The Papacy is Based on Fiction and Church History Proves It

reply to post by charles1952

I forget, is the "fiction" that the Papacy is supposedly based on, that there might be some dispute over the order of the first two or three Popes? Is that all this is about?

I think that the beef some Protestants have with it is whether the Pope had any church-wide authority (and the Eastern churches obviously had the same complaint) and whether the bit about Jesus handing over the reins of the church to Peter is relevant. It seems that, from Acts of the Apostles, it is clear that Peter was leading the Jerusalem church, so the second point is supported in scripture. The point of mystery is when and how that role was transferred to the Bishop of Rome, but once it was established there, the line is unbroken, and no amount of complaining in 1054AD or 1517AD can change that.

charles1952
I forget, is the "fiction" that the Papacy is supposedly based on, that there might be some dispute over the order of the first two or three Popes? Is that all this is about? - C -

The "fiction" intended by the thread title, judging by the OP, is that the Pope had supreme authority in the church as early as the Council of Nicaea.
His original argument was that the circumstances of the calling of the Council show otherwise.

ghostfacekilah00

ProfessorChaos
Actually, the Papacy and the "Succession of Peter" is based on a misunderstanding of the scriptures.

Often Matthew 16:18 is pointed to as the scripture that proves Peter was the first Pope. When read in context and when proper translation is applied to the text, the words for "Peter" and "Rock" are actually two different and distinct words.

Peter (translated "Petros") means "a detached stone or boulder, that could be easily moved" while the word that was used for "Rock" (Translated "Petra") in this text refers to "mass of rock" indicating immovability.

The actual rock Christ points to as the foundation of his church was certainly not the Apostle peter, it was the truth that Peter had spoken in the previous verse Matthew 16:16, in which, when asked who he thought Jesus was, he replied "You are the Christ; the son of the living God."

The Catholic church also gives too much literal leaning to the verse in which Christ gives the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven to Peter, as though he literally holds a set of keys that control the opening of Heaven's gates. Peter is not the gatekeeper of the Kingdom of Heaven any more than anyone else who shares the gospel to those that do not know Christ.

There is certainly a lot more information regarding this topic, but I'm preparing my son's 1st birthday party at the moment. Hopefully others may be able to shine additional light on this thread.

So what did Christ mean when he says I will give you the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven? Why did he address Peter specifically when he said this although the other apostles were present? The Catholic Church doesn't believe that Peter is literally sitting outside the Gates of Heaven with a set of keys like a hotel front desk person if that's what you're implying. He is certainly in Heaven enjoying the same reward everyone else there is.

www.catholic.com...

edit on 7-12-2013 by ghostfacekilah00 because: (no reason given)

What he meant was simple enough. Those who accept the Gospel have the ability and calling to share it. As for why we was saying it to Peter; he was having a conversation with Peter, and used that conversation as a means to teach (which he often did) and obviously, as is reflected in the very fact that the text exists, the others listened when the Messiah spoke.

I'm certainly not calling Peter's salvation into question. I'm simply saying that Peter was not, nor was he ever intended to be the first Pope, nor was he specifically and exclusively given the "keys to the Kingdom of Heaven".
Don't bother going into the Catholics "don't teach this" and they "don't claim that" thing with me, as I was born and raised Roman Catholic. I know perfectly well the teachings of the church.

I had and have no intention of turning this into a Catholic bashing situation, so there is no need of you (or anyone else) becoming overly defensive in that regard.

There are a great many issues that I have with the teachings of the Roman Catholic church, their Catechism and their interpretation of Scripture, as well as their injection of church dogma into the practice of Christianity, as I have with many other denominations, but that does not mean that I can't point out clear misinterpretations and misapplications on their part just because they claim the same savior and God (at least by name) that I do.

DISRAELI

ghostfacekilah00
The council of Nicea would be irrelevant to history if it was not approved by and considered infallible by the Catholic Church, which has made the official decree on the infallibility of every council that shaped Catholic Church doctrine.

The word "Catholic" has got at least two meanings.
a) It describes the universal church of God (the original meaning)
b) It is a brief nickname for the body whose full name is "Roman Catholic church".

You are making the standard Roman Catholic mistake of treating the two meanings as the same thing.

The truth is that the Nicene Council represented and was endorsed by the "Catholic church" in the first sense.
The Nicene Council COULD NOT be endorsed by the Roman Catholic church, because the "Roman Catholic church" did not exist at the time. The idea of a single body with the Pope at the top was a much later development.

Constantine called the Council because he thought he was the man in charge and did not need anyone else's consent.

St. Ignatius, 3rd Bishop of Antioch first used the word CATHOLIC. Ignatius as boy, knew the beloved
Apostle John.

And, St. Ignaitus was first to use the word EUCHARIST Put two and two together. John professed belief in the Real Presence of Our Lord in the Eucharist. It follows, so did Ignatius.

For Bible Aloners, search breaking bread, break bread, this was term first used by Christians. Not
too much later and to this day Ignatius' Eucharist was/is used.

Remember for the end times. The EUCHARIST is the tops, the summit of the faith. The anti-Christ
is prophesied in Daniel (abomination of desolation) to attempt taking away the Eucharist. Now why would he do that if Our Lord's presence in the Eucharist isn't true?

You can know the teachings of Christ, they've been passed down by the Apostles to their successors. Peter, leader of the Apostles was named (Matt 16:18) by Christ to be leader of His Church on earth.

God named an authority here, everyone cannot be their own pope. Look what happens when you deny
God's authority. Error and division, each group (sect) proclaiming they have the correct teachings of Christ and most of them came after 1517.

Here is the unbroken line of Popes. God has it figured out.

www.ewtn.com...

colbe
St. Ignatius, 3rd Bishop of Antioch first used the word CATHOLIC. Ignatius as boy, knew the beloved
Apostle John.

As usual, you have quoted what I posted without bothering to read it or take in any of the meaning.
Let me repeat what I said;

"The word "Catholic" has got at least two meanings.
a) It describes the universal church of God (the original meaning)
b) It is a brief nickname for the body whose full name is "Roman Catholic church".
You are making the standard Roman Catholic mistake of treating the two meanings as the same thing. "

The fact that Ignatius used the word "Catholic" is quite irrelevant, because he said "Catholic", in the first sense, not "Roman Catholic".
He was talking about the universal church.
He was not talking about your own bullying fragment of the church, which tries to steal and monopolise the words "catholic" and "church".
As I have pointed out before, the word "Roman" is the only part of your community's name which was acquired honestly. The rest is stolen goods.

DISRAELI

colbe
St. Ignatius, 3rd Bishop of Antioch first used the word CATHOLIC. Ignatius as boy, knew the beloved
Apostle John.

As usual, you have quoted what I posted without bothering to read it or take in any of the meaning.
Let me repeat what I said;

"The word "Catholic" has got at least two meanings.
a) It describes the universal church of God (the original meaning)
b) It is a brief nickname for the body whose full name is "Roman Catholic church".
You are making the standard Roman Catholic mistake of treating the two meanings as the same thing. "

The fact that Ignatius used the word "Catholic" is quite irrelevant, because he said "Catholic", in the first sense, not "Roman Catholic".
He was talking about the universal church.
He was not talking about your own bullying fragment of the church, which tries to steal and monopolise the words "catholic" and "church".
As I have pointed out before, the word "Roman" is the only part of your community's name which was acquired honestly. The rest is stolen goods.

Stolen goods from where? Everything you know of Christ came from the Roman Catholic Church less the
OT prophesies which confirm Roman Catholicism and that is why your threads contain the faith, you can't eliminate it completely.

"Meaning" is your PO. You reject the faith, constantly trying to sell something else but are stopped because
history shows you wrong and the miraculous and the saints too.

Ignatius was Roman Catholic, following the authority of Rome. We have been through this time and time
again. Ignatius believes in the most Holy Eucharist. You do not. To your loss.

It is going to take the divine awakening to change your heart, I hope you do, pray you do. Read history, the Protestant revolt from the faith happened in the 16th century. October 31,1517.

There isn't a generic Catholic Church somewhere with the Protestants thrown in, that's silly. Excuses, the "invisible Church" is another excuse, the faith has been visible for 2000 years. There is a ministerial
priesthood, a hierarchy, a Sacramental system of grace.

I've shared with others and DISRAELI who acknowledged Ignatius' term Catholic. Objecting to Ignatius meaning of Catholic but not a word said about EUCHARIST. I shared both.

Basic logic would tell you, Ignatius as a boy knew John the beloved Apostle, who believed in Our Lord's presence in the most Holy Eucharist so like Ignatius to follow, everyone should. Yes?

Jesus tells you how you "abide" in Him and He in you, by receiving the Eucharist. "Abide" has been changed to "dwell" in the KJV.

colbe
Everything you know of Christ came from the Roman Catholic Church less the
OT prophesies which confirm Roman Catholicism and that is why your threads contain the faith, you can't eliminate it completely.

You are telling little porkies.
Nothing I know of Christ came from the Roman Catholic church- it came from the universal church.
Nothing I know of the faith came from the Roman Catholic church- it came from the universal church.
Nothing in the Old Testament says anything about Roman Catholicism.
The Roman Catholic church is nothing more than a self-important fragment of the universal church.

reply to post by DISRAELI

b) It is a brief nickname for the body whose full name is "Roman Catholic church".

I was not aware of this before, but according to this: How Did the Catholic Church Get Her Name?, the name of the Catholic Church has never officially been the "Roman Catholic Church", intentionally so. According to that article:

The term Roman Catholic is not used by the Church herself; it is a relatively modern term, and one, moreover, that is confined largely to the English language. The English-speaking bishops at the First Vatican Council in 1870, in fact, conducted a vigorous and successful campaign to insure that the term Roman Catholic was nowhere included in any of the Council's official documents about the Church herself, and the term was not included.

…

So the proper name for the universal Church is not the Roman Catholic Church. Far from it. That term caught on mostly in English-speaking countries; it was promoted mostly by Anglicans, supporters of the "branch theory" of the Church, namely, that the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church of the creed was supposed to consist of three major branches, the Anglican, the Orthodox and the so-called Roman Catholic. It was to avoid that kind of interpretation that the English-speaking bishops at Vatican I succeeded in warning the Church away from ever using the term officially herself: It too easily could be misunderstood.

I will likely continue to refer to it as such, but the implication is that the "Roman Catholic" bit was attached to the church by detractors in order to provide the basis for your statement above that "Catholic" is some sort of shorthand for "Roman Catholic", which it is clearly not.

reply to post by adjensen

In deference to that observation, I'm willing to amend what I said to the following;

"The word "Catholic" has got at least two meanings.
a) It describes the universal church of God (the original meaning)
b) It is a brief nickname for the body popularly known as "the Roman Catholic church"."

I would still maintain that they are two different usages, and that the "official" position which you quote is carefully obscuring the difference between them.

(To prove they are different usages; I am undoubtedly a member of the universal church, in the first sense, and I hope you would not challenge that. So anybody who regards me as "outside the Catholic church" is obviously using the expression in a completely different way.)

The official position is that your community is the Mother church from which all the others fell away.
But as I read the history, the community living under obedience to the Pope is, at best, only the second-eldest of a large number of siblings.
When an amoeba divides, who is to say which is the original amoeba?

reply to post by DISRAELI

b) It is a brief nickname for the body popularly known as "the Roman Catholic church".

But it is not a "nickname", it is the Church's official name, and unless you have evidence otherwise, one assumes that it has always been the Church's official name. Given that it is limited to English speakers, it may well be that the Eastern churches refer to it as the Catholic Church, as well.

The difference isn't between "Catholic" and "Roman Catholic", rather between "Catholic" and "catholic". The church of the Pope is the former, the universal church of all who avow the Nicene Creed is the latter.

When an amoeba divides, who is to say which is the original amoeba?

I quite agree, and have long said that if there was ever any "true church", it only existed in the distant past, certainly before 1054AD. However, I also believe that the Roman Catholic Church (see, still using it, lol) is the closest thing to that original church, particularly as regards the Eucharist and salvation.

adjensen
The difference isn't between "Catholic" and "Roman Catholic", rather between "Catholic" and "catholic". The church of the Pope is the former, the universal church of all who avow the Nicene Creed is the latter.

Fine. If everybody in your first category is willing to accept me as a member of your second category, that will do.
My quarrel is with those, like you-know-who, who refuse to accept the existence of the second category.
I must be a member of the first category, or I am nothing, and I am consequently faced with bullying demands to join the first category.

I am not too worried about the exact names applied to the two. Just let me get some acceptance that belonging to the second category is enough.
Let "mutual acceptance and co-operation" be our motto.

reply to post by DISRAELI

Fine. If everybodyin your first category is willing to accept me as amember of your second category, that will do.

Sorry, my friend, ain't no way I can deliver on that "everybody" part

But I think that most reasonable people would agree that, other doctrinal differences aside, there exists a community of believers who all hold to the Nicene Creed, collectively called "Christians", who are a catholic, or universal, body of believers. There are others, outside of that catholic community, who are followers of Christ, but who are not Christians, as they reject the creeds (such as Mormons or non-Trinitarians.)

reply to post by adjensen

No, I didn't think "everybody" was on the cards.
But anyone who observes your communion is then faced with the question; "Who really represents them? The reasonable people, or you-know-who?"

reply to post by DISRAELI


I would bet dollars to donuts that Pope Francis would agree with my position, at least in the sense of saying that there is a catholic community of believers who include the Catholic church, as well as all other Christians who avow the creeds. It wouldn't surprise me to hear him take an even more extended position, as the church does, that said community includes people who seek and follow Christ, even though they don't know it.

reply to post by adjensen

I will wait with eager anticipation, then.
If I could hear a Pope offering an apology to Martin Luther, I would be very impressed.

reply to post by DISRAELI


Maybe that's in the works…

Pope Francis has urged Catholics and Lutherans to ask forgiveness for the harm they have caused one another.

Pope Francis was speaking during a meeting with representatives of the Lutheran World Federation and members of the Catholic-Lutheran international theological dialogue.

As the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation approaches, he said, “Catholics and Lutherans can ask forgiveness for the harm they have caused one another and for their offences committed in the sight of God”. (Source)

They've definitely been working at some ecumenical unity -- witness the 1999 Catholic and Lutheran Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, one of the key points of Lutheran theology. The Methodists also signed onto it in 2006.

Jesus only established one faith, so ONE Church, the same Church who confects the Eucharist, Roman Catholicism. Ignored again, simply will not discuss Our Lord's presence in the Eucharist. You need the Eucharist, all the world does. Remember for the time ahead. I pray for your conversion at the divine Great Warning, it would be marvelous if it happened sooner. Pray, pray, pray, ask Our Lord about His presence in the Eucharist.

The Eastern Church before she split looked to Rome, the authority of Rome under Peter and his successors. Here is a wonderful quote from a saintly priest, a theologian from Germany. Scheeben has so many wonderful quotes, here is an appropriate one.

Follow Christ's church, the Roman Catholic Church. Come to find her, one can know the teachings of Christ, do not accept the heresies of men. I am thinking of Martin Luther's rotten "faith alone." It is one of the heresies hardest to let go of for our brothers and sisters.

Some Protestants insist that it is the faith that does the WORK in us NOT we ourselves. Faith (God's gift to man through His Word / Eph 2:8; Rom 10: 17) is a necessary motivation for us to obey but it does not make us obey. Man has a choice to resist or yield, therefore the obedience is our responsibility. It is our obedience in response to faith that brings justification (and Eternal Life).

+ + +

Father Matthias Scheeben ~

"The power of supernatural good works comes from the merits of Our Savior. The merit that we gain
when we COOPERATE with the merits of Christ obtains an increase of GRACE and share of heavenly glory out of the same source. Hence the Council of Trent condemns all who say, "that justified by good WORKS he performs, does NOT truly merit an increase of grace and eternal life." and consequently those who say, "that good works are merely the fruits and signs of justification, but not a cause of the increase thereof.

Precisely because good works are fruits of grace they are not merely signs of existing grace and not only
give us claim to heavenly reward but a claim to a higher degree of grace. ...Here we see how God and
man must WORK together and how we can live and grown and merit union with Christ."

From the "Glories of Divine Grace"... Read it on the Net if you like. I got it at the library, I could not
put it down. www.archive.org.../n27/mode/2up

It seems the use of the term "Catholic" was used to reference the original Church Christ Himself founded by the time the word was necessary.



Note in the video, as Jimmy Akin points out, Ignatius didn't need to explain what the term meant.

As far as Papal authority goes, keep in mind Aramaic was the common tongue of the day, and best guess is it was the language the Apostles used talking amongst themselves.

Promises to Peter

When he first saw Simon, "Jesus looked at him, and said, ‘So you are Simon the son of John? You shall be called Cephas (which means Peter)’" (John 1:42). The word Cephas is merely the transliteration of the Aramaic Kepha into Greek. Later, after Peter and the other disciples had been with Christ for some time, they went to Caesarea Philippi, where Peter made his profession of faith: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Matt. 16:16). Jesus told him that this truth was specially revealed to him, and then he solemnly reiterated: "And I tell you, you are Peter" (Matt. 16:18). To this was added the promise that the Church would be founded, in some way, on Peter (Matt. 16:18).

Then two important things were told the apostle. "Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven" (Matt. 16:19). Here Peter was singled out for the authority that provides for the forgiveness of sins and the making of disciplinary rules. Later the apostles as a whole would be given similar power [Matt.18:18], but here Peter received it in a special sense.

Peter alone was promised something else also: "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 16:19). In ancient times, keys were the hallmark of authority. A walled city might have one great gate; and that gate had one great lock, worked by one great key. To be given the key to the city—an honor that exists even today, though its import is lost—meant to be given free access to and authority over the city. The city to which Peter was given the keys was the heavenly city itself. This symbolism for authority is used elsewhere in the Bible (Is. 22:22, Rev. 1:18).

Finally, after the resurrection, Jesus appeared to his disciples and asked Peter three times, "Do you love me?" (John 21:15-17). In repentance for his threefold denial, Peter gave a threefold affirmation of love. Then Christ, the Good Shepherd (John 10:11, 14), gave Peter the authority he earlier had promised: "Feed my sheep" (John 21:17). This specifically included the other apostles, since Jesus asked Peter, "Do you love me more than these?" (John 21:15), the word "these" referring to the other apostles who were present (John 21:2). Thus was completed the prediction made just before Jesus and his followers went for the last time to the Mount of Olives.

Immediately before his denials were predicted, Peter was told, "Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail; and when you have turned again [after the denials], strengthen your brethren" (Luke 22:31-32). It was Peter who Christ prayed would have faith that would not fail and that would be a guide for the others; and his prayer, being perfectly efficacious, was sure to be fulfilled.

Source