Could Apostolic Succession have been lost?

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CutlerB

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Obivously, Apostolic Succession can cease in a line. It did for with the Anglicans, for example, and it would also terminate in a woman’s “ordination” as a bishop, since she couldn’t ordain anyone.

In another thread, I posted extensive quotes from an exchange with an “Old Catholic”. In one if them, he basically says something like this (these aren’t his exact words):
Even in the Roman Catholic Church Apostolic Succession isn’t unquestioned. During the Middle Ages and early modern period, there were entire regions in which only Nobility were ordained bishops. It is questionable whether they always had the correct intention when ordaining, which is an essential part of the Sacrament’s validity.
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He gives Germany as an example, and says that it is highly questionable whether the Catholic Church (which he emphatically calls the ROMAN Catholic Church, a thing I can’t stand) has always maintained clear and valid succession.

So my question is: Is it possible the Catholic Church could have lost her Apostolic Lineage, or at least certain clergy today (all according to proper rite, etc. of course) don’t have it due to this Middle Age-thingy?

Something related but not my main question: The Jehovah’s Witnesses cite, in one of their strange booklets, a certain Jesuit priest who says that there is no complete record of the Apostolic Lineage. As far as I know, there seems to be some truth to that, in so far as that most (around 98% I think) lineages of our bishops end in a certain Cardinal Rebiba in the 1500s. Do we have any that extend further than that?
 
Short answer, no, because that would imply that Christ abandoned his Church.
 
According to this post by David Filmer, no.
DavidFilmer said:
We do not know this from historical records, or from doctrine. But we DO know this from basic math. If you ever thought that Bishops were bad at math, guess again!

The Emperor Constantine signed the Edict of Milan in 313 AD, which ended persecution in the Roman Empire. Constantine himself became a Christian, and suddenly it was very fashionable (and perhaps profitable) to be a Christian (before, it would get you killed). The Church was confronted with an unprecedented wave of conversions, and possibly with the problem of some people misrepresenting themselves as Christian priests and Bishops. Credentials were difficult to verify back in those days.

The problem was not really so much about a few illicit “bishops,” but what would happen if those “bishops” “ordained” other men as “bishops” (who were not aware of the illicit nature of their “consecrators”). Suddenly, the whole Apostolic foundation of Catholic Orders could be called into question (indeed, as you have questioned).

The Church needed a solution to this problem - some way to guarantee that Episcopal Ordinations were valid, even if the validity of the consecrators could not be assured. The Church turned to mathematics.

Twelve years after the Edict of Milan, the Church convened the very first full Ecumenical Council, the great Council of Nicea. This topic was on the agenda.

Only one Bishop is needed to validly ordain another Bishop. But the very first Ecumenical Council, Nicea, imposed a rule (Canon 4) which remains in place to this day - a licit Episcopal Ordination requires at least three Consecrators. As long as just one is valid, the Ordination is valid (FWIW, it is customary for an Episcopal Ordination to be celebrated by many Bishops (ten or more), simply because they want to be present).

Suppose that there were invalid bishops running around in 325 AD (we don’t know that there actually were - there are no records of spurious bishops - but it could have happened). Suppose we accept the ridiculous idea that as many as 1 in 20 bishops was invalid. What is the probability of selecting three invalid bishops? It’s 20 x 20 x 20 (assuming there are at least 22 invalid bishops). That is a probability of 1 in 8000. The first generation of Bishops had 1 in 20 invalid bishops, but the second generation has only 1 in 8000 invalid bishops.

The probability of selecting three invalid bishops from such a pool is 8000 x 8000 x 8000, which is 1 in 512,000,000,000 (that’s 512 billion). As you see, the line of succession actually purifies itself over time. There have been hundreds of generations of Bishops, meaning the probability of having even one invalidly ordained bishop is staggeringly improbable. It’s what physicists call a “small but nonzero probability.” That is about the same probability that all of the air will disappear from your living room (it could happen, but it is staggeringly unlikely).

The math wins, every time. The only way the math could not win is if 2/3 + 1 of all bishops were invalid at any point in time, and Episcopal ordinations *never *had more than three consecrators (whereas it is common to have many more). For this extreme situation to occur in the twelve-year window of opportunity between the Edict of Milan and Nicea-1 is patently absurd.

It is therefore unnecessary that we know (and can prove) any Bishops episcopal lineage. We don’t need knowledge of history, or even the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to know that every Bishop has valid Apostolic succession. We know this by simple math.
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CutlerB said:
Obivously, Apostolic Succession can cease in a line. It did for with the Anglicans, for example, and it would also terminate in a woman’s “ordination” as a bishop, since she couldn’t ordain anyone.

In another thread, I posted extensive quotes from an exchange with an “Old Catholic”. In one if them, he basically says something like this (these aren’t his exact words):

He gives Germany as an example, and says that it is highly questionable whether the Catholic Church (which he emphatically calls the ROMAN Catholic Church, a thing I can’t stand) has always maintained clear and valid succession.

So my question is: Is it possible the Catholic Church could have lost her Apostolic Lineage, or at least certain clergy today (all according to proper rite, etc. of course) don’t have it due to this Middle Age-thingy?
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No.

Cyprian in his day wrote the following to the pope…

Epistle 54 v 14. ad Cornelius on Fortunatus and Felicissimus:

“With false bishops appointed for themselves, they dare even set sail and carry their letters from schismatics and blasphemers to the Chair of Peter and to the principal church, in which sacerdotal unity (priestly unity) has its source; nor do they take thought that these are Romans, whose faith was praised by the Apostle, to whom heretical faith cannot have access.” ~250 a.d.

Looking back over 2000 years here’s the lineage of the chief bishop of the Catholic Church 266 bishops, successors of and from St Peter, down to our day.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12272b.htm
C:
Something related but not my main question: The Jehovah’s Witnesses cite, in one of their strange booklets, a certain Jesuit priest who says that there is no complete record of the Apostolic Lineage. As far as I know, there seems to be some truth to that, in so far as that most (around 98% I think) lineages of our bishops end in a certain Cardinal Rebiba in the 1500s. Do we have any that extend further than that?
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As one can see, the chair of Peter is protected by Jesus. Inspite of historical intrigues, it’s here, rising above all the messyness life throws its way.
 
Forgive me for posting in this thread, if there is a better place let me know. I am a student of history and am looking to get honest answers to perceived historical conflicts. In a history class we were discussing Papal history and conflicts in the 15th century. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia pope Gregory XII (1406-15) was the Pope in the apostolic line who was opposed by Pedro de Luna (“Benedict XIII”) (1394-1417), Baldassare Cossa (“John XXIII”) (1400-1415), and Pietro Philarghi (“Alexander V”) (1409-1410), considered antipopes.

According what we learned the Council of Constance deposed all three. As I recall the Council of Constance was very large with several hundred bishops being present. Would that be considered a break in apostolic succession? From our readings it appeared that the council asserted authority over the popes in order to resolve the problem. Would that be a correct assumption? If not, the process has me confused. I would appreciate any information on this from someone who is familiar with Church history. Thanks in Advance 🙂
 
Seeking_Truther said:
Forgive me for posting in this thread, if there is a better place let me know. I am a student of history and am looking to get honest answers to perceived historical conflicts. In a history class we were discussing Papal history and conflicts in the 15th century. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia pope Gregory XII (1406-15) was the Pope in the apostolic line who was opposed by Pedro de Luna (“Benedict XIII”) (1394-1417), Baldassare Cossa (“John XXIII”) (1400-1415), and Pietro Philarghi (“Alexander V”) (1409-1410), considered antipopes.

According what we learned the Council of Constance deposed all three. As I recall the Council of Constance was very large with several hundred bishops being present. Would that be considered a break in apostolic succession? From our readings it appeared that the council asserted authority over the popes in order to resolve the problem. Would that be a correct assumption? If not, the process has me confused. I would appreciate any information on this from someone who is familiar with Church history. Thanks in Advance 🙂
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Hi! 🙂

It wouldn’t be a break, since Apostolic Succession is all about ordination, not about the validity of a specific Pope. At least not in the main sense. Does that help?
 
Seeking_Truther said:
Would that be considered a break in apostolic succession? From our readings it appeared that the council asserted authority over the popes in order to resolve the problem. Would that be a correct assumption? If not, the process has me confused.
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You are confusing the concept of Apostolic Succession with the concept of Papal succession, and there’s really no such thing as Papal succession.

By Apostolic Succession, we mean that a Bishop (not a Pope, except insofar as a Pope is also a Bishop) was ordained by someone who was ordained by someone who, if you go back far enough, was ordained by an Apostle. This must be a direct and unbroken lineage. However, as I pointed out in the post that SoMissCatholic kindly re-posted here, it is not necessary that we actually know the names of any of those ancestor Bishops. It is only important that their validity can be demonstrated, and this can be done far more reliably by absolute mathematics than with questionable historical records.

Apostolic Succession is necessary for every Bishop (including the Bishop of Rome, AKA the Pope), but it it not directly related to the Office of Peter in any way. Indeed, the Greek Orthodox have been ordaining Bishops without the assent of the Pope since the year 1054, and conferring full Apostolic Succession upon each one.

When the Church uses the term “succession” She means that one Bishop consecrates another (presumably his successor in some fashion - this is the norm, and the origin of the term “succession” - an older Bishop consecrating a younger Bishop who would someday fill his Office).

Popes, on the other hand, have no “succession.” Popes do not appoint their successors (in some instances, a Pope might have influenced the selection of his successor, but we do not know of any actual documented cases). The authority that a Pope possesses does not come to him through his predecessor (unlike a Bishop, whose authority is passed from his Consecrator).

The concept of “Papal succession” really means a list of Popes whom various Church theologians concur validly held the Office of Peter at any given time. They could be wrong - future discovery of evidence might cause these lists to be revised. The most “official” list is called the Annuario Pontificio, which was revised as recently as 1961 to remove from the list a guy named Stephen who was elected Pope in 751, but was only a priest at the time, and died before he received Episcopal Ordination. He had previously been numbered Stephen-3 in the Annuario Pontificio because he had been elected Pope, but other lists omitted him because, being only a priest, he never actually assumed the Office (and there has been confusion over the ordinal numbers of subsequent Popes named Stephen ever since). There has been other confusion - in the Thirteenth Century, for example, there was confusion over the ordinal numbers of Popes named John, and as a result there has never been a Pope John-20 (at least, we don’t think so).

Apostolic Succession is VERY important to the Church - She could not continue without it. If there were no Episcopal Ordinations for a century, the Church would cease to exist when the last Apostolically-ordained Bishop died. However, the Church doesn’t actually need a Pope - we could go for a century without a Pope and be just fine (FWIW, the longest interregnum (time without a Pope) was a period of nearly three years in the Thirteenth Century).
 
CutlerB said:
Obivously, Apostolic Succession can cease in a line. It did for with the Anglicans, for example, and it would also terminate in a woman’s “ordination” as a bishop, since she couldn’t ordain anyone.

In another thread, I posted extensive quotes from an exchange with an “Old Catholic”. In one if them, he basically says something like this (these aren’t his exact words):

He gives Germany as an example, and says that it is highly questionable whether the Catholic Church (which he emphatically calls the ROMAN Catholic Church, a thing I can’t stand) has always maintained clear and valid succession.

So my question is: Is it possible the Catholic Church could have lost her Apostolic Lineage, or at least certain clergy today (all according to proper rite, etc. of course) don’t have it due to this Middle Age-thingy?

Something related but not my main question: The Jehovah’s Witnesses cite, in one of their strange booklets, a certain Jesuit priest who says that there is no complete record of the Apostolic Lineage. As far as I know, there seems to be some truth to that, in so far as that most (around 98% I think) lineages of our bishops end in a certain Cardinal Rebiba in the 1500s. Do we have any that extend further than that?
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Who actually consecreated Scipione Cardinale SRE Rebiba? It is true that the apostolic succession of 95% of all Latin bishops runs straight through Scipione Rebiba.

It is a very valid question…and one where I cannot give a definitive answer. It is likely that his consecrator was probably Pope Paul IV (Gian Pietro Carafa), but history has not enabled us to produce a record of this. But is that a real problem?

Let us say, Cutler, that your parish baptismal registry was destroyed in a fire. Does that mean that you were not baptized? Of course not. But if a historian tried to piece together your family’s history 500 years from now, Would that historian be able to prove you were baptized? Or would he need to look at the totality of all the information out there?

Scipione Rebiba was consecrated as an Auxiliary Bishop of the diocese of Chieti, on the Eastern coast of Italy, almost 500 years ago. 500 years ago, they didn’t have cheap and easy printing as we do now, they didn’t have databases where zetabytes of information are warehoused for easy search and retrieval, and so on. The point being that there wouldn’t have been a huge number of records out there that contained the information of who consecrated this man.

Here’s the kicker for me: Rebiba’s first episcopal job was as Auxiliary of Chieti when Gian Pietro Carafa was the Ordinary. Gian Pietro Carafa (Pope Paul IV) named him a Cardinal during the Consistory of 1555. Do you really think that Paul IV would have named him a cardinal had there been ANY question as to the validity of the episcopal consecration? Remember how political the hierarchy was back then. If there was ANY question, it would have been extremely easy for Paul IV to quietly consecrate him before appointing him cardinal. And Paul IV is EXACTLY the one who would definitively know whether his episcopal consecration was valid or not…as he was there at the time.

The point being that, while the Rebiba issue is an interesting piece of trivia, if you look at the names and places involved, even with the most skeptical eye, there is NO WAY that Rebiba would not have been validly consecrated.
 
markomalley said:
Who actually consecreated Scipione Cardinale SRE Rebiba? It is true that the apostolic succession of 95% of all Latin bishops runs straight through Scipione Rebiba.

It is a very valid question…and one where I cannot give a definitive answer. It is likely that his consecrator was probably Pope Paul IV (Gian Pietro Carafa), but history has not enabled us to produce a record of this. But is that a real problem?
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95% of Latin Bishops run through Scipione Rebiba? I have never heard the name Scipione Rebiba until now.

But Episcopal Ordinations do not “run through” only one Consecrator. There is the “primary” Consecrator (the President of the assembly), but all licit Episcopal Ordinations since the First Council of Nicea (the very first Ecumenical Council, held in 325 AD) mandated that all licit Episcopal Ordinations be presided over by at least three Consecrators. Even if the President happened to be an invalid bishop, the Ordination would be valid if at least one of the other two Bishops was valid.

According to Wikipedia, this Scipione Rebiba guy lived in the Sixteenth Century. According to this same article, 95% of Catholic Bishops can “trace” their lineage back to him.

This claim is absurd in so many ways.

First of all, I have never known of a single Catholic Bishop who can trace his “lineage” all the way back to the Sixteenth Century. Most can do so for only a few generations (perhaps to the first American Bishop, but no farther back). Maybe a handful of Italian Bishops can claim that Scipione Rebiba was ONE of his historical Consecrators. It would not really matter.

Second, no Bishop can trace his “lineage” to a single Bishop, not even through his primary Consecrator (ie, the President of his Ordination Mass). Every Bishop has (at least) three Consecrators, and none take any precedence over any other as far as the validity of the Ordination is concerned.

No licitly ordained Bishop since Nicea (325 AD) can claim to “trace” his “lineage” through any ONE Consecrator (or particular lineage of Consecrators). No Bishop even tries to do so (it would be absolutely impossible, because there IS no ONE Consecrator).

SoMissCatholic kindly reposted a response of mine in this thread. Therein, I demonstrate that pure mathematics can absolutely prove beyond all possible doubt that each and every modern Catholic Bishop has full Apostolic Ordination. This validity is not dependent on the validity of Scipione Rebiba’s ordination (whomever he was) or of any other Pope or Bishop. This validity can be established by mathematics alone - beyond all doubt. We need no need of history to establish this fact, and lack thereof does not diminish this fact.
 
CutlerB said:
Obivously, Apostolic Succession can cease in a line. It did for with the Anglicans, for example, and it would also terminate in a woman’s “ordination” as a bishop, since she couldn’t ordain anyone.

In another thread, I posted extensive quotes from an exchange with an “Old Catholic”. In one if them, he basically says something like this (these aren’t his exact words):

He gives Germany as an example, and says that it is highly questionable whether the Catholic Church (which he emphatically calls the ROMAN Catholic Church, a thing I can’t stand) has always maintained clear and valid succession.

So my question is: Is it possible the Catholic Church could have lost her Apostolic Lineage, or at least certain clergy today (all according to proper rite, etc. of course) don’t have it due to this Middle Age-thingy?

Something related but not my main question: The Jehovah’s Witnesses cite, in one of their strange booklets, a certain Jesuit priest who says that there is no complete record of the Apostolic Lineage. As far as I know, there seems to be some truth to that, in so far as that most (around 98% I think) lineages of our bishops end in a certain Cardinal Rebiba in the 1500s. Do we have any that extend further than that?
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The requisite intention for the conferral of episcopal ordination is to do what the Church does in consecrating bishops, i.e., to pass on apostolic succession. This intention has absolutely nothing to do with ordaining only members of a certain class. In other words, the objection is a total non sequitur.
 
DavidFilmer said:
95% of Latin Bishops run through Scipione Rebiba? I have never heard the name Scipione Rebiba until now.

But Episcopal Ordinations do not “run through” only one Consecrator. There is the “primary” Consecrator (the President of the assembly), but all licit Episcopal Ordinations since the First Council of Nicea (the very first Ecumenical Council, held in 325 AD) mandated that all licit Episcopal Ordinations be presided over by at least three Consecrators. Even if the President happened to be an invalid bishop, the Ordination would be valid if at least one of the other two Bishops was valid.
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You might want to check www.catholic-hierarchy.org, which traces every Bishop’s ordination through his principal consecrators. For each bishop, the co-consecrators are listed as well.
 
DavidFilmer said:
95% of Latin Bishops run through Scipione Rebiba? I have never heard the name Scipione Rebiba until now.

But Episcopal Ordinations do not “run through” only one Consecrator. There is the “primary” Consecrator (the President of the assembly), but all licit Episcopal Ordinations since the First Council of Nicea (the very first Ecumenical Council, held in 325 AD) mandated that all licit Episcopal Ordinations be presided over by at least three Consecrators. Even if the President happened to be an invalid bishop, the Ordination would be valid if at least one of the other two Bishops was valid.

According to Wikipedia, this Scipione Rebiba guy lived in the Sixteenth Century. According to this same article, 95% of Catholic Bishops can “trace” their lineage back to him.

This claim is absurd in so many ways.

First of all, I have never known of a single Catholic Bishop who can trace his “lineage” all the way back to the Sixteenth Century. Most can do so for only a few generations (perhaps to the first American Bishop, but no farther back). Maybe a handful of Italian Bishops can claim that Scipione Rebiba was ONE of his historical Consecrators. It would not really matter.

Second, no Bishop can trace his “lineage” to a single Bishop, not even through his primary Consecrator (ie, the President of his Ordination Mass). Every Bishop has (at least) three Consecrators, and none take any precedence over any other as far as the validity of the Ordination is concerned.

No licitly ordained Bishop since Nicea (325 AD) can claim to “trace” his “lineage” through any ONE Consecrator (or particular lineage of Consecrators). No Bishop even tries to do so (it would be absolutely impossible, because there IS no ONE Consecrator).

SoMissCatholic kindly reposted a response of mine in this thread. Therein, I demonstrate that pure mathematics can absolutely prove beyond all possible doubt that each and every modern Catholic Bishop has full Apostolic Ordination. This validity is not dependent on the validity of Scipione Rebiba’s ordination (whomever he was) or of any other Pope or Bishop. This validity can be established by mathematics alone - beyond all doubt. We need no need of history to establish this fact, and lack thereof does not diminish this fact.
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Go to Catholic Hierarchy dot org. Plug in a bishop’s name that you know (Latin). Chances are almost certain that Rebiba is the first bishop in that list. For example, the lineage for my bishop, Donald Wuerl, is:

easycaptures.com/fs/uploaded/726/6811662293.png

Similar thing for Bishop Morlino (Madison), Archbishop Gomez (LA), Chaput (Philly), Cardinal Koch (Basel), Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Zen (ret. Hong Kong), etc.

Want to test it further? Try it for yourself. Go to the link above and plug in the name of a Latin bishop you know. Chances are, this guy Rebiba will be in his lineage.

Fact of the matter is that records going back 500 years start to get sketchy. If you want to find a list of co-consecrators along with a principal consecrator you’ll have even a more difficult task (as far as record keeping is concerned)
 
markomalley said:
Want to test it further? Try it for yourself. Go to the link above and plug in the name of a Latin bishop you know. Chances are, this guy Rebiba will be in his lineage.
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Indeed, according to this website, this guy is the principal Consecrator of the historical Consecrator of my own (Arch)Bishop (Alexander Staple).

OK, this guy, Rebiba, was responsible for the primary Consecration of a lot of Latin Bishops (maybe even 95% of them). Is this somehow relevant? Does anyone here have any doubts that Rebiba was not actually in valid Apostolic Succession? That NONE of his three (or more) Consecrators were in valid Apostolic Succession?

This website does not name Rebiba’s three (minimum) Consecrators. Is Rebiba’s Ordination somehow in doubt? He was, after all, not merely a Bishop, but a Cardinal of the Church.

Suppose there were some disaster, and all Bishops were murdered except one. This one Bishop ordained others, who ordained others, who reestablished Episcopal Orders throughout the world. In such a case, 100% of the Orders of all Bishops (presumably Latin, Orthodox, etc) would come through just ONE guy. As long as that one guy had valid Apostolic Orders, that’s perfectly fine - the Church would survive.

Is there some point to be made here?
 
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