Why should I embrace the Catholic Church

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Please read Irenaeus again. He is not saying Rome is merely “one of the leading churches,” no, he bluntly states is has preeminence and superiority – precisely because of its Apostolic basis.

Again, Irenaeus’ argument wouldn’t even make sense if he is claiming that the succession begins merely with Linus. For he is pointing out the need to look back to those churches with apostolic* succession. The monarchical, single, bishop of Rome is traced back to Peter. Yes, Paul too, but we know from the greater context of the early Church why Rome was seen as the “principal church” (to use Cyprian’s language): It was because of Peter. Nevertheless, Catholic tradition has never ceased to regard Rome’s preeminent foundation in Paul as well.

Also, there is some fluidy with how we understand Linus, Cletus, and Clement as being ordained. Just because one is ordained as bishop/presbyter doesn’t mean they were then acting as monarchical bishop of Rome. For instance, Tertullian and others says that Peter ordained Clement. This could mean he was indeed ordained but not yet acting as single bishop of Rome until after Cletus.

It also wouldn’t affect Catholic teaching if we acknowledge Linus and Cletus as merely associates of Peter (like today’s “auxiliary bishop”), and recognizing Clement as the genuinely first bishop directly succeeding Peter.

All in all, Irenaeus says “all churches” and Christians “everywhere” must agree with Rome. It’s not merely a chief example: For Irenaeus, Rome is the guarantee center of orthodox and Christian communion.
 
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Of course Cyprian believed communion with Rome was necessary.

He calls Rome the “principal church,” from which the church’s “sacerdotal” unity finds origin (in Peter). He bluntly equates leaving Peter as leaving communion with the Church.

Elsewhere, he equates being in communion with Rome as being in communion with the Catholic Church:

(Note below that Cornelius is Bishop of Rome/Pope:)
  • “Cyprian to Cornelius, his brother. Greeting. . . . We decided to send and are sending a letter to you from all throughout the province [where I am] so that all our colleagues might give their decided approval and support to you and to your communion, that is, to both the unity and the charity of the Catholic Church” (Letters 48:1, 3)
  • “Cyprian to Antonian, his brother. Greeting … You wrote … that I should forward a copy of the same letter to our colleague Cornelius, so that, laying aside all anxiety, he might at once know that you held communion with him, that is, with the Catholic Church” (Letters 55[52]:1).
  • “Cornelius was made bishop by the decision of God and of his Christ, by the testimony of almost all the clergy, by the applause of the people then present, by the college of venerable priests and good men … when the place of Fabian, which is the place of Peter, the dignity of the sacerdotal chair, was vacant. Since it has been occupied both at the will of God and with the ratified consent of all of us, whoever now wishes to become bishop must do so outside [the Church]. For he cannot have ecclesiastical rank who does not hold to the unity of the Church” (Letters 55[52]:8).
  • “With a false bishop appointed for themselves by heretics, they dare even to set sail and carry letters from schismatics and blasphemers to the chair of Peter and to the principal church, in which sacerdotal unity has its source” (Letters 59:14).
 
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Cyprian wrote nothing about Rome here. This writing used Peter as an example for unity. The version you provided is not the one accepted by scholars.
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It’s well-established that Cyprian himself had two versions. Some argue Cyprian backed down on the flowery language about the Bishop of Rome because of his personal disagreements. Interesting how the Catholic Church would go on to accept the Roman view, though, and in the end Cyprian was in error.
 
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catholic1seeks said:
Please read Irenaeus again. He is not saying Rome is merely “one of the leading churches,” no, he bluntly states is has preeminence and superiority – precisely because of its Apostolic basis.
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Irenaeus wrote that it would be too tedious to give the successions of all of the churches, so he gave the succession of the church in Rome. This is the city where he was, as well as where the principle heretics he was addressing were. He also mentioned the foundations of the church in Smyrna and Ephesus in this chapter. There is debate about the translation of the sentence: “For it is a matter of necessity that every Church should agree with this Church, on account of its pre- eminent authority, that is, the faithful everywhere, inasmuch as the apostolical tradition has been preserved continuously by those [faithful men] who exist everywhere.” I am not a scholar in Greek. I do think that if he truly thought that the Roman Bishop had the gift of infallibility and held the keys with the power to bind and loose, that he could have just written this. Why would he neglect such a crucial fact that Roman Catholics present today as to why they are exclusively right? The same sentence reveals that he believed that the apostolic tradition (teaching) had been preserved by faithful men everywhere - not just Rome. He did boast about the church in Rome, but he did not hold to the modern day understanding of Papal supremacy and infallibility.
 
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catholic1seeks said:
Again, Irenaeus’ argument wouldn’t even make sense if he is claiming that the succession begins merely with Linus. For he is pointing out the need to look back to those churches with apostolic* succession. The monarchical, single, bishop of Rome is traced back to Peter. Yes, Paul too, but we know from the greater context of the early Church why Rome was seen as the “principal church” (to use Cyprian’s language): It was because of Peter. Nevertheless, Catholic tradition has never ceased to regard Rome’s preeminent foundation in Paul as well.

Also, there is some fluidy with how we understand Linus, Cletus, and Clement as being ordained. Just because one is ordained as bishop/presbyter doesn’t mean they were then acting as monarchical bishop of Rome. For instance, Tertullian and others says that Peter ordained Clement. This could mean he was indeed ordained but not yet acting as single bishop of Rome until after Cletus.

It also wouldn’t affect Catholic teaching if we acknowledge Linus and Cletus as merely associates of Peter (like today’s “auxiliary bishop”), and recognizing Clement as the genuinely first bishop directly succeeding Peter.
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So Catholics are not required to believe that the Roman Catholic list of Popes is true? Do you think that the Roman Catholic Church is wrong about the early Popes? Their list shows that Clement became Pope in 88 AD. Was Peter still alive then?
Irenaeus believed that Peter (and Paul) ordained Linus as the Bishop of Rome and then departed from the city. So the first Bishop of Rome (or 2nd if we were to believe that Peter was first) did not have Papal authority. How then did Peter’s role arrive back in Rome?
I think that either Irenaeus and/or the Catholic Church has to be wrong.
catholic1seeks said:
All in all, Irenaeus says “all churches” and Christians “everywhere” must agree with Rome. It’s not merely a chief example: For Irenaeus, Rome is the guarantee center of orthodox and Christian communion.
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Which translation says, “guarantee center of orthodox?” Papal infallibility would have been a strong point in his disagreement with the Gnostics. Catholics today use this point over and over to support their religion. Irenaeus did not mention it.
 
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catholic1seeks said:
Of course Cyprian believed communion with Rome was necessary.

He calls Rome the “principal church,” from which the church’s “sacerdotal” unity finds origin (in Peter). He bluntly equates leaving Peter as leaving communion with the Church.

Elsewhere, he equates being in communion with Rome as being in communion with the Catholic Church:

(Note below that Cornelius is Bishop of Rome/Pope:)

“Cyprian to Cornelius, his brother. Greeting. . . . We decided to send and are sending a letter to you from all throughout the province [where I am] so that all our colleagues might give their decided approval and support to you and to your communion, that is, to both the unity and the charity of the Catholic Church” (Letters 48:1, 3)

“Cyprian to Antonian, his brother. Greeting … You wrote … that I should forward a copy of the same letter to our colleague Cornelius, so that, laying aside all anxiety, he might at once know that you held communion with him, that is, with the Catholic Church” (Letters 55[52]:1).

“Cornelius was made bishop by the decision of God and of his Christ, by the testimony of almost all the clergy, by the applause of the people then present, by the college of venerable priests and good men … when the place of Fabian, which is the place of Peter, the dignity of the sacerdotal chair, was vacant. Since it has been occupied both at the will of God and with the ratified consent of all of us, whoever now wishes to become bishop must do so outside [the Church]. For he cannot have ecclesiastical rank who does not hold to the unity of the Church” (Letters 55[52]:8).

“With a false bishop appointed for themselves by heretics, they dare even to set sail and carry letters from schismatics and blasphemers to the chair of Peter and to the principal church, in which sacerdotal unity has its source” (Letters 59:14).
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This disagreement centered around Novatian who was an antipope. There was much disagreement as to who would be the Bishop of Rome after Fabian died. It took over a year for Cornelius to be chosen. Then Novatian was also declared as the Bishop of Rome and had his church of supporters. Cyprian was supporting Cornelius (catholic Church) and not Novatian (Novatianism) who Cyprian believed was a heretic. Novatian was the one who left the catholic Church according to Cyprian in these letters. I do not think he is saying that Cornelius has authority and a supremacy over all orthodox churches. I have not been able to find all of those letters because the numbering of his letters vary, but I didn’t see him write anything about Papal authority over all churches. Did you find that in a letter?
 
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catholic1seeks said:
It’s well-established that Cyprian himself had two versions. Some argue Cyprian backed down on the flowery language about the Bishop of Rome because of his personal disagreements. Interesting how the Catholic Church would go on to accept the Roman view, though, and in the end Cyprian was in error.
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Do you know where I can find the full text for the first edition? Did he mention that Peter passed a special authority to the Bishop of Rome? Or just that he was the origin of unity from a church that began from one (as opposed to 12 churches)?

Why didn’t Cyprian and 87 fellow bishops follow Stephen’s decision about the baptism of heretics?
 
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@susanlo

Part of the problem with this kind of discussion is that it misses a deeper, broader hermeneutical key to understanding the Christian faith and church history.

I see you are Christian (but not Catholic). There are foundational issues we have to speak to, such as, How do we even know what IS the content of the Christian faith? How did Christ want our lives to be guided in our search for the Truth — and how do we know this?

There will always be debate around specific historical data when one has to find a way to forge that data into one’s own worldview. There are anti-Catholics like James White (for example) who will try to twist and distort every piece of Patristic evidence for Real Presence Eucharist in an attempt to say exactly the opposite of what they bluntly said.

Similar when it comes to the primacy of Peter in Rome. We can take the specific data, but we have to ask the foundational questions first. And we also must look at the broader picture. Did the early Church know of ANY OTHER church as holding the primacy? Nope. The consensus was always Rome. What was the reason for Rome’s primacy? The earliest answers, as provided by Pope Stephen in the 3rd century, and Cyprian too, and Irenaeus, and Ignatius of Antioch, and Tertullian were precisely Peter’s presence and authority.
 
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catholic1seeks said:
Similar when it comes to the primacy of Peter in Rome. We can take the specific data, but we have to ask the foundational questions first. And we also must look at the broader picture. Did the early Church know of ANY OTHER church as holding the primacy? Nope. The consensus was always Rome. What was the reason for Rome’s primacy? The earliest answers, as provided by Pope Stephen in the 3rd century, and Cyprian too, and Irenaeus, and Ignatius of Antioch, and Tertullian were precisely Peter’s presence and authority.
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The earliest writers did not believe that any church had primacy to rule over another. It isn’t that some believed that Bishop of Rome had rule, and others thought Alexandria or Jerusalem. There were apparently some bold claims made by Roman Bishops. I haven’t seen these statements in writing, but I have seen the responses.

Tertullian to Callistus of Rome:
“If, because the Lord has said to Peter, Upon this rock will I build My Church, to you have I given the keys of the heavenly kingdom; or, Whatsoever you shall have bound or loosed in earth, shall be bound or loosed in the heavens, you therefore presume that the power of binding and loosing has derived to you, that is, to every Church akin to Peter, what sort of man are you, subverting and wholly changing the manifest intention of the Lord, conferring (as that intention did) this (gift) personally upon Peter? On you, He says, will I build My Church; and, I will give to you the keys, not to the Church; and, Whatsoever you shall have loosed or bound, not what they shall have loosed or bound.”
On Modesty, Chapter 21
Tertullian and Hippolytus had a dispute with Callistus of Rome. Hippolytus is considered to be an “antipope” as well as a canonized Saint.

Earlier in this thread I already posted the response of Cyprian and 87 Bishops who held a council in response to Stephen. They clearly thought that no bishop could be the “bishop of bishops.”

Irenaeus wrote that the Church in Rome was held in high esteem and was founded by 2 apostles. (Although we know that this church existed before Paul ever arrived in Rome.) But he never wrote that this church had authority over the other churches.

Ignatius’ letters do not show that he believed that Rome had authority either. In fact Ignatius seemed to think that he had some authority to give instructions and counsel to other churches. His letters are filled with warnings and encouragements for many of the other churches.

The only way a case can be made for a Pope ruling over other churches in the first few hundred years is by taking these writings out of context. I have seen the above quoted writing from Tertullian cited as proof that he believed in a Papacy. This is clearly untrue when we actually read the whole thing. The Papacy idea gained steam between the 4th-7th century and beyond.
 
The earliest writers did not believe that any church had primacy to rule over another. It isn’t that some believed that Bishop of Rome had rule, and others thought Alexandria or Jerusalem. There were apparently some bold claims made by Roman Bishops. I haven’t seen these statements in writing, but I have seen the responses.
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Sure they did. No one in the 2nd century objected to the Pope Victor ability and authority to excommunicate entire churches over the Easter controversy.

Irenaeus says “all churches” must agree with Rome. This implies submission to Rome, which is the “superior church.”

Again even earlier, The Church of Rome sent a letter to a distant church well out of Roman territory to the Corinthian church — the same community Paul had addressed. However one wants to interpret this letter, it is at least evident that Rome understood itself in this instance to have responsibility for another church. As an isolated event, we can’t be as exact. But again, with additional context, we know why: Rome was the church with primacy.

Ignatius does counsel other churches — but not Rome. He gives the highest of praises to the Roman church, unlike his addresses to others. He says that the Roman church “presides” over “love,” or what many have interpreted as the “bond of love” or the Christian way of love. Again, at the end of his letter, he says God will be the Syrians’ bishop — together with the love of the Roman church. All of this because of Rome’s foundation in “Peter and Paul,” not like them does Ignatius “give orders.”

Name me another church that held primacy in the church within the church pre-Byzantine Constaninople.
 
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The Latin Church and the Maronite Church are sui juris (particular) churches not rites. They belong to a rite. A church is a community of believers and a rite is how that community of believers live out their faith (liturgically, theology, prayer life, etc.).
 
But also @susanlo, we are missing the bigger hermeneutical key when looking back at Church history.

It would be a mistake to look to the first few centuries of the Church expecting to find everything we find today, in every expression and detail.

The early Church was a persecuted community. Connections among churches is not what it is today, or even the medieval period. It wouldn’t make sense practically to find the Bishop of Rome acting as universal leader in every capacity that he does now. The Christian communities were simply not connected in the same way they later would be.

That doesn’t mean the foundation wasn’t always there. We see Roman primacy more and more, and in different ways expressed, in every century onward.

Again I ask: How does Christ want us to know the faith?
Did Christ really mean for us to have to sort through ancient historical data in order to know what we are supposed to believe today? Do we really have to debate back and forth what this church father said in order to know what we are supposed to believe today? Or did Christ maybe grant an authority to his church that is found in every age — and not merely the first 300 hundred or so years in the church. Did Christ give us shepherds with authority to bind and loose? To preach what is of Christian faith?
 
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You should definitely become Catholic. I suggest talking to a Traditional Catholic priest to clear up any questions you might have. Try the SSPV or SSPX
 
Masihi . . . .
The apostle Paul, in fact, rebukes Peter when Peter was leading others astray (Galatians 2:11-14).
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To me this affirms the veracity of the teaching of St. Peter. Not does away with it.

But you brought it up concerning you saying, “Peter was not the “commander” or supreme authority over the other apostles” . . . and elsewhere . . . “Scripture, taken in context, nowhere declares that he was in authority over the other apostles or over the church”.

This is wrong. Sacred Scripture DOES teach of St. Peter’s authority over the other apostles and over the church.

But Galatians 2:11-14 is irrelevant in this regards (the “authority” issue).

God bless.

Cathoholic
 
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“susanlo said:
“catholic1seeks said:
Similar when it comes to the primacy of Peter in Rome. We can take the specific data, but we have to ask the foundational questions first. And we also must look at the broader picture. Did the early Church know of ANY OTHER church as holding the primacy? Nope. The consensus was always Rome. What was the reason for Rome’s primacy? The earliest answers, as provided by Pope Stephen in the 3rd century, and Cyprian too, and Irenaeus, and Ignatius of Antioch, and Tertullian were precisely Peter’s presence and authority.
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The only way a case can be made for a Pope ruling over other churches in the first few hundred years is by taking these writings out of context.
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And it is also possible that you are the one taking these writings out of context…using the context of your protestant eyes…that do not see any primacy about Rome.
So…have you realized this as well, that it is possible you are the one reading them out of context?
I have seen the above quoted writing from Tertullian cited as proof that he believed in a Papacy. This is clearly untrue when we actually read the whole thing. The Papacy idea gained steam between the 4th-7th century and beyond.
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But this is the time when the Church got out of being persecuted…do you see anything bad at all with this?
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Do you see this idea of gaining steam guided by the Holy Spirit or not?


The more I understood Catholic doctrine, the more I could appreciate the need for the Church and the magisterium. Clarity of theology and ecclesiology go hand-in-hand. This was first true for the Early Church. Back to that moment when the papacy made sense in the Westminster library. One interesting observation I found was that a greater understanding of the significance of the papacy developed alongside the development of Christology. As we study Early Church history, we find that writings in the first two centuries paled in clarity when compared with Scripture. But doctrinal clarity in the writings of the Early Church Fathers dramatically increased as questions of Christology were resolved in the fifth century. This happens to be at the same time that ecclesiology became more defined through the strengthening of the papacy. The broad parallels suggest that this is no mere coincidence. In order to define the faith in the early Church, the center had to hold. That was found through the papacy in the Catholic Church. The need today is no different–both for the broader Church and in our individual lives.
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I think that I would become an eastern catholic because I do not wish to give up my traditions and rite. In the future I would possibly either become a Melkite or Maronite Catholic.
 
How can be an Eastern Catholic as communion doesn’t mean recognizing Rome’s primacy it also means having unity in beliefs so how does this work?
 
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