Bishop Eleganti: Papal primacy must not be defined by ecumenical ‘negotiations’ with non-Catholics

Editor’s note: This text by Bishop Marian Eleganti was written in German and translated by LifeSiteNews with permission from the bishop.

(LifeSiteNews) — To see the acceptance of the Roman Catholic papal primacy of jurisdiction by other Christians as a criterion for its validity and legitimacy and to understand or exercise the papacy accordingly (in a new, different way) than before is, in my opinion, wrong.

It cannot be a question of downgrading the Petrine office until it becomes acceptable to as many separated Christians as possible, but it is no longer what it should be according to the will of Christ. The criterion is, therefore, whether it corresponds to this will and the truth of the Gospel in its current form, whether it remains an endowment by Christ (i.e., divine right), and whether or not its development and dogmatization took place in the Holy Spirit over the course of time.

We have always been convinced that the Holy Spirit guides the Church into the fullness of truth and maintains her in the truth, which is why she is considered infallible. Therefore, in the professio fidei, we also believe in the Church and the Holy Spirit.

Furthermore, there is an infallible dogmatization of the Petrine office. In this respect, the answer to the question of what the Petrine office consists of and how it is exercised (above all, whether or not it is jurisdictional for all Christians) cannot be the result of negotiations that seek the highest or lowest common denominator.

The essence of what has been achieved so far, namely what Christ wanted, cannot be put up for discussion again in an ahistorical way according to the motto “Back to the start!” The truth or the will of God, not the consensus with the separated brethren, must be the deciding factor here. The question is of a fundamental nature. It touches on the roots of Roman Catholic ecclesiology: Did the papacy in the Roman Catholic Church develop authentically and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit until it was dogmatized by Vatican I, or do we regard this development, together with the other Christian ecclesial communities and denominations, essentially as an aberration and as an alienation of the Gospel, as a departure from the original form of the Petrine office established and originally intended by Christ?

For the Church, this is a question of being and non-being, a fundamental ecclesiological question, namely the “where” or the location of the one, true, and visible full form of the Church of Christ. In short: Where is (exists) the one, true and visible Church of Christ? We know the Roman Catholic answer to this: the Roman Catholic Church. In our view, even after Vatican II, there is no, and there will not be, a different one. But the other “churches” will certainly never agree. For this reason, they are visibly separated from us – at least in terms of jurisdiction.

If one sees the development of the Church’s ministry since the days of the apostles as a continuum inspired and guided by the Holy Spirit, this development – up to the key statements on the Petrine office of the First Vatican Council – cannot be traced back to supposedly simpler preliminary stages, on which other churches and Christian denominations have remained or even departed from them, because they did not agree with the Roman Catholic understanding of the Church in general and the universal primacy of jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome in particular and remained in dissent.

This raises – as already mentioned – the fundamental question of the true and visible Church and its indivisibility, the Church that Christ meant, that was founded on Peter, the rock, and that experienced its birth on Pentecost in Jerusalem and has remained true to itself over the course of time. The Second Vatican Council answered this question with its problematic “subsistit in,” [subsists in] which requires explanation. Although the Council Fathers were still convinced that the Roman Catholic Church is the visible full form of Christ’s Church (existit), they semantically diluted (subsistit) this irrevocable claim in order to appear more inclusive and less exclusive, to avoid hurting feelings and to recognize and highlight the valid elements of truth and sacramental structures of Christians separated from it.

Now, in a new attempt, these cans are to be opened again, and the development of doctrine and theology of ministry, particularly in relation to the Petrine ministry and its exercise, is to be called into question once more. The direction should be synodal or biblical-evangelical, the human in this complex reality should be separated from the divine, so that the papacy appears in a new acceptance and in a new form of its self-understanding and its exercise. This is ecclesiologically questionable.

To put it somewhat casually and in other words: “Forget the dogmatization of the primacy of Roman jurisdiction at Vatican I and return to the Reformation period, to the first millennium or even to the apostolic era! Relativize those key dogmatic statements of an ecumenical council of the Latin West as one of its cultural peculiarities, which in its entire jurisdictional intensification applies only to the Latin Church! Give up this divisive yoke that the Roman pope cannot impose on all Christians ex sese (of his own accord) instead of ex consensu (based on the consent of a majority).”

A unified ministry is desired, but synodal, i.e., capable of being approved by a majority and only binding if the majority of those involved (i.e., all Christians) have so decided: the pope as moderator and synod leader, nothing more, at best as a credible witness, who can of course also be contradicted. How well or how badly this works can be seen very clearly in the case of the separated brethren (cf. Anglicanism). We now understand why the title “Patriarch of the West” was reintroduced as an attribute of the Roman Pontiff after Benedict XVI dropped it! Is this a gain? Personally, I consider it to be a step backward and a questionable self-cancellation of the Roman Catholic doctrinal development with regard to the Petrine office, which has always been a bone of contention in our question, not only because of the moral failure of popes but much more fundamentally and theologically or in terms of church politics.

To now claim anew that the papacy is of divine and human law, in order to be able to relativize its jurisdictional exercise historically and critically through the latter addition, means for me not to believe in the Church as a divine institution. Once again: “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the one, holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.” The latter is clearly Roman in the matter of the Petrine office and forms an “iunctim” (a unity) in the symbolum with the Holy Spirit. According to the Roman Catholic understanding of the development of dogma, questioning this means questioning the infallibility of the Church of Christ in general and the Pope in particular (provided certain conditions are met).

In conclusion, I think that in this discursive-synodal way, no church can be made with separated Christians in this question either, just as little as we have come to a common ground in this respect in the past with its distortions (cf. the Reformation period). A return ecumenism (you can only get out of dead ends by repenting) must declaredly not exist, although, in my opinion, the whole truth would demand it.

One could also speak of reunification. But such a reunion would have to take place in truth, and not as a form of the primacy of honor of the Roman Pontiff to whitewash a Christianity that continues to drift apart, which remains de facto and jurisdictional visibly separated and also does not reach a consensus on essential, ecclesiological and dogmatic issues. The regional implementation of the common faith (is it?) would continue to differ (as before). Just think of the ecclesial communities from Protestantism. No, the path proposed by the new document is for me a “mirage” sui generis that leads to chaos or rubber-stamps what already exists.

With this statement, I am, of course, definitely “out of the loop.” You have to decide on the question based on your own conscience. Just as Jesus pessimistically (?) or realistically announced that there will always be wars, dissent in Christendom on issues such as the Petrine office and others will unfortunately remain a reality, not to mention pastoral practice (the so-called “reality of life” of the “churches”) due to their different understanding of office and sacraments.

We remain sinners, and the new proposal or basis for discussion is no more than a feeble attempt at cohesion, but no unity in the indivisible truth that applies to all. For us, this truth is clearly Roman Catholic, or do you want to claim that the Roman Catholic Church departed from the truth of Christ and His will in the 19th century at Vatican I with its dogmatization of the Pope’s universal primacy of jurisdiction (ex sese non ex consensu)? Yet it was precisely about infallibility!

Note: Cardinal Kurt Koch, President of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, who published the document “The Bishop of Rome. Primacy and Synodality in the Ecumenical Dialogues and in the Responses to the Encyclical Ut unum sint,” has published a response to Bishop Marian Eleganti in German here.

Ironic to your post, one thing that protected the Morningstar of the Reformation, John Wycliffe in the 14th century, from the inquisitors of his day was the fact that the catholic church was fractured with multiple popes. This included Pope Gregory XI, who himself was an Avignon pope. Basically, in Wycliffe's day the catholic church itself was splitting into different denominations, just a few centuries after it already split between east and west.

So the Protestants, whom you criticize for having denominations, got its start away from a catholic church who was already splitting into denominations itself.

...that every milkmaid thought she could interpret scripture for themselves

Let's be truthful with each other, FReeper to FReeper. Look at the Constitution. Was it meant to be read and interpreted by the political elites for us average citizens, or was it meant to be read by us average citizens? Clearly us small-government conservatives believe it was meant for the Americans themselves to read it and know our rights and our expectations of limited government. We believe if we trusted in the elites to do the "interpreting" then it leads to a larger and more oppressive government (which it has). Or as Lincoln put it in his Gettysburg Address: "...these dead shall not have died in vain-that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom-and that government of the people, by the people, for the people."

Is it, therefore, so hard for you to see the Protestant rationale for the average Joe Christian to put it on himself to read the Bible on his own and make sure he's being taught correctly by the church leaders? It's a very, very important feature in God's church. Or as Wycliffe put it almost 4 centuries before Lincoln: "This Bible is for the Government of the People, by the People, and for the People." (in his 1384 English translation)

Or as William Tyndale put it to the clergy in the 16th century who opposed translating the Bible to English so the average people could read it: "If God spare my life, ere many years pass, I will cause a boy that driveth the plow shall know more of the Scripture than thou dost."

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Bishop Eleganti: Papal primacy must not be defined by ecumenical ‘negotiations’ with non-Catholics

There is an infallible dogmatization of the Petrine office. The answer to the question of what the Petrine office consists of and how it is exercised cannot be the result of negotiations that seek the highest or lowest common denominator.