Papal supremacy and the Orthodox Church

 

The Eastern Orthodox Church is opposed to the Roman Catholic doctrine of papal supremacy. While not denying that primacy does exist for the Bishop of Rome, Eastern Orthodox Christians argue that the tradition of Rome's primacy in the early Church was not equivalent to the current doctrine of supremacy.

The Bishop of Rome, according to the Orthodox, is simply “first among equals” (primus inter pares). 

This Blog will post important documents from the Orthodox tradition on this issue, from time to time. They are the following:

The Role of the Bishop of Rome in the Communion of the Church in the First Millennium

Position of the Moscow Patriarchate on the problem of primacy in the Universal Church

Cardinal Ratzinger on true consciousness in liturgical matters

 

"For fostering a true consciousness in liturgical matters, it is also important that the proscription against the form of liturgy in valid use up to 1970 should be lifted. Anyone who nowadays advocates the continuing existence of this [older] liturgy or takes part in it is treated like a leper; all tolerance ends here. There has never been anything like this in history; in doing this we are despising and proscribing the Church’s whole past. How can one trust her at present if things are that way?"

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, God and the World, trans. Henry Taylor (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2002), p. 416.

Archives of the Order (6) - Ad Providam Christi Vicarii

Ad Providam Christi Vicarii 

For an everlasting record. It belongs to Christ’s vicar, exercising his vigilant care from the apostolic watch-tower, to judge the changing conditions of the times, to examine the causes of the affairs which crop up and to observe the characters of the people concerned. In this way he can give due consideration to each affair and act opportunely; he can tear out the thistles of vice from the field of the Lord so that virtue may increase; and he can remove the thorns of false dealing so as to plant rather than to destroy. He transfers slips dedicated to God into the places left empty by the eradication of the harmful thistles. By thus transferring and uniting in a provident and profitable way, he brings a joy greater than the harm he has caused to the people uprooted; true justice has compassion for sorrow. By enduring the harm and replacing it profitably, he increases the growth of the virtues and rebuilds what has been destroyed with something better.

A little while ago we suppressed definitively and perpetually the order of the Knights Templar of Jerusalem because of the abominable, even unspeakable, deeds of its master, brothers and other persons of the order in all parts of the world. These men were spattered with indecent errors and crimes, with depravity- they were blemished and stained. We are silent here as to detail because the memory is so sad and unclean. With the approval of the sacred council we abolished the constitution of the order, its habit and name, not without bitterness of heart. We did this not by definitive sentence, since this would be unlawful according to the inquiries and processes carried out, but by apostolic provision or ordinance. We issued a strict prohibition that nobody might henceforth enter the order or wear its habit or presume to behave as a Templar. Anyone doing otherwise incurred automatic excommunication. We commanded, by our apostolic authority, that all the property of the order be left to the judgment and disposition of the apostolic see. We strictly forbade anyone, of whatever state or condition, to interfere in any way regarding the persons or property of the order or to act in prejudice of the direction or disposition of the apostolic see in this matter, or to alter or even to tamper; we decreed all attempts of this kind to be henceforth null and void, whether made knowingly or in ignorance.

Afterwards we took care lest the said property, which over a long period had been given, bequeathed, granted and acquired from the worshippers of Christ for the help of the holy Land and to assail the enemies of the christian faith, should be left without management and perish as belonging to nobody or be used in ways other than those intended by the pious devotion of the faithful. There was the further danger that tardiness in our arrangements and dispositions might lead to destruction or dilapidation. We therefore held difficult, lengthy and varied consultations and discussions with our brothers, the cardinals of the holy Roman church, with patriarchs, archbishops, bishops and prelates, with certain outstanding and distinguished persons, and with the procurators at the council of the chapters, convents, churches and monasteries, and of the remaining absent prelates, in order that, through this painstaking deliberation, a wholesome and beneficial disposal of the said property might be made to the honour of God, the increase of the faith, the exaltation of the church, the help of the holy Land, and the salvation and peace of the faithful. 

After especially long carefully thought out, deliberate and complete consultations, for many just reasons, we and the said fathers and patriarchs, archbishops, bishops, other prelates, and the outstanding and distinguished persons, then present at the council, finally came to a conclusion. The property should become forever that of the order of the Hospital of saint John of Jerusalem, of the Hospital itself and of our beloved sons the master and brothers of the Hospital, in the name of the Hospital and order of these same men, who as athletes of the Lord expose themselves to the danger of death for the defence of the faith, bearing heavy and perilous losses in lands overseas.

We have observed with the fullness of sincere charity that this order of the Hospital and the Hospital itself is one of the bodies in which religious observance flourishes. Factual evidence tells us that divine worship is fervent, works of piety and mercy are practised with great earnestness, the brothers of the Hospital despise the attractions of the world and are devoted servants of the most High. As fearless warriors of Christ they are ardent in their efforts to recover the holy Land, despising all human perils. We bear in mind also that the more plentifully they are supplied with means, the more will the energy of the master and brothers of the order and Hospital grow, their ardour increase and their bravery be strengthened to repel the insults offered to our Redeemer and to crush the enemies of the faith. They will be able to carry more lightly and easily the burdens demanded in the execution of such an enterprise. They will therefore, not unworthily, be made more watchful and apply themselves with greater zeal.

In order that we may grant them increased support, we bestow on them, with the approval of the sacred council, the house itself of the Knights Templar and the other houses, churches, chapels, oratories, cities, castles, towns, lands, granges, places, possessions, jurisdictions, revenues, rights, all the other property, whether immovable, movable or self-moving, and all the members together with their rights and belongings, both beyond and on this side of the sea, in each and every part of the world, at the time when the master himself and some brothers of the order were arrested as a body in the kingdom of France, namely in October 1308. The gift is to include everything which the Templars had, held or possessed of themselves or through others, or which belonged to the said house and order of Knights Templar, or to the master and brothers of the order as also the titles, actions and rights which at the time of their arrest belonged in any way to the house, order or persons of the order of Knights Templar, or could belong to them, against whomsoever of whatever dignity, state or condition, with all the privileges, indults, immunities and liberties with which the said master and brothers of the house and order of Knights Templar, and the house and order itself, had been legitimately endowed by the apostolic see or by catholic emperors, kings and princes, or by other members of the faithful, or in any other way. All this we present, grant, unite, incorporate, apply and annex in perpetuity, by the fullness of our apostolic power, to the said order of the Hospital of saint John of Jerusalem and to the Hospital itself.

We except the property of the said former order of Knights Templar in the kingdoms and lands of our beloved sons in Christ, the illustrious kings of Castille, Aragon, Portugal and Majorca, outside the kingdom of France. We reserve this property, from the said gift, grant, union, application, incorporation and annexation, to the disposal and regulation of the apostolic see. We wish the prohibition made a little while ago by other proceedings of ours to remain in full force. Nobody of any state or condition may intervene in any way as regards these persons and property in prejudice to the regulation or disposition of the apostolic see. We wish that our decree concerning these persons and property in the kingdoms and lands of the above kings should remain in full force until the apostolic see makes another arrangement.

Occupiers and unlawful detainers of the property, irrespective of state, condition, eminence or dignity, even if this is pontifical, imperial or royal, unless they abandon the property within a month after it is called for by the master and brothers of the Hospital, or by any of them, or by their procurators [. . .]. The property must be fully and freely restored to the order of Hospitallers and to the said Hospital, or to the master, priors, preceptors or brothers of the said Hospital, in any regions or provinces, or to any of them individually, or to their procurator or procurators, in the name of the said order of Hospitallers, even if the priors, preceptors and brothers and their procurators or any one of them have no special mandate from the master of the Hospital, provided that the procurators hold or show a special commission from the priors and preceptors or from any one of them, in the provinces or regions in which these priors and preceptors have been delegated. The priors, preceptors and brothers are obliged to give a full reckoning to the master concerning everything: conduct, actions, receipts and negotiations.

 The procurators are to render a similar account to the priors and preceptors, and to each one of them, by whom they were delegated. All who have knowingly given counsel, aid or favour to the occupiers and detainers mentioned above concerning such occupation or detention, publicly or secretly, lie under excommunication. Chapters, colleges or governing bodies of churches and monasteries, and the corporations of cities, castles, towns and other places, as well as the cities, castles, towns and other places themselves which were at fault in this, and the cities, castles and places in which the detainers and occupiers hold temporal lordship, if such temporal lords place obstacles to the giving up of the property and its restoration to the master and brothers of the Hospital, in the name of the Hospital, not desisting from such conduct within a month after the property is called for, are automatically laid under interdict. They cannot be absolved from this until they offer full satisfaction. Moreover the occupiers and detainers and those who have given them counsel, aid or favour, whether individuals or the chapters, colleges or governing bodies of churches or monasteries, as also the corporations of cities, castles, lands or other places, incur, in addition to the above-mentioned penalties, automatic deprivation of everything they hold as fiefs from the Roman or other churches. These fiefs are to revert freely without opposition to the churches concerned, and the prelates or rulers of those churches may dispose of the fiefs at will, as they judge will be to the advantage of the churches. 

Given at Vienne on 2 May in the seventh year of our pontificate (1312).

Pope Clement V

Cardinal Ratzinger on the 9th Station of the Cross

 

 

NINTH STATION

Jesus falls for the third time

V/. Adoramus te, Christe, et benedicimus tibi.

R/. Quia per sanctam crucem tuam redemisti mundum.

From the Book of Lamentations. 3:27-32

It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. Let him sit alone in silence when he has laid it on him; let him put his mouth in the dust - there may yet be hope; let him give his cheek to the smiter, and be filled with insults. For the Lord will not cast off for ever, but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion, according to the abundance of his steadfast love.

MEDITATION

 

by Joseph Ratzinger

What can the third fall of Jesus under the Cross say to us?

 

We have considered the fall of man in general, and the falling of many Christians away from Christ and into a godless secularism. Should we not also think of how much Christ suffers in his own Church?

 

How often is the holy sacrament of his Presence abused, how often must he enter empty and evil hearts!

 

How often do we celebrate only ourselves, without even realizing that he is there!

 

How often is his Word twisted and misused!

 

What little faith is present behind so many theories, so many empty words!

 

How much filth there is in the Church, and even among those who, in the priesthood, ought to belong entirely to him!

 

How much pride, how much self-complacency!

 

What little respect we pay to the Sacrament of Reconciliation, where he waits for us, ready to raise us up whenever we fall!

 

All this is present in his Passion. His betrayal by his disciples, their unworthy reception of his Body and Blood, is certainly the greatest suffering endured by the Redeemer; it pierces his heart. We can only call to him from the depths of our hearts: Kyrie eleison ­ Lord, save us (cf. Mt 8: 25).

PRAYER

Lord, your Church often seems like a boat about to sink, a boat taking in water on every side.

 

In your field we see more weeds than wheat.

 

The soiled garments and face of your Church throw us into confusion.

 

Yet it is we ourselves who have soiled them! It is we who betray you time and time again, after all our lofty words and grand gestures.

 

Have mercy on your Church; within her too, Adam continues to fall.

 

When we fall, we drag you down to earth, and Satan laughs, for he hopes that you will not be able to rise from that fall; he hopes that being dragged down in the fall of your Church, you will remain prostrate and overpowered.

 

But you will rise again. You stood up, you arose and you can also raise us up.

 

Save and sanctify your Church. Save and sanctify us all.

Cardinal Ratzinger, Via Crucis, 25 March 2005, Rome.

The Spiritual Testament of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI

The Holy See releases the Spiritual Testament of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, dated 29 August 2006.

My spiritual testament

When, at this late hour of my life, I look back on the decades I have wandered through, I see first of all how much reason I have to give thanks. Above all, I thank God Himself, the giver of all good gifts, who has given me life and guided me through all kinds of confusion; who has always picked me up when I began to slip, who has always given me anew the light of his countenance. In retrospect, I see and understand that even the dark and arduous stretches of this path were for my salvation and that He guided me well in those very stretches.

I thank my parents, who gave me life in difficult times and prepared a wonderful home for me with their love, which shines through all my days as a bright light until today. My father's clear-sighted faith taught us brothers and sisters to believe and stood firm as a guide in the midst of all my scientific knowledge; my mother's heartfelt piety and great kindness remain a legacy for which I cannot thank her enough. My sister has served me selflessly and full of kind concern for decades; my brother has always paved the way for me with the clear-sightedness of his judgements, with his powerful determination, and with the cheerfulness of his heart; without this ever-new going ahead and going along, I would not have been able to find the right path.

I thank God from the bottom of my heart for the many friends, men and women, whom He has always placed at my side; for the co-workers at all stages of my path; for the teachers and students He has given me. I gratefully entrust them all to His goodness. And I would like to thank the Lord for my beautiful home in the Bavarian foothills of the Alps, in which I was able to see the splendour of the Creator Himself shining through time and again. I thank the people of my homeland for allowing me to experience the beauty of faith time and again. I pray that our country will remain a country of faith and I ask you, dear compatriots, not to let your faith be distracted. 

Finally, I thank God for all the beauty I was able to experience during the various stages of my journey, but especially in Rome and in Italy, which has become my second home.

I ask for forgiveness from the bottom of my heart from all those whom I have wronged in some way.

What I said earlier of my compatriots, I now say to all who were entrusted to my service in the Church: Stand firm in the faith! Do not be confused! Often it seems as if science - on the one hand, the natural sciences; on the other, historical research (especially the exegesis of the Holy Scriptures) - has irrefutable insights to offer that are contrary to the Catholic faith. I have witnessed from times long past the changes in natural science and have seen how apparent certainties against the faith vanished, proving themselves not to be science but philosophical interpretations only apparently belonging to science - just as, moreover, it is in dialogue with the natural sciences that faith has learned to understand the limits of the scope of its affirmations and thus its own specificity. For 60 years now, I have accompanied the path of theology, especially biblical studies, and have seen seemingly unshakeable theses collapse with the changing generations, which turned out to be mere hypotheses: the liberal generation (Harnack, Jülicher, etc.), the existentialist generation (Bultmann, etc.), the Marxist generation. I have seen, and see, how, out of the tangle of hypotheses, the reasonableness of faith has emerged and is emerging anew. Jesus Christ is truly the Way, the Truth, and the Life - and the Church, in all her shortcomings, is truly His Body.

Finally, I humbly ask: pray for me, so that the Lord may admit me to the eternal dwellings, despite all my sins and shortcomings. For all those entrusted to me, my heartfelt prayer goes out day after day.

Benedictus PP XVI

Cardinal Ratzinger on Papal primacy

 

"Although it is not given us to halt the flight of history, to change the course of centuries, we may say, nevertheless, that what was possible for a thousand years is not impossible for Christians today.... In other words, Rome must not require more from the East with respect to the doctrine of primacy than had been formulated and was lived in the first millennium. When the Patriarch Athenagoras, on 25 July 1967, on the occasion of the Pope's visit to Phanar, designated him as the successor of St. Peter, as the most esteemed among us, as one also presides in charity, this great Church leader was expressing the essential content of the doctrine of primacy as it was known in the first millennium. Rome need not ask for more.

Reunion could take place in this context if, on the one hand, the East would cease to oppose as heretical the developments that took place in the West in the second millennium and would accept the Catholic Church as legitimate and orthodox in the form she had acquired in the course of that development, while, on the other hand, the West would recognize the Church of the East as orthodox and legitimate in the form she has always had."

Report: Cardinal Ratzinger Admitted Third Secret Not Fully Revealed

 

Report: Cardinal Ratzinger Admitted
Third Secret Not Fully Revealed

Secret Warns of "Bad Council and Bad Mass"

by John Vennari

Father Ingo Dollinger is an elderly German priest, professor of theology in Brazil, and a personal friend of former Pope Benedict XVI.

Father Dollinger stated on more than one occasion that Cardinal Ratzinger admitted to him the full Third Secret is not yet revealed, and the Secret warns against a “bad Council and a bad Mass.”

The Fatima Crusader reported this on a number of occasions, most pointedly in 2009. This news regarding the Third Secret was recently re-confirmed by Dr. Maike Hickson on May 15.

Dr. Hickson, who knows Father Dollinger, telephoned the priest on Pentecost Sunday, and he gave her permission to publicly report the following facts:

“Not long after the June 2000 publication of the Third Secret of Fatima by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger told Father Dollinger during an in-person conversation that there is still part of the Third Secret that they have not published! ‘There is more than what we published,’ Ratzinger said. He also told Dollinger that the published part of the Secret is authentic and that the unpublished part of the Secret speaks about ‘a bad council and a bad Mass’ that was to come in the near future.”

This statement by Father Dollinger was formerly related in the May 2009 issue of The Fatima Crusader by Father Paul Kramer.

According to Father Kramer’s account, Cardinal Ratzinger revealed to Father Dollinger as far back as the early 1990s that the Secret warned against a bad Council and against changes in the Mass.

Yet the text published by the Vatican on June 26, 2000 makes no mention of these specific warnings.

Father Kramer explained: “The elderly German priest, Ratingzer’s long-time personal friend, took note of the fact that when the vision of the Third Secret was published it did not contain those things, those elements of the Third Secret that Cardinal Razinger had revealed to him nearly ten years earlier. The German priest – Father Dollinger – told me that this question was burning in his mind.”

Father Kramer continues, “Father Dollinger said to me, ‘I confronted Cardinal Ratzinger to his face: ‘How can this be the entire Third Secret? Remember what you told me before?''”

Cardinal Ratzinger replied, “Really, there is something more there,” meaning there is more in the Third Secret than what the Vatican revealed.

Father Nicholas Gruner referred to this episode from Father Dollinger on more than one occasion, including a speech published in The Fatima Crusader in Autumn, 2009.

Crisis of Faith

Even if one wants to question whether the Third Secret actually mentions the Mass and the Council, there appears to be no doubt that the missing part of the Secret speaks of "dangers threatening the Faith." For years prior to the Year 2000 release of the vision of the Secret, Father Gruner’s Fatima Center repeatedly published testimony from Fatima experts and witnesses who relate that the Third Secret predicts a great crisis of Faith in the Church. Here are but a few examples:

Father Alonso

Father Joaquim Alonso, who was the official archivist of Fatima and had many conversations with Sister Lucia, said the following prior to his death in 1981:

“It is therefore completely probable that the text makes concrete references to the crisis of faith within the Church and to the negligence of the pastors themselves [and the] internal struggles in the very bosom of the Church and of grave pastoral negligence of the upper hierarchy.”¹

And further,

“Does the unpublished text speak of concrete circumstances? It is very possible that it speaks not only of a real crisis of faith in the Church during this in-between period [that is, prior to the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary], but like the secret of La Salette, for example, there are more concrete references to the internal struggles of the Catholics or to the fall of priests and religious. Perhaps it even refers to the failures of the upper hierarchy of the Church. For that matter, none of this is foreign to communications Sister Lucia has had on this subject.”²

Cardinal Ratzinger

Cardinal Ratzinger, then Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, gave an interview in Jesus magazine on November 11, 1984. In this famous exchange, titled “Here is Why the Faith was in Crisis,” Cardinal Ratzinger spoke of the crisis of faith and of the Third Secret. Here he revealed that the Secret refers to “dangers threatening the faith and the life of the Christian and therefore [the life] of the world.”

The Cardinal further noted that “the things contained in this ‘Third Secret’ correspond to what has been announced in Scripture and what has been said again and again in many other Marian apparitions…”

Bishop Amaral

Bishop Amaral – the third Bishop of Fatima – likewise relates that the Secret warns of dangers to the Faith. In a speech in Vienna, Austria, on September 10, 1984, the bishop said,

“Its contents concern only our faith. To identity the [Third] Secret with catastrophic announcements or with a nuclear holocaust is to deform the meaning of the message. The loss of faith of a continent is worse than the annihilation of nations; and it is true that the faith is continually diminishing in Europe.”³ [emphasis added]

Cardinal Oddi

Silvio Cardinal Oddi gave the following testimony to Italian journalist Lucio Brunelli on March 17, 1990, for the journal Il Sabato:

“It [the Third Secret] has nothing to do with Gorbachev. The Blessed Virgin was alerting us against the apostasy in the Church.”

Cardinal Ciappi

Then there is the oft-quoted testimony of Cardinal Mario Luigi Ciappi, who was personal papal theologians to five popes – Pius XII, John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I and John Paul II. The Cardinal wrote the following in a personal communication to Professor Baumgartner in Salzburg:

“In the Third Secret it is foretold, among other things, that the great apostasy in the Church will begin at the top.”⁴

Warnings from Sister Lucia

We close with some quick observations from Sister Lucia, where she warns of the diabolic disorientation of members of the upper hierarchy, and she calls upon Catholics to “stand up against it.”

The full Secret, Sister Lucia had told us, was supposed to be revealed at the time of her death or in 1960, whichever came first.

In 1960, however, the Secret was not released, and Sister Lucy was silenced. She was not allowed to speak about anything not yet published on the Message of Fatima without prior authorization of the Vatican.

Yet, in 1957, and in the late 60s and early 70s, the years “bracketing” 1960 wherein the Secret should have been released, Sister Lucy seemed to indicate what the Secret contained. In these statements, Sister Lucy speaks of the devil gaining power over priests and consecrated souls. She speaks of the diabolic disorientation infecting the upper hierarchy.

In her 1957 conversation with Father Fuentes, her last public interview that was not pre-approved by the Vatican, Sister Lucy said: “The devil is about to wage a decisive battle with the Blessed Virgin, as he knows what it is that offends God the most, and which in a short space of time will gain for him the greatest number of souls. Thus the devil does everything to overcome souls consecrated to God, because in this way he will succeed in leaving the souls of the faithful abandoned by their leaders, thereby the more easily will he seize them.”

More than a decade later, Sister Lucy denounced the progressivist forces in the Church seeking to downplay and suppress the Rosary. “This campaign is diabolical,” she wrote in 1969 to one of her priest-nephews, “do not let yourself be deceived.” This is from the 1973 book, Uma Vida ao Serviço de Fátima, Chapter 6, “Um Pequeno Tratado, da Vidente, sobre a Natureza e Recitação do Terço”, containing excerpts from letters of Sister Lucy written between 1969-1971.

In these letters, she also voiced strong words about the leadership in the Church following Vatican II. She wrote in 1970 to Mother Martins, a former companion in the Dorothean Sisters: “It is painful to see such a great disorientation in so many who occupy places of responsibility ... the devil has succeeded in infiltrating evil under cover of good, and the blind are beginning to guide others, as the Lord tells us in His Gospel, and souls are letting themselves be deceived.”

It is noteworthy that in 1957, Sister Lucy said the devil was about to wage a decisive battle. By 1971, she says the devil has begun to succeed.

“Gladly,” Sister Lucy continued, “I sacrifice myself and offer my life to God for peace in His Church, for priests and for all consecrated souls, especially for those who are so deceived and misled ... he (the devil) has succeeded in leading into error and deceiving souls having a heavy responsibility through the place which they occupy ... They are blind men guiding other blind men.”

“Stand up to it”

It is no mystery why Sister Lucy was silenced. A voice as powerful as hers making such statements, a voice loved and respected as Our Lady’s chosen vessel, would threaten the entire post-Conciliar aggiornamento.

The contemplative Carmelite accepted her imposition of silence. She understood it as Heaven’s chosen path for her. “I must remain in silence, in prayer and in penance,” Sister Lucy said in a 1970 letter to her friend Dona Maria Theresa da Cunha. “In this way, I can and must help you the most ... such is the part the Lord has chosen for me: to pray and sacrifice myself for those who struggle to work in the Lord’s vineyard and for the extension of His Kingdom.”

Those of us outside the Carmel, however, she exhorted to battle: “This is a diabolic disorientation invading the world and misleading souls! It is necessary to stand up to it …”

Sister Lucia’s marching orders reconfirm our duty as Catholics. We keep the true Faith, the true Mass, the daily Rosary, and publicly resist the destructive Conciliar aggiornamento in any legitimate manner we can.

¹ The Whole Truth About Fatima, Vol. III, p. 704.

² Ibid, p. 705.

³ Fatima, Tragedy and Triumph, pp. 243-244.

⁴ Referenced from The Devil’s Final Battle [Second Edition, 2010], p. 36.