. It does not mean everything he says about faith and morals is infallible. Only those things that he states dogmatically ( EX CATHEDRA),.  The Pope is a sinner like the rest of us. Our Lord made use of sinners to write the scriptures which are infallible and so in like manner he continues to use a sinner to guard and defend the deposit of the faith, which is the primary duty of the Pope.
I believe when Jesus made the promise to the apostles that the Spirit would guide them into all truth and that the gates of Hell would not prevail against them this applied particularly to the leaders and their successors. Also these would apply:
  "He who hears you hears me" (Luke 10:16), and "Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven" (Matt. 18:18). 
I think the problem of schism as we were talking about will always remain. It was there at the beginning of the church. However the Catholic church has remained (for the most part)  united because Christ gave authority to the church ,and I do feel that this is what the authority of the Pope and magisterium entails.  I think this is the weakness of Protestantism. Almost every church that I was a member of in the past (about 5 of them) have suffered splits. (It was not due to me ;-) ,lol ) Again and again I see the effect of Protestantism which basically has no authority except for one's own private interpretation of Scriptures.  I see a problem with this; it is almost as if everyone becomes a mini-Pope and everyone claims to be following the Spirit of God.
I know there are many things Episcopalians and Roman Catholics hold in common. I don't like to stress the differences. But I felt when I left the meeting with Ya'll today that I didn't really answer your remark to me about the Pope. (basically too, the RC church believes that only 1 of the three Popes in the time you referred to was the actual Pope---admittedly a confusing time!).
Sorry this is long---Just wanted to highlight a few thoughts---as I have said, I don't want to emphasize our differences--but felt I should not imply by my silence today that I agreed about the POPE ;-). If God doesn't have someone on earth that he has given real authority to guide the church then what results is thousands of different forms of Christianity.  Ah well---just wanted you to know how I felt.

below from comment 48 here http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2013/01/holy-church-finding-jesus-as-a-reverted-catholic-a-testimonial-response-to-chris-castaldo/#comment-46784

Third, you claim that the Catholic Church teaches a particular primacy concerning St. Peter, and “that the bible gives no such elevation of primacy to Peter.” Even if that were the case, that is not a contradiction. The Catholic paradigm is not based on “sola scriptura,” but draws from both Scripture and Tradition, as explained in David Anders’ post “On the Usefulness of Tradition: A Response to Recent Objections,” and in the section titled “VIII. Scripture and Tradition” in my reply to Michael Horton’s final comment in our Modern Reformation dialogue. So the “that’s not in the Bible, therefore it is false” criticism is question-begging, by presupposing sola scriptura. And the examples of St. Peter’s humility (e.g. referring to himself as a fellow elder, and receiving St. Paul’s rebuke) are fully compatible with his having received the keys of the Church from Jesus, and the full authority of those keys. St. Peter’s having stewardship of the keys does not make him incapable of being rightly rebuked, and so is fully compatible with St. Paul’s actions in Antioch. And St. James’s statements at the Jerusalem Council of Acts 15 are fully compatible with Petrine primacy, because St. James was the bishop of Jerusalem, and Petrine primacy is fully compatible with the Catholic principle of subsidiarity. Similarly, the disciple’s question in Mt. 18 regarding who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven is fully compatible with Peter’s having received the authority of the keys, for many reasons, one of which being that it is quite possible that at that time they did not understand the meaning of Jesus’s statement to St. Peter, and for another, their question may have been provoked by Jesus’s act in Matthew 16. So all the evidence you put forward is compatible with the truth of the Catholic teaching concerning Petrine primacy. In addition, however, there is a good deal of evidence in Scripture for Peter’s primacy, as Steve Ray lays out in his book Upon This Rock I Will Build My Church: St. Peter and the Primacy of Rome in Scripture and the Early Church, and as shown here.
[note--a lengthy list is given from Steve Ray at that link http://www.scripturecatholic.com/primacy_of_peter.html

 also  quote from comment 42 found here  http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2013/02/on-the-usefulness-of-tradition-a-response-to-recent-objections/

Thus popes are not personally infallible; rather, the Holy Spirit always finds a way to ensure that they do not bind the Church to doctrinal error. When they do use their authority to bind the Church to a doctrine, either unilaterally or, more often, by ratifying the decrees of a general council, the doctrines so propounded are truths.
There have been other, relevantly similar examples of how the Holy Spirit works in this regard. In the mid-4th century, Pope Liberius was coerced by a cruel, imperially enforced exile into excommunicating St. Athanasius and signing a semi-Arian confession of faith. He revoked those actions when, the Arian emperor having died, he returned triumphantly to Rome. Those actions could not have fairly been seen as binding on the whole Church, and everybody knew it. In later cases, such as the “Three Chapters” controversy in the 6th century involving Pope Vigilius, and the “monothelite” heresy freely endorsed by Pope Honorius in the 7th century, it was also clear that the popes in question were not binding the Church to their errors. In the 14th century, Pope John XXII wanted to define his heretical view about the “beatific vision” as dogma, but was prevented from doing so by the clever machinations of the canonists.
The Fathers of Vatican I framed their definition of papal infallibility with just such cases in mind. Protestant and Orthodox apologists have noted that, and accordingly accused the Catholic Church of writing that dogma retrospectively, as a transparent rationalization of a position that cannot be presented as the historic belief of the whole Church. What they fail to take account of, however, is that heretics have often said the same about many other doctrines rightly held by some Protestants and all Orthodox as well as by Catholics. This is why the “development of doctrine” is so important for a proper understanding of Tradition.
As Vatican II says:
This tradition which comes from the Apostles develops in the Church with the help of the Holy Spirit. For there is a growth in the understanding of the realities and the words which have been handed down. This happens through the contemplation and study made by believers, who treasure these things in their hearts (see Luke, 2:19, 51) through a penetrating understanding of the spiritual realities which they experience, and through the preaching of those who have received through episcopal succession the sure gift of truth. For as the centuries succeed one another, the Church constantly moves forward toward the fullness of divine truth until the words of God reach their complete fulfillment in her. (Dei Verbum §8; footnote omitted, emphasis added)
That passage makes Orthodox and conservative-Protestant hair stand on end, but it applies just as well to many doctrines of that “mere Christianity” which confessional Protestants, Anglicans, and Orthodox hold in common with Catholics, as to distinctively Catholic doctrines. So granted, as a matter of historical fact, that doctrine does develop in the way indicated, the question is only how we are to distinguish between legitimate developments of doctrine and corruptions. The dogma of papal infallibility is part of the Catholic answer to that question, and I haven’t seen a truly workable proposal from those who oppose that answer.
also to this same link from comment 44:

 From a purely biblical perspective, I think the explicit passages with respect to Peter’s authority and role, as instituted by Christ, are actually clearer than the cumulative passages which must be integrated to get something like a Nicene exegesis of Trinitarian doctrine. Moreover, given the biblical data of Peter and the keys in relation to Isaiah 22 and the preeminence of Peter in the gospels and Acts, followed immediately upon the close of the apostolic era, by Pope St. Clements’s letter to the Corinthians (which seems to be written as if he had the right to correct the Corinthian church as a matter of course – and while St. John was quite likely still living no less), in conjunction with the statements by St. Ignatius and St. Irenaeus; the notion that papal authority was always understood seems very much in the cards.
Moreover, when one becomes aware of the sparseness of the documentary data set in the first 200 years of church history (due to persecution), as compared to the explosive richness of the documentary evidence as one approaches the beginning and middle of the 3rd century; it is hardly surprising that the explicit statements which, in any way, refer to the role of St. Peter’s successor are few. If the documentary data were even remotely as extensive and rich in the first 200 years as it was thereafter, I would pay moiré heed to your concern. But as the documentary facts stand, your reluctance to recognize the organic link between Christ’s authorization of Peter and his prominence in the new testament with the early indications of Clement, Ignatius, Irenaeus, and onwards to the powerful and explicit testimonies to papal authority which well-up in the 200’s and 300’s (and only expand from there); that reluctance, I say, seems to rest largely upon an argument from silence. In other words, you seem to be arguing that if papal authority were known all along as Christ’ established reality, then there should be as much explicit evidence for it in 110AD as in 330AD. But that is false for the reason I have given – namely; that such an argument does not account for the substantial difference in the pre-versus-post persecution data set. . Not to mention that we have repeated lists (albeit in later centuries other than that of Irenaeus) by various father and historians recounting the names of the successors of Peter down to their own time. This would be a strange ancestry to preserve and recount, were it not understood as crucial to the Church’s ancestry itself.
.... Once the data set becomes richer, we find affirmations of papal authority everywhere in the 300’s, 400’s and beyond; not simply affirmations by popes themselves (which might seem self-serving), but by bishops throughout the Church both East and West. I am aware of very few cases in which there is any serious denial or resistance of papal claims outside of heretical circles in the first 4 centuries of church history. In fact, one of the most telling and convincing arguments for the Catholic position is the apparent lack of outcry in the face of a claim so bold.

 More important still, is to recognize that no early writer set out to pen a thesis on Catholic ecclesiology in the first centuries. Indeed, any number of theological matters which all Christians generally embraced were never dealt with in a systematic way in the first several centuries of the Christian era. Hence, while there is plenty of explicit and implicit documentary evidence for papal authority by way of direct statements made by various fathers; the real apologetic for early papal authority is had through study of the various ways in which that authority was exercised, and the way in which bishop

 end of quote

 This from Chip :
Here is a good quote from Augustine showing clearly that he would have sided with the papacy against Luther and Calvin and the rest of the reformers.
“What has the Roman Chair done to thee, in which Peter sat and in which now Anastasius sits? … Why do you call the Apostolic Chair the chair of pestilence? If it is on account of men whom you consider to be declaring and not keeping the law— did Our Lord, on account of the Pharisees, of whom he said: ‘They say and do not’ do any injury to the chair in which they sat? Did he not commend that chair of Moses, and reprove them, saving the honour of their chair? For he says, Super cathedram, and so on (Matthew xxiii, 2). If you considered these things you would not, on account of the men you speak against, blaspheme the Apostolic Chair, with which you do not communicate. But what does it all mean save that they have nothing to say, and yet are unable to keep from ill-saying.” page 229 in my version and the footnote says:Contra lit. Petil. ii. 51
(I found this in the Catholic Controversy by St Francis de Sales)

 This explains the false attacks on the issue of the Pope and 666 etc  http://listverse.com/2007/11/05/top-5-myths-about-the-papacy/

 I think the Church is One; Jesus did not found many Churches. And I think the Church is not only the Body of Christ and the Bride of Christ, but also the Household of God and the Kingdom of God and the Family of God.
If the Holy Spirit made each bishop infallible when rendering his judgment with respect to a matter of faith or morals, then of course there’d be no need for collegiality between the bishops. You could take the matter “to the Church” at a purely local level, and get an answer, and find that no matter how far you traveled, and no matter which other Church you joined, you could never find a bishop in Apostolic Succession that disagreed.
As a matter of history, though, we know that isn’t correct: The Arian controversy is sufficient to demonstrate that. And anyway, that would be many Churches, not One Church; so it fails the test of Christ having One Body, not many bodies. Jesus is not some opposite-of-a-hydra with one Head but many bodies. Jesus is not a polygamist with many brides. There is one household of God, one family of God; God does not have a different family in each of several towns, like a nasty sort of traveling salesman.
So it is the Church that winds up being able to bind and loose — because the Church is Christ’s Body and, to borrow a phrase, when J. C. Messiah talks, people (ought to) listen. Christ’s mouth is a part of His body: So when a certain part of the Church speaks, it is Christ speaking. It is the Church which is the pillar and bullwark of the truth, holding up and defending the truth.
But the bishops have a share in that ministry of binding and loosing because they are Christ’s stewards, exercising power in His name. And the successor of Peter has an especially important role as Christ’s chief steward. Thus the chief steward authority is conferred first (and with the grandest language, and with the symbol of the “keys”) on Peter; but later conferred also on the rest of the Apostolic College. They all have a share in this binding-and-loosing authority which ultimately is Christ’s authority, but Peter’s share is the chief stewardly share and the other apostles’ share is the normal stewardly share.
Of course the context of this discussion of “stewards” is Isaiah 22, which I think everyone agrees is an important Old Testament passage Jesus has in mind when speaking to Peter in Matthew 16 and to the apostles in general in Matthew 18. But more generally, it helps to know that ancient Near East kingdoms nearly always followed a similar pattern: Kings/Sultans didn’t administer everything personally, but rather created offices of authority who administered certain provinces or departments in the king’s name, and there was one such which was the chief office, second only to the King. The Sultan had many Viziers, but one Grand Vizier; the King had many Stewards, and one Chief Steward; or (in more modern language) many Ministers, and one Prime Minister. Eliakim son of Hilkiah replaces Shebna in a Chief Stewardly office in Isaiah 22, but we see similar structures elsewhere in the Old Testament. (Joseph under Pharaoh; Haman, then Mordecai, under Artaxerxes II; Daniel and his friends at more minor levels under Nebuchadnezzar…and later Daniel appears to have been offered an office one level lower than the Prime Ministership, under Belshazzar, though he didn’t want it.)
Just like the other stewards the chief steward can bind and loose in the name of the King, but unlike the others, the chief steward has a sort of veto or tie-breaker authority. As it says in Isaiah 22: the chief steward can lock and unlock (all the stewards can), but also, what he locks/shuts/binds “no other” can unlock/open/loose; and what he unlocks/opens/looses, “no other” can lock/shut/bind. That authority is conferred by the King on no other steward save the chief steward, the one with “the keys of the House of David” on “his shoulder.”
This allows the chief steward to be like that main tent peg of a tent, driven firmly into a secure place, holding the whole tent together. In Isaiah 22 the tent is “the House of David” …not a literal building, of course, since by the time Isaiah is writing David’s been in the grave hundreds of years; the “House” of David is the Davidic Dynasty (as in the House of Tudor) and thus refers to the Davidic kingdom in general: all who are under the authority of the Davidic king (Hezekiah, I think, in Isaiah’s time, isn’t it?), all who are under “David’s roof.” They are all in “the household of David.”
Now because of the chief steward, there is unity. Imagine what happens if the Davidic King should be away leading the army, or out-of-town on a mission of state, and the stewards he put in charge of the Kingdom in his absence should have a disagreement about policy? What would the kingdom do, if all the King’s men were squabbling among themselves and the division could not be resolved?
But the chief steward has “the buck stops here” authority. This makes it possible to resolve disputes. It keeps things together, until the king gets back in town. He makes unity possible, and as it says in Isaiah 22, he serves as “a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.” One could say that when the king is out-of-town, the chief steward is a “papa,” or a “pope.”
And of course the Davidic Kingdom is an Old Testament type which is fulfilled in the New Testament by the Messianic Kingdom, the Kingdom of Heaven, which Jesus establishes. Naturally the new Davidic King will make many attributes of His Kingdom fulfill and improve upon many attributes foreshadowed in the original Davidic Kingdom. So David had stewards and a chief steward; Jesus has stewards and a chief steward. As David’s kingdom grew and the complexities of administering it increased, he added more stewards in charge of various provinces and particular matters of state…but there was always a single chief steward, also having the title “head of house.” (I think the Hebrew term is something like Al Beth or Al Beit?” My Hebrew is weak, but “Beth” is “house” as in the name of David’s city, Bethlehem, “the house of bread.”)
As in the type, so in the antitype: When a steward dies or abandons his post, another is selected to fill his office. (We see that in Acts 1, with Matthias.) What Jesus’ chief steward binds, no other steward shall loose, which allows Peter and his successors to bind what others have loose and loose what others bind: A tie breaker or veto among the bishops. But remember that St. Paul says the Church is “the household of God” and “the pillar and bulwark of the truth”; and also remember that Jesus gives a greater binding-and-loosing authority to Peter and the Church than David could ever have given to his stewards: What they bind on earth shall be bound “in heaven.”
How can that be? If a single steward makes an error, of course the others can register their disagreement and appeal the matter to the chief steward, asking him to reverse the original steward’s error. But what if the chief steward makes an error? Will God bind that? Will God agree with the error? The chief steward is “where the buck stops” because what he opens, “no other shall shut” and what he shuts, “no other shall open!” So once the chief steward has definitively ruled, there is no further appeal. What then? Can that ruling be in error? If so, then God has promised to bind/loose it in heaven.
That can’t be. The Church is the pillar and the bulwark of the truth, not an organization that writes lies in stone.
Ah, but Christ provides us with the answer in Matthew 16: “It is not man who has revealed this to you, but My Father.” And elsewhere, “the Holy Spirit will lead you into all truth.”
Now what does THAT mean? The Holy Spirit will lead “you” into all truth. Who is “you?” We all have the Holy Spirit. But that does not mean that our particular role in the Church is to be decision-making conduit by which the Holy Spirit leads the Church into all truth.
And anyway, Christians disagree about doctrine, don’t they? If they all had the Holy Spirit the same way, they never would. Clearly that is not what that promise means. Look what happened to some rebels in the Old Testament when they said, “Don’t we have the Spirit in us, too?!” Clearly, merely having the Holy Spirit is not the same as being appointed to a special role of authority.
Here is what I think it means: Christ’s promise that the bindings/loosings of the college of bishops — once taken to the highest level, the final appeal, made definitive, and declared in a fashion which makes them thereafter unchangeable — would be “bound in heaven” means that He protects His Body from being a teacher of error. A layperson can be in error, and teach it, without Christ’s promise being broken. A bishop can even be in error, and teach it, without Christ’s promise being broken. For in either of those cases, the chief steward could still come in and fix the problem. The final Church-wide decision has not yet been rendered: The Church remains, arguably, the pillar and bulwark of the truth.
But once the chief steward renders a decision, then if that decision were in error, not only would the Church suddenly become the pillar and bulwark of a lie, but God — according to Jesus — would have ratified that error in Heaven! Impossible.
So I think God prevents the chief steward from binding/loosing in error, in order to prevent the Church from teaching error and ceasing to be the pillar and bullwark of the truth.

Thus does Peter’s office become a secure tent peg which holds the whole tent — the whole Household of God — together in unity.


Regarding Papal authority, you wrote:
This all makes perfect sense philosophically, but this immediately raises so many questions for how such a thing can go unnoticed or untaught for so long, to be justified by a theory of development.
The force of the argument for development in recognition and understanding of unique role of the Bishop of Rome in the universal Church depends (in part) upon when “so long” becomes “too long” for the first distinct signs of noticing and teaching to be plausibly considered as developments of something original and intrinsic rather than an invention of something new.
There is some indication of a special role for the Church of Rome in the first century (Clement), clearer indications in the second century (Ignatius and Irenaeus), and clear reference to the particular authority of the Bishop of Rome in the third century (Cyprian), which kind of statements grow progressively more pronounced in the fourth and fifth centuries, until by the time of Pope Gregory (sixth century) we have a very noticeable Papacy together with distinctly Catholic teaching about the Papacy.
As I pointed out in comment #69, this process of development is similar to the development of Trinitarian and Christological orthodoxy over the same period of time. One can always ask why, if Christ is indeed consubstantial with the Father, and if the Holy Spirit is indeed “with the Father and the Son together worshiped and glorified” it took so long for the Church to notice and teach these things. Or, one could ask, “If Christ really has two wills, why was this not explicitly defined until the late seventh century?” And those are certainly valid questions. There were and are so-called heretics who claim(ed) that the ecumenical councils invented novelties.
I think that there are good reasons to accept the teaching of the ecumenical councils and that the plausibility of the principle of doctrinal development is among those reasons. But then, once this principle is admitted–and I have a hard time seeing how one could be anything but accidentally orthodox and / or historically naive without admitting it–the kind of developments that one can observe in the both the practical functioning of Papal authority and the early Church’s theoretical understanding of the role of the Bishop of Rome in the universal Church can by the same token be plausibly explained as about what one would expect to see, all things considered, if the Papacy is indeed something that Christ instituted in the Church that he founded in the first century, intending it to grow and to endure as one Church everywhere through all the subsequent centuries.

from comment 99
Caveat: I don’t quite agree with Andrew that “by the time of Pope Gregory (sixth century) we have a very noticeable Papacy together with distinctly Catholic teaching about the Papacy.” I think that as soon as we have good data (early 400s) we have statements and actions from Innocent and the following Popes, as well as statements and actions from fathers like Peter Chrysologus, that clearly state a distinctly Catholic teaching about the worldwide doctrinal authority of the Papacy, as well as the dominical source of that authority. Much of the belief that we don’t have such a distinctly Catholic teaching until later is a result of very dishonest histories written by self-justifying non-Catholic historians, coupled with very ignorant histories written by more recent Catholic historians who studied from the textbooks and scholarly articles written by the self-justifying non-Catholic historians (who were themselves the academic parents of multiple generations of academic historians, and whose views therefore became exaggerated beyond their merits). That is why it is so refreshing to read Chapman. He was a monk (former Anglican) who didn’t have any doctoral students, as far as I know, but his work is still cited by the best non-Catholic scholars today because it was so much more fair, honest, and intelligent than much of what was written by the non-Catholic academics of his day. He’s better than Solovyov if you want to see just how much pro-papal material has been left out of the histories you’ve been reading (especially from that period starting around 400 where the data set gets rich with minor authors), as well as how clear explanations of the non-pro-papal material can be made.

from comment 131:
But how can that be is only the pope is infallible?
It is not the Pope who is infallible. It is the Church. The Pope is infallible only insofar as he is speaking to and for the whole Church.
…catholics believe that this has only happened a few times in world history …
No, it is only the case that Papal definitions have happened only a few times in world history. Everything the Church believes it believes infallibly. An example is the existence of angels. No Pope has ever defined as a dogma of faith that angels exist, because the question is never seriously arisen. You are confusing Papal definitions of infallibility with the infallibility of the Church. It is the Church that will not fail. When final push comes to final shove, it has needed Papal definitions to clarify certain matters.
end of quote

see also  hierarchical structure of the Church (Luke 22:15-32), 



The historical details that you note (citing Duffy) are perfectly consistent with the Catholic doctrines of Apostolic Succession and Papal primacy. In response to your questions:
1. First, with reference to reconciling such data with Catholic doctrine, it is necessary to note that no point of Catholic doctrine specifies that bishops or popes will always be good men, though of course we fully acknowledge, following St. Paul’s instructions in the Pastoral Epistles, that only good men should be elected to the episcopacy and papacy. But a bad man who is elected pope, or a pope who turns bad, is still the pope. Catholic doctrine specifies that the pope, by virtue of his office, has plenary jurisdiction over the whole Church on earth, and that he cannot err when “in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church.” Obviously, a bad pope, by virtue of his position, can do a lot of damage in the Church without actually teaching heresy, and can be an occasion of stumbling to those outside the Church. That is one of the reasons why it is such a fearful thing to be elected to that office. (Dante, in the Divine Comedy, portrays some of the worst popes as being condemned to the lowest circles of Hell.)
2. On this website, we have often argued that there is an interpretive problem endemic to Protestantism. However, we are not claiming or arguing that apart from the Magisterium no one can recognize that murder is wrong. Murder is contrary to natural law, and the natural law is accessible to reason, being “written on our hearts,” even apart from special revelation. So anyone can recognize (and in this sense “decide”) that murder is wrong, even if it is a pope who commits or authorizes the murder. It is with reference to special revelation, specifically its extent and meaning (synthetically considered), and (practically speaking) with reference to some of the more difficult to discern aspects of natural law that the interpretive problem for Protestantism arises. (For more on this problem, see this article.)
You asked how one can be personally reconciled to the more sordid details of Church history. Well, you can’t be reconciled to such deeds themselves, in the sense of loving the sin. Popes, bishops, and other Christians have done horrible things which cannot be undone, and for which we (the Church militant, collectively) can only feel shame and ask forgiveness. But one can be reconciled to the Church in the sense of loving the notorious sinners in the Church today and praying for their reconciliation, hoping that the notorious sinners of past repented in time, praying for and in whatever ways possible seeking to help those who have been hurt, and recognizing that the most sure recourse to reconciliation is found within the Catholic Church, not in schism from her. One can also be reconciled to Church history by viewing it in its fullness, not only the bad but also the extraordinary good. The bad popes are ours (i.e., they were Catholics), but so were so many of the most wonderful saints (both canonized and unknown) and teachers down through the ages. Its tempting to be a Donatist, but the price you pay is the loss of the visible Catholic Church, the Church to which so many heroes of the faith belonged, professing the same faith, nourished by the same sacraments, and obedient to the same authority.


You are making a positive claim (i.e. that the archaeological evidence suggests a mere presbyterial governance in Rome), and the only reason you are being asked here to present a positive case is to substantiate that positive claim you are making. No Catholic here (so far as I know) is responding to a question from you (regarding the evidence for the Catholic position) by asking you to make a positive case for the contrary.
But the fact is that we don’t know who Irenaeus’s sources were—other than that critical scholars surmise that he uses Hegesippus’s list, something you rightly identify in the other thread as speculative. It could be that Irenaeus spoke with a manifold number of people in Rome and they all confirmed that there was an episcopate in Rome, but this too is speculative. We don’t know where Irenaeus collects his information or who he talks to.
I agree that we don’t know the identities of the persons from whom Sts. Hegesippus and Irenaeus acquired their history. But you seem to think that this justifies skepticism toward the testimony of Sts. Hegesippus and Ireneaus. That is, if we cannot independently verify who told them this history, and whether the persons who told them this history were themselves reliable, then our default stance should be one of skepticism regarding the truth of what Sts. Hegesippus and Ireneus said. I disagree with that stance, however, in part because through the tradition we know something about the moral character of these men (the Church recognized them as saints), and from the tradition we know how they would obtain this history of the Church at Rome, namely, by searching out trustworthy persons within the Church at Rome, especially given the fact that both men spent time in the Church at Rome. St. Hegesippus’s time in the other particular Churches, and his recognition by the Church for sainthood, imply (from the internal point of view) that he would have had conversation with the leadership of the Church of Rome during his time there. And that is almost guaranteed in the case of St. Irenaeus, who as a priest was sent to Rome by the clergy of the particular Church of Lyon precisely for such consultation, bearing a letter to Pope Eleutherius, and replacing the martyred Bishop Pothinus upon his [i.e. St. Irenaeus's] return to Lyon. For these reason, the persons whom Sts. Hegesippus and Irenaues would have consulted while in Rome would not have failed to include the leaders of the Church in Rome. If there had been any contradiction between what the leaders reported regarding the history of the Church at Rome, and what the elderly laity had seen and received from their parents and teachers, Sts. Hegesippus and Irenaeus would have had good opportunity to discover this, and provide the multiple histories. But their singular account, and the fact that there was no response from the Church at Rome correcting it, indicates that this was the history shared by the people (clergy and laity alike) of the Church at Rome at the time of the sojourns there by Sts. Hegesippus and Irenaeus. So standing in suspicion over the testimony of Sts. Hegesippus and Irenaeus is calling into question the credibility not only of these saints, but of the whole community of the second century Church in Rome about its own history.
Furthermore as we consider Clement, what reason do we have to believe that Clement was in fact a Roman bishop?
The fact that Sts. Hegesippus and Irenaeus testify to his being a bishop of Rome, along with the internal tradition of the particular Church of Rome, which even from the second century counted him as one of her bishops.
When we read 1st Clement we see nothing but mention of presbyters and bishops in the plural—seemingly used interchangeably.
Right, but that’s fully compatible with the testimony of Sts. Hegesippus and Irenaeus.
We also see no mention of Clement’s office or have any indicaton that he is writing from the chair of St. Peter. We just read that the letter is sent from the “sojourning Church in Rome.” If Clement was a bishop as you and Irenaeus suggest we find no direct evidence of this in his writing.
True, but again, that’s fully compatible with the testimony of Sts. Hegesippus and Ireneaus.
My skepticism towards Irenaeus’s (and Hegesippus’s) claims causes you to say the following, … [my quotation] … First, I do not reject Irenaeus’s list for no reason. I find them questionable because they come so late for something that you claim is essential for the Church to exist at all.
First, everything is questionable. Even God, who is the source of all being, and Truth itself, is questionable. Otherwise there could be no atheists. So saying that x is questionable is unhelpful, because it is trivially true. (See comment #79 of Taylor’s “John Calvin’s Worst Heresy” post.)
Second, when I pointed out the fallacy with your previous argument, by using the example of tracing your lineage back to Adam, I thought that would be sufficient to make clear a distinction your argument was conflating. That is the distinction between ontology and epistemology. That’s a very basic and fundamental distinction, and it is crucial in this discussion. You cannot provide documents establishing your own existence at every moment since you’ve been born. But that does not show that you’ve existed only intermittently between visits to the DMV, and other such places. Your present existence, along with our knowledge of human nature, growth and maturation, shows that you’ve existed continuously since you were born. Likewise, though a person’s heart is essential to his existence, the first medical records containing measurements verifying the activity of his heart can be from his teens or twenties (or later). The absence of records of direct measurements of his heart’s activity do not show either (a) that he didn’t exist until those measurements were taken or (b) that the human heart is not essential to human life.
And so it is here as well. Just because something is essential to the Church in her being, it does not follow that there must be historical records documenting the existence and activity of that essential feature at every point in the Church’s history. Historical silence regarding an essential office does not entail that the office is not essential. What is essential in order for us to know something about the Church at some previous point in history by way of independent evidence is not identical to what is essential to the Church at that point or any point in her history.
It’s not just because they didn’t see Peter, it’s because the other evidence we have doesn’t seem to correspond to any sort of AS from Peter to Linus to Cletus (or, according to Hippolytus, Clement) to Clement, which Irenaeus puts forth.
That’s not a question; that’s again a positive claim. You’re claiming that the evidence we do have does not “correspond” to “any sort of AS from Peter to Linus to Cletus.” Please show how it does not correspond; you need to make the positive case to substantiate your positive claim. The evidence you have mentioned so far is fully compatible with what Sts. Hegesippus and Irenaeus wrote. You are treating silence in the historical record as non-correspondence. And that is not a safe assumption, because there are many other factors that can account for the relative historical silence concerning the first hundred years of the Church at Rome. (If you want to claim that there is a “large amount of extant writing” from the Church of Rome during this time period, then you need to list out the writings to which you are referring.
Just because a Father makes a claim does not mean that it is true.
I agree, of course, but, you are treating the claim as false until shown to be true, while I’m treating it as true until shown to be false. And that’s a huge difference.
These are the facts, we have a 100 years of silence, in terms of extant sources, for something that you claim is essential for the operation of the church. … If something so essential to the churches existence was not referenced until Hegesippus and in its mature form in Irenaeus over 100 years after the fact, this strains credulity.
Here again you conflate epistemology (particularly what can be independently verified by way of historical records to persons in the twenty-first century) and ontology (i.e. what is essential to the life of the Church).
It is speculative and based on probabilities; probabilities that modern critical scholarship regard as theological impositions into the historical account.
I haven’t mentioned anything about probabilities. That’s you’re caricature of my argument (i.e. that it is based on probabilities).
I’m willing to concede that it is a possibility that things could have transpired the way that Rome claims, but such an opinion is based upon a reading of the available evidence in light of the dogmatic claims that Rome makes about itself.
No, it is based upon not presuming that Sts. Hegesippus and Irenaeus (and the Church at Rome from which they obtained their histories) were untrustworthy witnesses.

end quote

WHAT ABOUT A BAD POPE---

comment 218
You wrote:
Put another way, suppose you were on a desert island with Pope Sergius III and Billy Graham, who each are pastoring their own churches. Presumably the doctrine of AS would tell you that you should be a member of Pope Sergius’ church and not Billy Graham’s church, yes?
Your remarks demonstrate that you are still thinking of the Catholic understanding of the Church as though we were putting our trust in the specific men who hold ecclesial office, rather than in Christ who maintains the Church in its essential integrity through the structures, inclusive of episcopacy and papacy, that he put in place for the Church militant. Pope Sergius III, like every other pope, was not pastoring his own Church. He was the head pastor (i.e., the visible shepherd on earth) of the universal Church that Christ founded. Thus, had I lived in the early tenth century, I would not have been a member of “Pope Sergius’ church” I would have been a member of the Catholic Church, Segius III being the Pope at that time.
On the Catholic view, all Christians, including popes and bishops, are capable of committing grave sins. But these sins do not deprive the Church of either the means of grace (the sacraments) or her gift of infallibility in teaching on faith and morals or her ruling authority. But Protestants have been deprived of all of these gifts (except for the sacraments of baptism and matrimony). Thus, since my confidence is not in man but in God, I would remain in the Catholic Church under the authority of a bad pope rather than leave her communion and be deprived of the sacraments, faith, and ruling authority of the universal Church in order to follow after a teacher having no divine authority who attempts to found a “church” made in his own image.
You wrote:
But, my view, informed by the Bible, tells me that it IS a requirement for leaders in the church to be above reproach, and when they are not, they forfeit their leadership role.
The first part of this is consistent with Scripture, as St. Paul says as much in the Pastorals. But the second part appears to be an inference of yours rather than something that is directly affirmed in Sacred Scripture. In fact, the case of Judas Iscariot seems to undermine your view, as Judas was not above reproach and yet remained an Apostle during his lifetime. It is of course possible for the Church to deprive a notorious sinner or heretic of his office (this kind of discipline has been exercised throughout history, including recently), but this is something reserved for the proper authorities acting in their official capacity. In the Catholic Church, pastors cannot be deposed by private judgment.
Finally, why would it be “cult-like” to remain in communion with the Church that Christ founded rather than follow after men like Jan Hus, who taught novel doctrines and rebelled against the universal Church? It seems to me that the shoe is on the other foot.
Update: I didn’t mean to ignore your question about which events in Church history trouble me the most. I suppose that it depends upon what you mean by “trouble.” Since my faith is in God who preserves the Church in spite of all, there is a sense in which I am not troubled (e.g., “let not your heart be troubled …”) by anything in Church history, though of course I recognize that Christians have sinned in countless ways, sometimes grievously. I think that I have already stated what is my attitude towards such sins: Shame and prayerful hope for healing / reconciliation.


In my own case, I came to the Papacy first as a determined critic and a skeptic. But I approached the Bible and Christian antiquity as a believer. That is, I believed that God had given a revelation of himself in Jesus, that Jesus spoke and acted with divine authority, and that he truly founded the Christian Church and guaranteed its transmission through time. Initially, I believed that God left us the Scriptures as the Rule of Faith, the touchstone to authenticate and guide that transmission through time. For Reasons I have stated elsewhere, I eventually called that assumption (and it was an assumption – an untested, unexamined assumption) into question. Rather, when I actually traced the historical transmission of the Christian faith through history, I found its primary point of reference to be the apostolic authority of Bishops, councils, and especially the See of Rome. I, of course, knew of Rome’s Petrine claims. It was when I actually examined the historical evidence of Rome’s role in unifying the Church, and defending against heresy that I first considered the truth of those claims to be a hypothetical possibility. Rome actually had been a source for unity and a guardian of orthodoxy – regardless of the personal failings of individual Popes. They had fulfilled their job description. And there was sufficient historical evidence that this is how the broad sweep of Christian antiquity understood Rome’s role. The Roman claim was rationally plausible, but never rationally unassailable. How could it be? If my private interpretation of the Christian faith ever deviates from Rome, this will automatically count as “evidence” against Rome’s doctrinal authority. “Look, Rome was wrong about this!”
So, I began by assuming that Rome was wrong. Then I recognized that Rome’s claims were plausible, both historically and biblically. Next, I came to the conviction that no other construction of the Christian faith was plausible. Finally, motivated by a desire for relationship with Jesus Christ, I acquiesced to Roman claims as the only rational path for my Christian discipleship.
I don’t think that process is adequately captured by your characterization. But, once again, none of this was the focus of the article.
Thanks again for reading and interacting,
David

an index to articles on Pope: http://www.calledtocommunion.com/index/#papacy


According to the Code of Canon Law (212,p.3), Lay Catholics sometimes have a moral duty to make known their concerns about the administration of the Church. This can include even specific criticism of pastoral decisions. This happens not infrequently throughout Church history – most famously – St. Catherine’s criticism of the Avignon papacy, Newman’s writings about what he considered the imperious manner of the Papacy in his day, and (though he was no layman), St. Paul’s public rebuke of St. Peter.
Papal prerogatives are no guarantee of good judgment and no Catholic is obligated to think otherwise. Even infallible pronouncements – though true – may be regarded as inopportune. Again – Bl. J.H. Newman believed in Papal infallibility, but was a noted “inopportunist” with regard to the conciliar definition.
So – of course we have standards for evaluating Papal actions, decisions, etc. But this doesn’t make us even remotely like Protestants. Key differences include how we define the content of the deposit of faith, and how we regard the constitution and administration of the Church – whether it be done well or badly.
Have you read much Newman? If not, I highly recommend you begin with his essay on conscience:

a quote from the above:
Whether this or that particular Pope in this bad world always kept {253} this great truth in view in all he did, it is for history to tell. I am considering here the Papacy in its office and its duties, and in reference to those who acknowledge its claims. They are not bound by the Pope's personal character or private acts, but by his formal teaching. Thus viewing his position, we shall find that it is by the universal sense of right and wrong, the consciousness of transgression, the pangs of guilt, and the dread of retribution, as first principles deeply lodged in the hearts of men, it is thus and only thus, that he has gained his footing in the world and achieved his success. It is his claim to come from the Divine Lawgiver, in order to elicit, protect, and enforce those truths which the Lawgiver has sown in our very nature, it is this and this only that is the explanation of his length of life more than antediluvian. The championship of the Moral Law and of conscience is his raison d'être. The fact of his mission is the answer to the complaints of those who feel the insufficiency of the natural light; and the insufficiency of that light is the justification of his mission.
..................
  Afterwards, for a while the Papal chair was filled by men who gave themselves up to luxury, security, and a Pagan kind of Christianity; and we all know what a moral earthquake was the consequence, and how the Church lost, thereby, and has lost to this day, one-half of Europe. The Popes could not have recovered from so terrible a catastrophe, {255} as they have done, had they not returned to their first and better ways, and the grave lesson of the past is in itself the guarantee of the future.
I have already quoted the words which Cardinal Gousset has adduced from the Fourth Lateran; that "He who acts against his conscience loses his soul." Thisdictum is brought out with singular fulness and force in the moral treatises of theologians. The celebrated school, known as the Salmanticenses, or Carmelites of Salamanca, lays down the broad proposition, that conscience is ever to be obeyed whether it tells truly or erroneously, and that, whether the error is the fault of the person thus erring or not [Note]. They say that this opinion is certain, and refer, as agreeing with them, to St. Thomas, St. Bonaventura, Caietan, Vasquez, Durandus, Navarrus, Corduba, Layman, Escobar, and fourteen others. Two of them even say this opinion is de fide. Of course, if a man is culpable in being in error, which he might have escaped, had he been more in earnest, for that error he is answerable to God, but still he must act according to that error, while he is in it, because he in full sincerity thinks the error to be truth. {260}
Thus, if the Pope told the English Bishops to order their priests to stir themselves energetically in favour of teetotalism, and a particular priest was fully persuaded that abstinence from wine, &c., was practically a Gnostic error, and therefore felt he could not so exert himself without sin; or suppose there was a Papal order to hold lotteries in each mission for some religious object, and a priest could say in God's sight that he believed lotteries to be morally wrong, that priest in either of these cases would commit a sin hic et nunc if he obeyed the Pope, whether he was right or wrong in his opinion, and, if wrong, although he had not taken proper pains to get at the truth of the matter.


 Does that seal the case for the Catholic Church? Of course not. If one premises that all mere humans are fallible all the time–which is not an unreasonable premise–then one is going to see the Catholic Church’s claims for herself as false, and eventually be forced to admit that these matters must ultimately remain ones of opinion. But if one is to believe articles of faith propounded on divine authority–as I think believers should–then the CIP is a far better way to go.

 from 494:
The problem for RC’s is that a millennium of papal history was wrapped around that conjunction and it all came undone at Vatican 2. But nothing changed, right? It’s all the same development. I don’t think so. You don’t either since you admit Pio Nono was wrong about politics for the health of the church. But if he was wrong about a claim that goes so close to the heart of high papalism, the guts of your system are about to burst.
You’re ignoring a pair of parallel distinctions I had explicitly made: that between what belongs to the deposit of faith and what does not. The former is the subject matter of irreformable dogma; the latter is not. Now, I claimed that what the 19th-century popes taught about their temporal authority, even if true in certain historical circumstances, did not belong to the deposit of faith. They taught that the papacy’s exercising a significant amount of temporal power–especially in the form of confessional states over which they had either direct or indirect political authority–was necessary for people’s collective spiritual welfare. Such a doctrine is but a prudential judgment about how to achieve a goal which, though certainly a goal the Church does and should have, could conceivably be secured in other ways, and sometimes had been secured in other ways. Since such judgments do not belong to the deposit of faith, they are not irreformable. If they are not irreformable, they may be reversed. And so the fact that Vatican II reversed said judgment, in light of both newer political conditions and a more developed understanding of human dignity, does not call the CIP into question. Its “guts” remain undisturbed. The only Catholics who believe otherwise are the radical traditionalists and progressives, who are both materially schismatic, and in certain cases materially heretical. You seem to think them theologically important, as distinct from just posing a pastoral challenge. I do not. And as an orthodox Catholic, I see no reason to believe I should.
“High papalism”–by which I take you to mean a view that calls for the papacy’s exercising significant temporal power as well as spiritual authority over the universal Church–may have been, and in my opinion was, necessary for a time in European history. One such time as the first several centuries after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, when there was no other plausible center of political unity that could mitigate the conflicts of tribalism and feudalism and secure the freedom of the Church. But I also believe that, by the 19th century, papal attempts to hang on to a significant amount of temporal power had become counterproductive. That prudential judgment of mine has never caused me to doubt Catholicism. Nor did it cause my paternal great-grandfather to doubt his Catholic faith, even though Pio Nono excommunicated him for fighting on Garibaldi’s side. The Licciones have long been in the business of making the necessary distinctions. So have many Italians. They have, after all, seen the papacy up close for almost two millennia. For most of that time until quite recently, the papacy simply was Italian. We get it.

 end

 When there is no Pope:  http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/09/why-protestantism-has-no-visible-catholic-church/  comment 285
 The papal office remains during the interregnum; it is this office that is vacated at the moment a pope dies, and is then filled again at the moment the bishop elected by the conclave accepts. During the interregnum the college of cardinals govern the church, but their authority, which is from the pope, is not identical to that of the pope himself. Their authority during the interregnum is limited to matters that cannot be postponed, and to selecting a new pope, as spelled out in <a href="http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_constitutions/documents/hf_jp-ii_apc_22021996_universi-dominici-gregis_en.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><em>Universi Dominici Gregis</em></a>. So during the interregnum the Catholic Church still has a visible head in the Church at Rome, which retains the authority of the Apostolic See. And that authority is possessed and exercised in a limited way by the college of cardinals, until the next pope is selected. During the interregnum the Catholic Church does not become a mere plurality of particular Churches in communion with one another. It remains a unified body in part because it retains a hierarchy unified in relation to the papal office, the authority of which, in limited capacity, is retained by the college of cardinals.

 from comment 30 http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2014/01/clark-frame-and-the-analogy-of-painting-a-magisterial-target-around-ones-interpretive-arrow/
St. Ireneaus, who says, “It is necessary that all should depend on the Roman Church as their head and fountain; all Churches should agree with this Church on account of her priority of principality, for there the traditions delivered by the Apostles have always been preserved” (Against Heresies Bk 3, chpt 3.2). And St. Cyprian makes the same claim in the third century. And St. Optatus makes the same claim in the fourth century. Later in the fourth century, St. Augustine writes:
You know what the Catholic Church is, and what that is cut off from the Vine; if there are any among you cautious, let them come; let them find life in the Root. Come, brethren, if you wish to be engrafted in the Vine: a grief it is when we see you lying thus cut off. Number the Bishops even from the very seat of Peter: and see every succession in that line of Fathers: that is the Rock against which the proud Gates of Hell prevail not. (PL 43.30)
These all refer to the unique role of the Pope, in occupying the “Chair [i.e. office] of St. Peter.”

 Here is a good article tracing the historical evidence for early Popes http://catholicdefense.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-first-and-second-century-papacy.html

 and from http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2014/04/ancient-marian-devotion/#comment-84611

 comment 126--
 Tertullian writes:
Was anything withheld from the knowledge of Peter, who is called “the rock on which the church should be built,” who also obtained “the keys of the kingdom of heaven,” with the power of “loosing and binding in heaven and on earth?” (Prescription Against Heretics, 22)
Here’s another example. St. Cyprian writes:
[B]oth baptism is one and the Holy Spirit is one, and the Church founded by Christ the Lord upon Peter, by a source and principle of unity, is one also. (Epistle 69)
And Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, writes:
And Peter, on whom the Church of Christ is built, ‘against which the gates of hell shall not prevail,’ (Matt. 16:18) has left one acknowledged epistle; perhaps also a second, but this is doubtful. (History of the Church, VI.25.8)
Jacob, bishop of Nisibis, of Syria (338), writes:
And Simon the head of the Apostles, he who denied Christ . . . our Lord received him, and made him the foundation, and called him the rock of the edifice of the Church.
St. Ambrose writes:
[Jesus] made answer: ‘Thou are Peter, and upon this Rock will I build My Church, and I will give thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven.’ Could He not then, strengthen the faith of the man to whom, acting on His own authority, He gave the kingdom, whom He called the Rock, thereby declaring him to be the foundation of the Church?
St. Hilary (315-367/68) provides further examples:
[B]lessed Simon, who after his confession of the mystery was set to be the foundation-stone of the Church, and received the keys of the kingdom of heaven. (On the Trinity, Bk VI)
He [Jesus] took up Peter — to whom He had just before given the keys of the kingdom of heaven, upon whom He was about to build the Church, against which the gates of hell should not in any way prevail, who whatsoever he should bind or loose on earth, that should abide bound or loosed in heaven — this same Peter … the first confessor of the Son of God, the foundation of the Church, the doorkeeper of the heavenly kingdom, and in his judgment on earth a judge of heaven. (Tractates on the Psalms)
O blessed keeper of the gate of heaven, to whose disposal are delivered the keys of the entrance into eternity; whose judgment on earth is an authority prejudged in heaven, so that the things that are either loosed or bound on earth, acquire in heaven too a like state of settlement. (Commentary on Matthew)
St. Basil the Great (330-379) writes:
him that was called from amongst fishermen unto the ministry of the Apostleship; him who on account of the pre-eminence of his faith received upon himself the building of the Church. (ad. Eunom. n. 4)
One also of these mountains was Peter, upon which rock the lord promised to build His Church. (Commnt. in Esai. c.ii. n. 66)
And At. Augustine writes:
You know what the Catholic Church is, and what that is cut off from the Vine; if there are any among you cautious, let them come; let them find life in the Root. Come, brethren, if you wish to be engrafted in the Vine: a grief it is when we see you lying thus cut off. Number the Bishops even from the very seat of Peter: and see every succession in that line of Fathers: that is the Rock against which the proud Gates of Hell prevail not.

Concerning quotes about the Pope early on:  http://www.catholic.com/tracts/origins-of-peter-as-pope

see also http://thiscatholicjourney.com/2009/09/against-heresies-book-iii-chapter-3-st.html  a long quote of

St. Irenaeus




  1. I came across this Non-Catholic Christian website with their view of this topic. It is a new argument I had not heard and would be interested to hear a Catholic response from anyone here at Called-to-Communion. Thank you!
  2. R. ZellNo Gravatar July 25th, 2019 11:39 pm :
    Allison. #36
    I went to that sight and read the post and the comments. When taking Matthew 16:18 into consideration, it is imperative to look at the entire scene from Matthew 16:13-20 to understand, not only why Jesus changes Simon bar-Jona’s name, but what that name change will eventually mean for the Church Christ called “My Church.”
    15 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”
    16 Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
    17 And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.
    18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it.
    19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
    Martha makes the same profession of faith that Simon bar-Jona does, but Jesus does not change her name.
    John 11:
    21 Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.
    22 And even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.”
    23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”
    24 Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
    25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live,
    26 and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”
    27 She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, he who is coming into the world.”
    In Matthew 16:18-19, not only does Jesus change Simon bar-Jona’s name to Peter, the rock, (petros, petra shua lithoi, Kephas, Kepha, etc), but Jesus promises to give the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven to Simon bar-Jona, now called Peter.
    Jesus had yoked Himself to Peter in many ways in the gospels (as He does to all of us). Peter is given a mission which he is to fulfill no matter what type of rock the word Peter means.
    In John’s gospel, Jesus, referring Himself as the Good Shepherd in John 10 states this:
    14 I am the good shepherd; I know my own and my own know me,
    15 as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep.
    16 And I have other sheep, that are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will heed my voice. So there shall be one flock, one shepherd.
    Jesus states that HE must bring the other sheep into the sheepfold, so that there shall be ONE flock and ONE Shepherd. He is, of course, speaking of the Gentiles. Jesus never does this while He walked upon the earth. That is left for the one Jesus has entrusted his one flock to tend, to feed and to shepherd His One flock, (John 21:15-17).
    Lets look at one of the ways that Simon bar-Jona, now renamed Peter uses the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven.
    Acts 10:13 And there came a voice to him, “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.”
    Notice that it is the LORD God who calls “Peter” by the name Jesus gives him in Matthew 16:18. This is the only time I am aware of that God Himself calls someone by their name in the New Testament. God doesn’t call Peter, by his birth name, but by the name that Jesus said: “….. you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church …..”
    7 And after there had been much debate, Peter rose and said to them, “Brethren, you know that in the early days God made choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe.
    There are several things here to keep in mind:
    Jesus is our Rock of rocks and our Foundation of foundations, but He is in heaven awaiting His enemies to be made a footstool.
    Peter accepted the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, which is a metaphor for the Ecclesial Authority given him by Christ Himself, on behalf of His One Church.
    God calls Peter by the very name Jesus gave him, when Peter, in Persona Christi, completes the mission of bringing the Gentiles into the One Flock, the One Church, Christ called My Church. “Upon this rock I will build My Church……” The Gentiles are now brought into the Church by the one Christ renamed Rock.
    Peter (and his successors) is entrusted to Tend, to Feed, and to Shepherd this One Flock.
    Jesus said that “Therefore by their fruits you will know them.” Peter, whether big rock, little rock, petros, petra etc, will produce an abundant harvest because He acts in and through Christ Jesus.
    Blessings,
    R. Zell

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