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FathersKnowBest
Guest
I’m sorry, but that is not true, and it is indeed the link at which the Lutheran chain breaks.
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rfournier103
Guest
Of course a Protestant is going to say that… However, God’s Theology NEVER needs to be reformed. Sadly, Protestants seem to be doing that quite a bit.
For example: the PCA used to say that gay “marriage” was against God’s Will. Now, the PCA says it’s okay… even CHRISTIAN!!! Is THAT the kind of reform you’re talking about? No, thanks…
Catholic teaching is never false. I know that for some that is a hard concept to grasp, but how could Christ’s Church teach error???
I agree. There have been some very bad leaders in the Church’s history. Thankfully, they have never corrupted the Word of God or the teaching of His Holy Church.
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Novocastrian
Guest
And yet there are those of us who don’t consider this a challenge at all, on the basis that we’re as much the heirs of Ignatius as you are.
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Denise1957
Guest
I think that the situation with your church claiming to be a continuation of the Catholic Church is a different situation from that to which the OP is referring. If I’m wrong about that, perhaps the person who started the thread could correct me.
Some of the American Protestant denominations don’t really have much (or any at all) of a link to the Catholic Church of the pre-reformation, or they have moved far away from any resemblance to it, and as such, they sometimes have difficulty explaining the “gap.”
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rfournier103
Guest
I know. That was a rebuttal to tomyiris.
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Novocastrian
Guest
Of course that’s not what is being claimed. God’s truth doesn’t need reforming; the Church’s presentation of it sometimes does. Nor is this to say that it always does, same-sex marriage being an example of something traditional protestants and Roman Catholics are united in resisting.
By virtue, presumably, of being composed of fallible, sinful persons. We agree, however, that Christ’s Church can never be overcome or extinguished by the presence of error within her body.
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Novocastrian
Guest
I understand. I should have been clearer that I was offering a distinction for everyone, not a rebuke towards you.
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FathersKnowBest
Guest
Out of necessity, since they had no other way to produce a “bishop.”
Citation?
The Didache says that
Chap. XV.
Code:
1. Elect therefore for yourselves Bishops and Deacons worthy of the Lord, men meek, and not lovers of money, and truthful, and approved; for they too minister to you the ministry of the Prophets and Teachers.True. But they still had to be ordained.
Did you perhaps mean to write:
Again not true and ahistorical: Presbyter ordinations were widely practiced in religious orders in the Middle Ages.
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SyCarl
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A correction. It is the Presbyterian Church (USA) that approved gay marriage, The PCA is the Presbyterian Church in America and is much more conservative.
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Tomyris
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That does nothing to back up your claims about Protestants today, which is what I asked you to document.
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Tomyris
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It was? Oh. Thanks for telling me. Otherwise I would not have realized that was what you were attempting.
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House_Harkonnen
Guest
Yes. Pope Innocent VIII granted that the abbots of the Cistercian order had the right to ordain presbyters and deacons.
Even so, the church fathers report congregational election of bishops.
Cyprian:
“Moreover, Cornelius was made bishop by the choice of God and of His Christ, by the favorable witness of almost all of the clergy, by the votes of the laity then present, and by the assembly of bishops.”
Eusebius states regarding the election of Fabian:
“thereupon the people, all as if impelled by one divine spirit, with one united and eager voice cried out that he was worthy, and immediately they set him on the episcopal seat”*
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IgnatianPhilo
Guest
Some go as far as to believe there were a secret group of churches that all history has neglected to mention and they were of course Baptists. Some don’t want to explain it at all. Some just think the Catholics and Orthodox have corrupted the church fathers.Or some think the church just plainly went corrupt and admit they don’t know what happened until the reformation.
Those are all the explanations I have heard.
Those are all the explanations I have heard.
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Tomyris
Guest
No one here has established that anyone believes in a 1500 year gap. The Protestants have said they don’t believe in any such gap.
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SyroMalankara
Guest
Cyprian also remarks that Cornelius had been ordained by sixteen bishops from the surrounding region, while Novatian had only been ordained by three, the first definite evidence of a true schism in the Roman church.[3]
So the laity had a say in the election of bishops - some still do; especially in Eastern Churches, and many traditionally Catholic Western countries. Some laymen are also included in voting for Anglican higher clergy, why choose the Lutheran version as opposed to one of these?
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Annie39
Guest
Would you give me the refrences for these quotes?
Thanks
Annie
Here is evidence to the contrary. The ordinary minister of the sacrament is the bishop, who alone has this power in virtue of his ordination. Holy Scripture attributed the power to the Apostles and their successors (Acts, vi, 6; xvi, 22; I Tim., v, 22; II Tim., i, 6; Tit., i, 5), and the Fathers and councils ascribe the power to the bishop exclusively. Con. Nic. I, can. 4, Apost. Const. VIII, 28 “A bishop lays on hands, ordains. . .a presbyter lays on hands, but does not ordain.” A council held at Alexandria (340) declared the orders conferred by Caluthus, a presbyter, null and void (Athanas., “Apol. contra Arianos”, ii). For the custom said to have existed in the Church of Alexandria see EGYPT. Nor can objection be raised from the fact that chorepiscopi are known to have ordained priests, as there can be no doubt that some chorepiscopi were in bishops’ orders (Gillman, “Das Institut der Chorbischöfe im Orient,” Munich, 1903; Hefele-Leclercq, “Conciles”, II, 1197-1237). No one but a bishop can give any orders now without a delegation from the pope, but a simple priest may be thus authorized to confer minor orders and the subdiaconate. It is generally denied that priests can confer priests’ orders, and history, certainly, records no instance of the exercise of such extraordinary ministry. The diaconate cannot be conferred by a simple priest, according to the majority of theologians. This is sometimes questioned, as Innocent VIII is said to have granted the privilege to Cistercian abbots (1489), but the genuineness of the concession is very doubtful. For lawful ordination the bishop must be a Catholic, in communion with the Holy See, free from censures, and must observe the laws prescribed for ordination. He cannot lawfully ordain any except his own subjects without authorization
I plan to post a little more ASAP
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Annie39
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I’ve been thinking and I don’t think that I believe in a gap either. The Catholic Church went on and is still the same Church. Sects rose up and carried on and split and have changed what they believe but some keep the same names as they had in the 1500’s
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Denise1957
Guest
How many Protestants have contributed to this thread? Are they really representative of all Protestants? I hardly think so.
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Annie39
Guest
HH
Notice that way back in the 5th century even a bishop could not consecrate another bishop without papal mandate.
Pope Zosimus
When Pope Innocent died in March 417, his successor, Zosimus, made a major change in the Church in Gaul. On March 22, he wrote to the bishops of Gaul, granting extraordinary privileges to Patroclus, bishop of Arles. “It has pleased the Apostolic See,” the pope wrote, that clerics of any rank coming to Rome from Gaul must have litterae formatae, canonical letters of recognition from Patroclus, otherwise they “absolutely cannot be received by us.” The pope added that he had informed all quarters of this order, “so that all regions may realize that what we establish is altogether to be observed,” warning: “if anybody attempts to violate these beneficially established constitutions, let him know that, of his own volition he is separated from our communion.” [PL 20: 642-3]
Notice that way back in the 5th century even a bishop could not consecrate another bishop without papal mandate.
Pope Zosimus
When Pope Innocent died in March 417, his successor, Zosimus, made a major change in the Church in Gaul. On March 22, he wrote to the bishops of Gaul, granting extraordinary privileges to Patroclus, bishop of Arles. “It has pleased the Apostolic See,” the pope wrote, that clerics of any rank coming to Rome from Gaul must have litterae formatae, canonical letters of recognition from Patroclus, otherwise they “absolutely cannot be received by us.” The pope added that he had informed all quarters of this order, “so that all regions may realize that what we establish is altogether to be observed,” warning: “if anybody attempts to violate these beneficially established constitutions, let him know that, of his own volition he is separated from our communion.” [PL 20: 642-3]
Code:
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]
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Annie39
Guest
HH
You can read about fabian here: forallsaints.wordpress.com/2014/01/20/fabian-bishop-of-rome-and-martyr-250-3/
Annie
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