Sunday Edition - Have We Lost The Keys To The Kingdom?

Sunday Edition

For Catholics that like to think

Do The Keys To The Kingdom Really Reside At The Vatican?

Teaching Authority and the Papacy

Protestants believe that the Bible is a document that is simple enough that even the unlearned can read it and that the Holy Spirit will interpret the meaning of the readings to the person. There is no central authority in the Protestant world that functions as a clearinghouse for dogma.  With no teaching authority, the Protestants find themselves in a world of spiritual chaos. While many of the meanings of the teachings found in the Bible are clear and undisputed, they are not the ones that are causing us difficulty in Christian unity. This lack of authority has caused divisions and divisions of the divisions until today there is at least thirty-thousand different denominations each claiming that they are the owners and holders of the complete truth of Christianity. The fact that there are so many divisions, one division is too many, proves that without authority comes the chaos of denominationalism. `

At the Last Supper Jesus did not pray that we split into denominations.  His prayer to the Father was that we remain united and He and the Father were united.  Take a moment if you will and consider how close He wants the members of His church to be. He wants us a close as He is to God the Father.  That is quite different then the situation we find ourselves in today.   But was there some mechanism put in place to help us remain as one?  The plan of Jesus was to have a single man in charge, a man named Simon whose name was changed to Peter which in the language that Jesus spoke meant rock and Jesus said He was going to build His Church upon the rock of Peter.   In scripture, we show that when problems came up they were discussed but when Peter spoke, the problems were solved.  Peter was not just one of the Apostles, he was the leader of the Apostles and as such was the leader of the Church.

The Church needed leaders and the Apostles fulfilled that role.  But what happened once they were no more?  Did the Church go out of business?  No, the Apostles saw to it that their mission would continue and they appointed successors to themselves, trusted men who would carry on and pass the teachings, unchanged to the next generation who would do so for the next until we come to the present time.  These men that were appointed were called bishops and they certainly were needed to keep the teachings pure and the Church together.  Heresies, that is, false teachings would try to tear the Church apart very early in its history.  By the year 110AD the Church had been assailed by many novel practitioners who wanted to change the Gospel to make it fit with their beliefs.  When these things arose, the Church did not take a vote to see what the most popular belief would be.  She went back to the teachings of the Apostles and all disputes were settled not in the light of popular opinion but in the light of the teachings of Christ as handed down from the Apostles. This authority of the bishops was further subjected to the authority of the Bishop of Rome who was considered the leader of the church or as we call him today, the Pope.

The Protestant world gives the Pope more power than He actually has because it fits their corrupted view of the Church and makes them feel more comfortable in despising the Catholic Church for what they consider to be her great wrongs. We Catholics do recognize the Pope as the successor of Peter.  The old saying is that “Where Peter is, there is the Church.”  The Pope is the final authority on all things that touch on faith and morals in the Church.  He has been given immunity from teaching error through the protection of the Holy Spirit.  What many Protestants think is that we believe that the Pope cannot sin.  That is certainly not true.  The Holy Father has a priest as his confessor.  If he could not sin, he would not need a confessor.  The Pope is only infallible when he speaks ex-cathedra, that is literally, “from the chair.”  So, even though it is a good idea to take to heart the messages that come from the encyclicals of the pope and pastoral exhortations, they are not considered as infallible utterances but they should be used as an aid for Catholics to form their consciences.  Much is made of the infallibility of the Pope but you have to understand that it is invoked normally when heresy or moral issues come into question and that there is a danger of it splitting the Church.

So, we have seen that the teaching authority of the Church comes from the Apostles and the Apostles appointed their successors, we call them bishops, and that Peter, who was the head of the Church appointed his successor and that they have handed the faith down faithfully from the beginning until now.  So, the keys to the kingdom remain in good hands and my fellow Catholics, we can continue to rely on the Holy Spirit to protect and guard the Bride of Christ.

Please pray for the Holy Father this week and for the magisterium that they are fully docile to the promptings of the Spirit.

A Brief Word About Sacred Tradition

What is Sacred Tradition?  Sacred Tradition is not mere human traditions.  For example, putting up a Christmas tree is a human tradition.  Eating turkey on Thanksgiving is a human tradition and these human traditions have nothing to do with Sacred Tradition.  Sacred Tradition is the handing down of the treasury of faith from one generation to the next.  Sacred Tradition includes things that are written down and things that are not.  One Sacred Tradition that we pass down to the following generation is the Holy Bible.  More examples of Sacred Tradition the Sacraments, the Mass, the prayers and teachings of our faith.  Sacred Tradition is not a thing, it is a process.

REMEMBER TO PRAY FOR THE POOR SOULS IN PURGATORY.  DON’T LEAVE YOUR LOVE AT THE EDGE OF THE GRAVE. PRAYERS AND SACRIFICES FOR THE POOR SOULS WILL BE GREATLY APPRECIATED BY THEM AND YOU WILL MAKE A FOREvER FRIEND!