Hi Annie,
cyclopedia.lcms.org/display.asp?t1=A&word=APOSTOLICSUCCESSION
I just want to clarify something here. Three bishops is the minimum number of bishops required for a consecration by canon law. (See Code of Canon Law § 1014 (quoted below)). In practice, however, it is common to have many more than that present for a consecration. For example, for the consecration of my bishop in the Diocese of Jackson earlier this year, 25 bishops were present.
Thank you for the clarification! Wasn’t meaning to limit the number or anything like that, if my post came across that way. Just noting that Lutherans will include all the surrounding parishes when ordinations take place.
HH, here below is just one reason that I question your assertion that monks (unless those monks were also Bishops) ordained anyone. Notice how early in the Church the Pope exercised papal mandate. Once again I ask you for your evidence.
The next paragraph gave the metropolitan of Arles, “as he has always had,” authority regarding ordinations in three different provinces: the Viennoise, and First and Second Narbonnaise. Whoever dares to give or receive ordination in these provinces without the consent of the bishop of Arles is deposed from the priesthood, Zosimus declared, asserting that he was confirming immemorial privileges held by the Church of Arles since the time of Trophimus, a bishop sent from Rome, from whose mission, attributed to the most distant antiquity, the Catholic faith had spread throughout Gaul. [PL 20: 644-5]
For decades, Arles had been growing in civil importance; it had even become the seat of an imperial prefecture. In the ecclesiastical hierarchy, Arles belonged to the province of Viennoise, whose metropolis was Vienne. The Council of Turin [c. 400] had proposed an arrangement in which each city-- Arles and Vienne-- would share metropolitan rights over the cities closer to its immediate vicinity. Now, thanks to Pope Zosimus, the see of Arles had secured the primacy in Gaul. [Cf. Mansi 3: 861]
In September, the pope disciplined two bishops ordained without the approval of Patroclus. Writing to bishops throughout Africa, Gaul and Spain, Zosimus, citing numerous irregularities, announced that the bishops, Ursus and Tuentius, were illicitly ordained and could not be admitted to communion. [PL 20: 661-5]
When Hilary, bishop of Narbonne, wrote asserting his rights to ordain bishops in First Narbonnaise, the pope replied on September 26, 417. Citing the mission of St. Trophimus, Zosimus declared that the right to ordain bishops in Viennoise and First and Second Narbonnaise belonged to the bishop of Arles. Invoking the authority of the Apostolic See and his own recent “most evident definition,” Pope Zosimus, under pain of excommunication, deprived Hilary of the right of ordaining bishops in First Narbonnaise. [PL 20: 667-8]
Two other metropolitans incurred the pope’s displeasure: Proculus of Marseilles and Simplicius of Vienne. Zosimus wrote to their provinces in late September, outraged that Proculus, in denigration of the Apostolic See, had cited the authority of the Council of Turin and that Simplicius of Vienne had shown similar “impudence” by ordaining bishops in Viennoise. In the name of antiquity, for which the decrees of the Fathers required reverent observance, Pope Zosimus asserted that Proculus and Simplicius had violated the statutes of the Fathers and the reverence due to Trophimus, first metropolitan of Arles sent by the Apostolic See. On September 29, the pope wrote to Patroclus, reaffirming rights that Patroclus enjoyed in Gaul by the authority of the Apostolic See. [PL 20: 665 sq.]
In March 418, Pope Zosimus reaffirmed the extensive authority that Patroclus enjoyed “by pronouncement of the Apostolic See.” The pope also wrote to the clergy and people of Marseilles, entrusting them to the care of Patroclus until they received a new bishop. [PL 20: 673-5]
Meanwhile, answering a consultation from Hesychius, bishop of Salona, who in the pope’s words had called for “a precept of the Apostolic See,” Zosimus reminded him that candidates for orders, whether monks or laymen, must pass through the usual grades and canonical intervals. Surprised that the “statutes of the Apostolic See” had not reached Hesychius, Zosimus directed him to pass on these instructions to the bishops of the neighboring provinces, declaring that whoever ignored “the authority of the Fathers and of the Apostolic See” were subject to severe punishment, and even in danger of losing their rank. [PL 20: 670-73]Of course, all you got us Lutheran and those peculiar Anglicans telling you that there isn’t a 1500 year gap.
Documentation, please.
Sorry you are disappointed. I am late to the party.
Documentation?
Please explain why you think Catholics need to explain the 1500 year gap? Oh and I meant to ask what Presbyterian Church are you a member of?Sorry you are disappointed. I am late to the party.
What 1500 year gap? How do Catholics explain the 1500 year gap? Answer that, and we will talk.
The church is semper reformanda - always reforming, always being reformed.
There have always been and always are, and always will be, false teachers. There are also true teachers. We have always struggled with corrupt leaders. It’s a struggle to find good leaders.
What answer are you looking for? I think you have one, and you are disappointed that you did not get it.
I don’t ignore history or pretend it didn’t happen.
You guys brought it up. I hear Catholics, not Protestants, talking about it, so it seems you believe in it more than Protestants do. If you Catholics want to insist on some mythical 1500 year gap, that is your right, I suppose. But I am not going along with it.
Well Tomi, if I asked you how old you are or what did you have for breakfast that would be too personal. But this discussion is about Protestants and the 1500 year gap. Since you are a member of a Presbyterian Church it would IMHO be handy to know which Presbyterian Church. The “gap” refers to the fact that there was only the Catholic Church for over 1500 years. Dispite the Anglican and Lutheran protestations to the contrary their Churches began 1500+ years ago.
The Methodists and the large current of Evangelical groups that are Wesleyan Methodist based are a form of Anglicanism…so we don’t believe in a gap. I think perhaps it would be some Baptists and the Restorationist churches that would believe the true church went underground?
Pretty good. It is like we reinvented the wheel.Sorry you are disappointed. I am late to the party.
What 1500 year gap? How do Catholics explain the 1500 year gap? Answer that, and we will talk.
The church is semper reformanda - always reforming, always being reformed.
There have always been and always are, and always will be, false teachers. There are also true teachers. We have always struggled with corrupt leaders. It’s a struggle to find good leaders.
What answer are you looking for? I think you have one, and you are disappointed that you did not get it.
I don’t ignore history or pretend it didn’t happen.
I think I fall into the latter group(Evangelical). Yes, half my church may be x catholic. I think they do not ignore their catholic roots. In fact many are grateful for the seeds of truth planted there. They also are not ignorant of the things that may have held them back from seeds growing or sprouting. I would think that to make a decision for Christ, to be baptized into His Body, the past, present and future are comprehended, even illumined.
That’s just it. There is no gap for Catholics. It’s the same Church now as it was nearly 2000years ago (just a little larger). It’s not at all uncommon for non-Catholic Christians to ignore the history of Catholic Christianity from the time of Jesus and the Apostles to the reformation. My Evangelical relatives do this. They rarely talk about or refer to those years before Martin Luther or the British Reformation, but they love quoting the Bible. It’s like Christianity started with Martin Luther. I suppose it’s because they are uncomfortable with the perceived 1500 year gap. They don’t really know what to do with it, except to say that the Catholic Church fell into doing bad things, so there needed to be a reformation. And they don’t want to hear a defense of the Catholic Church. Oh well.What 1500 year gap? How do Catholics explain the 1500 year gap? Answer that, and we will talk.
No gap for us either. There’s been institutional continuity in the Church of England since the end of the sixth-century. Archbishop Justin is the direct successor of St. Augustine of Canterbury. The faith has been present in these islands even longer. The Reformation certainly changed things - putting a new and controversial emphasis on the doctrines of grace and the role of Scripture in the life of the Church - but it wasn’t a new start. It was a revision of something old.
From:ewtn.com/faith/teachings/churb3.htm