- Jun 25, 2014
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The following is a thread started by a friend of mine, and re-posted with his permission:
Continued:
The Catholic Church
Here I will like to address the views of Catholicism on the nature of the Church. I hope this becomes a thread only to clarify what we believe not to challenge it. There is plenty of places here where every conceivable Catholic position is challenged. If you do not understand something, please ask or contribute if you are Catholic or Protestant who knows our doctrine.
Please receive this as an attempt to clarify our doctrine, not convince you of anything. I want to start with apostolic succession as that is such a foundational view of our faith.
I. Apostolic Succession:
Apostolic succession was instituted by Christ precisely because individuals going on their own to scripture will disagree on the meaning of a doctrine.
It is interesting that when Paul spoke against quarrels and divisions in the Church he rejected those who said "I am of Paul" or "I am of Apollos" but also those who said "I am of Christ'! From the beginning, the Church as a whole [all its ministers under Christ] was the embodiment of truth and life.
Christ came to preach the Gospel and establish his Church as "pillar and foundation of the truth." We believe that such succession is demonstrable in Scripture and was the great weapon of Christians against heretics.
Now, the Scriptures do teach that bishops became the successors to the Apostles.
Besides Matthias, the one chosen to succeed Judas, Paul (Gal. 1:1; Titus 1:1) and Barnabas (Acts 14:14) were also considered Apostles. Paul and Barnabas also became Bishops “looking after” the Christian community: Acts 15:36. There we are told that both went to "visit [episkepsometha = look after, oversee] our brethren in every city where we have preached the word of the Lord, [and see] how they do.” See Interlinear Hebrew-Greek-English Bible One Volume Carrying Edition, p. 839.] Here Barnabas is counted as a Bishop in the same sense that Paul is.
Thus, Apostles became bishops and they selected successors. In Acts 1:20 it is important to note the particular word used by the biblical author to designate the succession of Matthias into the office of Bishop. He uses the word episkopee which specifies the office rather than the person. That is why most translations speak of an ‘office’ rather than a more personal ‘apostleship.’ The passages quote in there from the Old Testament's Psalm 69:25 and 109:8:
P. 69:25 Let their habitation be desolate; and let none dwell in their tents.
P. 109:8 Let his days be few; and let another take his office [Gr. Episkopee]
These Psalms speak clearly of an office and a principle of succession. In context, the psalmist is speaking of his many enemies that he wishes God would banish and replace with others more faithful and qualified. And here is where Peter goes to bring forth the principle for Acts 1:21 and the succession of Judas. See how office is in view and not a personal privilege to Mathias.
Let’s continue. The word episkopee is used 4 times in the NT. In two instances it refers to a ‘visitation’ (Luke 19:44 and 1 Peter 2:21) but in the other two, the word refers to an ecclesiastical office (Acts 1:20; 1 Tim. 3:1). The word episkopos (used to designate the person rather than the office) is not used in Acts but instead episkopee (office) is used. The establishment of the office is in view not the privilege of a person being counted as an Apostle. How we know this succession is carried out to bishops?
In the only other reference to episkopee in the New Testament [1 Timothy 3:1] Paul states that ‘anyone desiring the office (episkopee) desires a good work.’ Since in the next verse he uses the word episkopos to specify the person of the bishop we know that the instance of episkopee refers to the office occupied by the person.
Both the bishop and his office are mentioned successibly; demonstrating they are interconnected yet distinct. Thus, to the office of Apostle in Acts 1:20 Paul adds the office of bishop in 1 Tim. 3:1, both specified by the only usage of the same word episkopee in reference to ecclesiastical office in the NT. The offices once occupied by the Apostles are now occupied by the Bishops. They rule the Church in an office which is hierarchical and dynastic and successive.
From this we can conclude that:
episkopee refers to the office in view not the person of the bishop or apostle and that the office is created for the Church;
it is in Church structure as an office beyond just the 12 Apostles;
The office in itself is in view (which Peter interprets to be an office from Psalms 69:25 and 109:8)
These Psalms, again, refer not to Judas as a person but to the office. Therefore, since episkopee is used in reference to the office of bishop in 1 Tim. 3:1 the same principle of succession of that office must hold since that is the way Peter first interpreted and used the word. A bishop who dies must have the office of bishop filled. Whatever title in view (apostle; bishop) is clearly delineated under the idea of succession to an office; following Peter’s interpretation of the Psalms.
This biblical practice is consistent with what the Early Church Fathers wrote to us and confirmed by eminent Protestant theologians:
The Church historian J. N. D. Kelly, a Protestant, writes, "[W]here in practice was [the] apostolic testimony or tradition to be found? . . . The most obvious answer was that the apostles had committed it orally to the Church, where it had been handed down from generation to generation. . . . Unlike the alleged secret tradition of the Gnostics, it was entirely public and open, having been entrusted by the apostles to their successors, and by these in turn to those who followed them, and was visible in the Church for all who cared to look for it" (Early Christian Doctrines, 37).
Clement
"Through countryside and city [the apostles] preached, and they appointed their earliest converts, testing them by the Spirit, to be the bishops and deacons of future believers. Nor was this a novelty, for bishops and deacons had been written about a long time earlier. . . . Our apostles knew through our Lord Jesus Christ that there would be strife for the office of bishop. For this reason, therefore, having received perfect foreknowledge, they appointed those who have already been mentioned and afterwards added the further provision that, if they should die, other approved men should succeed to their ministry" (Letter to the Corinthians 42:4–5, 44:1–3 [A.D. 80]).
[This is extremely early and even then calls it “not a novelty”. Apostolic succession was clearly in the mind of the early Fathers and was being experienced by the Church].
Hegesippus
"When I had come to Rome, I [visited] Anicetus, whose deacon was Eleutherus. And after Anicetus [died], Soter succeeded, and after him Eleutherus. In each succession and in each city there is a continuance of that which is proclaimed by the law, the prophets, and the Lord"(Memoirs, cited in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 4:22 [A.D. 180]).
[Here, a hierarchy is in view clearly as Anicetus was an Episkopos and Eleutherus was a diakonoi under him.]
Irenaeus
"It is possible, then, for everyone in every church, who may wish to know the truth, to contemplate the tradition of the apostles which has been made known to us throughout the whole world. And we are in a position to enumerate those who were instituted bishops by the apostles and their successors down to our own times, men who neither knew nor taught anything like what these heretics rave about" (Against Heresies 3:3:1 [A.D. 189]).
To us Catholics, the testimony of the Early Church is binding and crucial. It demonstrates a continuity with what we learn in Scripture and confirms to us that Jesus established it as the formal mean to convey all He is to the faithful.
To be continued...
Continued:
I. The Church Understood as Communion
The concept of communion, koinonia, is very suitable to express the core of the mystery of the Church. Some understandings of the Church suffer from approaches that inadequately present the Church as a mystery of communion insofar as they do not integrate the views of People of God and Body of Christ. They also miss the relationship between the Church as communion and the Church as sacrament.
Communion lies at the heart of the Church's self-understanding insofar as it expresses the mystery of the personal union of each human beiing with the Triune God. If we are going to understand this communion we must do it in reference to the Biblical and patristic tradition where such communion always involves a double reality: Communion with God and Communion with one another.
It is crucial to see that this communion in its double dimension is a gift from God initiated by Him and carried out through the mystery of Christ's sacrifice on the cross. This new reality of communion with God s established by Christ and communicated through the sacraments and makes Christians members of the same body, the Mystical Body of Christ, and of an organically structured community.
So, this unity is both spiritual and visible if it is true communion. As invisible, it is the communion of each human being with the Father through Christ in the Holy Spirit. On earth, there is an intimate relationship between the invisible communion and the visible in the teaching of the apostles, the sacraments, and the hierarchical order. This unity constitutes the Church as a sacrament, the Sacrament of Salvation. Mystery and Sacrament are united in the communion of the Church.
Thus, the hierarchical structure of the Church is not peripheral or accidental to what the mystery of Church is. This Ecclesial Communion into which we are introduced through faith and baptism has its center in the Eucharist. Baptism incorporates us into a Body animated by the Spirit of God and nourished by the presence of Christ in the Eucharist, so that the Body becomes truly the body of Christ.
So, the Eucharist is the creative force and source of communion as it is Christ Himself. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10:17: "Because the Bread is One, we though many, are one body, all of us who partake of the one bread."
The Church is a communion of saints. Why? First because we share Holy Things, the goods of salvation in the Sacraments. The Eucharist again, is of special importance as He present there is our life, our strength. Thus, we are saints first because we are called to holiness, not because we are perfect and because we share the means of holiness the Lord gave as gifts to aid us: the sacraments.
This sharing brings forth spiritual solidarity among the members of Christ journeying together and sharing on Holy Things. To this reality of unity among us on earth we give the name of the Church in pilgrimage. This bond unites us in prayer through the Holy Spirit who fills and unites the whole church. Thus, communal prayer and communal celebration, the Liturgy, is nether optional or accidental to the concept of Church.
In its reality as mystery of communion, this unity and solidarity among the members of the Body exists not only among those of us journeying in time but also with our brethren who having passed from thiis world in friendship with God belong to the heavenly Church or will become members of the heavenly host after being purified. Thus, this unity among all of those who are in Christ, here on earth, on their way to heaven or now enjoying the Beatific Vision of God is the Mystery of Communion.
This Church, although so diverse as we see, is One. Among the varied expressions of this One Church we find, from the beginning, entities we call churches. They are particular in the sense that they make present the Universal Church in the local community. They are constituted "after the model of the Universal Church" [Council Vatican II, Lumen Gentium 23] and each constitutes a portion of the People of God entrusted to the bishop of that locality.
The Church thus is a Communion of Churches. However, each particular church is not a complete subject in itself. This can be called ecclesiastical unilateralism and impoverishes the truth of the Church as communion. In every local congregation the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church is truly present and active. That is why, fo example, each local church is not an entity closed to itself with independent power to change the Liturgy, change teaching, etc. No, we are all One body sharing in Holy Things and a Holy People, united in one body.
The Universal Church is not "the sum" or "federation" of churches but an essential mystery, an ontological and prior reality to the churches. That is why the Fathers said the Church as mystery precedes creation [See St. Clement of Rome Epist. II, Ad Corinthians , 4:2; Shepherd of Hermas, Vis., 2:4]. The Church gives birth to the Churches in the Upper Room, so the churches are daughters not mothers of the Church. At Pentecost, the 120 who gathered around Mary, the 12 apostles and Peter presiding the Church was born and from that moment, the Church speaks all languages.
"At Pentecost...all nations...had become a marvelous choir to intone a hymn of praise to God in perfect harmony, because the Holy Spirit had brought distances to nought, eliminated discordant notes and transformed the varieties of the peoples into the first-fruits to be offered to the Father." [St. Ireneus, Adversus Haereses III, 17,2].
Every member of the faithful, through baptism, is inserted into the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church and does not belong to the Church in a mediated fashion, by joining a particular church. No, when we are baptized at a local church we are inserted into the Mystery of Christ in the Mystery of Communion we call The Church.
So, by belonging to a local church I am not a stranger to the other churches but a son, a brother, a member of all the churches. II can go to China, find an underground Catholic church and I am not a visitor, I am at home. Each member of the faithful is in his Church regardless of whether or not he belongs, according to canon law, to that particular diocese, parish, or community.
Unity into the mystery of communion is rooted in the same baptism, the same faith professed by all, the same sacraments, especially the Eucharist, and the same ecclesiastical leadership or episcopate. The celebration of the Liturgy is never that local community's celebration alone but that celebration is one across the churches and in the Heavenly Host. Only one Church, here on earth, dispersed throughout the world and united with the brethren in heaven is the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.
The Church does not arise from the base. The oneness and indivisibility of the Eucharist shows the unity of all the churches. For this reason, the Petrine Ministry of Service is also present to all the churches in the communion of the local bishop with his co-worker in Rome. As all churches are united by one and the same faith, sacraments and one indivisible Bread, there is also a oneness in the Episcopate. The unity of the Episcopate calls for a Church that is head, foremost in charity, the bishop of Rome." [See Lumen Gentium, 22; St. Cyprian, De Unitate Ecclesiae, 4]. The Roman Pontiff, as the successor of Peter, is the perpetual and visible source and foundation of the unity of the Episcopate.
To be Continued...