I don’t see how that differs from what I said.
Okay, fair enough. I wasn’t necessarily trying to argue with you, just pointing out that people are wrong not to look at something like
Pastor Aeternus in its full context.
For the Holy Spirit was promised to the successors of Peter not so that they might, by his revelation, make known some new doctrine, but that, by his assistance, they might religiously guard and faithfully expound the revelation or deposit of faith transmitted by the apostles.
The Holy Spirit speaks through the Pope anyway.
I don’t disagree, but I don’t think that particular paragraph makes any such claim. It just says that it’s the pope’s job to ensure that revelation is handed on and interpreted correctly.
And this happened around 1054
Not really. Some ornery papal legates who weren’t aware that Pope St. Leo IX had died attempted to excommunicate the patriarch of Constantinople. On what topic was any pope trying to force his will on Constantinople?
But again there is no historical precedence to this. The Coptic Pope didn’t accept the canons of Chalcedon. Why didn’t the Pope depose him and replace him when he acted “heretically”?
The Patriarch of Constantinople was excommunicated in 1054. Why wasn’t he deposed and replaced by the Pope?
Easier said than done. If a given group goes into schism from Rome and repudiates claims to universal papal authority, as Constantinople did in 1054, what exactly is the pope supposed to do? He can’t
force anyone to do anything. If a given church wants to say, “Nope, we’ll break communion instead,” then the pope has no way of carrying out further consequences.
It is not a rude question but an honest one. Something that I am asking myself.
Here’s the thing, how many of us really accept this position about the Pope because we are thoroughly convinced that it is the correct position? I lived my life as a Roman Catholic and accepted it without question. I was brought up with it. I became Eastern Catholic 2 years ago. People then floated this idea that the Pope was not as authoritative as the RCs say he is. So I accepted that idea as well. Then I was asked by an Orthodox priest about what do I believe about the Pope. So I told him this Eastern point of view which seems to disagree with the RC point of view. He told me to be honest about it. If the Pope teaches that he is such, and Eastern Catholics believe him to be something else, then why and how are we in communion with him? We are not being honest to the Pope, we are not being honest to ourselves. So thus this thread. I want to know what people think and what we should think about it. And perhaps in the end I accept the Pope’s universal jurisdiction and be a happy and stronger Catholic. Or I don’t and I leave for the Orthodox Church. But there is no in-between. We as Eastern Catholics shouldn’t pretend there is such a position in between the RC position and the Orthodox position. We are either one or the other.
To be honest, I think the nuances of how universal papal authority functions and what it means are not understood very well by the average Latin Catholic.
I also agree, Constantine, that some of the generic comments made by eastern Catholics don’t really do justice to those nuances, either.
What I’m convinced of is that the so-called High Petrine view is that of the Vatican Councils, and that it alone does full justice to the ecclesiology of the first millennium Church. Too many monkey wrenches exist that can
so easily be thrown into the absolutist and low petrine views.
I’d like to ask what this middle-of-the-road position looks like, and whether MardukM would be a proponent of the view on CAF.
I don’t think Mardukm holds the “middle-of-the-road” position, if by “middle-of-the-road position” you mean something in between authentic Catholic teaching and low Petrine ecclesiology. His view, however,
is a middle ground between absolutist distortions of Catholic teaching on papal authority, and the aforementioned low petrine view.
Here is a good summary from another forum by Marduk himself.
I am speaking of the History of the Papacy in relation to what we do know. There is no reason to believe the Primacy and teaching authority isn’t today, exactly as it was with the Councils and most definate by the 5th century.
To be honest, I think universal papal authority is *far *clearer in the very early Church. I think the evidence for it decreases sharply after the Roman legalization of Christianity, due to the complexities of how the state began to be factored into the way the Church functioned.
Think about it:
1 Clement? First century.
St. Irenaeus, who spoke explicitly of the necessity of communion with the Church of Rome? Second century.
Pope St. Victor attempting to excommunicate the quartodeciman churches of Asia Minor? Second century.
St. Cyprian, who explicitly said that the Church of Rome could not err? Third century.
etc.
Once the state gets involved, things get
more complicated, inconsistent, and indecipherable, not less. Concerning papal authority I personally find the witness of the pre-fourth century Church to be far clearer.
Do you think there is no disconnect about what Eastern Catholics believe and what the Vatican teaches about the Papacy?
I do think there is a disconnect, Constantine; I agree. But we can’t all be theologians. These comments from some eastern Catholics that indicate a disconnect don’t reflect dissent, just inarticulate, imprecise thinking about the matter, just the same as when some Latin Catholics say things that suggest the Absolutist view.
I am confident that the so-called High Petrine view, classical Ultramontanism, is the position of the First and Second Vatican Councils, and the belief of most of our church’s bishops - including the pope of Rome, and including eastern Catholic bishops.
