{"id":25932,"date":"2017-12-05T00:00:55","date_gmt":"2017-12-05T06:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.markmallett.com\/blog\/?p=25932"},"modified":"2024-01-19T14:02:27","modified_gmt":"2024-01-19T19:02:27","slug":"the-papacy-is-not-one-pope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markmallett.com\/blog\/the-papacy-is-not-one-pope\/","title":{"rendered":"The Papacy is Not One Pope","gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"text"}]},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The Chair of Peter, <\/span><\/em>St. Peter’s, Rome; Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

OVER<\/strong> the weekend, Pope Francis added to the\u00a0Acta Apostolicae Sedis<\/em> (the record of the papacy\u2019s official acts) a letter he sent to the Bishops of Buenos Aires last year, approving their guidelines<\/a> for discerning Communion for the divorced and remarried based on their interpretation of the post-synodal document, Amoris Laetitia<\/em><\/a>. But this has served to only further stir muddy\u00a0waters over the question of whether or not Pope Francis is opening the door for Communion to Catholics who are in an objectively adulterous situation.<\/p>\n

The reason is that #6 of\u00a0the Bishops’ guidelines<\/a> suggests that, when couples have remarried (without an annulment) and do not abstain from sexual relations, the possibility of recourse\u00a0to the Sacraments may still be possible when ‘there are limitations that mitigate responsibility and culpability.’ The problem lies precisely in how one, who knows that they are in an objective state of mortal sin, with no intention to change that state, can still have recourse to the Sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist. The Bishops’\u00a0guidelines provide no concrete examples of such a ‘complex’ situation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Given the nature of this “official act” of Francis and the ambiguity of both the guidelines<\/a> and Amoris Laetitia<\/a><\/em>, Thomas Pink, professor of philosophy at\u00a0King\u2019s College London says, given that the Bishops’ document…<\/p>\n

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…is not entirely clear, does not meet conditions for infallibility, and comes without any accompanying explanation of its relation to previous teaching,\u201d it can scarcely \u201coblige Catholics to believe anything inconsistent with what the Church has so far taught and which they were already under an obligation to believe.\u201d<\/strong> \u2014Catholic Herald<\/em><\/a>, December 4th, 2017<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

As Dan Hitchens of the Catholic Herald<\/em> points out in a refreshingly respectful article:<\/p>\n

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The Church down the ages has taught that the divorced and remarried, if in a sexual relationship, cannot receive Communion. You\u2019ll find it in the Church Fathers<\/a>; in the teaching<\/a> of Popes St Innocent I (405) and St Zachary (747); in the recent documents<\/a> of Popes St John Paul II, Benedict XVI and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. All the teaching<\/a>\u00a0of the Church about sin, marriage and the Eucharist would have been understood by those promulgating it to have excluded the sexually-active divorced and remarried from Communion. This has also become part of the Catholic mind: the prohibition is casually referred to by the likes of GK Chesterton<\/a>\u00a0and Msgr. Ronald Knox (1888-1957) as Catholic doctrine, and there can\u2019t be much doubt that if you picked a random saint from the history of the Church and asked them what the Church taught, they would tell you the same thing.<\/strong> \u2014Ibid.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

That teaching was made explicit again by Pope St. John Paul II in his Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio<\/em>:<\/p>\n

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The Church reaffirms her practice, which is based upon Sacred Scripture, of not admitting to Eucharistic Communion divorced persons who have remarried. They are unable to be admitted thereto from the fact that their state and condition of life objectively contradict that union of love between Christ and the Church which is signified and effected by the Eucharist. Besides this, there is another special pastoral reason: if these people were admitted to the Eucharist, the faithful would be led into error and confusion regarding the Church\u2019s teaching about the indissolubility of marriage.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Reconciliation in the sacrament of Penance which would open the way to the Eucharist, can only be granted to those who, repenting of having broken the sign of the Covenant and of fidelity to Christ, are sincerely ready to undertake a way of life that is no longer in contradiction to the indissolubility of marriage. This means, in practice, that when, for serious reasons, such as for example the children\u2019s upbringing, a man and a woman cannot satisfy the obligation to separate, they \u201ctake on themselves the duty to live in complete continence, that is, by abstinence from the acts proper to married couples. <\/strong>\u2014Familiaris Consortio, “On<\/em> the Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World”, n. 84; vatican.va<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This is all to say that\u00a0the papacy is not one pope….\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The following was first published February 2nd, 2017:<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

THE <\/strong>papacy of Pope Francis is one that has been dogged from nearly the beginning with controversy after controversy.\u00a0The Catholic world\u2014in fact, the world at large\u2014is not used to the style of the man who presently holds the keys of the Kingdom. Pope John Paul II was no different in his desire to be with and among the people, touching them, sharing their meals, and lingering in their presence. But the papal\u00a0saint\u00a0was also very precise whenever he addressed matters pertaining to “faith and\u00a0morals”, as was Benedict XVI.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Not so their successor.\u00a0Pope Francis is unafraid to take on any question from the media, including those\u00a0outside the mandate of the Church on matters of\u00a0“faith and morals”, and address them in the most colloquial terms, and sometimes, with open-ended thoughts. This has forced many a\u00a0listener, myself included, to make sure that the entire context of his thoughts are taken into consideration. Sometimes this means going\u00a0over more than one interview, homily, or papal document. But it must go beyond that.<\/em> Any teaching of the Holy Father must <\/em>be filtered and understood in the context of the entire body of Catholic teaching called Sacred Tradition, which is derived from the “deposit of faith.”<\/p>\n

For the papacy is not one pope. It is the voice of Peter throughout the centuries.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

THE VOICE OF PETER<\/p>\n

The primacy of the Pope is rooted in Sacred Scripture when Jesus declared to Peter alone that he was the “rock” on which He would build His Church. And to Peter alone, He gave the “keys of the Kingdom.”<\/p>\n

But Peter died, while the Kingdom did not. And so, the “office” of Peter was handed on\u00a0to another, as were the offices of all <\/em>the Apostles after their deaths.<\/p>\n

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May another take his office. (Acts 1:20)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

What these successors were charged with was handing on the “apostolic faith”, all that Jesus entrusted to the Apostles, and to…<\/p>\n

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…stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught, either by an oral statement or by a letter of ours.\u00a0(2 Thessalonians 2:15; cf.\u00a0Matt 28:20)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

As the centuries unfolded, the early Church grew with an unshakable understanding that they were custodians of the Faith, not its inventors. And with that conviction, there also grew a deeper comprehension of the\u00a0indispensable role of the successor of Peter.\u00a0In fact, what we see\u00a0in the early Church is not an exaltation of the individual man, but of the “office” or “chair\u00a0of Peter.” In the late second century, the bishop of Lyons stated:<\/p>\n

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…the tradition which that very\u00a0great, oldest, and well-known church, founded and established at Rome by those two most glorious apostles Peter and Paul, received from the apostles… every church must be in harmony with this church [in Rome] because of its outstanding pre-eminence.<\/strong> \u2014<\/em>Bishop Irenaeus, Against Heresies, <\/em>Book III, 3:2; Early Christian Fathers, <\/em>p. 372<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Evoking that first and “prime” Apostle, St. Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, wrote:<\/p>\n

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It is on [Peter] that He builds the church, and to him that He entrusts the sheep to feed. And although he assigns power to all the apostles, yet he founded a single chair, thus establishing by His own authority the source and hallmark of the churches’ oneness… a primacy is given to Peter\u00a0and it is thus made clear that there is but one church and one chair… If a man does not hold fast to this oneness of Peter, does he imagine that he still holds the faith? If he deserts the Chair\u00a0of Peter upon whom the church was built, has he still confidence that he is in the church?<\/strong> \u2014”On the Unity of the Catholic Church”, n. 4; \u00a0The Faith of the Early Fathers, <\/em>Vol. 1, pp. 220-221<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This common understanding of the primacy of Peter’s office led to\u00a0St. Ambrose famously stating, “Where Peter is, there is the church,” [1]<\/sup><\/a>“Commentary on the Psalms”, 40:30<\/span><\/span>