The problem how the perception of papal rule is being portrayed by the laity. Its common to hear the accusations of, “the Pope can suppress the Divine Liturgy if he wants to,” or “replace your patriarch if he wants to.” Hearing things like that, I’m not surprised the Orthodox are afraid of such a scenario.
One question I put out in the NCF, if the Pope has universal jurisdiction, why didn’t he depose the bishops of the Eastern Churches when they went into schism? The Pope could have held on the the Eastern Churches back then. I believe if the Patriarch of Constantinople was replaced at some point, it could have prevented the Great Schism. That is IF the Pope did have that much authority back then. But since it never happened, I’m compelled to believe he didn’t.
I agree that the Holy Father cannot unilaterally suppress the Divine Liturgy, depose patriarchs, or undertake actions of similar gravity. Catholics who say such things are mistaken.
That’s not to say he doesn’t have universal jurisdiction, Constantine. It’s rather that the kind of jurisdiction he has that is universal does not entitle him to do anything he wants, whenever he wants. There are still and always have been canonical limits to the exercise of his authority, even his universal authority.
This is what the Roman Catholic church says of itself:
Wherefore we teach and declare that, by divine ordinance, the Roman church possesses a pre-eminence of ordinary power over every other church, and that this jurisdictional power of the Roman pontiff is both episcopal and immediate.
Both clergy and faithful, of whatever rite and dignity, both singly and collectively, are bound to submit to this power by the duty of hierarchical subordination and true obedience, and this not only in matters concerning faith and morals, but also in those which regard the discipline and government of the church throughout the world.
Since this is not is not apostolic and not historical, the Orthodox consider it a heresy to teach as a dogma. It is not a divine ordinance, it is historical revisionism that the Orthodox reject.
Properly understood, it is Biblical, apostolic, and patristic.
The quote you’ve reproduced here, however, is, I admit, particularly easy to misinterpret, especially if people don’t understand what the council means in this context by such words as “episcopal,” “ordinary,” and “immediate.”
But I know we disagree on this matter. Obviously… otherwise we’d belong to churches in full communion with each other.
But it is a fundamental element of the Roman Catholic church ecclesiology. It is a claim that the Papacy has an intrinsic authority which should extend over the Orthodox/Eastern Catholic churches which was never true.
He did sometimes intend to teach something universally, or make decisions for churches outside his patriarchate, during the first millennium,
if the canonical circumstances that warranted such action were present.
Even the teaching as it stands today doesn’t imply, however, that he can do so on a mere whim. I know you disagree with that, but I honestly do not believe that the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church - understood in the complete context of all conciliar teachings and of the history of the Latin Church - intend to give the pope the authority to intervene in other churches unilaterally, as he pleases. He just can’t do that.
Let’s compare the Absolutist Petrine (given in blue) and High Petrine (given in red) understanding of the texts. What we need to agree on is that this intrinsic universal authority must be exercised collegially. This understanding of the primacy is very well w/in the bounds of Catholic orthodoxy, so no need to reject V1.
The High Petrine standard is easily evident in the early Church, and fits very well with the teaching of V1, even irrespective of V2.
These forgeries had nothing to do with ecclesiastical affairs, but only applied to the Pope’s supposed powers over the State and you know it. The idea of the secular power of the papacy is not apostolic, which is why it has gone the way of the dodo.
Thank you as always, my brother, for bringing such clarity and precision into these threads.
Hi everyone. I’m puzzled by this thread, because what’s being said here goes against Universal Ordinary Jurisdiction. I was going to quote the First Vatican Council’s dogmatic constitution “Pastor Aeternus”, but I see Hesychios has beaten me to it.
It seems clear to me that that means “Universal”, rather than “exclusively for the Western Church”. Is this not a dogma?
Yes, it is. Did you see Marduk’s reply above? He explains very well how the pope’s universal authority applies.
The current dogma is published above, which is problematic for the Catholic-Orthodox ecumenical dialogue, and will likely be re-examined in that context.
The dogma itself is not problematic… just the interpretation of it that gives to the pope unlimited exercise, to be used at his mere discretion, of universal and unilateral authority.
I have long since been convinced by Marduk and others that this interpretation is in
serious tension with the conciliar teachings of the Catholic Church, especially the First and Second Vatican Councils.
So throwing what he calls the “Absolutist Petrine” view under the bus for the sake of unity should not be a problem at all.
