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Dear brother StuartK,

I agree that it would be difficult for a new ex cathedra decree to be promulgated in today's atmosphere (not to mention a united Church). But I disagree with your assessment that the point is moot. Whether the Church will ever again have need of the use of the papal prerogative as confirmer of the brethren outside the context of an Ecumenical Council is beside the point. The fact remains that the Pope as confirmer of the brethren possesses this charism in his office. This is a matter of Faith, which Sacred Tradition (including Scripture, of course), supports. God gave us the office of the papacy for the upbuilding of the Body of Christ, so far be it from me to challenge God's order (as Korah had done with Moses - and we know what happened to him).

We know from Scripture that the office of the papacy will exist when Christ returns (see Matthew 24:45-51). We know also that before Christ returns, the Church will experience a tribulation and falling away unlike anything she has ever known. Look at what occurred during the Arian heresy. The Church learned its lesson and canonically recognized the Pope's universal appellate authority (not that it didn't already exist before then) to be the final court of appeal between bishops. We should expect that the tribulation of the End Times will be worse than even the trials brought on by the Arian heresy. Perhaps their will come a time when it would be impossible for the bishops of the world to come together in Council, and we will need recourse to an ex cathedra decree as the most practical and expedient manner to settle an issue of Faith or morals in the Church. As stated, God gave us the office of the papacy. He knows better than any of us. We may not be able to imagine it right now, but He must have given it to us for a reason.

Blessings,
Marduk

If the Petrine Ministry is to strengthen the brethren in unity and truth, then the Pope does not need the doctrine of infallibility. If he speaks the truth on behalf of the Church, then his words will be heeded. Neither does he need universal ordinary jurisdiction. If the Pope speaks in truth to another Church, then that Church will heed the truth. But establishing a priori criteria cannot make a statement true before the fact, and establishing juridical power over others is not how one presides in love.

The papacy was most effective in its exercise of the Petrine Ministry when it made no universalist claims and lacked any jurisdictional authority beyond that possessed by any metropolitan archbishop. Primacy is a function of moral authority, not juridical power, and therein lies the problem of the papacy today.

Stuart:

1) The current state of the Constanopolitan Orthodox Patriarchate shows otherwise; it's a focus of division as much as unity.

2) the Assyrians describe the relationship of the Pope to patriarchs as akin to that of Metropolitans to suffragan bishops. And have since the 400's.

I have two observations:

1. The Ecumenical Patriarchate is not comparable to the Papacy, on several levels. First, in the first millennium, there was a general understanding that Rome was indeed the "First Church", with special standing and certain prerogatives. In the first millennium, the approval of Rome was generally sought for any new or controversial teaching or opinion. Constantinople did not have a similar place within the Pentarchy, even though second in priority after Old Rome. Second, the prestige of the Ecumenical Patriarchate was seriously undermined by its subordination to the Ottoman Turks, in a manner analogous to the way in which the prestige of the Papacy was undermined whenever it was seen to be in the pocket of a secular power. As a result, the Orthodox world developed a different ecclesiology based upon the autocephaly of national or regional Churches, to some extent in contradiction of the ancient canons. The "primacy of honor" extended to the Ecumenical Patriarchate is quite different from the "primacy of honor" exercised by the Papacy in the first millennium, because that earlier primacy was based on a very different conception of honor, grounded in the Roman (as in Roman Empire) concept of auctoritas. In the Roman world, auctoritas existed independent of the potestas associated with a legal or political office. Potestas was grounded in law, auctoritas grounded in custom.

The position of the Pope in the first millennium can be compared to the Princeps Senatus in the Roman Republic. Chosen by his peers because of his dignitas and auctoritas (i.e., his moral standing), he had no legal power (potestas), and few prerogatives, other than to speak first after the sitting Consuls (and before any of the Consulars--though the Princeps Senatus was likely a Consular himself), and to have the last word in any debate. Despite that, the word of the Princeps Senatus carried immense weight, and it was difficult to pass any legislation over his objections; conversely, if the Princeps Senatus endorsed an act, its passage was much more likely.

So, in the first millennium, the views of the Pope were avidly sought by all the other Churches, and his approval of a new doctrine was generally seen as a "Good Housekeeping Seal". Conversely, his objection was usually enough to cause serious reservations.

Through this period, the role of the Church of Rome was largely conservative and passive. Rome, unlike Antioch, Alexandria and (later) Constantinople, did not have its own unique "school" of theology or exegesis, seldom innovated, and was something of a theological backwater. Aside from the intervention of Pope Leo at Chalcedon, there are few instances of Rome actually introducing any new theological concepts. Because of Rome's innate conservatism, its approval of any new doctrine was seen as "passing the smell test". Rome's appellate jurisdiction (also passive, until the Photian controversy) grew out of the perception that Rome would be a fair and independent arbitrator in ecclesiastical disputes.

Only when Rome began to take a more active and expansive view of its own position within the Church does it begin to incite rather than resolve controversies, and in that regard, the Photian Schism seems to mark a turning point, insofar as Rome decided, unilaterally, to intervene in the internal affairs of another Church, rather than act in a purely appellate role.

2. I was present when Mar Bawai Soro gave his presentation on the role of the Papacy in the Assyrian Church. The problem with his paper was a failure to recognize that the situation it described was almost totally theoretical in nature. First, residing outside the oikumene, the Assyrian Church had only tenuous contact with the Church of Rome, usually in the form of correspondence which, because of distance, was generally sporadic and out of date. As relations between the Roman Empire and the Parthian (later Persian) Empire deteriorated, the Church of the East operated almost independently of the rest of the Christian world.

In addition, from 431 onward, formal communion between the Church of the East and the rest of Christendom was effectively broken by the Assyrians' refusal to accept the Christological doctrine of the Council of Ephesus. Granted, this dispute was largely terminological and really revolved around exegetical differences between the schools of Alexandria and Antioch, but the fact remains that after Ephesus, the Church of the East had very little contact with the "Western" Churches.

Thus, the Church of the East possessed a purely hypothetical understanding of papal primacy, which was never really put to the test (unless, of course, you consider the Council of Ephesus to be such a test, in which case, the Assyrians simply did not see the reality in the same light as their theories). Subsequent contacts between the Church of the East and the Church of Rome, in Mesopotamia and India, albeit occurring in the 16th century and later, do not indicate any real jurisdictional aspect to Roman primacy--rather the opposite: faced with the maximalist Tridentine form of papalism, the Church of the East rejected it outright, sometimes resulting in the switch of substantial portions of one particular Church within their communion to an entirely different communion, as happened when the Malabarese rejected the Synod of Diamper, and switched to communion with the Syrian Patriarch of Antioch (by the way, the smoothness with which the change from "Nestorian" to "Monophysite" was accomplished sort of demonstrates how little practical effect Christological doctrines really had).

So, to conclude, I will stick with my assertions that Papacy was at its most effective when it made few universal claims and had very limited formal jurisdiction. As a corollary, as the influence of the papacy waned, it had to make more grandiose claims grounded on a concept of universal jurisdiction, in the process transforming the understanding of primacy into something different from that held by the Fathers.

Chosen by the Byzantine Emperors up until circa 8th century. After that chosen by the Normans and then after that by the important secular leaders and nobility of Rome. I am not sure when the choice of Pope became the prerogative of the Church alone. Anybody able to help with this information?

I was actually thinking of the pre-Constantinian period through the end of the fourth century, during which time the selection of the Bishops of Rome was the prerogative and responsibility of the Metropolitan Province of Rome.

Also, you greatly simplify the relationship between the Bishops of Rome and the Emperors in Constantinople. For a large part of the period between the fifth and eighth centuries, the Emperor did little other than confirm, ex post facto, the selection of the Roman Bishop by the Church of Rome itself. This was due to the tenuous state of communications between the eastern and western halves of the Empire.

For information on the selection of the Popes of Rome and the role of the Emperor in their ratification, you can check out two books by John Meyendorff, Imperial Unity; and (with Papadakis) The Christian East and the Rise of the Papacy. Dvornik, as always, is useful; see Byzantium and the Roman Primacy. For an outside view, see S.M. Hussey, The Orthodox Church in the Byzantine Empire.

I understood the the Imperial Exarch in Ravenna was the instrument through which the Emperor often worked in not merely confirming the Archbishop of Rome in his office but of choosing him.

In theory. The practice was very different, depending upon the exarch, the situation in Italy, the situation in Constantinople, and the degree of confidence felt at the moment by the Roman Church. In a few instances, the Exarch did play a role in selecting the new bishop from among competing candidates (the Emperor played a similar role in the selection of the Patriarch of Constantinople), but more usually, the newly elected Pope would forward a letter to the Emperor through the Exarch (presenting them with a fait accompli), together with his Synodikon for the Patriarch of Constantinople (cc to all the other Patriarchs, who from the 7th century onward were mostly living in Constantinople anyway).

As communications broke down from the sixth century onward, it might be months or years before any letter from the Pope reached Constantinople. Some Popes lived out their entire reigns without being officially confirmed. And a few never even bothered to send a letter requesting confirmation.

In short, the Popes enjoyed a high degree of autonomy except when an Emperor sought to bring one into an ongoing imperial controversy--in which case, assuming the Emperor had the wherewithal, the Pope could be "captured" by the imperial orbit. But then, the same thing happened to numerous Patriarchs in Constantinople. It is anachronistic to think of any separation of Church and state during either late antiquity or the early medieval period. The Emperor had an ecclesiastical function, and as long as the Emperor had pretensions to ruling Italy, that function extended over the Western Church as well as that in the East.

Dear brother StuartK,


I agree that the papacy does not need the doctrine of infallibility, but probably not for the same reason as you. I have the impression you think the focus of the Church's doctrine of infallibility is the Papacy. I, on the other hand, believe the focus of infallibility is the Divine teaching given to us by God (i.e., the Magisterium). In fact, as you probably know, Vatican 1 explicitly changed the title of the decree on papal infallibility from “The Infallibility of the Pope” to “The Infallibility of the Magisterium of the Pope.” So I agree with you that the papacy does not need infallibility. I believe that it is the Church that needs infallibility, because the Church needs Truth (i.e., Divine teaching) which is inherently infallible. Where and when this Magisterium is exhibited, infallibility follows by virtue of the very nature of Truth.

I sense here another difference between your understanding of infallibility and my own. The Truth that is from God does not need to be “heeded” by anyone for it to be objectively true. In other words, objective Truth needs no consensus for it to be true. Would you agree with that? I’ll continue this below when I respond to your “a priori” criticism.

As with infallibility, it is not the Pope that needs it, but the Church. We know that, according to the Lord’s own words, He was going to set one servant (singular, not plural) over his household (not “households” plural, but “household” singular) to feed it (Matthew 24), and we know who this particular servant was (John 21). By the principle of apostolic succession, this office of responsibility and care was passed down to the bishop of Rome, he who was from the earliest times regarded as “the president of love.” It is for the Church that Christ established this office of universal solicitude. The Church recognized this, as previously indicated, by formally acknowledging in the 4th century that the bishop of Rome has universal appellate authority in the Church.

ISTM, the real problem is not the notion of “universal,” but rather the notion of “ordinary” and “jurisdiction.” I’ve already expressed my own problems with the idea of “jurisdiction,” so I won’t repeat it here (though I do give further explanation of my thoughts on the matter later below). With regards to the notion of “ordinary,” it needs to be pointed out that the term “ordinary” is a specific ecclesiological term that has a different meaning from its secular usage. In common parlance, “ordinary” has the connotation of “regular” or “everyday.” If one applies this definition of the word “ordinary” to its use in the decrees and canons on the papal prerogatives, then one gets the impression that the Pope would and could regularly, at any given time, intervene in the affairs of a local see. But that would be an erroneous understanding. The word “ordinary” in ecclesiastical usage does not mean “regular” or “everyday,” but rather “inherent.” It does not refer to the use or frequency of use of a prerogative, but rather to the very nature of a prerogative in relation to the person who holds it.

God’s teaching is inherently infallible. We know that God established a hierarchical order for His people, evident even since OT times. We also know that God gave us this hierarchy, among other things, specifically to provide us with His teaching. These form the basis of apostolic Christianity (as distinct from Protestant Christianity), and they are matters of Faith for apostolic Christians that require no proof. As stated earlier, contrary to your understanding, the focus of the Church’s belief in infallibility is not the papacy, but the teaching office/teaching of the Church. So the matter comes down to three important questions:
1) What are the teaching organs of the Church?
2) When is this teaching office being properly exercised?
3) Is the responsibility of confirming the Faith of the brethren a function of this teaching office?
On the theological level, your “a priori” criticism has no relevance. Do you suppose there is even a time when Divine Truth is not actually truth? If not, your complaint “…true before the fact” makes no sense at all.

On a practical level, however, your complaint bears some discussion. On the practical level, your question really comes down to, “What is the involvement of the rest of the Church in the exercise of papal infallibility?” I will answer this in a subsequent post, which will be a response to brother E’Seraphim’s last post.

Agreed.

The papacy was effective in the united Church of the first millennium because it was an office of care and solicitude, and people viewed it as such. It was only when the Church was wed to the State that this idea of separatist jurisdictionalism came about. As time progressed in this caesaropapist atmosphere, people began thinking in terms of jurisdiction, instead of what the Church needs. As someone else wrote in another Forum, St. Paul condemned this attitude. In his day, people were saying, “We belong to Cephas” or “We belong to Paul” or “We belong to Apollos.” In Medieval times, it became, “We belong to Rome” or “We belong to Constantinople” or “We belong to Antioch” or “We belong to Alexandria,” etc. Nowadays, it is “We are Eastern,” or “We are Western” or “We are Oriental,” etc. Culture and nationalism became more important than unity of Faith, and people became willing to split the Church over “jurisdiction.” So universalist claims is not the real problem. The real problem is jurisdictional claims, whether it is universal or local, and in this, the EOC shares as much blame as the CC.

I wholeheartedly agree. But I don't think it is a problem of the papacy today, if the actions and attitudes of several of the past Popes towards the Eastern and Oriental Churches are any indication. Vatican 2 had made explicit what was already implicit at Vatican 1 - the collegial nature of the Church. The problem, ISTM, is twofold. First, the monarchial, absolutist Petrine interpretation of the papacy still exists in certain quarters of the Latin Church. Second, the very idea of juridical power has infected all the apostolic Churches, because of the marriage of Church and State in the Middle Ages. You complain of universal juridical power, yet how is that any worse than local juridical power? Both Orthodox and Catholics need to recover a vision of the episcopacy - of whatever grade - as an office of service and care for the Church, not in terms of "jurisdiction," as brother AJK had pointed out. This would entail a repudiation of both the monarchial view of the papacy in Catholicism, as well as the phyletism inherent in Eastern Orthodoxy that multiplies "autocephalous" Churches based on nationalistic agendas.

Blessings,
Marduk

I agree. But I do not see Truth as being something reserved to one particular person or group of people within the Church. Magisterium (teaching authority) is an aspect of the Church, not an office within it, and it is something dispersed throughout the Church to all the faithful, each according to his status and gifts.

If the bishops have a special charism to teach true doctrine and pass on what they have received, then the people have a special charism to protect the truth whenever the bishops fall into error--and this they have done on many occasions in the past. The entire Laos tou Theou also has a role in defining what the Church teaches infallibly through the process of reception: no proposition can be considered true until it is received by the entire Church, for the Church is the repository of the Holy Spirit, and through the Spirit the Church discerns the truth.

Councils, synods, and event the Pope speaking ex Cathedra cannot say they are speaking the truth a priori--what they say must be discerned and received as true by the Body of Christ. As far back as Chalcedon, Pope Leo the Great attempted to have his Tome to Flavian accepted by the Council by acclamation, as written--but the Fathers of the Council insisted that everything in the Tome be discussed and considered in light of the Christology of St. Cyril of Alexandria; only with extensive modification was the Christology of the Tome integrated into the Chalcedonian formula. This is true of all propositions; Christ tells us to test the spirits, and when someone brings forward a new teaching, or a new interpretation of an old teaching, it cannot be accepted unless so tested and received by all.


Not so. For instance, the Latin Church has for some time established a set of criteria for an "ecumenical council", saying that if these criteria are met, then the council is, a priori, ecumenical, and what it teaches is true. Now, leaving aside the fact that few of the Great Councils met those criteria, this says if (a) the Pope calls a council; (b) says it is ecumenical; (c) it is attended by a majority of the bishops; and (d) the Pope ratifies its decrees, then (e) the teachings of the council are inherently true and infallible. But we know of councils that met these requirements and were not considered true over time; and we know of others that did not meet these requirements that were. Similarly, just because the Pope goes through the process of meeting the extrinsic criteria for making an ex Cathedra decree does not mean that what he says will automatically be an infallible truth.

Even if he were to get the assent of a majority of the bishops, that does not mean anything, since we know there have been times when a majority of the bishops--including the Bishop of Rome himself--have made statements or approved propositions that the Church later rejected. Everything is subject to reception, until unanimity in the Holy Spirit determines that it is now part of the Tradition.


True. And, as I have said, truth is self-authenticating. But that does not mean that man's interpretation or understanding of God's teaching is inherently infallible, which is why the Church must discern whether an attempt to formulate a teaching is true and consistent with that which has been handed down.


This needs some clarification, as it is not entirely clear whether this is historically true. We need to work on what you mean here, especially as the concept of "caesaropapism" is something of a red herring, presently rejected or at least severely modified by modern historical research.


I have no problem with this. I think, on the essential level, we are in fundamental agreement, though we may have different perspectives or are using different language to express the same thing.

Dear brother ES,

You are reading into the Decree of papal infallibility way more than it intends. The Decree does not address the ways and means through which the Pope comes to his decision, so I don’t know why you should expect it to even mention anything about how the Church is involved in the Pope’s decision-making process when making an ex cathedra pronouncement. The Decree only addresses (1) the historical and theological bases for papal infallibility (contained in the apostolic constitution to the canon), and (2) how we can recognize among all his actions that the Pope is acting in his God-ordained role as confirmer of the Faith.

The clause “without the consent of the Church” has absolutely nothing to do with how the Pope comes to his decision. Rather, it has everything to do with the nature of infallibility – or, rather, the nature of Truth - itself. Truth (with a capital “T” – i.e., Divine Truth) requires no consensus to be Truth. Infallibility is a character of God. It is God’s alone to give. The Church can no more grant infallibility to the Pope (or his teaching), than the Pope can grant infallibility to the Church (or Its teaching).

The fact is, the exercise of the extraordinary Magisterium of the Church (i.e., an ex cathedra decree from a Pope or a decree from an Ecumenical Council) is only ever utilized in response to the needs/requests of the rest of the Church. There has never been a time that it has occurred otherwise, and it is a real stretch to claim that it could ever occur otherwise.

The problem here is that, despite your claim to the contrary, your current criticism is still no different from the criticism that the Church exercises the extraordinary magisterium on a whim. You complain that the consent of the Church is missing in the Catholic paradigm, forgetting that the consent of the Church was already obtained when she first submitted the matter for decision to the teaching authorities of the Church. The teaching authorities (whether the Pope or an Ecumenical Council) always make decisions based on the data submitted by the parties involved (i.e., the Church). The consultation you claim does not necessarily exist is actually inherent in the decision-making process. So the decision of the teaching authority is never truly its own, or independent of the rest of the Church.

Blessings,
Marduk

Both Protestants and Orthodox seem to have that propensity. It must fit their polemic to be more ultramontane than the most fervid RC traditionalist.

Fit this statement into the actual history of the seven Ecumenical Councils, please.

Stuart,

While I agree with much of what your write, it should be noted that even after the break, the vast supermajority of Malabarese soon returned to Communion with Rome, even with an ultralatinized Liturgy and aggressive, foreign, imposing Portuguese bishops. There were some who retained union with the 'monophysite' Syriac Patriarchate but these were fewer in number.

To this day, I wonder how this became so.

On the other hand, if all of the West Syriac based Churches in Kerala (Syriac Orthodox, Malankara Orthodox, Marthoma Syrians [Anglican], MISC [Independent, in loose union with the previous], and Syro-Malankara Catholic] were in one Communion, they would be equal with the East Syrians if not the majority today.

Dear brother StuartK

Then Scripture disagrees with you. Teaching authority is not dispersed, but according to Scripture, given only to a few.

I must disagree once again. The office of bishop is a divinely instituted office. If certain bishops fail in preserving the Truth, then it is the job of other bishops to correct them, not the laity. The laity can certainly express their grievances to the proper authorities (that is their right and their duty - and it is in this manner that we participate in the preservation of Truth), but we can't take it upon ourselves to judge bishops.

I'm only aware of one instance when the laity opposed their bishops theologically without recourse to the proper authorities in the Church - it happened after Florence among the EO. What other instances can you think of where the laity took it upon themselves to oppose their bishops on theological matters, without going through the God-ordained hierarchy of the Church?

The discernment and acceptance of the rest of the Church is not necessary for Truth to be true. To hold otherwise is no different from the modernist principle of "truth" by majority. Rather, it is only necessary for the unity of the Church. Granted - unity is a theological principle commanded by our Lord Himself. For that reason, the discernment and acceptance of the rest of the Church is dogmatically necessary, as dogmatically necessary as the establishment of Truth. But the discernment and acceptance of the rest of the Church is not for the establishment of Truth - rather, it is for the establishment of unity.

Please answer these two questions: Was St. Peter's teaching that the Gentiles are acceptable to God (and should be received into the Church) a divine, infallible Truth, or did it only become infallible Truth when the rest of the Church accepted it? Was the Faith expressed in Pope St. Leo's Tome divine, infallible Truth, or did it only become infallible Truth when the rest of the Church accepted it?

So basically you are saying that an Ecumenical Council only really just proposes "suggestions for the Faith" and does not really determine anything for the Church?
When the hierarchy met at the Council of Jerusalem in Scripture, do you suppose they said to themselves, "we're going to wait to see if the Church receives our decrees. If not, they are not authoritative."
When St. Peter asserted to the Church that the Gentiles are to be let into the Church, did he say, "Well, I really don't know if this is true, so I'll wait to see if the Church accepts it?"
You say, "But we know of councils that met these requirements and were not considered true over time." There's one example I can think of (unless you can think of others) - the so-called 8th ecumenical Council. I think we can judge them in the same way we judge many of the other so-called Ecumenical Councils of the Catholic Church - namely, the purpose of those Councils were purely disciplinary (the matter of Patriarch Photius' reinstatement), and should thus not be considered Ecumenical.
You say, "we know of others that did not meet these requirements that were." I'd like to know which ones these were.
As stated, I agree that the discernment of the Church is dogmatically necessary, not, however, for the purpose of establishing the Truth, but only for the purpose of establishing unity.

I can't think of any. Can you give two examples?

I reject this position for two reasons:
1) The teaching office of the Church is not given to all but only to a few;
2) I don't understand how this is suppose to work practically speaking. The extraordinary magisterium is exercised in response to the needs/requests of the Church as a whole. So this already presumes that the Church is in turmoil about a certain matter - i.e., the Church as a whole can't agree. So the Church as a whole submits the matter to the God-ordained teaching body and the extraordinary magisterium is exercised in order to decide on the matter. Now, you're telling me that the matter is still undecided and must be given back to the Church as a whole, which could not decide in the first place, to make the final decision. It boggles my mind, so I hope you can understand my reservations about accepting the paradigm you propose.

What part needs to be clarified exactly? Also, can you please explain what you mean by caesaropapism being a red herring?

Blessings,
Marduk