As with any doctrine, the concept of papal authority developed over time. Papal supremacy is a topic that has always drawn my interest because it was such a huge question in my own faith journey. Here’s what I’ve gathered.
If you read theological writings in Western Christianity, most of them argue that the Pope has and can exercise spiritual and jurisdictional authority over any bishop in the entire Church. If you read theological writings in Eastern Christianity, most of them argue that the Pope does not possess supreme authority over all bishops but is merely a first among equals.
Quite interesting. But one thing that both the East and the West have shared is the idea that all bishops trace their authority from Jesus and the Apostles. If we look at St. Peter, scholars, Catholic, Orthodox, Atheist, etc, do generally conclude that Peter had some spiritual and “jurisdictional” authority. I quote “jurisdictional” because the Church wasn’t a temporal power nor was it really divided in the first century with strict boundaries. Nonetheless, Peter’s reputation and authority was greater than the rest of the Apostles and he served as the spokesman for the Church at the time.
The Bishop of Rome grew in his authority mostly because Rome was the center of the Empire. When Christianity was legalized, the Church in Rome had the most relics, including those of Peter and Paul, and was therefore the most prestigious. When other bishops, including Eastern Bishops, had conflicts and couldn’t settle it on their own, they often appealed to Rome because of this prestige, giving Rome authority to make judicial decisions. Over time, this authority of course grew and grew and more and more bishops because accepting of it. The real problem arose when Constantinople in the East began to become the center of the Empire and the bishop there believed that they should have more authority because of this temporal prominence. Of course this plea was meant with pushback from the Pope. And as we see, this conflict grew and grew until the Great Schism, which has not been mended since.
So, my answer is an appeal to development that papal supremacy is a genuine development of papal primacy. I’ll cite St. John Henry Newman’s criteria for genuine developments as the criteria because I believe it is the most robust and objective.
It is worth noting, however, that the East’s lacking of communion with the Pope has stagnated genuine development in the East, as evidenced by their lack of ecumenical councils. In the West, traditionally only the Pope’s assent can a council be approved, which makes sense given the history of the Church. The East requires the whole Church to assent (which was namely the Patriarchs). Since the Pope is separated from the Orthodox, they can no longer have an ecumenical council. So we see the importance of papal supremacy today.
