SSTeacher;6486723:
In this context, I suppose primacy
might be seen if one supposes five guys who understand that they are equal in all respects and have mutual respect for each other but who have agreed amongst themselves that they will defer to Guy No 1 in the event that they find difficulty in agreeing amongst themselves. In this same scenario,
supremacy might be seen to develop if Guy No 1 gratuitously asserts that he’s in a much higher position than the other four guys.
In the primacy model, Guy No 1 does not seek power for its own sake but rather sees his role as that of an arbitrator but he will only arbitrate if called upon to do so by the other four guys. In the supremacy model, Guy No 1 actively seeks power and considers that the other four guys are subordinate to him so he will not tolerate any insubordination from them.
In the primacy model, Guy No 1 sees himself as a servant who will serve in an advisory capacity if he is called upon by his four equals to do so whereas in the supremacy model Guy No 1 sees himself as a master with the authority to issue gratuitous instructions and commandments to the other four subordinates in whatever way he sees fit and in the event of dissension considers that he has the power to take disciplinary action against them.
Thoughtfully,
Mick
:thumbsup:When did the term “first among equals” appear, i.e., have any church fathers ever used this term in connection to the bishops of Rome? And how does this ecclesiology fit in with the hierarchical structure of the Kingdom of Israel/Judah (King (Jesus), Steward (key-bearer), ministers (bishops), queen Mother (Blessed Virgin Mary) with that of the Kingdom of God, i.e., the Church, being that there is a continuity between Old and New?
Please read this article from Father Ray Ryland about the pentarchy theory:
catholic.com/thisrock/1998/9806eaw.asp
Many thanks. But Father Ryland is a Catholic and he’s on the staff of
Catholic Answers so he doesn’t agree with the Orthodox view and says so. I’m not quite clear on why you wanted me to read that article. My presuppositions are already in place as are yours and Father Ryland’s. It’s quite nicely written, admittedly, but that’s as far as I feel I want to praise it. I’m prepared to accept that Father Ryland is putting the Catholic view when he writes at the conclusion of his article:
Arbitrator? First among equals? No. Sovereign pontiff.
I don’t accept the idea of a sovereign pontiff. But I accept that Catholics embrace this idea because they are required to do so. The mark of a good Catholic, as Catholic theologian Frank Sheed has pointed out, is to do as the Catholic Church teaches. But if one isn’t a Catholic because one has objections to Catholic teachings then that Catholic trait of doing as the Catholic Church teaches will likely be absent.
Perhaps I can take this idea of Catholicism adduced by Frank Sheed and briefly consider what happened to Archbishop Lefebvre. He did as the Catholic Church teaches but he came up against a pope that is supreme and so the archbishop was excommunicated.
I feel quite strongly about this. In the 1970s after I was discharged from the British Army, I returned to London, moved across the Thames to South London, and discovered that Michael Davies was a neighbor. Michael was a primary (elementary) schoolteacher and a Catholic Traditionalist and closely connected with the SSPX. He was also a writer. He didn’t own a car so I used to drive him and his family to the Great Western hotel at Paddington Station every Sunday morning to hear a Tridentine Mass. And when we got back home I’d play chess with one of his sons.
I thought it was the strangest thing that there were Catholics who’d been forced out of their churches for wanting to worship as they’d always done. I recall reading a book that one of those Traditionalists gave me. It was called
Pastor Out In The Cold and the author was Yves Normandin. He was a Canadian. As I understood it in those days, any Catholic that dared to object to the
Novus Ordo Missae was ostracized, victimized or marginalized. And any priest that objected was thrown out of his parish – as happened to Father Normandin. All done in the “spirit of Vatican II.” And three consecutive popes endorsed this state of affairs. It was Pope John Paul II who excommunicated Archbishop Lefebvre. I recall that Michael Davies wrote about the whole subject in his characteristically clear way in
Apologia Pro Marcel Lefebvre.
I hung about with those Catholic Traditionalists for a few years but then my domestic life took a turn for the worse and I dropped all interest in religion. I got interested in it again in 2000 when I decided to convert from my deism/agnosticism to American Evangelicalism, having moved to the United States in 1990.
What I remember about those Traditionalists is how unhappy they were. I’ve perused the posts in the
Traditional Catholicism forum on this site and my impression is that there are a fair number of unhappy Catholics still around who deplore the decline of the sacred inside the Catholic Church. And it seems to me that an infallible and supreme pontiff has to be held responsible for this situation.
I’ve seen none of this sort of division in Orthodoxy. They lumber along in their conservative way, it’s true, but the Divine Liturgy is ethereal. The idea that the Orthodox would give it up in favor of some worship–arts, pop–culture, Protestant–influenced, gender–friendly concoction is unthinkable.
Lex orandi, lex credendi.
We have no pope and yet we cope.
Ecumenically,
Mick
) a differing idea about the original sin.
