www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Practical Reforms of the Papacy

Dear East and West,
Not all acts of Oecumenical Councils are infallible.
Stephanos I
While I do believe that the Pope when he speaks ex cathedra speaks infallibly. The question of jurisdiction might not be.
It seems that the late Pope John Paul II seems to have thought that there was room for dicussion.

Father Bless!

I don't know of any priest who wants to be a bishop!

Would you please elaborate on your position on the Universal Jurisdiction being up for debate?

Your unworthy son,

Dr. Eric

Bless, Father Stephanos!

Actually, you would be a WONDERFUL bishop! Have you seen what they have been consecrating to our episcopal ranks lately?

Seriously, your considered, thoughtful advice, based on traditionial principles of faith and practice, is most compelling and I know our people would listen to you gladly and be very happy to have you as their episcopal pastor!

Kissing your right hand, I implore your blessing again,

Alex

Dear East and West,

Thank you for the clarification - and you put things as they are, to be sure!

One Redemptorist I made the acquaintance of at university was working on a doctoral dissertation on this very subject.

After reading a few pages of it, I realized I was out of my depths and so asked him to tell me his thesis in 3,000 words or less

In a nutshell, this is how he proposed a reform of the Papacy and without contradicting what the Church had already defined with respect to it. He said that with respect to infallibility, nothing would change except a development of the same idea - the Pope is infallible WHEN he ratifies the decisions of an Ecumenical Council. In fact, when the dogma of the Assumption of our Lady was proclaimed by Pope Pius XII, the Pontiff did, in fact, consult the views of the world's episcopate before going ahead with the infallible definition.

As to the whole issue of the "later 14 Latin Councils" (the Administrator's terminology here not mine! , IF the Pope affirmed that they were "Local" - that still does not mean that their decisions cannot be applied widely, even universally or that they have no impact on the universal Church.

For example, the Orthodox Church affirms Seven Ecumenical Councils, but there are also the decisions of Local Councils that have been elevated by Orthodoxy to universal status - and clergy are obliged to uphold them.

Your point about the participation of EC Churches in various Councils is one that is the grist for the theological mill and I don't pretend to know how to unravel it. It is a perfectly valid point, period.

To illustrate, at the Council of Lyons, the Greeks who came into communion with Rome not only accepted the Filioque - they insisted it be used liturgically! In fact, they became so intoxicated with the Filioque that that became their primary point of debate with their fellow Greeks who refused the union with Rome.
So what was intended by Rome to simply achieve the union of the Churches on the basis of "you have your expression and we have ours, and we are both O.K." turned into an effort by a number of the Greek Catholics to elevate the Filioque to dogmatic status within their Particular Church!

While Florence failed - its conclusions became the basis of later unions, especially the Union of Brest that brought my Church into union with Rome, so one cannot say that Florence did not have some ecumenical significance.

Vatican II especially saw the participation of EC hierarchs and good Pope John XXIII, working with President Kennedy, liberated Pat. Joseph the Confessor from Siberia in time for him to sit in on the deliberations. Certaily, Pat. Joseph would consider Vatican II "Ecumenical" (and also all 21 Councils).

I think that there is no question but that ALL Catholics must accept the 21 Councils of the Church as Ecumenical.

Should the Pope, and the Administrator knows much more about recent developments but he only comes out at night . . decide to reconfigure the Councils and say that the latter 14 are Local Councils since the East was not present at them, that does not mean that what those Councils taught will somehow be dropped from the ecumenical discussion table.

For example, the Armenians and the other Oriental Orthodox accept only the first Three Councils as Ecumenical. In talks with the Chalcedonian Orthodox, they maintain some good arguments to the effect that the later four Councils were about issues affecting the Byzantine and Roman Churches (which together they call the "Western Church" - it's all a matter of how far east you go! .

So the defense of the veneration of images at the 7th Council has to do, the Oriental Churches maintain, with the iconoclasm that affected the Byzantine Province of the Church alone and had nothing to do with them, since they have always had and venerated images and icons! They now admit that Chalcedon was Orthodox, but there is a lot of bad blood there so they would prefer NOT to commemorate it . And when the topic of Pope Honorius came up, they wanted to know what he did or said that could even remotely be considered "heretical" deserving of anathematization etc.

Pope Honorius did say, in his letter to Sergius, that in Christ there is "One Will." Sounds heretical? Not so, say the Oriental Orthodox. It is no more heretical to say that in Christ there is One Divine/Human Will than to say that in Christ there is One Divine/Human Nature.

Put that way, I don't see how anyone can maintain that Pope Honorius was heretical. Put that way, Pope Honorius was the victim of church politics, more than anything else.

(Do you see how open minded I am? And to think there are those like Tobit who don't like me . . . sniff . . .).

The development of doctrine is something that is very important to Catholicism, as I know you agree. To me, it is the sign of a living, breathing Organism, i.e. the Body of Christ.

I trust the Pope and the guidance of the Holy Spirit that is assured to the Catholic Church to work out the kinks here within that context.

That the Pope is infallible is true because the Church is infallible and he is the guardian of that infallibility as a person bearing the charismata specific to his role and institution. That will never change, but the context in which that infallibility is expressed can change. The Pope expresses infallibly what the entire Church believes by the Spirit - what better way to discern that than through an Ecumenical Council?

Anyway, some thoughts.

Alex

Dr Eric.
While it is the understanding of the Latin Church that the Pope has universal and immediate jurisdiction over the Church, it is not stipulated in which way he has it. So that is open to developement.
It might be said in the future that that jurisdiction is limited to certain situations. Let's say when there were serious problems in another Sui Juris Church which were so serious as to affect the unity of the Church, and after the Pope was called to be an arbitrator in the matter.
Just a thought.
Stephanos I

Actually that is what happened in Vatican I. That Council was a limiting one. It limited the Pope. Prior to this people had the idea that everything the Pope said was infallible.
Vatican I limited it to matters of faith and morals and only after it was solemnly proclaimed ex cathedra. We could say that in the future an understanding could develope where further limitations might be set. Like only after being in consultation with and in union with all the bishops gathered in an Oecumenical Council.
Stephanos I

Thank you, Bishop-in-spe Father Stephanos!

Alex

Sounds plausible. I will reread the vatican statements on papal infallibility and universal jurisdiction. I want to see if such an interpretation as the one you proposed fits within the context of what the council said.

The only problem is that if we over qualify the Peterine ministry, eventually it loses all meaning just like in the Eastern Orthodox Church where first among equals really means first with regard to nothing.

Dear East and West,

Well, if you want me to deny the wonderful mechanism of a powerful Pope to set things aright in the Church when they go wonky - you're talking to the wrong guy, Servant of God!!

Viva Il Papa!

(Sorry, but that comes out of me after I've been on the subject of the Papacy for a bit . . . it's just uncontrollable)

Alex

Orthodox Catholic, can you please expound upon the position you present in your most recent post. It would help this simpleton out a great deal.

I personally think it fits precisely what the Council said, not only in simple context, but openly. For example there is this oft-overlooked nugget in the actual decree of Papal Infallibility:


Basically, the Pope is the guardian of the Church's Infallibility, not the other way around. The actual discussions that went on in the Council about the matter are even more telling in this regard, but I don't have them on-hand and they're quite lengthy.

In this issue, I think the spirit of the law is just as important as the letter of the law, because by the very nature of the office and it's purpose it's difficult to write hard and fast restrictions into it without also inhibiting (what I believe to be) the Divinely ordained purpose of the Papacy. There are ways to write such restrictions properly, I'm sure, but it's a very delicate process. That is why I tend to think that such "pastoral clues" like the one above from Vatican I, and the statement in the Code of Canon Law that the Pope's authority is there to strengthen and reinforce the local Bishop's authority are very important in understanding how the Papacy is intended to operate.

While such statements don't have the same immediate impact of a clear and set law, they do provide an entire context for the operation of the office and the law, much like the "Love God above all things, and love your neighbor as yourself" provides the necessary and life-giving context to the entire body of Hebrew Law. In other words, the Pope who is acting arbitrarily and stepping on the local Bishops on a whim may not be violating a technical provision of jurisdiction, but he's utterly trampling on the the very Petrine Ministry itself:


Fortunately most Popes in history have understood this principle it seems, especially our recent ones.

Just my thoughts!

Peace and God bless!

Did anyone see Fr. Charles Connor's program on EWTN last night?

He has a program on Church History and last night's topic was on Vatican I and the preceding decades which led to it.

It really expounded on the topic at hand, but my brain is so fried from work today I can't remember anything he said except it was Ultramontanism versus Gallicanism.

I also remember from my local history that Archbishop Kenrick of St. Louis voted against Papal Infallibility at Vatican I.

If papal infallibility is only operative when the Pope guards the infallible deposit of faith of the Church, then does that mean that, hypothetically, the Pope could issue some teaching that he might personally regard as being infallible yet is not infallible?

For example, should the Church determine (hypothetically speaking for the moment) that the proclamation of the Immaculate Conception of Mary was in error, or at least that making it a binding dogma was an error, then would that mean that what was thought to be an infallible proclamation was, in fact, not an infallible proclamation?

If papal infallibility is something judged according to what is clearly received in the deposit of faith, then of what use is the whole notion? This was a problem I have always had with papal infallibility. It has always seemed to me that in order for the doctrine of papal infallibility to work, it has to be defined in such a way that it looses all of its teeth, so to speak. It would be like saying (and I believe that someone on this forum has suggested this before) that any Bishop is infallible when the Bishop guards the deposit of faith. Or, to extend it further, it would be like saying that any person is infallible when that person says something true. Truth is incapable of being in error (that would be a contradiction), so any true statement is automatically infallible. But, then what is the point of such a statement? It seems to me that the Roman Catholic Church must intend to say that the Pope, when he decides to render a definitive judgment on a doctrinal matter, teaches infallibly whether the rest of the Church agrees with his definition or not.

Why couldn't the Pope define infallibly as a matter of dogma to be held by all Christians that Eve did, literally and historically, come from the rib of Adam? Why couldn't the Pope define infallibly as Dogma that the moment of consecration of the bread and wine is the words of institution and not the epiclesis? Why would the pope have to consult with anyone? If one says that there has never been consensus among the fathers on these issues, then well, there has also never been consensus on the Immaculate Conception of Mary, not even among western theologians. And what insight does the Pope have that allows him to see that the doctrine of the immaculate conception is infallibly true when the most eminent doctors of the Latin Church rejected it? (Aquinas, Bernard of Clairveaux, Bonaventure, for example). It would seem to me that the disagreement among the most eminent doctors would preclude the Pope from making a statement on his own without the need for the consent to the Church. And it is clear from Vatican I that once a Pope has defined something, one may not appeal to a Council or to the consensus of the Church against the definition. This is why I do not believe in papal infallibility and so I have to say that I don't see how papal infallibility can be reinterpreted so as to satisfy the Orthodox Church. Olivier Clement, in his "Thou Art Peter," has come the closest that one can come to suggesting an understanding of papal infallibility that might work for the Orthodox, but I don't even think that most Orthodox would accept his attempt.

To sum it up, in order for there to be reunion, there would have to be, at the minimum, two reforms of the papal office:

1) The notion of papal infallibility would have to be rejected and it would have to be admitted that the definition of Vatican I was rash and non-binding.
2) The notion of the universal jurisdiction of the papacy would have to be further qualified in such a way that it is clear that the Pope's authority is not unconditional and that the Pope can only intervene under certain conditions and with the consent of the Church as a whole.

And, by the way, I don't think that a "primacy of honor" excludes all authority in the Church. In fact, to be the ecumenical patriarch, the first bishop in the Church, automatically means that one's voice is given serious consideration and weight in preference to other bishops. The same is true for the patriarchs of Constantinople and Moscow. While they do not have jurisdiction over the whole Orthodox Church, their opinions generally matter much more than the Bishop of Miami, Florida or the Bishop of Buenos Aires, Argentina, simply because of the prestige of their respective sees.

Joe