The Church

[Coast2CoastHoya]

Apr 5, 2010 10:35:23 GMT -5 DFW HOYA said:

Apr 5, 2010 9:56:25 GMT -5 Coast2CoastHoya said:

This is one part of Catholic doctrine I still don't get. I can see why it can be infered that Jesus intended to make Peter his representative on Earth (the "rock" ambiguity aside, of course). Why do Peter's successors get to bind things in heaven and on earth? Where does Christ imply that? Is it in the establishment of a "church"? And how does that lead to the Cardinals electing Peter's successor, rather than the pope himself appointing his successor? Thanks in advance for the education.

I guess Georgetown doesn't teach the concept of apostolic succession anymore, but here goes:

1. Nothing ambiguous about Peter. To rename Simon bar Jonah as Petros (Greek for "rock") and entrust him with duties with the other Apostles gathered, there was no armbiguity that he was chosen to lead the church and was given the keys to the kingdom to accomplish this.

2. The quote from Matthew above gave the church the "keys to the kingdom". Apostolic sucession ensures a linkage between the present day Church and the tenets of its origin. Catholic apologists (and I use the literal meaning of the term and not what people think of as "apologist" today) will note that this is the only structure of a church cited in the Gospel and that all Protestant denominations are man-made in comparison. (LDS adherents will argue otherwise but that's a whole other topic...)

2. Apostolic sucession begins in the Acts of the Apostles and in the succeeding epistles. As the bishops of the church taught the next generation, their sucessors (beginning with the 72 discliples) were heirs to the line of teaching directly established by the apostles. It also helped to distinguish among early heresies by determining if a claim was taught by predecessors or had sprung up on its own.

Note as well that not only Catholicism has a doctrine of apostolic sucession, but ther Eastern Rite, most Orthodox churches, and even Anglicanism. Patriarchs of the Eastern churches are selected by their peers in synods.

3. Just as the apostles chose their successors, so the present day successors choose the successor as Bishop of Rome. Originally, a bishop in his region selected his own sucessor but the rise of false claimants and antipopes led to a more formal selection process in the 12th century; however, the concept of apostolic sucession is still very much in force, as each of the cardinals are part of a line of sucession.

Thanks, DFW. And no, I don't recall GU teaching apolostolic succession while I was there (except maybe in theology electives, certainly not in Problem of God).

[hoyaalf]

Just so we all know the existential background of Pere Boulad, S.J., find Wiki- on Melkites. The Melkite association with Rome conjurs a future for the current tiff between Canterbury and Rome playing Gotcha Christianity rather than a 'folks-who-call-themselves-Christians kinda synod.'

Theology was very alive and exciting on the Hilltop when I was an under-g. The number of outside lectures between Autumn '62 to Spring '67 was significant.

From the digestion of V.2 Council mandated "reforms" through civil rights [not so strong here; Fr. McSorley was tolerated as an eccentric, which in fact he was; not wrong, just eccentric], through the era of modern doubt, Kung [who was a Germaic D'Unamuno; works better for the Spanish] to the issuance of In Humanae Vitae. Perhaps one needed to be there to experience the immediacy of the thing.

While I've been writing this, I've been watching a show on PBS about the LDS. They had relief trucks on the way to NOLA before Katrina hit; they have pre-positioned supplies EVERYWHERE.

That's the kind of action that could get me up every morning, not just Sunday.

As to LDS, meh. I don't get the intellectual dis-honesty I'm listening to as someone goes on about prejuidice on rhe Presidential scene w/o referring to JFK.

BTW, I strongly suggest that if you ever get cornered by a Witness, Adventist, LDS, etc., IMMEDIATELY invite them to get in the car, go to your local church, and light a candle with their money.

Works every trime.


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Here are the Melkites, and welcome to them.

"The term Melkite (also written Melchite) is used to refer to various Christian churches and their members originating in the Middle East. The word comes from the Syriac word malki; (Syriac), meaning "royal", and by extension, "imperial".[1] In Arabic, the word Malak (Arabic: also means "royal", and by extension, "imperial".

The term Melkite was originally used as a pejorative after the acrimonious division that occurred in Eastern Christianity after the Council of Chalcedon (451). It was used by non-Chalcedonians to refer to those who backed the council and the Byzantine Emperor (malik and its cognates are Semitic words for "king"). It is unknown at what period the Melkites began to use the term for themselves. The Melkites were generally Greek-speaking city-dwellers living in the west of the Levant and in Egypt, as opposed to the more provincial Syriac- and Coptic-speaking non-Chalcedonians. The Melkite Church was organised into three historic patriarchates — Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem — in union with the Patriarch of Constantinople. The non-Chalcedonians set up their own patriarchs in Alexandria (Coptic Orthodox Church) and Antioch (Syriac Orthodox Church). The Nubian kingdom of Makuria (in modern Sudan) in contrast to their Non-Chalcedonian Ethiopian Orthodox neighbours, also practiced the Melkite faith, from c. 575 until c. 1300.

From 1342, Roman Catholic clergy were based in Damascus and other areas, and worked to heal the political divisions between Rome and the Orthodox. At that time, the nature of the East-West Schism, normally dated to 1054, was undefined, and many of those who continued to worship and work within the Melkite Church became identified as a pro-Western party. In 1724, Cyril VI was elected as Patriarch of Antioch. Considering this to be a Catholic takeover attempt, Jeremias III of Constantinople imposed the Greek monk Sylvester to rule the patriarchate instead of Cyril. Sylvester's heavy-handed leadership of the church encouraged many to re-examine the validity of Cyril's claim to the patriarchal throne. The newly elected Pope Benedict XIII (1724-1730) also recognised the legitimacy of Cyril's claim and welcomed him and his followers into communion with Rome. From that point onwards, the Melkite Church was divided between the Orthodox, who continued to be appointed by the authority of the Patriarch of Constantinople until the nineteenth century, and the Catholics, who recognise the authority of the Pope of Rome. However, it is now only the Catholic group who continue to use the title Melkite; thus, in modern usage, the term applies almost exclusively to the Arabic-speaking Greek Catholics from the Middle East.