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Peter & Succession (Understanding the Church Today)
Ignatius Insight ^ | 2005 | Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger

Posted on 10/21/2006 4:52:03 AM PDT by NYer

From Called To Communion: Understanding the Church Today

Editor's note: This is the second half of a chapter titled "The Primacy of Peter and Unity of the Church." The first half examines the status of Peter in the New Testament and the commission logion contained in Matthew 16:17-19.

The principle of succession in general

That the primacy of Peter is recognizable in all the major strands of the New Testament is incontestable.

The real difficulty arises when we come to the second question: Can the idea of a Petrine succession be justified? Even more difficult is the third question that is bound up with it: Can the Petrine succession of Rome be credibly substantiated?

Concerning the first question, we must first of all note that there is no explicit statement regarding the Petrine succession in the New Testament. This is not surprising, since neither the Gospels nor the chief Pauline epistles address the problem of a postapostolic Church—which, by the way, must be mentioned as a sign of the Gospels' fidelity to tradition. Indirectly, however, this problem can be detected in the Gospels once we admit the principle of form critical method according to which only what was considered in the respective spheres of tradition as somehow meaningful for the present was preserved in writing as such. This would mean, for example, that toward the end of the first century, when Peter was long dead, John regarded the former's primacy, not as a thing of the past, but as a present reality for the Church.


For many even believe—though perhaps with a little too much imagination—that they have good grounds for interpreting the "competition" between Peter and the beloved disciple as an echo of the tensions between Rome's claim to primacy and the sense of dignity possessed by the Churches of Asia Minor. This would certainly be a very early and, in addition, inner-biblical proof that Rome was seen as continuing the Petrine line; but we should in no case rely on such uncertain hypotheses. The fundamental idea, however, does seem to me correct, namely, that the traditions of the New Testament never reflect an interest of purely historical curiosity but are bearers of present reality and in that sense constantly rescue things from the mere past, without blurring the special status of the origin.

Moreover, even scholars who deny the principle itself have propounded hypotheses of succession. 0. Cullmann, for example, objects in a very clear-cut fashion to the idea of succession, yet he believes that he can Show that Peter was replaced by James and that this latter assumed the primacy of the erstwhile first apostle. Bultmann believes that he is correct in concluding from the mention of the three pillars in Galatians 2:9 that the course of development led away from a personal to a collegial leadership and that a college entered upon the succession of Peter. [1]

We have no need to discuss these hypotheses and others like them; their foundation is weak enough. Nevertheless, they do show that it is impossible to avoid the idea of succession once the word transmitted in Scripture is considered to be a sphere open to the future. In those writings of the New Testament that stand on the cusp of the second generation or else already belong to it-especially in the Acts of the Apostles and in the Pastoral Letters—the principle of succession does in fact take on concrete shape.

The Protestant notion that the "succession" consists solely in the word as such, but not in any "structures", is proved to be anachronistic in light of what in actual fact is the form of tradition in the New Testament. The word is tied to the witness, who guarantees it an unambiguous sense, which it does not possess as a mere word floating in isolation. But the witness is not an individual who stands independently on his own. He is no more a wit ness by virtue of himself and of his own powers of memory than Peter can be the rock by his own strength. He is not a witness as "flesh and blood" but as one who is linked to the Pneuma, the Paraclete who authenticates the truth and opens up the memory and, in his turn, binds the witness to Christ. For the Paraclete does not speak of himself, but he takes from "what is his" (that is, from what is Christ's: Jn 16: 13).

This binding of the witness to the Pneuma and to his mode of being-"not of himself, but what he hears" -is called "sacrament" in the language of the Church. Sacrament designates a threefold knot-word, witness, Holy Spirit and Christ-which describes the essential structure of succession in the New Testament. We can infer with certainty from the testimony of the Pastoral Letters and of the Acts of the Apostles that the apostolic generation already gave to this interconnection of person and word in the believed presence of the Spirit and of Christ the form of the laying on of hands.

The Petrine succession in Rome

In opposition to the New Testament pattern of succession described above, which withdraws the word from human manipulation precisely by binding witnesses into its service, there arose very early on an intellectual and anti-institutional model known historically by the name of Gnosis, which made the free interpretation and speculative development of the word its principle. Before long the appeal to individual witnesses no longer sufficed to counter the intellectual claim advanced by this tendency. It became necessary to have fixed points by which to orient the testimony itself, and these were found in the so-called apostolic sees, that is, in those where the apostles had been active. The apostolic sees became the reference point of true communio. But among these sees there was in turn–quite clearly in Irenaeus of Lyons–a decisive criterion that recapitulated all others: the Church of Rome, where Peter and Paul suffered martyrdom. It was with this Church that every community had to agree; Rome was the standard of the authentic apostolic tradition as a whole.

Moreover, Eusebius of Caesarea organized the first version of his ecclesiastical history in accord with the same principle. It was to be a written record of the continuity of apostolic succession, which was concentrated in the three Petrine sees Rome, Antioch and Alexandria-among which Rome, as the site of Peter's martyrdom, was in turn preeminent and truly normative. [2]

This leads us to a very fundamental observation. [3] The Roman primacy, or, rather, the acknowledgement of Rome as the criterion of the right apostolic faith, is older than the canon of the New Testament, than "Scripture".

We must be on our guard here against an almost inevitable illusion. "Scripture" is more recent than "the scriptures" of which it is composed. It was still a long time before the existence of the individual writings resulted in the "New Testament" as Scripture, as the Bible. The assembling of the writings into a single Scripture is more properly speaking the work of tradition, a work that began in the second century but came to a kind of conclusion only in the fourth or fifth century. Harnack, a witness who cannot be suspected of pro-Roman bias, has remarked in this regard that it was only at the end of the second century, in Rome, that a canon of the "books of the New Testament" won recognition by the criterion of apostolicity-catholicity, a criterion to which the other Churches also gradually subscribed "for the sake of its intrinsic value and on the strength of the authority of the Roman Church".

We can therefore say that Scripture became Scripture through the tradition, which precisely in this process included the potentior principalitas–the preeminent original authority–of the Roman see as a constitutive element.

Two points emerge clearly from what has just been First, the principle of tradition in its sacramental form-apostolic succession—played a constitutive role in the existence and continuance of the Church. Without this principle, it is impossible to conceive of a New Testament at all, so that we are caught in a contradiction when we affirm the one while wanting to deny the other. Furthermore, we have seen that in Rome the traditional series of bishops was from the very beginning recorded as a line of successors.

We can add that Rome and Antioch were conscious of succeeding to the mission of Peter and that early on Alexandria was admitted into the circle of Petrine sees as the city where Peter's disciple Mark had been active. Having said all that, the site of Peter's martyrdom nonetheless appears clearly as the chief bearer of his supreme authority and plays a preeminent role in the formation of tradition which is constitutive of the Church-and thus in the genesis of the New Testament as Bible; Rome is one of the indispensable internal and external- conditions of its possibility. It would be exciting to trace the influence on this process of the idea that the mission of Jerusalem had passed over to Rome, which explains why at first Jerusalem was not only not a "patriarchal see" but not even a metropolis: Jerusalem was now located in Rome, and since Peter's departure from that city, its primacy had been transferred to the capital of the pagan world. [4]

But to consider this in detail would lead us too far afield for the moment. The essential point, in my opinion, has already become plain: the martyrdom of Peter in Rome fixes the place where his function continues. The awareness of this fact can be detected as early as the first century in the Letter of Clement, even though it developed but slowly in all its particulars.

Concluding reflections

We shall break off at this point, for the chief goal of our considerations has been attained. We have seen that the New Testament as a whole strikingly demonstrates the primacy of Peter; we have seen that the formative development of tradition and of the Church supposed the continuation of Peter's authority in Rome as an intrinsic condition. The Roman primacy is not an invention of the popes, but an essential element of ecclesial unity that goes back to the Lord and was developed faithfully in the nascent Church.

But the New Testament shows us more than the formal aspect of a structure; it also reveals to us the inward nature of this structure. It does not merely furnish proof texts, it is a permanent criterion and task. It depicts the tension between skandalon and rock; in the very disproportion between man's capacity and God's sovereign disposition, it reveals God to be the one who truly acts and is present.

If in the course of history the attribution of such authority to men could repeatedly engender the not entirely unfounded suspicion of human arrogation of power, not only the promise of the New Testament but also the trajectory of that history itself prove the opposite. The men in question are so glaringly, so blatantly unequal to this function that the very empowerment of man to be the rock makes evident how little it is they who sustain the Church but God alone who does so, who does so more in spite of men than through them.

The mystery of the Cross is perhaps nowhere so palpably present as in the primacy as a reality of Church history. That its center is forgiveness is both its intrinsic condition and the sign of the distinctive character of God's power. Every single biblical logion about the primacy thus remains from generation to generation a signpost and a norm, to which we must ceaselessly resubmit ourselves. When the Church adheres to these words in faith, she is not being triumphalistic but humbly recognizing in wonder and thanksgiving the victory of God over and through human weakness. Whoever deprives these words of their force for fear of triumphalism or of human usurpation of authority does not proclaim that God is greater but diminishes him, since God demonstrates the power of his love, and thus remains faithful to the law of the history of salvation, precisely in the paradox of human impotence.

For with the same realism with which we declare today the sins of the popes and their disproportion to the magnitude of their commission, we must also acknowledge that Peter has repeatedly stood as the rock against ideologies, against the dissolution of the word into the plausibilities of a given time, against subjection to the powers of this world.

When we see this in the facts of history, we are not celebrating men but praising the Lord, who does not abandon the Church and who desired to manifest that he is the rock through Peter, the little stumbling stone: "flesh and blood" do not save, but the Lord saves through those who are of flesh and blood. To deny this truth is not a plus of faith, not a plus of humility, but is to shrink from the humility that recognizes God as he is. Therefore the Petrine promise and its historical embodiment in Rome remain at the deepest level an ever-renewed motive for joy: the powers of hell will not prevail against it . . .


Endnotes:

[1] Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition, 2d ed. (198 1), 147- 51; cf. Gnilka, 56.

[2] For an exhaustive account of this point, see V. Twomey, Apostolikos Thronos (Münster, 1982).

[3] It is my hope that in the not-too-distant future I will have the opportunity to develop and substantiate in greater detail the view of the succession that I attempt to indicate in an extremely condensed form in what follows. I owe important suggestions to several works by 0. Karrer, especially: Um die Einheit der Christen. Die Petrusfrage (Frankfurt am Mainz, 1953); "Apostolische Nachfolge und Primat", in: Feiner, Trütsch and Böckle, Fragen in der Theologie heute (Freiburg im.Breisgau, 1957), 175-206; "Das Petrusamt in der Frühkirche", in Festgabe J. Lortz (Baden-Baden, 1958), 507-25; "Die biblische und altkirchliche Grundlage des Papsttums", in: Lebendiges Zeugnis (1958), 3-24. Also of importance are some of the papers in the festschrift for 0. Karrer: Begegnung der Christen, ed. by Roesle-Cullmann (Frankfurt am Mainz, 1959); in particular, K. Hofstetter, "Das Petrusamt in der Kirche des I. und 2. Jahrhunderts", 361-72.

[4] Cf. Hofstetter.


TOPICS: Apologetics; Catholic; History
KEYWORDS: catholic; petrinesuccession; primacyofpeter
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To: Alamo-Girl

Thanks.

Blessed I sensed your meaning accurately.

I agree, of course.


1,501 posted on 10/26/2006 6:03:05 AM PDT by Quix (LET GOD ARISE AND HIS ENEMIES BE SCATTERED. LET ISRAEL CALL ON GOD AS THEIRS! & ISLAM FLUSH ITSELF)
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To: Uncle Chip
Come on, adaire, adaire ya. Let's see documented facts, from the earliest through the AnteNicene period. No more rhetoric. Post your "Fathers'" words, so that we can all see what you choose to trust rather than the Scriptures themselves.

The nature of your comments throughout this thread suggests to me that you are much more interested in defending your own position than in engaging in an honest and respectful pursuit of truth. For that reason, I'm not going to engage in this discussion with you. There are preconditions for rational discourse, and they include a sincere desire for truth (rather than pushing one's ideology no matter what the facts), and a certain level of respect for one's interlocutor. Unfortunately, in my opinion, on this thread at least, and with me in particular, you have not met those conditions. If in the future I detect a different attitude, I'll be glad to dialogue with you.

-A8

1,502 posted on 10/26/2006 6:06:13 AM PDT by adiaireton8 ("There is no greater evil one can suffer than to hate reasonable discourse." - Plato, Phaedo 89d)
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To: Alamo-Girl
Thanks. So, if you would not have been under the Apostles' authority, then

(1) why did Jesus give His Apostles the authority to bind and loose and forgive and retain sins, and to speak in His name such that whoever listens to them listens to Him, and whoever rejects them rejects Him? (Luke 10:6; 1 John 4:6) And

(2) why do you consider the writings of the Apostles (i.e. the NT) authoritative? And

(3) why are the Twelve Apostles the foundation stones of the Church (Rev 21:14) and why will they "sit upon twelve thrones" (Matt 19:28; Luke 22:30)?

-A8

1,503 posted on 10/26/2006 6:16:18 AM PDT by adiaireton8 ("There is no greater evil one can suffer than to hate reasonable discourse." - Plato, Phaedo 89d)
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To: adiaireton8
The Magisterium ensures the Church's fidelity to the teaching of the Apostles in matters of faith and morals."

NOT SO. I can easily grant that was the purpose once upon a time. It has failed miserably repeatedly over the centuries. History is full of such examples. It failed. Many's organizations and systems can ONLY FAIL. It is their nature.

Christ did not send us an organization to dwell within us but HIS SPIRIT. And He did not send us an organization to dwell with--BUT HIMSELF ALONE are we to dwell within AS THE TABERNACLES with us, in us.

Were I to judge the organization according to the criteria mentioned in the above post . . . I would have to flunk it utterly. It has failed far more centuries, decades, years, months, weeks, days than it has succeeded. I'm skeptical that it has succeeded since BEFORE IT'S FOUNDING.

Had it succeeded, we'd see more congruence between it and Scripture as well as between it and the predicted Scriptural results of walking intimately with Christ. We see neither. For many decades and centuries we observed THE OPPOSITE.

According to the criteria listed, the leaders and whole organization need to be fired and replaced wholesale. They have repeatedly failed and failed utterly.

That is partly why so many millions of former Romans in South America are leaving the Roman group in droves and joining Charismatic groups WHERE THE OBVIOUS AND REDEMPTIVE POWER OF GOD IS ROUTINELY DEMONSTRATED--and more miraculously, where a much higher percentage of folks are truly walking in Christ's Love to a much greater degree.

. . .

One does not have to choose between trusting the Magisterium and trusting the Word of God.

WRONG.

FOR THAT TO BE TRUE, they would have to be essentially identical. They are not. They have not been near identical since well before the founding of the organization.

And, when ANYTHING DIFFERS from THE WORD OF GOD, guess which I shall always, hopefully, choose! Otherwise does NOT help in life and certainly does NOT help deepen one's life IN GOD.

Only by trusting the Magisterium can we trust that we have the Word of God. The two necessarily go together.

WRONG.

NO INTERLOPPER CAN SUCCESSFULLY HORN IN ON THE PRIORITY OF GOD'S WORD. Nothing. What arrogance for any organization and/or group of individuals to PRESUME so. Talk about the mother of all presumptions!

CHRIST IS THE LIVING WORD, for sure. His Indwelling Spirit is to lead each individual into all truth . . . more or less without any destructive meddling by ANYONE OR ANYTHING ELSE.

GOD IS NOT THE LEAST BIT INTERESTED in having an organization between HIM AND ANY INDIVIDUAL in the SPIRITUAL MARITAL BED. Hint. God is not an idiot.

BTW, I consider the founding of the Roman organization to have been some 100-300 years or so--probably the 300 mark--AFTER CHRIST, PAUL and the lot of them. Nothing else is historically accurate, to me.

1,504 posted on 10/26/2006 6:24:09 AM PDT by Quix (LET GOD ARISE AND HIS ENEMIES BE SCATTERED. LET ISRAEL CALL ON GOD AS THEIRS! & ISLAM FLUSH ITSELF)
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To: Alamo-Girl
Exactly right - there are no mortal authorites of God's kingdom. Only the Holy Spirit has the charge and more importantly, the power, to reveal it to and in man.

So let me ask you a question: If you lived back during the time of the Apostles, would you have been under their authority or not?

No, I would have been under Christ's authority then just as I am now. However, it would have been a moot point because the apostles, Stephen, Paul, Barnabas, Timothy and such were filled by the Holy Spirit - so we would have been of one mind.

. . .

It's about the power of God. I surrender absolutely to God, i.e. to Him alone.

= = =

Dear Angel-Gal, I agree--certainly essentially . . . but I think I want to tease out the authority part a little bit. I might slightly disagree.

I don't have any trouble with God 'ordained' authority in some sense . . . to teach, preach, minister to the widows and orphans etc . . .

BUT NOT TO USURP.

And, it appears that NO EARTHLY AUTHORITY HAS HAD THE POWER TO RESIST USURPING God's authority once the organization gets up and running for any length of time. So, then, God lifts the anointing and usually the authority rather wholesale as well.

I think that's what we've seen with a lot of TV evangelists . . . God granted unusual authority for Holy Spirit to flow through them and bless other people and pretty soon, THEY ACTED AND FELT LIKE *THEY* WERE DOING IT. And the crash came resoundingly. Their flesh and degree of cleansed purity, refiner's fired purity was not up to the task. Their pride scuttled them wholesale. That's been true from the days of the pharisees to this.

The net effect is, I think, your position, A-G. GOD AND GOD ALONE. Holy Spirit was not sent to be our butler; our secretary; our side-kick; our pet. HE'S THE BOSS.

1,505 posted on 10/26/2006 6:32:23 AM PDT by Quix (LET GOD ARISE AND HIS ENEMIES BE SCATTERED. LET ISRAEL CALL ON GOD AS THEIRS! & ISLAM FLUSH ITSELF)
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To: adiaireton8
The nature of your comments throughout this thread suggests to me that you are much more interested in defending your own position than in engaging in an honest and respectful pursuit of truth. For that reason, I'm not going to engage in this discussion with you. There are preconditions for rational discourse, and they include a sincere desire for truth (rather than pushing one's ideology no matter what the facts), and a certain level of respect for one's interlocutor. Unfortunately, in my opinion, on this thread at least, and with me in particular, you have not met those conditions. If in the future I detect a different attitude, I'll be glad to dialogue with you.

Does that mean that you are reneging on our joint pursuit of the real truth regarding that elusive 25 Year Petrine Bishopric in Rome, with Cricifixion under Nero notwithstanding ---- or was that just more rhetoric from you??

Come on now, quit fooling around, and quit stalling. Post those sacred words from "the Fathers" without further delay.

1,506 posted on 10/26/2006 6:33:51 AM PDT by Uncle Chip (That all may come to the knowledge of the truth, no matter how painful)
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To: Alamo-Girl

what IS authority, anyway?

Isn't it the right, ability, sanction to exercise POWER to take action . . . particularly action in behalf of some higher POWER?

On that score . . . God removes HIS ANOINTING, HIS POWER whenever the flesh begins to usurp--especially very significantly.

Trouble is, organizations have their own momentum and their own power and certainly their own SENSE OF POWERFULNESS. And they 'soldier on' as the three stooges PRESUMING that God's power is still under and behind them when HE LEFT THE BAND a long time ago.


1,507 posted on 10/26/2006 6:34:56 AM PDT by Quix (LET GOD ARISE AND HIS ENEMIES BE SCATTERED. LET ISRAEL CALL ON GOD AS THEIRS! & ISLAM FLUSH ITSELF)
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To: HarleyD

INDEED. You make many excellent valid points.

Shockingly, I agree with all of them. Truly a miraculous event! LOL.


1,508 posted on 10/26/2006 6:39:14 AM PDT by Quix (LET GOD ARISE AND HIS ENEMIES BE SCATTERED. LET ISRAEL CALL ON GOD AS THEIRS! & ISLAM FLUSH ITSELF)
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To: Uncle Chip

WHAT A GRAND and admirable undertaking!

Am eager to see your results!

I love your humor.

LUB, AS WELL.


1,509 posted on 10/26/2006 6:41:45 AM PDT by Quix (LET GOD ARISE AND HIS ENEMIES BE SCATTERED. LET ISRAEL CALL ON GOD AS THEIRS! & ISLAM FLUSH ITSELF)
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To: adiaireton8

There are preconditions for rational discourse, and they include a sincere desire for truth (rather than pushing one's ideology no matter what the facts), and a certain level of respect for one's interlocutor.
= = = =

I hope ALL OUR mirrors are in working order in such pursuits.


1,510 posted on 10/26/2006 6:43:28 AM PDT by Quix (LET GOD ARISE AND HIS ENEMIES BE SCATTERED. LET ISRAEL CALL ON GOD AS THEIRS! & ISLAM FLUSH ITSELF)
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To: adiaireton8
(1) why did Jesus give His Apostles the authority to bind and loose and forgive and retain sins, and to speak in His name such that whoever listens to them listens to Him, and whoever rejects them rejects Him? (Luke 10:6; 1 John 4:6)

UHHHHH,

JESUS GAVE ALL BELIEVERS such authority. He made that clear. Paul made that clear.

I have lived it out and found it true around the world.

1,511 posted on 10/26/2006 6:45:46 AM PDT by Quix (LET GOD ARISE AND HIS ENEMIES BE SCATTERED. LET ISRAEL CALL ON GOD AS THEIRS! & ISLAM FLUSH ITSELF)
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To: Quix

Man's systems and organizations can only fail

not Many's . . . Many got cement shoes in Chicago and dumped in the lake.


1,512 posted on 10/26/2006 6:47:11 AM PDT by Quix (LET GOD ARISE AND HIS ENEMIES BE SCATTERED. LET ISRAEL CALL ON GOD AS THEIRS! & ISLAM FLUSH ITSELF)
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To: Quix

Thank You --- it is a huge undertaking and I will need all the divine help I can get, and from "the Fathers", of course.


1,513 posted on 10/26/2006 6:48:00 AM PDT by Uncle Chip (That all may come to the knowledge of the truth, no matter how painful)
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To: Uncle Chip

Help from The Fathers?

HOGWASH . . . as you know . . .

but help FROM THE SPIRIT, YES!

LUB,


1,514 posted on 10/26/2006 6:49:00 AM PDT by Quix (LET GOD ARISE AND HIS ENEMIES BE SCATTERED. LET ISRAEL CALL ON GOD AS THEIRS! & ISLAM FLUSH ITSELF)
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To: Quix
NOT SO. I can easily grant that was the purpose once upon a time. It has failed miserably repeatedly over the centuries.

Assertions do not make it so. Please name one false Catholic dogma. Just one. (We already tried this with your claim that the Catholic Church had flipflopped on dogma, and you couldn't come up with a single example.)

-A8

1,515 posted on 10/26/2006 6:53:39 AM PDT by adiaireton8 ("There is no greater evil one can suffer than to hate reasonable discourse." - Plato, Phaedo 89d)
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To: Quix
JESUS GAVE ALL BELIEVERS such authority. He made that clear. Paul made that clear.

Will you be writing some books and adding them to the NT canon shortly, since you have the same authority as the Apostles?

-A8

1,516 posted on 10/26/2006 6:55:28 AM PDT by adiaireton8 ("There is no greater evil one can suffer than to hate reasonable discourse." - Plato, Phaedo 89d)
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To: adiaireton8

Assertions do not make it so. Please name one false Catholic dogma. Just one. (We already tried this with your claim that the Catholic Church had flipflopped on dogma, and you couldn't come up with a single example.)
= = =

No. That's not accurate. I chose not to. Inability was not the issue. I left it for others to bother with, if they chose. I don't need to prove the history to myself, or others. I'm quite confident about it.

It's not the type of water gun fight I enjoy, at all, such detailed exchanges on such historical facts.


1,517 posted on 10/26/2006 7:07:49 AM PDT by Quix (LET GOD ARISE AND HIS ENEMIES BE SCATTERED. LET ISRAEL CALL ON GOD AS THEIRS! & ISLAM FLUSH ITSELF)
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To: adiaireton8

I think my cheekiness could easily . . .

But I think I'll mostly refrain . . .

HOLY SPIRIT is writing HIS living epistle with me day by day--As Paul noted. I will leave the task to Him.


1,518 posted on 10/26/2006 7:09:24 AM PDT by Quix (LET GOD ARISE AND HIS ENEMIES BE SCATTERED. LET ISRAEL CALL ON GOD AS THEIRS! & ISLAM FLUSH ITSELF)
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To: HarleyD

Harley, if you care to bother . . . not my cup of tea, if I can avoid it.


1,519 posted on 10/26/2006 7:11:03 AM PDT by Quix (LET GOD ARISE AND HIS ENEMIES BE SCATTERED. LET ISRAEL CALL ON GOD AS THEIRS! & ISLAM FLUSH ITSELF)
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To: Uncle Chip

You are welcome, of course, too! LOL.


1,520 posted on 10/26/2006 7:11:59 AM PDT by Quix (LET GOD ARISE AND HIS ENEMIES BE SCATTERED. LET ISRAEL CALL ON GOD AS THEIRS! & ISLAM FLUSH ITSELF)
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