The Catholic World, Vol. 05, April 1867 to September 1867

by Various

The author makes another mistake, in using the word sovereignty instead of primacy. Roman theologians assert the primacy, but not, in the ecclesiastical order, the sovereignty of the Roman pontiff. Sovereignty is a political, not an ecclesiastical term; it is, moreover, exclusive, and it is not pretended that there is no authority in the church by divine right but that of the Roman pontiff. It is not pretended that bishops are simply his vicars or deputies. In feudal times there may have been writers who regarded him as suzerain, but we know of none that held him to be sovereign. He is indeed by some writers, chiefly French, called sovereign pontiff, but only in the sense of supreme pontiff, Pontifex maximus, or summus pontifex, to indicate that he is the highest but not the exclusive authority in the church. The council of Florence, on which we plant ourselves, defines him to be primate, not sovereign, and ascribes to him plenary authority to feed, direct, and govern the whole church, but does not exclude other and subordinate pontiffs, who, though they receive their sees from him, yet within them govern by a divine right no less immediate than his. The real and only sovereign of the church, in the proper sense of the term, is Jesus Christ himself. The pope is his vicar, and as much bound by his law as the humblest Christian. He is not above the law, nor is he its source, but is its chief minister and supreme judge, and his legislative power is restricted to such rescripts, edicts, or canons as he judges necessary to its proper administration. The sovereign makes the law, and the difference, therefore, between the power of the sovereign and that claimed for the Roman pontiff is very obvious and very great. Could the author, then, prove from the written word that the pope or the Holy See is not the universal sovereign of the church, he would prove nothing to his purpose. Yet this, as we shall see, is all he does prove.

The author pretends, p. 32, that the papal authority, sovereignty he means, is condemned by the word of God. The assertion, understanding the papal authority as defined by the council of Florence, is to his purpose, if he proves it. What, then, are his proofs? The Roman theologians, that is, Catholic theologians, say the church is founded on Peter, and cite in proof the words of our Lord, St. Matt. xvi. 18: "I say unto thee that thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." But this does not prove that Peter is the rock on which the church is founded. The church is not founded on Peter, or, if on Peter, in no other sense than it is on him and the other apostles. The rock on which the church is built is Jesus Christ, who is the only foundation of the church. St. Paul says, 1 Cor. iii. 11: "Other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ himself."

That Jesus Christ is the sole foundation of the church in the primary and absolute sense, nobody denies or questions, and we have asserted it in asserting that he is the real and only sovereign of the church; but this does not exclude Peter from being its foundation in a secondary and vicarial sense, the only sense asserted by the most thorough-going papists, as is evident from what St. Paul writes to the Ephesians, ii. 20, as cited by the author: "You are built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ being himself the chief cornerstone." The principal, primary, absolute foundation is Christ, but the prophets and apostles are also the foundation on which the church, the mystic temple, is built. The author says, same page: "The prophets and apostles form the first layers of this mystic edifice. The faithful are raised on these foundations, and form the edifice itself; finally, Jesus Christ is the principal stone, the corner-stone, which gives solidity to the monument." This is very true, and we maintain, as well as he, that there is "no other foundation" in the primary sense, "no other principal corner-stone than Jesus Christ;" but he himself asserts, as does St. Paul, other "foundation" in a secondary sense. So, though our Lord is the principal or first foundation in the sense in which God is the first cause of all creatures and their acts, yet nothing hinders Peter from being a secondary foundation, as creatures may be and are what philosophers terms second causes.

But in this secondary sense, "all the apostles are the foundation, and the church is no more founded on Peter than on the rest of the apostles." Not founded on Peter to the exclusion of the other apostles certainly, but not founded on Peter as the prince of the apostles, or chief of the apostolic college, does not appear, and it is never pretended that Peter excludes the other apostles. Our Lord gave, indeed, to Peter alone the keys of the kingdom of heaven, thereby constituting him his steward or the chief of his household; but he gave to all authority to teach all nations all things whatsoever he had commanded them, the same power of binding and loosing that he had given to Peter, and promised to be with them as well as with him all days to the consummation of the world. There is in this nothing that excludes or denies the primacy claimed for Peter, or that implies that our Lord, as the author says, merely "gave to Peter an important ministry in his church."

The author labors to refute the argument drawn in favor of the primacy of Peter from the command of our Lord to Peter to "confirm his brethren," and the thrice repeated command to "feed his sheep;" but as we are not now seeking to prove the primacy, but simply repelling the arguments adduced against it, we pass it over. He attempts to construct an argument against the primacy of Peter from the words of our Lord to his disciples, St. Matt, xxiii. 8: "Be ye not called Rabbi; for one is your Master, and all you are brethren. And call none your father on earth; for one is your Father, who is in heaven. Neither be ye called masters; for one is your master, Christ. He that is greatest among you shall be your servant." "Christ, therefore," p. 48, "forbade the apostles to take, in relation to one another, the titles of master, doctor, or even father, or pope, which is the same thing." Why, then, does the author take the title of Abbé, which means father, or suffer his editor to give him the title of Doctor of Divinity? His non-united Greek friends also come in for his censure; for they call their simple priests papas or popes, that is, fathers; nay, if he construes the words of our Lord strictly, he must deny all ecclesiastical authority, and, indeed, all human government, and even forbid the son to call his sire father. This would prove a little too much for him as well as for us.

The key to the meaning of our Lord is not difficult to discover. He commands his disciples not to call any one master, teacher, or father, that is, not to recognize as binding on them any authority that does not come from God, and to remember that they are all brethren, and must obey God rather than men. God alone is sovereign, and we are bound to obey him, and no one else; for, in obeying our prelates whom the Holy Ghost has set over us, it is him and him only, that we obey. He commands his disciples to suffer no man to call them masters: for their authority to teach or govern comes not from them, but from their Master who is in heaven, and therefore they are not to lord it over their brethren, but to govern only so as to serve them. "Let him that is greatest among you be your servant." Power is not for him who governs, but for them who are governed, and he is greatest who best serves his brethren. The pope, in reference to the admonition of our Lord, and from the humility with which all power given to men should be held and exercised, calls himself "servant of servants." The words so understood—and they may be so understood—convey no prohibition of the authority claimed for the Roman pontiff as the vicar of Christ, and father and teacher of all Christians, by divine authority, not by his own personal right.

Here is all the author adduces from the Scriptures, that amounts to any thing, to prove "that the papal authority" is "condemned by the word of God," and nothing in all this condemns it in the sense defined by the council of Florence, which is all we have to show.

From the Scriptures the author passes to tradition, and first to "the views of the papal authority taken by the fathers of the first three centuries." He does not deny that our Lord treated Peter with great personal consideration, and thinks Peter may be regarded in relation to the other apostles as primus inter pares, the first among equals, but without jurisdiction; and he says, p. 48, "We can affirm that no father of the church has seen in the primacy of Peter any title to jurisdiction or absolute authority in the church." But the first father he finds who, as he pretends, absolutely denies the primacy Catholics claim for Peter, and consequently for his successor, is St. Cyprian, who seems to us very positively to affirm it.