George Hayward Joyce

“ If then Christ, as we have seen, established His Church as a society subordinated to a single supreme head, it follows from the very nature of the case that this office is perpetual, and cannot have been a mere transitory feature of ecclesiastical life. For the Church must endure to the end the very same organization which Christ established. But in an organized society it is precisely the constitution which is the essential feature. A change in constitution transforms it into a society of a different kind. ”

“ Thus
the pope alone can prescribe the liturgical services employed in the Church. If a doubt should occur in regard to the ceremonial of the liturgy, a bishop may not settle the point on his own authority, but must have recourse to Rome. The Holy See likewise prescribes rules in regard to the devotions used by the faithful, and in this way checks the growth of what is novel and unauthorized. At the present day the institution and abrogation of festivals which was till a comparatively recent time free to all bishops as regards their own dioceses, is reserved to Rome. ”

“ The Right of Entertaining Appeals in All Ecclesiastical Causes The Council goes on to affirm that the pope is the supreme judge of the faithful, and that to him appeal may be made in all ecclesiastical causes. The right of appeal follows as a necessary corollary from the doctrine of the primacy. If the pope really possesses a supreme jurisdiction over the Church, every other authority, whether episcopal or synodal, being subject to him, there must of necessity be an appeal to him from all inferior tribunals. ”

“ Beatification and every permission for the public veneration of any of the servants of God is likewise reserved to his decision. He alone gives to anyone the privilege of a private chapel where Mass may be said. He dispenses the treasury of the Church, and the grant of plenary indulgences is reserved to him. While he has no authority in regard to the substantial rites of the sacraments, and is bound to preserve them as they were given to the Church by Christ and His Apostles, certain powers in their regard belong to him ”

“ In this case the Apostles must have known the law determining the succession to the Bishop of Rome, not merely on human testimony, but also by Divine revelation, and they must have taught it as a revealed truth to their disciples. It is this view which is commonly adopted. The definition of the Vatican to the effect that the successor of St. Peter is ever to be found in the Roman pontiff is almost universally held to be a truth revealed by the Holy Spirit to the Apostles, and by them transmitted to the Church. ”

“ It is frequently objected by writers of the Anglican school that, by declaring the pope to possess an immediate episcopal jurisdiction over all the faithful, the Vatican Council destroyed the authority of the diocesan episcopate. It is further pointed out that St. Gregory the Great expressly repudiated this title (Ep. 7:27; 8:30) . To this it is replied that no difficulty is involved in the exercise of immediate jurisdiction over the same subjects by two rulers, provided only that these rulers stand in subordination, the one to the other. We constantly see the system at work. ”

“ Non-Catholic writers have sought to rob the passage of its importance by translating the word convenire "to resort to", and thus understanding it to mean no more than that the faithful from every side (undique) resorted to Rome, so that thus the stream of doctrine in that Church was kept immune from error. Such a rendering, however, is excluded by the construction of the argument, which is based entirely on the contention that the Roman doctrine is pure by reason of its derivation from the two great Apostolic founders of the Church, Sts. Peter and Paul. ”

“ It is argued that, according to Augustine, the power denoted by the keys resides primarily not in Peter, but in the whole Church. Christ's gift to His people was merely bestowed on Peter as representing the whole body of the faithful. The right to forgive sins, to exclude from communion, to exercise any other acts of authority, is really the prerogative of the whole Christian congregation. If the minister performs these acts he does so as delegate of the people. ”

“ Nor may it be held that the pope's laws must exclusively concern spiritual objects, and their penalties be exclusively of a spiritual character. The Church is a perfect society (see THE CHURCH, XIII) . She is not dependent on the permission of the State for her existence, but holds her charter from God. As a perfect society she has a right to all those means which are necessary for the attaining of her end. ”

“ History bears complete testimony that from the very earliest times the Roman See has ever claimed the supreme headship, and that that headship has been freely acknowledged by the universal Church. We shall here confine ourselves to the consideration of the evidence afforded by the first three centuries. The first witness is St. Clement, a disciple of the Apostles, who, after Linus and Anacletus, succeeded St. Peter as the fourth in the list of popes. In his "Epistle to the Corinthians", written in 95 or 96, he bids them receive back the bishops whom a turbulent faction among them had expelled. ”

“ Those who reason in this way fail to see that, where canons have been established prescribing the mode of procedure to be followed in the Church, right reason demands that the supreme authority should not alter them except for some grave cause, and, as long as they remain the recognized law of the Church should observe them. The pope as God's vicar must govern according to reason, not arbitrarily nor capriciously. ”

“ It would no longer be the Divine kingdom established by Him. As a society it would have passed through essential modifications, and thereby would have become a human, not a Divine institution. None who believe that Christ came on earth to found a Church, an organized society destined to endure for ever, can admit the possibility of a change in the organization given to it by its Founder. The same conclusion also follows from a consideration of the end which, by Christ's declaration, the supremacy of Peter was intended to effect. ”

“ Cyprian (d. 258) in regard to papal authority have given rise to much discussion. He undoubtedly entertained exaggerated views as to the independence of individual bishops, which eventually led him into serious conflict with Rome. Yet on the fundamental principle his position is clear. He attributed an effective primacy to the pope as the successor of Peter. He makes communion with the See of Rome essential to Catholic communion, speaking of it as "the principal Church whence episcopal unity had its rise" (ad Petri cathedram et ad ecclesiam principalem unde unitas sacerdotalis exorta est) . ”

“ He assumes that the nope can exercise the power, but urges him not to do so. Similarly the resistance of the Asiatic bishops involved no denial of the supremacy of Rome. It indicates solely that the bishops believed St. Victor to be abusing his power in bidding them renounce a custom for which they had Apostolic authority. It was indeed inevitable that, as the Church spread and developed, new problems should present themselves, and that questions should arise as to whether the supreme authority could be legitimately exercised in this or that case. ”

“ The Gallican divines de Marca and Quesnel, and in Germany Febronius, sought to show that the right of appeal to the pope was a mere concession derived from ecclesiastical canons, and that the influence of the pseudo-Isidorean decretals had led to many unjustifiable exaggerations in the papal claims. The arguments of these writers are at the present day employed by frankly anti-Catholic controversialists with a view to showing that the whole primacy is a merely human institution. ”

“ For with this Church, because of its superior authority, every Church must agree — that is the faithful everywhere — in communion with which Church the tradition of the Apostles has been always preserved by those who are everywhere [Ad hanc enim eoclesiam propter potentiorem principalitatem necesse est omnem convenire ecclesiam, hoc est eos qui sunt undique fideles, in qua semper ab his qui sunt undique, conservata est ea quâ est ab apostolis traditio] ". He then proceeds to enumerate the Roman succession from Linus to Eleutherius, the twelfth after the Apostles, who then occupied the see. ”

“ Augustine is controverting the Novatian heretics, who affirmed that the power to remit sins was a purely personal gift to Peter alone, and had disappeared with him. He therefore asserts that Peter received it that it might remain for ever in the Church and be used for its benefit. It is in that sense alone that he says that Peter represented the Church. There is no foundation whatever for saying that he desired to affirm that the Church was the true recipient of the power conferred. ”

“ These, however, will include far more than spiritual objects and spiritual penalties alone: for the Church requires certain material possessions, such, for example, as churches, schools, seminaries, together with the endowments necessary for their sustentation. The administration and the due protection of these goods will require legislation other than what is limited to the spiritual sphere. A large body of canon law must inevitably be formed to determine the conditions of their management. Indeed, there is a fallacy in the assertion that the Church is a spiritual society ”

“ A question may be raised as to the precise dogmatic value of the clause of the second canon in which it is asserted that the Roman pontiff is Peter's successor. The truth is infallibly defined. But the Church has authority to define not merely those truths which form part of the original deposit of revelation, but also such as are necessarily connected with this deposit. ”

“ It is further added that this authority extends to all alike, both pastors and faithful, whether singly or collectively. An ordinary jurisdiction is one which is exercised by the holder, not by reason of any delegation, but in virtue of the office which he himself holds. All who acknowledge in the pope any primacy of jurisdiction acknowledge that jurisdiction to be ordinary. ”

“ In his case the gift is connected with the power of the keys, and this power, as we have seen, signified the supreme authority over the whole kingdom. That gift was not bestowed on the other eleven: and the gift Christ bestowed on them in Matthew 18:18, was received by them as members of the kingdom, and as subject to the authority of him who should be Christ's vicegerent on earth. There is in fact a striking parallelism between Matthew 16:19, and the words employed in reference to Christ Himself in Apocalypse 3:7: "He that hath the key of David; he that openeth, and no man shutteth ”

“ The title pope (papa) was, as has been stated, at one time employed with far more latitude. In the East it has always been used to designate simple priests. In the Western Church, however, it seems from the beginning to have been restricted to bishops (Tertullian, "De Pud." 13) . It was apparently in the fourth century that it began to become a distinctive title of the Roman Pontiff. ”

“ The principal provisions of the canons which deal with this matter are:
that a bishop condemned by the bishops of his province may appeal to the pope either on his own initiative or through his judges; that if the pope entertains the appeal he shall appoint a court of second instance drawn from the bishops of the neighbouring provinces; he may, if he thinks fit, send judges to sit with the bishops. There is nothing whatever to suggest that new privileges are being conferred. ”

“ We have moreover a poem, "Adversus Marcionem", written apparently at the same period, in which Peter is said to have passed on to Linus "the chair on which he himself had sat" (P.L., II 1077) . These witnesses bring us to the beginning of the third century. In the second century we cannot look for much evidence. With the exception of Ignatius, Polycarp, and Clement of Alexandria, all the writers whose works we possess are apologists against either Jews or pagans. In works of such a character there was no reason to refer to such a matter as Peter's Roman episcopate. ”

“ The motive which inspired these men was not earthly ambition, but zeal for the Faith and the consciousness that to them had been committed the responsibility of its guardianship. The controversialists in question even claim that they are justified in refusing to admit as evidence for the papal primacy any pronouncement emanating from a Roman source, on the ground that, where the personal interests of anyone are concerned, his statements should not be admitted as evidence. ”

“ The letter, it is true, urges with some display of irritation that it would be both more reasonable and more in harmony with the fifth Nicene canon regarding the inferior clergy and the laity, if even episcopal cases were left to the decision of the African synod. ”

“ The promise made by Christ in Matt., xvi, 16-19, received its fulfilment after the Resurrection in the scene described in John xxi. Here the Lord, when about to leave the earth, places the whole flock — the sheep and the lambs alike — in the charge of the Apostle. ”

“ The fact that the pope's decision had weight to decide the whole question of their orthodoxy is sufficiently significant. But in St. Cyprian's correspondence we find clear and unmistakable evidence of a system of appeals. Basilides and Martial, the bishops of Leon and Merida in Spain, had in the persecution accepted certificates of idolatry. They confessed their guilt, and were in consequence deposed, other bishops being appointed to the sees. In the hope of having themselves reinstated they appealed to Rome, and succeeded, by misrepresenting the facts, in imposing on St. ”