The Purpose of the Papacy

by John S. Vaughan

If but few persons, outside the Catholic Church, realise the force and import of these words, it is because few realise the absolute and irresistible power of Him Who gave them utterance. With their lips they profess Christ to be God, but then, strange to relate, they proceed to reason and to argue, just as though He were merely man—one, that is to say, Who, when He established His Church, did not consider nor bear in mind man's weakness and fickleness, and who possessed no power to see the outcome of His own policy, nor the difficulties that it would engender, nor the future multiplication of the faithful, in every part of the world. For, did He know and foresee all these things, He must have guarded against them; and this they practically deny, by continuing to associate themselves with churches where His promises are in no sense fulfilled, and where His most solemn pledges remain unredeemed. We refer to those churches wherein there is no recognised infallible authority; in fact, nothing to protect their subjects from the inroads of the world, and from the faults and errors inseparable from the exercise of purely human and fallible reason.

Those, however, who can put aside such false notions, and awaken to the real facts, will find the truth growing luminous before their gaze. History constrains them to admit that it was Christ Who established the Church, with its supreme head, and its various members. But Christ is verily God; of the same nature, and one with the Father, and possessing the same divine attributes. Now, since He is God, there is to Him no future, just as there is no past. To him, all is equally present. Hence, in establishing a Church, and in providing it with laws and a constitution, He did this, not tentatively, not experimentally, not in ignorance of man's needs and weaknesses, and folly, but with a most perfect foreknowledge of every circumstance and event, actual and to come. He spoke and ordered and arranged all things, with His eyes clearly fixed on the most remote ages, no less than on the present and the actual. We mortals write history after the characters have already lived and died, and when nations have already developed and run their course. But with Christ, the whole history of man, his wars and his conquests, his vices and his virtues, his religious opinions and doctrines, had been already written and completed, down to the very last line of the very last chapter, an eternity before He assumed our nature and founded His Church. It was with this most intimate knowledge before Him, that He promised to provide us with a reliable and infallible teacher, who should safeguard His doctrine, and publish the glad tidings of the Gospel, throughout all time, even unto the consummation of the world. Since it is God Who promises, it follows, with all the rigour of logic, that this fearless Witness and living Teacher must be a fact, not a figment; a stupendous reality, not a mere name; One, in a word, possessing and wielding the self-same authority as Himself, and to be received and obeyed and accepted as Himself: "Who heareth you heareth Me" (Luke x. 16).

This teacher was to be a supreme court of appeal, and a tribunal, before which every case could be tried, and definitely settled, once for all. And since this tribunal was a divine creation, and invested by God Himself with supernatural powers for that specific purpose, it must be fully equipped, and thoroughly competent and equal to its work. For God always adapts means to ends. Hence it can never resemble the tribunals existing in man-made churches, which can but mutter empty phrases, suggest compromises, and clothe thought in wholly ambiguous language—tribunals that dare not commit themselves to anything definite and precise. Yea, which utterly fail and break down just at the critical moment, when men are dividing and disagreeing among themselves, and most needing a prompt and clear decision, which may close up the breach and bring them together.

No! The decisions of the authority set up by Christ are in very truth—just what we expect to find them—viz., clear, ringing and definite. They divide light from darkness, as by a divine hand; and segregate truth from error, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.

Christ promised as much as this, and if He keep not His promise, then He can hold out no claim to be God, for though Heaven and earth may pass away, God's words shall never pass away. That He did so promise is quite evident; and may be proved, first, explicitly, and from His own words, and secondly, implicitly, from the very necessity of the case; and from the whole history of religious development. Cardinal Newman, even before his reception into the Church, was so fully persuaded of this, that he wrote: "If Christianity is both social and dogmatic, and intended for all ages, it must, humanly speaking, have an infallible expounder.... By the Church of England a hollow uniformity is preferred to an infallible chair; and by the sects in England an interminable division" (Develop., etc., p. 90). In the Catholic Church alone the need is fully met.

The Church is established on earth by the direct act of God, and is set "as an army in battle array". It exists for the express purpose of combating error and repressing evil, in whatever form it may appear; and whether it be instigated by the devil, or the world, or the flesh. But, let us ask, Who ever heard of an army without a chief? An army without a supreme commander is an army without subordination and without law or order; or rather, it is not an army at all, but a rabble, a mob.

The supreme head of Christ's army—of Christ's Church upon earth, is our Sovereign Lord the Pope. Some will not accept his rule, and refuse to admit his authority. But this is not only to be expected. It was actually foretold. As they cried out, of old, to one even greater than the Pope, "We will not have this man to reign over us" (Luke xix. 14), so now men of similar spirit repeat the self-same cry, with regard to Christ's vicar.

Nevertheless, wheresoever his authority is loyally accepted, and where submission, respect and obedience are shown to him, there results the order and harmony and unity promised by Christ: while, on the contrary, where he is not suffered to reign there is disorder, rivalry and sects.

To be able to look forward and to foresee such opposite results would perhaps need a prophetic eye, an accurate estimate of human nature, and a very nice balancing of cause and effect. It could be the prognostication only of a wise, judicious, and observant mind. But we are now looking, not forwards, but backwards, and in looking backwards the case is reduced to the greatest simplicity, so that even a child can understand; and "he that runs may read".

The simplest intelligence, if only it will set aside prejudice and pride, and just attend and watch, will be led, without difficulty, to the following conclusions: firstly, without an altogether special divine support, no authority can claim and exercise infallibility in its teaching; and secondly, without such infallibility in its teaching no continuous unity can be maintained among vast multitudes of people, least of all concerning dogmas most abstruse, mysteries most sublime and incomprehensible, and laws and regulations both galling and humiliating to human arrogance and pride.