"dissent from the One Church is or provides a tool for the bad guys."
are also inherently cheeky; prideful; authoritarian on hollow foundation; parochial to the max; smug; offensive.
I got no further than this.
I don't see that it is inherently cheeky. If it's not true, yeah. But until we establish the truth, how can we say it's inherently all those bad things.
Or another way, to say it's inherently cheeky is to contest the proposition. It doesn't show anything useful about it unless we add (as it SEEMS to do, but I don't think that was intended) "And if I don't like it, it's not true" as another step in the argument.
Sometime I'll list what I don't like about what I hold to be true.
The problem is to avoid saying,"Let's talk ecclesiology, but your position is outrageous!" To me what's inherent to the job of talking ecclesiology is the willingness to consider potentially painful notions despite the pain.
Somebody (lots of people) says I'm an idolater. Can you really think that is not painful to read or hear? But I don't say,"That opinion is laughable, you are silly," at least not at first. I try to articulate what we think about dulia, hyper-dulia, latria. (And then usually I get told that that distinction is bogus. And am still not supposed to be hurt.)
Our language is rich in terms of abuse and of emotional expression. We have a thousand ways of saying,"I don't like this." And while I am sometimes touched by the pain of others (more so if they don't immediately say it's my fault, and if I weren't a jerk they wouldn't hurt and wouldn't feel a divine call to make me hurt) it's not an argument. We are fallen, and the good hurts us while the bad delights us, and that's as true of intellectual objects as of physical. Pain is not dispositive or even indicative.
As for the rest of your post, to the extent that it touches the idea of "One True Church" it is, I think exposition, statement of the proposition and a few of its consequences. But please note that the bulk of my response dealt with your writing that the position (or a lemma from it) was inherently cheeky, prideful, authoritarian, on hollow foundation, parochial, smug, offensive, and gosh darn people just don't like it.
It is precisely because all these things mean so much to us and are so personal that we need to try to avoid giving needless offensive and need to be aware we will probably give it unintentionally. When you type something in all caps, it "sounds" like you think I haven't thought long and hard about it, or even heard it until now. That feels like you are dissing my thought, study, and prayer. It also sounds like you think your position necessarily follows from the thing you deliver in Caps. (I'm not saying that's what you intend, I'm reporting on what my receiver . kicked out, not on what your microphone and set transmitted. This is what I "copy")
But other peple have read dand pondered the same text, and gotten something else out of it. Having the same text thrown at them again and again isn't going to make them change their minds.
How many times must I read words that sound like -> I <- am being accused of 'pretending and pontificating' before I am allowed to conclude that you don't really want to discuss, to examine and re-examine? It is VERY hard to resist that notion (But I am resisting it, never fear ;) ), and it is painful to think that you have not considered that somebody would think such things about Holy Orders in general and the Papacy in particular -- or about, say, becoming Catholic, and do those things NOT with pretense and pompous pontification but in very great, stomach hurting, almost puking, anxiety (which is what I had when I was made a priest - as I thought - in the Episcopal Church because I was committing myself to answer what I thought was a call to draw near to a consuming fire that could consume me (bad enough) or lead others, through my sins, to sorrow (even worse).
What being ordained meant to me was a continued, over and over again rededication of myself to God's will, to rooting out my will, and holding it up to God for healing and conversion, to continually handing myself over the best I could.
I know Pope Alexander is reported to have said, "The Papacy at last is ours; let us at least enjoy it," and when I stop laughing (Yo! Homies! I'm Da POPE! Bring on the shizzle!), I think that's vile! (and He got his, I'll bet.)
But I simply cannot think that every, or even most, ordained, or consecrated or crowned (!)(tiared?) religious figure underwent those ceremonies in pomposity or in anythhing but revereent fear. We have read the books. We KNOW what God says about people who pervert His ways.
(If it was up to me I'd be Bill Gates or something involving money and sailboats. )
SO "pretending and pontificating" ups the emotional ante, makes the conversation harder, is followed by my feeling abused and wanting to abuse in reply.
I am NOT trying to blame here. I am "reporting from the interior" in hopes that I can make a case about how we must talk if we are to talk about difficult touchy things. Maybe we are, unbeknownst to ourselves, pretending and pontificating. Just because the idea is painful to me does not mean it's not true. But then the tactical question changes: What will conduce us to see that painful truth? What won't is abuse and what looks like abuse, or even, carelessness.
Dawg rests, for a while.
Am on a multihundred post search for particular types of posts. And reread much of this one--mostly as it's quite good. And just wanted to commend you again for the wisdom and good sentences, truths and ideas in it.