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Poor St. Peter...

"Successors" dragging his good name through the mud. I'm going to mention but not credit his successors for the myriad great things they accomplished because to build hospitals for the lame and sick is what you're supposed to do. To advance the Great Commission, is what you're supposed to do. Though, back from one of his trips to Rome, Luther did comment that the hospitals were top-notch. That being said, no one should expect credit for that which is their duty. Their patronage of the arts and sciences certainly is creditable -as Church as State-, but irrelevant strictly as the Church. They filled the vacuum that the collapse of the Roman Empire left. And it is remarkable how fast they went from being persecuted to persecuting. That's a sweet bit of total depravity, right there. They chose to fill that vacuum, and as far as supplanting Islam is concerned, you could probably make a good argument that the papacy was a good thing, that Urban was a shrewd, courageous, and prescient necessity. But, after all of this, for all of their efforts and sweat, they were rewarded handsomely. They are men of property, after all.

I've been reading some Barth, and I can't tell you how much I like him. We Protestants have him, Catholics have Newman. Here's a bit of Newman:

As to this doctrine the question is this, whether there was not from the first a certain element at work, or in existence, divinely sanctioned, which, for certain reasons, did not at once show itself upon the surface of ecclesiastical affairs, and of which events in the fourth century are the development; and whether the evidence of its existence and operation, which does occur in the earlier centuries, be it much or little, is not just such as ought to occur upon such an hypothesis.
. . . While Apostles were on earth, there was the display neither of Bishop nor Pope; their power had no prominence, as being exercised by Apostles. In course of time, first the power of the Bishop displayed itself, and then the power of the Pope . . .
. . . St. Peter's prerogative would remain a mere letter, till the complication of ecclesiastical matters became the cause of ascertaining it. While Christians were "of one heart and soul," it would be suspended; love dispenses with laws . . .
When the Church, then, was thrown upon her own resources, first local disturbances gave exercise to Bishops,and next ecumenical disturbances gave exercise to Popes; and whether communion with the Pope was necessary for Catholicity would not and could not be debated till a suspension of that communion had actually occurred. it is not a greater difficulty that St. Ignatius does not write to the Asian Greeks about Popes, than that St. Paul does not write to the Corinthians about Bishops. And it is a less difficulty that the Papal supremacy was not formally acknowledged in the second century, than that there was no formal acknowledgment on the part of the Church of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity till the fourth. No doctrine is defined till it is violated . . .

History as dogma, dogma a history; sweet work, if you can get it. Who can't win with this formula? Cardinal Newman is reputed to have said that, 'to be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant.' Perhaps. Then again, maybe, to be deeply deep in history is to commence being a Presbyterian. By the way, Cardinal Newman had one brother who was an atheist and one who was a communist. So, for at least one of his brothers, to be really deep in history was to 'cease to be a theist.'

But seriously, who can buy this and not see the inherent schizophrenia? A schizophrenia that has produced a break with Traditionalists whose arguments are not as 'untenable' as Catholics in Communion with Extreme Prejudice would have you believe. By the way Catholics in Communion with Extreme Prejudice are those Catholics who seem to get positively aroused at the idea that a good auto-da-fe might be right around the corner.

Vatican I Catholicism bludgeoned the faithful with those precepts that the Traditionalists insist are the Church always and forever. They believed the Church, they took the Church at her word, and their reward is that they are now considered unfit to be seen in public with. Typical: dump one remnant, find another. If my sympathies lie anywhere in Catholicism, they lie with the Traditionalists, and paradoxically the great, courageous Lord Acton.

With such a "living" magisterium what is NOT permissible? Why it's the same thing that happens when you get a living Constitution: "congress shall make no law" translates somehow into the second amendment being a creature of its day, and nothing more. As Castro said to the Cubans who stupidly bought his, 'once the revolution is over, you'll get your guns back', and once the revolution was over and he was approached about getting those guns back, he said 'armas porque?' Like I said, sweet work, if you can get it.

Contrast Barth and Newman: Barth gives us these breathtakingingly beautiful images of the Grandeur of God. Newman gives us rules and regs. Now, I know that Catholicism is the 'thinking man's' religion and all, because a couple of people have told me that, but what they neglected to mention is that there's a good possibility that it's the same kind of thinking done in the R-wing.