Originally posted by NDHoosier:
[b]The POPE himself challenged the Orthodox to HELP him re-define papacy. But NO ONE has EVER done it YET! So, I wish the Orthodox would hush up about papacy if they don't want to help the Pope on that.
Mr. Dundas is 100% on target with this. Ut Unum Sint has been on the table for seven years, and I have yet to hear one Orthodox primate (Metropolitan or Patriarch) take His Holiness up on the challenge. (I haven't heard a reaction from the Oriental Orthodox or the Assyrians either, but they don't make as much noise about the Papacy as the Eastern Orthodox do).
As a matter of fraternal correction, given the existence of Ut Unum Sint, I invite my Eastern Orthodox brethren to put up or shut up.[/b]
It's great that the Pope in
Ut Unum Sint invited the Orthodox (Eastern and Oriental) to help him redefine the papal office.
But I don't see how any redefinition could work.
In considering the papal office as is, one cannot just gloss over Vatican I and its proclamations. One must consider them with the seriousness they deserve.
As Amado wrote earlier:
2. The Church has 3 organs through which She exercises the charism of Infallibility:
i. Through Ecumenical Councils;
ii. Through the Pope in union with the
bishops of the world; and
iii. Through the Pope, singly and
in his individual capacity.
Vatican I defined the third organ, Papal Infalliblity, careful to circumscribed the exercised thereof with clear parameters.
Through the Pope, singly and in his official capacity? I don't think the Orthodox would disagree with points i or ii, but iii is certainly the bone of contention, even with the parameters. When did this happen? Where is this found in Scripture or Tradition? I personally cannot see how or where this can be traced back before the Schism; I only see it as a post-Schism development.
And what do we make about the statement OrthoMan quotes further above:
To Augustine, this made Peter somewhat less than an infallible teacher, without his fellow bishops and all the faithful by his side. It is this statement by Augustine which Pope
Hadrian VI (1522-25) had in mind when he declared:
"A Pope may err alone, not only in his personal, but official capacity."
So Pope Hadrian VI says in his official capacity the Pope can also err? But then where is papal infallibility? If papal infallibility and supremacy were around in the undivided Church, let me know, but all my reading implies otherwise...from the quote above, it doesn't seem to be present even in the divided Church before a certain time.
Brian writes:
I have to disagree with you about Infallibility as Vatican I did state that the Pope had this "charism" independent of Councils and of all bishops. It was the "Roman Pontiff" himself who had this charism based on his authority.
That's the issue. Roman Catholics claim Vatican I is an ecumenical council, and this council (or the Pope through the council, depending on how you look at it) defined things this way.
If the Orthodox redefined the papal office in the only way I think it could be redefined by them (bringing it more in line to how it operated pre-Schism), would the Catholic Church accept it?
After all, the implications are striking. It would mean that Vatican I's "infallible" proclamation of papal infallibility was not as infallible as they thought. The dogmas of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption, proclaimed as they were by virtue of papal infallibility, would have to be lowered back to their original, pre-infallible definition status. Wouldn't the "ecumenical councils" after the First Three or after number seven be not as ecumenical as Roman Catholics thought?
Would Rome be willing to concede all of this?
It's great that Rome is open to redefining the papacy, but if the Orthodox did just that, and the redefinition was along the lines of the pre-Schism papacy, would Rome be willing to agree to such a redefinition and to the consequences of that redefinition? I'm not so sure. To do so would be like throwing out the past thousand years.
Ecumenical statements and invitations are great, and no one supports them more than me. But I don't see the papacy as something over which a compromise can be wrought. Rome's view is so far apart from that of the East, it seems to me one side would have to yield to the other, and I'm not terribly optimistic about this happening any time soon...
So, in my opinion, it's not a matter of simply putting up or shutting up. It's more complicated than that, and we do the ecumenical movement a great disservice if we simplify it to such a degree.
