mjdonnelly:
The burden of proof is on your friend.
Ok, here we go, I’ve got some Card. Ratzinger quotes. I might call Fr. Ambrose in here, he might like this.
From Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology, p. 198,199
Against all expectation, the bishop of Rome is among us, the first among us in honor, ‘
he who presides in love.’ It is clear that, in saying this, the Patriarch
did not abandon the claims of the Eastern Churches or** acknowledge the primacy of the west. ** Rather, he stated plainly what the East understood as the order, the rank and title, of the equal bishops in the Church – and it would be worth our while to consider whether this archaic confession, which has nothing to do with the ‘primacy of jurisdiction’ but confesses a primacy of ‘honor’ and agape, might not be recognized as a
formula that adequately reflects the position that Rome occupies in the Church
Reading on, on p. 216 and 217 you see what his conclusion is, about how the Church of the 1st millenium viewed the primacy of Rome. He says that it’s NOT what Vatican 1 defined, but rather what the Eastern Orthodox hold to:
**Nor is it possible, on the other hand, for him to regard as the only possible form and, consequently, as binding on all Christians the form this primacy has taken in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In other words, Rome must not require more from the East with respect to the doctrine of the primacy than had been formulated and was lived in the first millennium. ** When the Patriarch Athenagoras [the non-Catholic, schismatic Patriarch], on July 25, 1967, on the occasion of the Pope’s visit to Phanar, designated him as the successor of St. Peter, as the most esteemed among us, as
one who presides in charity, this great Church leader was expressing the ecclesial content of the doctrine of the primacy as it was known in the first millennium. Rome need not ask for more."
So there. I know that took a couple minutes to read, but there you have it. His claim is that Ratzinger denies the Vatican I formulation of the Papacy:
Denzinger 1827, Vatican I, Dogmatic Const. on the Church of Christ,
Furthermore, We teach and declare that the Roman Church, by the disposition of the Lord, holds the sovereignty of ordinary power over all others, and that this power of jurisdiction on the part of the Roman Pontiff, which is truly episcopal, is immediate, etc.
And Denzinger 1831, same Vatican I
If anyone thus speaks, that the Roman Pontiff has only the office of inspection or direction, but not the full and supreme power of jurisdiction over the universal Church,… let him be anathema.
So, how the Eastern Orthodox cannot be expected to recognize what the Church defined in Vatican I, and how Ratzinger as an outstanding theologian can’t demand that they believe that, and
how he can doubt that the 1st millenium church believed what was defined at Vatican 1 (after all, the Church isn’t supposed to dogmatically define things that are not of the Apostolic Deposit of the Faith, is it…?), I don’t understand.
Please God no more positve negatives that are positive/negative.
