The following is a response to a query I recently received about how one could answer the Roman Catholic claims to apostolic succession, particularly in the Papacy. I am reproducing it for those who are interested, as it is a central issue that divides Roman Catholicism from non-Catholics, including Latter-day Saints:
The claims of Roman Catholicism on this issue were dogmatised in 1870 in Vatican I by Pius IX in the document Pastor Aeternus. According to official Catholic theology, the papacy and special privilege of the bishop of Rome has always been in place since the apostolic period. However, there are many issues which refute that, for instance, the fact that the city of Rome did not have a singular bishop but operated using a plurality of bishops/elders, as evidenced by the early Christian text, 1 Clement, where the author (not named, but identified as being Clement by tradition) is writing on behalf of the plurality of elders/bishops at the late 90s to the congregation in Corinth; indeed, scholars (e.g., J.N.D. Kelly, The Oxford Dictionary of the Popes) conclude that Rome did not operate with a monarchial episcopcy (read: one-man bishop) until the middle of the 2nd century.
Furthermore, even early Christian writers who believed that Peter was the Rock believed that all bishops, not just the bishop of Rome, sat on the Chair of Peter, notwithstanding Roman Catholic dogma that this is the special privilege of the Bishop of Rome singularly (Cyprian of Carthage).
On the "Peter = the Rock," while Vatican I argues that this has always been the universal tradition of the faithful, and while Roman Catholic apologists (e.g., Scott Butler; Robert Sungenis) argue that Peter and Peter's confession of faith are one and the same, early Christian authors did not hold to either perspective. Consider the following:
John Chrystostom:
He did not say, “upon Peter” for it is not upon the man, but upon his own faith that the Church is built. And what is this faith? “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” (Migne, 52.806.75-807.1)
Therefore He added this, “And I say unto thee, Thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my Church;” that is, on the faith of his confession. Hereby He signifies that many were now on the point of believing, and raises his spirit, and makes him a shepherd. “And the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.” And if not against it, much more not against me. So be not troubled because thou art shortly to hear that I shall be betrayed and crucified. (Homily LIV)
Augustine
Why have I wanted to make this little introduction? In order to suggest to you that in Peter the Church is to be recognised. Christ, you see, built his Church not on a man but on Peter’s confession. (Sermon 229)
Indeed, early Christian history provides many refutations of this alleged authority that the Church at Rome held; one Catholic scholar, Ignaz von Döllinger, who would later leave the Catholic Church when Pius IX defined papal infallibility as a dogma (his work would be influential in the foundation of The Old Catholic Church) noted the following incident (many more could be noted):
For thirteen centuries an incomprehensible silence on this fundamental article reigned throughout the whole Church and her literature. None of the ancient confessions of faith, no catechism, none of the patristic writings composed for the instruction of the people, contain a syllable about the Pope, still less any hint that all certainty of faith and doctrine depends on him. For the first thousand years of Church history not a question of doctrine was finally decided by the Pope. The Roman bishops took no part in the commotions which the numerous Gnostic sects, the Montanists and Chiliasts, produced in the early Church, nor can a single dogmatic decree issued by one of them be found during the first four centuries, not a trace of the existence of any. Even the controversy about Christ kindled by Paul of Samosata, which occupied the whole Eastern Church for a long time, and necessitated the assembling of several Councils, was terminated without the Pope taking any part in it. So again in the chain of controversies and discussions connected with the name of Theodotus, Artemon, Noetus, Sabellius, Beryllus, and Lucian of Antioch which troubled the whole Church, and extended over nearly 150 years, there is no proof that the Roman bishops acted beyond the limits of their own local Church, or accomplished any dogmatic result . . . The dispute about heretical baptism, in the middle of the third century, had a still more clearly dogmatic character, for the whole Church doctrine of the efficacy and conditions of sacramental grace was involved. Yet the opposition of Pope Stephen to the doctrine confirmed at several African and Asiatic Synods, against the validity of schismatically baptism, remained wholly inoperative. Stephen went so far as to exclude those Churches from his communion, but he only drew down sharp censures on his unlawful arrogance. Both St. Cyprian and Firmilian of Cesarea denied his having any right to dictate a doctrine to other bishops and Churches. And the other Eastern Churches, too, which were not directly mixed up in the dispute, retained their own practice for a long time, quite undisturbed by the Roman theory. Later on, St. Augustine, looking back at this dispute, maintains that the pronouncement of Stephen, categorical as it was, was no decision of the Church, and that St. Cyprian and the Africans were therefore justified in rejecting it; he says the real obligation of conforming to a common practice originated with the decree of a great (plenarium) Council, meaning the Council of Arles in 314 . . . [In the eighth century] Pope Hadrian I vainly endeavored to get the decrees of the second Nicene Council on Image Worship, which he had approved, received by Charles the Great and his bishops. The great assembly at Frankfurt in 794, and the Caroline books, rejected and attacked these decrees, and Hadrian did not venture to offer more than verbal opposition. In 824, the bishops assembled in synod at Paris spoke without remorse of the “absurdities” (absona) of Pope Hadrian, who, they said, had commanded an heretical worship of images (Mansi, Council. Xiv, p. 415 seq) . . . There is another fact the infallibilist will find it impossible to explain. We have a copious literature on the Christian sects and heresies of the first six centuries--Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Epiphanius, Philastrius, St. Augustine, and later, Leonitus and Timotheus, have left us accounts of them to the number of eighty, but not a single one is reproached with rejecting the Pope’s authority in matters of faith, while Aerius, e.g., is reproached with denying the episcopate as a grade of the hierarchy.
Janus (pen name for Ignaz von Döllinger), The Pope and the Council (1870), pp. 53, 54-55, 61-62, 73.
One should note that Vatican I directly contradicts another infallible ecumenical council on the issue of the papacy, and hence, Catholic claims of apostolic succession.
In the document issued during Vatican I (1869-70), Pastor Aeternus, we read the following in paragraph 4 that defined, dogmatically, the nature and criteria of papal infallibility:
1838 [DS 3072] [Definition of infallibility]. But since in this very age, in which the salutary efficacy of the apostolic duty is especially required, not a few are found who disparage its authority, We deem it most necessary to assert solemnly the prerogative which the Only-begotten Son of God deigned to enjoin with the highest pastoral office.
1839 [DS 3073] And so We, adhering faithfully to the tradition received from the beginning of the Christian faith, to the glory of God, our Savior, the elevation of the Catholic religion and the salvation of Christian peoples, with the approbation of the sacred Council, teach and explain that the dogma has been divinely revealed: [DS 3074] that the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra, that is, when carrying out the duty of the pastor and teacher of all Christians by virtue of his supreme apostolic authority defines a doctrine of faith or morals to be held by the universal Church, through the divine assistance promised him in blessed Peter, possesses that infallibility with which the divine Redeemer wished that His church be endowed in defining doctrine on faith and morals; and so such definitions of the Roman Pontiff of themselves, but not from the consensus of the Church, are unalterable.
It is the portion I have put in red which I wish to discuss. According to the definition of the dogma by Pius IX (same pope who dogmatised the Immaculate Conception in 1854), when all the criteria of infallibility are met (the only undisputed instance, post-1870, of this occurring was on November 1, 1950, when Pius XII defined the Bodily Assumption of Mary), the dogmatic definitions of the Roman Pontiff are binding in and of themselves, not from the consensus of the Church. Furthermore, this document and council settled a dispute about which is superior: the pope or the councils? This dogmatic constitution and Vatican I clearly came down on the former; the problem, however, is that another ecumenical (ergo, infallible in its decrees) council stated the opposite. In the decree Haec sancta from the Council of Constance, dated April 6, 1415, we read the following:
This holy Synod of Constance, which forms an ecumenical council, legitimately assembled for the eradication of the present schism and for the unity and reform of the church of God, head and members, to the praise of almighty God in the Holy Spirit: in order to achieve the unity and reform of the church of God more easily, safely, richly and freely, ordains, defines, decrees, decides and declares the following:
First, this synod, legitimately assembled in the Holy Spirit, forms an ecumenical council and represents the Catholic Church in dispute, has its authority directly from Christ; everyone, of whatever estate or dignity, even if this be papal, is bound to be it in matters relating to the faith, the eradication of the said schism and the universal reformation of this church of God, head and members.
Similarly, anyone, of whatever condition, estate, and dignity, even if this be papal, who stubbornly refuses obedience to the commands, resolutions, ordinances, or precepts of this holy synod and any other general council legitimately assembled in respect of what is said above and all that has happened and is to happen in respect of this, shall, if he does not come to his right mind, be subject to the appropriate punishment and be duly punished, by other legal means should this be necessary. (Hans Küng, Christianity: Essence, History, and Future [trans. John Bowden; New York: Continuum, 1994], 466; emphasis added)
As Küng notes (ibid., 467) about the trouble Constance posed to the papacy (emphasis in original):
No wonder that advocates of a curial ecclesiology did not hesitate to claim that the decrees of Constance were not binding, with often very strange, pseudo-historical arguments. Constance, it was said, had not been ‘approved’ by the Pope, so its decrees are not formally in force. But I already demonstrated in Structures of the Church (written in 1962, already before the Second Vatican Council), how threadbare such an argument is. For in the real ecumenical councils of the real ecumenical councils of the first millennium, in any case the question of a formal papal approval was never raised; the approval of the emperor was decisive and people were content with the general consensus of the Bishop of Rome as patriarch of the West. Papal consent only arose at the medieval general synods, which were wholly dominated by the Popes. But at the Council of Constance, which again understood itself to represent the whole church, explicit papal approval was no longer thought necessary. Precisely because the council derived its authority directly from Christ, precisely because it stood above the Pope (or rather above the three Popes), the question of papal approval never arose from the start.
Ultimately, I am sure you agree that to be truly apostolic one must teach what the apostles teach. Indeed, according to Catholic claims, all Catholic dogmas are apostolic in origin. However, when one examines the dogmas based on apostolic tradition such as the Immaculate Conception, one finds them to be teachings that the Lord Jesus and the earliest Christians never accepted in any form. I recently gave a presentation on Mariology, so you might enjoy my PowerPoint presentation--I addressed both the perpetual virginity and Immaculate Conception. The URL is https://sites.google.com/si
If you want to address other issues, I am more than happy to do such. You might be interested in a very good written debate between LDS apologist Barry Bickmore and Catholic/former Mormon Steve Clifford, Who Holds the Keys? (Pope or Prophet)
In terms of good books on the issue from "both sides of the coin," the best works were produced as the late 19th and early 20th century as a result of Vatican I. Fortuantely, they are available online, not just in print, so if you are on a budget, such should be welcome news ;)
Edward Denny, Papalism: A treatise on the claims of the papacy as set forth in the encyclical Satis Cognitum (this is perhaps the best text refuting the papacy from early Christian writings. If one will only read one work against the papacy, this is the text to read)
George Salmon, The Infallibility of the Church
Catholic historian, Dom John Chapman, wrote two good volumes defending the papacy:
Studies on the Early Papacy – Catholic apologist, Phil Porvaznik, has many of the chapters available online under the section, St. Peter, the Papacy, and Apostolic Succession
For more, see my Bibliography on the Papacy and Papal Infallibility where I list a number of books (Catholic; Protestant; Eastern Orthodox) on the issues.
I do have a blog where I have addressed LDS and other issues, including Catholic topics. Examples would include Answering Trent Horn on "Mormonism" (a lengthy review of a book published by Catholic Answers in 2016), Tim Staples, Mormonism, and Questions for Catholics, and Answering Tim Staples on Patristic Mariology and the Immaculate Conception
As I said, if you wish to discuss these issues and other issues, feel free to contact me and/or browse my blog.
Best,
Robert Boylan
I do have a blog where I have addressed LDS and other issues, including Catholic topics. Examples would include Answering Trent Horn on "Mormonism" (a lengthy review of a book published by Catholic Answers in 2016), Tim Staples, Mormonism, and Questions for Catholics, and Answering Tim Staples on Patristic Mariology and the Immaculate Conception
As I said, if you wish to discuss these issues and other issues, feel free to contact me and/or browse my blog.
Best,
Robert Boylan
