Catholic Hierarchy

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Hi.

I came across the website called www.catholic-hierarchy.org.

I decided to look up my Bishop, Bishop Anthony Frederick Tonnos. I noticed that they have listed his episcopal lineage. However, it stops at Scipione Cardinal Rebiba.

I then picked a few random Bishops from around the world and the furthest that any of their lineages go is also to Cardinal Rebiba.

What is the reasoning for this? Is it really that there are no records beyond this 16th century Cardinal?
 
I have heard, though I have never verified this, so it might be more of an urban legend, that records prior to the 1500s were largely lost in a fire.
 
Oddly enough, I just typed up a post about this on another forum:

My slight research on this says that it is traced back to Cardinal Scipione Rebiba. Why? Mainly because he was involved in the ordination of the Bishop who ordained the future Pope Benedict XIII a Bishop. Pope Benedict XIII took a very ‘active’ role when ordaining Bishops, ordaining 139 Bishops himself.
As for the lack of ‘records’, I would assume that any records before the 16th-ish centuries were possibly destroyed during the uneasy times of the Reformation. Or, an alternative would be that the records just were not kept. If the people of the time did not question the lineage, maybe records were not tightly maintained then. It is also possible that a number of things happened to the actual records that prevented them from being maintained throughout the ages.

I don’t think it’s so much of a ‘secret’ or ‘hush-hush’ deal really… Really, how many times have you ever wondered or asked a Priest what his lineage was?
The only reason I have any knowledge of this is because a Priest I know mentioned it before. I do believe he says he could trace his lineage back to a general area as well, such as somewhere in the See of Peter or James or ect… Though I haven’t researched it that well so take it with a grain of salt.

There is a website that allows you to trace the episcopal lineage of Bishops. You can check it out here: catholic-hierarchy.org/
 
CatholicCid said:
Oddly enough, I just typed up a post about this on another forum:

My slight research on this says that it is traced back to Cardinal Scipione Rebiba. Why? Mainly because he was involved in the ordination of the Bishop who ordained the future Pope Benedict XIII a Bishop. Pope Benedict XIII took a very ‘active’ role when ordaining Bishops, ordaining 139 Bishops himself.
As for the lack of ‘records’, I would assume that any records before the 16th-ish centuries were possibly destroyed during the uneasy times of the Reformation. Or, an alternative would be that the records just were not kept. If the people of the time did not question the lineage, maybe records were not tightly maintained then. It is also possible that a number of things happened to the actual records that prevented them from being maintained throughout the ages.

I don’t think it’s so much of a ‘secret’ or ‘hush-hush’ deal really… Really, how many times have you ever wondered or asked a Priest what his lineage was?
The only reason I have any knowledge of this is because a Priest I know mentioned it before. I do believe he says he could trace his lineage back to a general area as well, such as somewhere in the See of Peter or James or ect… Though I haven’t researched it that well so take it with a grain of salt.

There is a website that allows you to trace the episcopal lineage of Bishops. You can check it out here: [catholic-hierarchy.org/](http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/)
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I know! That’s the site that I listed in my original post! 👍
 
The site only goes back to Cardinal Rebiba because he is a bit of a bottleneck in episcopal succession. As explained in a previous post, he ordained a pope who ordained all of the new bishops over the next several years, rather than allowing regional bishops to do it. Therefore, about 90% of today’s bishops can trace their lineage back to Rebiba.
 
chicago said:
And, apparently, no one knows who ordained Rebiba? How ironic!
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Well, no-one questioned his authority to ordain or his legitimate Apostolic Succession at the time, now did they. One would presume that records of his lineage did exist and have subsequently been lost or destroyed. 🤷 No biggie.
 
Charles Bransom (and expert in this precise area) has a good explanation on his website:
More than ninety percent of the more than 4,900 Roman Catholic bishops alive today trace their episcopal lineage back to one bishop who was appointed in 1541 - Scipione Rebiba. Why so many bishops trace their lineages to this one bishop can be explained in great part by the intense sacramental activity of Pope Benedict XIII, who ordained 139 bishops during his episcopate and pontificate, including many cardinals, papal diplomats, and bishops of important dioceses who, in turn, ordained many other bishops. The bishop who ordained Benedict XIII gives us the direct link to Scipione Rebiba. It is widely believed that Rebiba was ordained bishop by Gian Pietro Cardinal Carafa, who became Pope Paul IV. However, no documentary evidence has been found to verify this hypothesis.
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Apostolic Succession in the Roman Catholic Church
 
This coincides with the burning down of Old St. Peter’s. The current Vatican Church has not always existed–it was built in the 1500s to replace the previous St. Peter’s Basilica, which was destroyed by fire. Perhaps the records of Episcopal consecrations were destroyed along with the Basilica.

My Bishop also goes back to Cardinal Rebiba.
 
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