I do appreciate your comments, they are well-written and informative as to your beliefs.
I wasn’t really trying to get into a discussion of whether this particular declaration was a “game-changer” in terms of the church, but it was still interesting to read your historical persepective.
It seems at a shallow glance that the bloodline can be asserted because the decisions are made by the head of the church. The head of the church is always presumed to have the keys, and therefore what he binds or looses defines the church’s position, and if it WAS a change from previous practice or dogma (not saying it ever was, just a hypothetical), since the power is granted to him to do so, the “true church” is the one that follows the changes as specified by the leader, not those who disagree with the leader and break off.
And so long as there is a belief that the leader of the church is devinely chosen, and therefore not subject to question as to the possession of the keys, you cannot have a true “schism” where two people claim leadership and each form their own church declaring themselves the rightful heirs to the bloodline.
From outside looking in, without that belief in the inerrancy of leadership choice, one can imagine a leader who would stray from God’s path, and imagine adherants to the faith who see the true way rebelling against the leadership, and thus establishing the “true church” again outside that leadership, maybe with the hopes of one day reconciling and bringing the apostate church under the “chosen” leadership back to the fold.
It is jarring to a non-Catholic to see early believers labelled “Catholic”. I suppose this is essential if claims to the bloodline are to be asserted, but the denotion of membership prior to the establishment of the entity seems self-serving. On the other hand, from within the Church, the claim I presume is that the Church as not established when the name was first claimed, but by God himself, with the “originating” councils merely confirming and codifying an existance that was already in practice.
Again, looking from the outside, such a claim seems self-serving, but I’m not up for a discussion of whether the claim is defensible or not — I imagine there are such discussions of course, it’s just something that would require far more work on my part than I feel would be worthwhile relative to the level of concern on my part for a definitive answer.
Again, thank you for your posts.
It seems at a shallow glance that the bloodline can be asserted because the decisions are made by the head of the church.
OR by "ecumenical" councils, for which we would say the conference in Acts is the precedent. This conference resulted in an encyclical which begins remarkably with "It seems good to the Holy Spirit and to us ..."
one can imagine a leader who would stray from God’s path, and imagine adherants to the faith who see the true way rebelling against the leadership,
And so what comes under examination is the existence and nature of God's promise to the Church. And it may be helpful to mention (again) that Catholics have no problem with the idea of Popes in hell. It's not so much themselves as their rare doctrinal definitions which are protected from error.
Flippantly, I keep thinking of Rush saying, "It ain't bragging if you can do it." I think that's wrong. Facts are not the only thing which make a statement a "boast." If the Church thought it was her own merits which sustained her, that would be self-serving.
My point (and I do have one) is that, from our POV we think (a) that essential characteristics of "THE" Church are unity, universality, holiness, and apostolicity, and therefore (b) The Church which calls itself "Catholic" is the one bona fide (and sola fide?) ;-) development of the original company of apostles and disciples. We might as well call ourselves the Holy Church, the One Church, the Apostolic Church, but, of course, the issue at question was jurisdiction, so "universal" won out.
And that leads to one more observation. ALL the doctrines articulated in conciliar and papal definitions were controversial.
In this connection the teaching function of the papacy has a function which blurs our modern distinction between judging and leading. (And could be construed as more Biblical in that respect, see Judges and Ps 72?) That is, when disputes arise, whether about circumcision in the first century, or in later ages how to talk about the Eucharist, councils are called or the Pope is consulted to resolve the issue.
This adumbrates the issue of doctrinal "development." It's not that a bunch of guys in Rome have too much time on their hands. It's that Nestorius says Mary cannot be called "God bearer," because the divine nature of Jesus could not be born, and then a bunch of other people say, "Yes, she can too," (because Jesus is not two things but one) and the controversy results in the emperor saying, "You all get together and settle this," and another step is taken in Christology.