It seems that it depends on what "confided to Peter" means. I could interpret it to include those who accept a primacy of honor but reject a primacy of jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome. I would also not be surprised if some Catholics interpreted it to be aimed at the Eastern Orthodox. Your school teacher certainly interpreted it that way, as did the Feeneyites. But the Feeneyites were condemned for interpreting it that way.
I would think that your schoolteacher should be condemned for interpreting it the way he did--depending on how old you are, this would have been at the time that Fr. Feeney had been condemned for the hardline interpretation of extra ecclesiam nulla salus. I'm sorry that your teacher interpreted it wrongly and that it has been a burr under your saddle all these years.
But I do dispute your claim that the only way Catholics can interpret "deny that they are confided to Peter" is to say that it targets Eastern Orthodox. I don't really think that that's what Boniface VIII himself meant by it, but even if he did, that interpretation of it has been rejected since Boniface.
I am not glossing over this line. I think it's a valid question as to whether it means rejection of jurisdiction or means rejection of all honor and respect for the bishop of Rome. Surely there were Orthodox at that time and since that time who did the latter and could be the target of the phrase whereas others did not and were not the targets.
You see, dear Kolokotronis, not only Latin Catholics have had some variation in how they view these matters over the centuries, but so too have the Orthodox. In the heat of polemics, some Orthodox have said some pretty absolutist things about the Bishop of Rome, such that they would be denying any sense of their being "confided to Peter." But at other times, and in the present general viewpoing of most Orthodox, a distinction between primacy of honor and of jurisdiction is widespread. So if Orthodox are permitted to disown the strictest, most anti-Latin claims of the past and give more benign interpretations to them, then surely we Latin Catholics should not be accused of disingenuity if we interpret Unam Sanctam in such a way as to exclude Orthodox who accept Petrine primacy of honor but not primacy of jurisdiction and to suggest that perhaps even Boniface meant that.
I don't have time right now, but I will take a look at the Latin some time and see what's being translated as "confided to" here.
Could you not agree?
"But at other times, and in the present general viewpoing of most Orthodox, a distinction between primacy of honor and of jurisdiction is widespread. So if Orthodox are permitted to disown the strictest, most anti-Latin claims of the past and give more benign interpretations to them, then surely we Latin Catholics should not be accused of disingenuity if we interpret Unam Sanctam in such a way as to exclude Orthodox who accept Petrine primacy of honor but not primacy of jurisdiction and to suggest that perhaps even Boniface meant that."
We Orthodox disown what some of our hierarchs say or do fairly regularly. It is our obligation when they err. We even disown what local councils have declared. For example, we all are perfectly happy to ride on public conveyances with Jews and go to Jewish doctors! :) In any event, my point was precisely that you should be allowed to interpret Unam Sanctam in such a way as to avoid other unfortunate interpretations. I do think it is unfortunate that the Latin Church is in a position that in order to support a particular view of Petrine primacy in the here and now, it is forced by its ecclesiology to say something other than "that was then, this is now." It is precisely this acceptance of an eternal papal infallibility which cause the rub to this day and the necessity of a rather tortured working around such proclamations as Unam Sanctam. That does concern Orthodoxy.
You know, D, taken in a purely historical context, its easy to see why Boniface wrote Unam Sanctam (just as it is easy to see what the revolutions of 1848 did to Pius IX). I suppose the lingering problems from the Great Schism might be the genesis of the otherwise apparently gratuitous swipe at the Greeks, but as the article points out, the real fight was with the king of France.
"I think it's a valid question as to whether it means rejection of jurisdiction or means rejection of all honor and respect for the bishop of Rome."
Well I think its safe to say that now, as it has been at times in the past, for canonical Orthodoxy, its the former and not the latter as the salutations of both the EP and the MP (or their emissaries) to the Pope demonstrate.
The Feeneyites got themselves in trouble over Baptism of Desire. That is what the Protocol Letter from the Holy Office addresses.
Boniface VIII's Bull is referring specifically to the Greeks of the Empire, who at that time were quite resistant to the whole notion of the Venetians coming in and lording it over them and forcing their heirarchy to become Latin. The denial put forth by the Greeks at that time was a novel claim arising from this agressiveness that St. Peter had somehow not been entrusted with the Church in the East, because they certainly wanted no part of what St. Peter's sucessor was attempting to impose on them through armed force.
The correct question of course, is not whether or not St. Peter was entrusted with the whole Church, but what that entrustment allows St. Peter to do. That is the true difference between East and West up until now.