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To: CynicalBear
"Now pray tell what does that have to do with the RCC?"

The "RCC" or more properly the Catholic Church, has maintained an unbroken Apostolic Succession from Pope Peter I through Benedict XVI. The Church didn't leave you, you left it.

400 posted on 01/17/2011 10:21:41 AM PST by Natural Law
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To: Natural Law; Scythian
>> The "RCC" or more properly the Catholic Church, has maintained an unbroken Apostolic Succession from Pope Peter I through Benedict XVI.<<

You obviously don’t know the views of the early church fathers very well.

Of all the Fathers who interpret these passages in the Gospels (Matt 16:18, John 21:17), not a single one applies them to the Roman bishops as Peter's successors. How many Fathers have busied themselves with these texts, yet not one of them whose commentaries we possess-Origen, Chrysostom, Hilary, Augustine, Cyril, Theodoret, and those whose interpretations are collected in ca tenas, has dropped the faintest hint that the primacy of Rome is the consequence of the commission and promise to Peter! Not one of them has explained the rock or foundation on which Christ would build His Church of the office given to Peter to be transmitted to his successors, but they understood by it either Christ Himself, or Peter's confession of faith in Christ; often both together. Or else they thought Peter was the foundation equally with all the other Apostles, the twelve being together the foundation-stones of the church (Apoc. xxi. 14). The Fathers could the less recognize in the power of the keys, and the power of binding and loosing, any special prerogative or lordship of the Roman bishop, inasmuch as what is obvious to any one at first sight-they did not regard the power first given to Peter, and afterwards conferred on all the Apostles, as any thing peculiar to him, or hereditary in the line of Roman bishops, and they held the symbol of the keys as meaning just the same as the figurative expression of binding and loosing.

It is the Protestant and Eastern Orthodox interpretation that is endorsed by the Fathers of the early church and not the Roman Catholic, which contradicts that consensus. The Roman Catholic interpretation is, in fact, a direct contradiction of the decrees of Trent and Vatican I, which state that it is unlawful to interpret Scripture in any way contrary to the unanimous consent of the Fathers.

The Church of Rome claims that papal primacy can be validated by the facts of history in that it was the universal practice of the church from the very beginning. These claims are false; the facts of history contradict them. The attitudes and practices of the Fathers and councils 27 reveal that the church never viewed the bishops of Rome as being endowed with supreme authority to rule the church universal. And there never has been a supreme human ruler in the church. This whole concept was repudiated by Pope Gregory the Great (A.D. 590-604) when he rebuked the bishop of Constantinople for attempting to arrogate to himself the title of 'universal bishop.' He insisted that such a position and title are unlawful in the church of Jesus Christ:

“Now I confidently say that whoever calls himself, or desires to be called, Universal Priest, is in his elation the precursor of Antichrist, because he proudly puts himself above all others. Nor is it by dissimilar pride that he is led into error; for, as that perverse one wishes to appear as God above all men, so whoever this one is who covets being called sole priest, he extols himself above all other priests....Certainly Peter, the first of the apostles, himself a member of the holy and universal Church, Paul, Andrew, John-what were they but heads of particular communities? And yet all were members under one Head. And (to bind all together in a short girth of speech) the saints before the law, the saints under the law, the saints under grace, all these making up the Lord's Body, were constituted as members of the Church, and not one of them has wished himself to be called universal. Now let your holiness acknowledge to what extent you swell within yourself in desiring to be called by that name by which no one presumed to be called who was truly holy.”

I could go on and on but suffice it to say, the RCC of today does not resemble or follow what the early fathers taught.

405 posted on 01/17/2011 10:59:25 AM PST by CynicalBear
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To: Natural Law; CynicalBear; 1000 silverlings; Alex Murphy; bkaycee; blue-duncan; boatbums; caww; ...
The "RCC" or more properly the Catholic Church, has maintained an unbroken Apostolic Succession from Pope Peter I through Benedict XVI. The Church didn't leave you, you left it.

List them.

431 posted on 01/17/2011 12:33:26 PM PST by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: Natural Law

For later reading...


1,136 posted on 01/19/2011 2:57:20 PM PST by DrymChaser (It's amateur hour at the White House, unfortunately it means Curtains for America.)
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