High Petrine view in the early Church

[jmj1984]

Aside from the incompatibility of your view with the numerous sources I have cited there are also several logical problems with your position.

You insist that the Pope cannot act seperately from his brother bishops and cannot impede a bishop in his diocese, let us examine where these statements lead and the issues pregnant within them.

1)Who judges whether the Pope is acting seperately from his brother bishops? Seeing as it is unlawful to pass judgement on the pope who can judge him?
2)What happens when the Pope wishes to make a statement but does not have the approval of his brother bishops? One of two things is possible with your point of view either a) he cannot do so, this is an unjust and non-catholic limitation of the Popes powers or b)the pope somehow makes the statement despite the opposition of his brother bishops as he is somehow linked to them and possesses their consent. This is a self-evident absurdity
3)What happens when a pope wishes to demote or move or promote a bishop or even excommunicate them? Do they need the approval of their brother bishops? This again appears to be putting an uncatholic limit on the Pope’s powers. Must the Pope have a synod? Are then the thousands of decisions where the Pope has done it by his own authority without consultation over the millenia wrong or unjust?
4)Who decides when the Pope is impeding the bishop of another diocese? Are you saying that he can never do it or that only in certain circumstances? Who decides the circumstances? Is someone to be over the Pope and make these decisions?

One can see therefore that your point of view tends to undermine the authority of the Pope and ultimately no matter how it is concealed is the same error of the Orthodox in the middle ages and that of conciliarists and Gallicanism.

 

[jmj1984]

Mardukm I sure do admire your patience!!!

God bless you!

I’m loosing patience even reading this guys close mindedness!

 

[Phillip_Rolfes]

Mardukm I sure do admire your patience!!!

God bless you!

I’m loosing patience even reading this guys close mindedness!

I’m with you, Ciero. Marduk is certainly a very patient man, not to mention well informed.

 

[Hesychios]

I’m with you, Ciero. Marduk is certainly a very patient man, not to mention well informed.

I think they are both well informed, and both patient.

 

[jmj1984]

I think they are both well informed, and both patient.

Thanks, I try, Impatient though I generally am.

 

[louis91766]

Where exactly in the Encyclical does it say that the Pope can act apart or separated from his brother bishops?

When Humbertus excommunicated Cerularius and later on, when the Popes did nothing to overturn or rule against the decree of excommunication, did the Popes act in accord with the Eastern bishops? Or was it the case that all of the Eastern Churches and Eastern Patriarchs and bishops stayed with Cerularius and Constantinople and not with Rome?

 

[mardukm]

Dear brother Louis,

When Humbertus excommunicated Cerularius and later on, when the Popes did nothing to overturn or rule against the decree of excommunication, did the Popes act in accord with the Eastern bishops? Or was it the case that all of the Eastern Churches and Eastern Patriarchs and bishops stayed with Cerularius and Constantinople and not with Rome?

The Popes did not act in accord with the Eastern bishops, and neither did the Eastern bishops act in accord with the Pope. Hence there was/is schism. I’m not sure I understand your point.

Blessings,
Marduk

 

[mardukm]

Mardukm I sure do admire your patience!!!

God bless you!

I’m loosing patience even reading this guys close mindedness!

We can’t let Absolutist Petrine advocates get away with their errors and their perhaps intentional attempts to destroy the unity of the Church. They pretend they support the Pope, but their misinterpretations of Church doctrine undermines the very purpose for which Christ established the papacy - to be a focal point of unity.

My (our) efforts are not for the sake of those who are close-minded, but for the many others who may be sitting on the fence, or who are invincibly ignorant of the true teaching of the the V1 Fathers.

Blessings,
Marduk

 

[mardukm]

Dear brother JMJ

The entire encyclical states it but if you want a particular section ‘Nor does it beget any confusion in the administration that Christians are bound to obey a twofold authority. We are prohibited in the first place by Divine Wisdom from entertaining any such thought, since this form of government was constituted by the counsel of God Himself. In the second place we must note that the due order of things and their mutual relations are disturbed if there be a twofold magistracy of the same rank set over a people, neither of which is amenable to the other. But the authority of the Roman Pontiff is supreme, universal and definitely peculiar to itself; but that of the bishops is circumscribed by definite limits, and definitely peculiar to themselves…’

Sorry, all it says, like I said, is that the Pope has a unique authority that no other bishop possesses. We’re still waiting for you to give the exact place where it says that the Pope can act apart or separated from his brother bishops, or that the Pope can himself impede the authority of an orthodox bishop in his local jurisdiction. If you can’t produce it, just give it up.

Pope Leo XIII clearly distinguishes between the power of the bishops and the power of the Pope not simply when it comes to plenitude of power but also type of power, he explicitly states that the Popes authority is supreme and universal whilst that of the bishops is limited and peculiar to themselves.

Yes, you have demonstrated you are a master of the obvious. Now, please produce the text that states that the Pope can act apart or separated from his brother bishops, or that the Pope can himself impede the authority of an orthodox bishop in his local jurisdiction. If you can’t produce it, just give it up.

He refers to a twofold power, that of the bishops (in union with the Pope) and that of the Pope to the exclusion of the bishops.

Sorry, where does it say “to the exclusion of the bishops”? I forgot to buy a pair of Absolutist Petrine lenses when I joined the Catholic communion.

To say anything else is to render his entire enyclical nonsensical,

The only thing rendering it nonsensical is the misinterpretation you are imposing on it.

if he meant to include the bishops when referring to Papal powers there would be no need to speak of a ‘twofold power’ and distinguish between the two.

It speaks of a twofold power only to disinguish the fact that the Pope has an authority that is unique. There is the FORMAL authority of the Pope with his brother bishops. There is also a FORMAL authority of the Pope that is his personally, that is not shared by his brother bishops. But the Pope uses and CAN ONLY use this personal authority in response to the needs of the Church through his brother bishops. To repeat, you have quoted ABSOLUTELY NOTHING that says that the Pope can act apart or separated from his brother bishops.

There would just be ‘the college of bishops’, for if the college of bishops cannot exercise power without the Pope and the Pope always when exercising his powers includes the college of bishops even if not explicitly then the college of bishops (including the Pope) is the only authority in the church.

Give the man a cigar!!! The College of bishops ALWAYS exists, as Vatican 2 teaches. It is not always acting with the FORMAL authority of a College, but it always exists. The Pope can never separate himself from this College. He is either exercising formal authority WITH his brother bishops, or he is exercising formal authority personally IN RESPONSE TO THE NEEDS of the Church through his brother bishops. AT NO TIME IS OR CAN THE POPE BE OR CAN EXERCISE AUTHORITY SEPARATED FROM THE COLLEGE.

The problem is that the Absolutist Petrine position claims that the Pope’s prerogatives extends beyond the purpose for which Christ established the papacy - i.e., for the building up of the Church. I have debated at least 4 separate Absolutist Petrine advocates here on CAF who denied my assertion that the Pope can only use his unique Petrine prergoatives in response to the needs of the Church (i.e., in an EXTRAordinary manner). Two of these concede their error it was in a debate on the Traditional Catholic Forum many months ago). Two others, in more recent debates, still retain their heterodox opinion - AFAIK.

Pope Leo XIII again throughout the article consistently states that the Pope is above the college of bishops

Sorry, once again, that I forgot to buy my Absolutist Petrine glasses when I joined the Catholic communion. I didn’t read those words anywhere in the text. Can you please give the exact quote again? Your personal interpretations ain’t cutting it.

has powers which he can exercise seperately from the college of bishops
Nope. He can exercise it PERSONALLY, but not separately.

and which the college of bishops can only exercise when it is joined to him and with his assent

'****
And in this formal context, neither can the Pope FORMALLY act apart from the College.

CONTINUED

 

[louis91766]

Dear brother Louis,

The Popes did not act in accord with the Eastern bishops, and neither did the Eastern bishops act in accord with the Pope. Hence there was/is schism. I’m not sure I understand your point.

Blessings,
Marduk

The bishops and Patriarchs of the Eastern Churches did not accept the jurisdiction of the Pope. And even today, they do not accept his jurisdiction over them. The Pope acted unilaterally without the consent of Eastern bishops when he did nothing about the excommunication of Cerularius.

 

[louis91766]

. AT NO TIME IS OR CAN THE POPE BE OR CAN EXERCISE AUTHORITY SEPARATED FROM THE COLLEGE.

When did the Pope ever obtain the ratification of the excommunication of Cerularius from the Eastern bishops? When did he ever obtain the ratification of the declaration of the Immaculate conception from the Eastern bishops?

 

[mardukm]

Dear brother Louis,

The bishops and Patriarchs of the Eastern Churches did not accept the jurisdiction of the Pope. And even today, they do not accept his jurisdiction over them. The Pope acted unilaterally without the consent of Eastern bishops when he did nothing about the excommunication of Cerularius.

I don’t know where you are getting your information. The mutual excommunications of 1054 were not against the member Churches, but directed towards individuals. Forgive me, but I am still not sure exactly what your point is.

Blessings,
Marduk

 

[mardukm]

Dear brother Louis,

When did the Pope ever obtain the ratification of the excommunication of Cerularius from the Eastern bishops?

I don’t know. Again, I’m not sure where you are getting your information from, but the Pope did not excommunicate Cerularius – Cardinal Humbert did (without proper authority, I might add).

When did he ever obtain the ratification of the declaration of the Immaculate conception from the Eastern bishops?

Ahhh. This is a great opportunity to explain the utter vacuousness of the Absolutist Petrine position. What occurred during the process of the dogma of the IC was this:

(1) The bishops appealed to the Pope to settle the matter once and for all (apparently, primarily to answer the Protestant and athiest objections, and the opinions of other-minded Catholic theologians).

(2) The Pope checked the testimony (i.e. WITNESS) of the infallible ordinary Magisterium of the Church.

(3) The Pope made the decision based on this infallible, orthodox witness. an orthodox witness that he has no authority to contradict.

(4) The Pope promulgated his decision in an ex cathedra decree.

The exact same process occurred for the dogmatization of the Assumption.

THIS IS THE EXACT PROCESS DESCRIBED IN THE HISTORIC PROEM OF PASTOR AETERNUS, ACCORDING TO THE STANDARD OF SACRED TRADITION. You’ll notice that at no point is the Pope separated or acts apart from his brother bishops in this process.

The bishops don’t ratify the final decision. Rather, they are involved in the process by which the Pope makes the final decision.

After the decision is made and promulgated, it is guaranteed to be God’s Truth (i.e., irreformible) NOT because the Pope said it, NOR because of the consent of the Church, but because, according to our Faith in what infallibility is, the assistance of the Holy Spirit was active, according to the promise of Christ to his Church through St. Peter.

It is the same thing with infallible pronouncements by an Ecumenical Council. It is not because the Ecumenical Council proposed it, nor because of the consent of the Church by which we ultimately have faith that what the Ecum Council proposed is Truth. It is because we know God would guide the Church in this way according to His Word - i.e., with the assistance of the Holy Spirit through the promise of Christ.

Here’s another way to look at it. Earlier, brother Steveb proposed the error that it is the Pope that makes dogma irreformible. But how can that be? Is the Pope the source of the dogma? Of course not. If it is infallible Truth, it must have been Truth (i.e., irreformible) even BEFORE any agency on earth proposed it, because God’s Truth is eternal. Only God is the source of infallibility and Truth, not the Pope. Absolutist Petrine advocates need to realize this.

I hope that helps.

Blessings,
Marduk

 

[mardukm]

Dear brother Michael, and everyone else,

He was explicitly acting as the official spokesman for the papally-approved, collegially selected Committee that formulated the papal Decrees of the Council. On what basis do you call it merely Bishop Gasser’s opinion? Please explain.

I wanted to take the opportunity to explain this a little more.

Many of you might not know this, but Vatican 1 was the first Council in the Church in which the authority to formulate its decrees was given to a special committee. This was done for the sake of good order because of the sheer number of bishops involved. The normative procedure of past Ecumenical Councils was for all bishops to debate/discuss, vote on, and formulate the texts of the definitions as an entire body. Again, because of the sheer number of bishops involved, the procedure of Vatican 1 was different. At V1, the text was prepared by a select group of bishop theologians known as the Commission De Fide. The entire body then debated/discussed the text and submitted their revisions. A different, select group (the Committee De Postulatis) then sifted through the revisions, deciding which ones were acceptable. The accepted revisions would then be re-submitted to the Commission De Fide for a final ruling on whether to include them in the text of the Decree. This process was repeated 4 times (a preliminary, second, penultimate, and final revision/voting).

So what the entire body of bishops would normally have the authority to do (i.e., directly formulate the text) was explicitly given to a collegially selected group of bishops (the Commission De Fide). This Commission selected a spokesman, Bishop Gasser, to explain the text they formulated to the Fathers of the Council. This explanation is known today as the Official Relatio (or, simply, Relatio).

The ordinary Magisterial authority of the Official Relatio cannot be doubted, any more than we can doubt the ordinary Magisterial authority of the Fathers of past Councils who explained to their flocks the text that those same Fathers produced.

Blessings,
Marduk

 

[mardukm]

Dear brother jmj

Who’s asserting that Denzinger has doctrinal authority?

You are. You keep claiming that Denzinger has the authority to determine what is and what is not the doctrine of the Church.

Also perhaps you should learn how to have an argument without insulting the other person, you only make yourself look bad and lower the tone of the whole discussion by doing so.

If you find it insulting when people call you on your errors, then I have a simple suggestion - divest yourself of the error.

Which people were doing by claiming ‘But in Mansi…’. As for the rest of the pointless ad hominem, thats not how you create a proper argument.

Mansi contains the text of certain sources. Denzinger’s contains the text of certain sources. You can’t set them against each other unless you are making a value judgment on the inclusion or lack of inclusion of the texts they contain. Guess what? You and you alone are the only one making this kind of value judgment on the contents of these text books. Again, take that log out of your eye.

To be honest this entire paragraph appears to be full of bad history

That you refer to a mere relation of undisputed facts (i.e., what went on at V1) as “bad history” merely demonstrates that something is not quite right on your side of the fence.

Blessings,
Marduk

 

[mardukm]

CONTINUED

St. John Chrysostom in explaining the words of Christ asks: “Why, passing over the others, does He speak to Peter about these things? Because he was pre eminent among the Apostles, the mouthpiece of the Disciples, and the head of the college” (Hom. lxxxviii. in Joan., n. 1).
Where does it say here that the Pope can act separated or apart from his brother bishops, or that the Pope can impede the authority of orthodox bishops in their local jurisdictions on just his say-so? I’ll give you the answer - NOWHERE.

"If the divine benignity willed anything to be in common between him and the other princes

 

[mardukm]

Nice try. No cigar. The High Petrine view easily admits that head bishops have ORDINARY jurisdiction (or “power”) in every diocese. This must necessarily be so because if the local bishop is impeded, the head bishop BY ORDINARY RIGHT, takes the reigns, and needs no one’s approval to exercise jurisdiction in that local see when its bishop is impeded. What we do say is that head bishops do not have PROPER jurisdiction in every diocese. This means that (1) a head bishop cannot run the affairs of another See in the presence of its own orthodox bishop w/o the coordinating authority of the local bishop, (2) a head bishop cannot HIMSELF impede the authority of a local orthodox bishop. This is the very thing that Pope Pius VI stated, as noted next.

Just a further explanation here. Pope Pius VI condemned the idea that the Pope only POSSESSES power in extraordinary cases. What the High Petrine view offers, what the early Church believed and practiced (perfectly preserved in practice by the Oriental Orthodox Church [if not perfectly believed], and perfectly preserved in teaching by the Catholic Church [if not always perfectly practiced]), and what Vatican 1 and Vatican 2 taught is that head bishops ALWAYS POSSESS ordinary power or authority. The distinction is that it can only be EXERCISED in an EXTRAordinary manner. It is an important distinction. V1, V2 and our Canons adhere to this by making the distinction between ORDINARY authority, and PROPER authority.

Catholics and non-Catholics should take special note that while our Canons state that a local bishop has ORDINARY, IMMEDIATE, and PROPER authority in his local diocese, the Pope is only described as having ORDINARY and IMMEDIATE authority in that same local diocese. Note that the canonical term PROPER is missing from the description of the papal prerogative. PROPER is the canonical term that refers to the regular exercise of authority. ONLY the local bishop can regularly exercise jurisdction in his local diocese.

NOTE: While the Pope’s authority in another local diocese is described as ORDINARY and IMMEDIATE, the authority of every other head bishop (e.g., Metropolitan, Primate, Patriarch, Major Archbishop, Catholicos, etc.) in another local diocese is described only as ORDINARY. The term “immediate” is missing because that canonical term refers to the fact that the authority comes DIRECTLY from God. The authority of other head bishops does not come DIRECTLY from God, but was established BY THE CHURCH. This is why the authority of every LOCAL bishop is ALSO described as IMMEDIATE - because their authority comes DIRECTLY from God.

As a recap, in any single local diocese:

• the authority of the local bishop is IMMEDIATE, ORDINARY and PROPER.
• the authority of the Pope is IMMEDIATE and ORDINARY.
• the authority of any other head bishop is ORDINARY.

I hope that helps those who are seeking to understand the Catholic Church, or who might currently have a misunderstanding of the Catholic Church’s ecclesiology.

Blessings,
Marduk

 

[mardukm]

Lest I forget, thanks for the clarification and correction, brother.

Blessings,
Marduk

But I will also point out that I simply mentioned Aquinas as an example. The example was: if Denziger does not mention everything that Aquinas ever wrote, does that just make the passages of Aquinas he cited important? This was a rhetorical question aimed at JMJ’s rhetoric of absense/ommission. His response was that Aquinas himself, while being the preeminent Catholic theologian (italics are mine), is not a source of Catholic dogma, so the argument is moot. Whether or not I agree with this comment I’m not going to say. I’m leaving this conversation and deferring to your wisdom, brother Marduk. I just wanted to jump in and defend brother JMJ’s comment so that we could all be clear on what was said.

 

[mardukm]

Dear brother jmj,

I need to go, but I wanted to address one more thing. You often claim that the High Petrine view is akin to Gallicanism.

The difference between Gallicanism and the High Petrine view is that Gallicanism requires consensus to determine truth.

In distinction, the High Petrine view, in adherence to the ancient Apostolic Canon 34, understands that the purpose of consensus is to preserve the unity of the Church, not to determine truth.

All readers, Catholic and non-Catholic alike, hopefully understand that the idea that consensus determines truth is nothing more than a Modernist error (heresy?).

Blessings,
Marduk

 

[mardukm]

I just received a request from a person inquiring into both Catholicism and Orthodoxy to give a refutation of the Absolutist Petrine understanding of the quotes that brother JMJ has given in his posts #132 and #133. Forgive me for being remiss in responding to those. I will do so within 2 or 3 days.

Brother JMJ, let me finish refuting your use of those quotes from posts #132 and #133, then go ahead and please keep these quotations coming. I don’t want to leave a stone unturned, especially as someone has specifically requested it. If you don’t mind, just give them 2 at a time please.

Blessings,
Marduk