Posted on 09/25/2003 4:49:36 AM PDT by Catholicguy
A Catholic cannot sever a single Bond of Unity, whether it be the Bond of Worship, Doctrine,or Authority, and pretend in doing so he is preserving "Tradition" when Tradition itself teaches Rome will not fall into heresy.
Ubi Petrus, Ibi Ecclesia is Tradition.
Furthermore, in order to restrain petulant spirits, It decrees, that no one, relying on his own skill, shall,--in matters of faith, and of morals pertaining to the edification of Christian doctrine, --wresting the sacred Scripture to his own senses, presume to interpret the said sacred Scripture contrary to that sense which holy mother Church,--whose it is to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the holy Scriptures,--hath held and doth hold; or even contrary to the unanimous consent of the Fathers; even though such interpretations were never (intended) to be at any time published. Contraveners shall be made known by their Ordinaries, and be punished with the penalties by law established.
I leave it to schismatics and those that succor them to war incessantly against Tradition in their sisyphean struggle to prove Rome and the Pope are in error and they are preserving the truth.
If that is so, let them post ONE Catholic Church Father who teaches such an absurdity that schism preserves truth.
Letter to the Corinthians: Shameful, beloved, extremely shameful, and unworthy of your training in Christ, is the report that on account of one or two persons the well-established and ancient Church of the Corinthians is in revolt against the presbyters...so that by your folly you heap blasphemies on the name of the Lord and create a danger for yourselves....Love endures all things, is long-suffering in everything. There is nothing vulgar in love, nothing haughty. Love makes no schism...You, therefore, who laid the foundation of the rebellion, submit to your presbyters and be chastened to repentance, bending your knees in a spirit of humility."
You shall not make a schism...
For Jesus Christ, our inseperable life, is the will of the Father, just as the bishops, who have been appointed throughout the world, are the will of Jesus Christ. It is fitting, therefore, that you should live in harmony with the will of the bishop - as,indeed, you do. Let us be careful, then, if we should be submissive to God, not to oppose the Bishop
Those, inded, who belong to God and Jesus Christ - they are with the bishop. And those who repent and come to the unity of the church - they too shall be of God, and will be living according to Jesus Christ. Do not err, my brethren: if anyone follow a schismatic, he will not inherit the Kingdom of God.
You have written on my account the Church now has a portion of itself in a state of dispersion. In truth, the whole people of the Church are collected together and made one and joined to each other in an indivisible harmony. They alone have remained outside who, were they within, would have to be ejected...And the Lord too, in the Gospel, when the disciples abandoned Him while He was speaking, turned to the twelve and said, "and do you too wish to go away?" Peter answered Him, saying, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the word of eternal life; and we believe and know that you are the Son of the Living God."
There speaks Peter, upon whom the Church would be built, teaching in the name of the Church and showing that even if a stubborn and proud multitude withdraws because it does not wish to obey, yet the Church does not withdraw from Christ. The people joined to the priest and the flock clinging to their shephers are the Church.
You ought to know, then, that the bishop is in the Church and the Church in the bishop; and if someone is not with the bishop, he is not in the Church. They vainly flatter themselves who creep up, not having peace with the priests of God, believing they are secretly in communion with certain individuals. For the Church, which is One and Catholic, is not split or divided, but it is indeed united and joined by the cement of priests who adhere to one another.
The Church is one; and it is not possible to be both within and without what is one. If the Church is around Novatian, it is not around Cornelius. And indeed, if it was around Cornelius, who suceeded Bishop Fabian by a legitimate ordination and whom the Lord glorified with martyrdom even beyond the honor of the priesthood, then Novatian is not in the Church, nor can he be reckoned as a bishop, since, in contempt of evangelic and apostolic tradition, he suceeded to no one but sprang up of himself. He that was not ordained in the Church can neither have nor hold the Church in any way.
A truly spiritual disciple shall judge those who make a schism and are destitute of the love of God, who look to their own advantage rather than to the unity of the Church, who for any kind of trifling reason cut apart and divide the great and glorious body of Christ, and destroy it insofar as they are able - men who talk of peace while making war.
But since it would be too long to enumerate in such a volume as this the sucessions of all the Churches, we shall confound all those who, in whatever manner, whether through self-satisfaction or vainglory, or through blindness and wicked opinion, assemble other than where it is proper, by pointing out here the sucesssions of the bishops of the greatest and most ancient Church known to all, founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious Apostles, Peter and Paul, that Church which has the tradition and the faith which comes down to us after having been announced to men by the Apostles. For with this Church because of its superior origin, all Churches must agree, that is, all the faithful in the whole world; and it is in her that the faithful everywhere have maintained the Apostolic tradition.
I cried out while I was in your midst, I spoke with a loud voice, the voice of God. "Gove heed to your bishop and the presbytery and the deacons." Some suspected me of saying this because I had previous knowledge of the division which certain persons had caused; but He for whom I am in chains is my witness that I had no knowledge of this from any human being. It was the spirit who kept preaching these words; "Do nothing without the bishop, keep your body as the temple of God, love unity, flee from divisions, be imitators of Jesus Christ, as He was imitator of the Father.
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