Ratzinger Replies to the Latest Effort to Undermine the Papal Office
The Episcopate and the Primacy by Karl Rahner and Joseph Ratzinger (NY: Herder and Herder, 1963 third impression, sc, 1962 imprimatur).
On the question of the papacy and the 2024 study document, http://www.christianunity.va/content/dam/unitacristiani/Collezione_Ut_unum_sint/The_Bishop_of_Rome/The%20Bishop%20of%20Rome.pdf
Ratzinger, “Primacy, Episcopate, and Apostolic Succession,” pp. 37-63.
· “‘Catholic’, like ‘ecumenical’, signifies the transcending of all spatial limits, the claim to embrace the whole world….Now when ‘Roman’ is added to ‘Catholic’, this reflects not only the scandalous split within the Catholica itself, which is the principal reason why such a title became necessary, but also it would seem to imply a tacit withdrawal of the former title, spatial universality now being particularized and narrowed down to an individual place” (37).
· “The plan of John XXIII for the council [this was first written in 1959] has once more brought this problem into the centre of theological inquiry, and, after decades of concentration on ‘Roman’, which followed the [First] Vatican Council, has again directed more attention to the other side of the scale, to ‘Catholic’, with which, to be sure, ‘Roman’ forms a paradoxical unity, so that one separated from the other would no longer be itself” (38).
· “[I]t is the certain teaching of the Church that the pope has immediate, ordinary, truly episcopal power of jurisdiction over the whole Church. The [First] Vatican Council calls the primacy of the pope the apostolic primacy, and the Roman See the apostolic see” (39).
· “So far as communio is concerned, the other pillar of the Church, it follows that only he who is in communion with the pope lives in the true communio of the body of the Lord, i.e., in the true Church” (39).
· Statement of German episcopate “of the year 1875, which received the express and unqualified endorsement of Pius IX” (40); List of seven points (41).
· “In the centuries-long struggle between episcopalism-conciliarism on the one side and papalism on the other, the [First] Vatican Council is not at all a clear victory for the latter, as it might well seem to the superficial observer” (43).
· “The [First] Vatican Council stands for a condemnation of papalism as much as of episcopalism. Actually, it brands both doctrines as erroneous and, in place of one-sided solutions stemming from late theology or power politics, it establishes the dialectic of the reality we have from Christ” (43-44).
· “In the great historical struggle between the two powerful movements, the [First] Vatican Council takes neither side, but creates a new position, which, transcending all human constitutional thought, formulates the special quality of the Church, which comes, not from the discretion of men, but in the final analysis, from the word of God” (44).
· “There can be no question, consequently, of the Catholic theologian playing one off against the other; he can only attempt to understand more deeply the vital relationship between the two” (44).
· “Sacrament and word are the two pillars on which the Church stands” (45).
· “’Tradition’ is never a simple, anonymous passing on of doctrine, but is personal, is the living word, concretely realized in the faith. And ‘succession’ is not a taking over of official powers, which then are at the disposal of their possessor, but is rather a dedication to the word, an office of bearing witness to the treasure which one has been entrusted. The office is superior to its holder, so that he is entirely overshadowed by that which he has received; he is, as it were—to adopt the image of Isaias and John the Baptist—only a voice which renders the word articulate in the world” (46-47).
· “Succession means cleaving to the apostolic word, just as tradition means the continuance of authorized witnesses” (48).
· “[M]ust not the word of God and the reality based on it always make use of human relationships in order to express itself among men?” (48).
· “Whatever might be the terminological dependence, [paradosis] ([diadoche]) meant something entirely different on the two sides—in fact the exact opposite. In Gnosis it meant exhaustive doctrines of allegedly apostolic origin. But in the theology of the Church it meant the connection of the living faith with the authority of the Church, embodied in episcopal succession” (50).
· P. 52 doctrine of succession vs. Protestant version via Cullman.
· “To sum up, the Church at first opposed to the gnostic notion of secret, unwritten traditions not Scripture but the principle of succession. Apostolic succession is essentially the living presence of the Word in the person of the witness. The unbroken continuity of witnesses follows from the nature of the Word as auctoritas and viva vox” (54).
· “Confusion between the primitive claim of the apostolic see and the administrative claim of the patriarchal city characterizes the tragic beginning of conflict between Constantinople and Rome” (58).
· “The patriarchal principle is post-Constantinian, its instinct administrative, its application thus closely tied up with the political and geographic data. The Roman claim, by contrast, must be understood in the light of the originally theological notion of the apostolic sees” (58).
· “The overshadowing of the old theological notion of the apostolic see—an original part, after all, of the Church’s understanding of her own nature—by the theory of the five patriarchs must be understood as the real harm done in the quarrel between East and West. The mischief has had its effect on the West to the extent that, though the notion of apostolic authority has remained unharmed, nevertheless a far-reaching administrative-patriarchal conception of the importance of the Roman See has necessarily developed, making it no easier for those outside the fold to grasp the real heart of the Roman claim in contrast to other claims” (59).
· Referring to bishops not in communion with Rome: “[F]or only communion with Rome gives them Catholicity and that fulness of apostolicity without which they would not be true bishops. Without communion with Rome one cannot be in the Catholica. This reference of the bishops to Rome is the primary relationship to be ascertained” (59-60).
· “On the other hand, the episcopal see of Rome itself does not stand in isolation, devoid of relationships. It creates their Catholicity for other sees, but precisely for this reason it also needs Catholicity. It sets up the essential order of Catholicity; and precisely because of this it needs the reality of Catholicity. Just as, on the one hand, it guarantees essential Catholicity, so on the other hand real Catholicity stands warranty for it. Just as the other sees need the apostolic testimony of Rome in order to be Catholic, so Rome needs their Catholic testimony, the testimony of real fulness, in order to remain true. Without the testimony of reality, Rome would negate its own meaning. A pope who would excommunicate the entire episcopate could never exist, for a Church which had become only Roman would no longer be Catholic. And conversely, a lawful episcopate which would excommunicate a pope could never exist, since a Catholicity which renounces Rome would no longer be Catholic. Both are simultaneously included in the notion of Catholicity properly understood. The universal claim of the pope and the inherent limitation of this claim, which remains bound to the basic law of fulness, and so to the divine right of the bishops” (60).
· “An ‘ecumenical’ council which took sides against the pope, would thereby betray its non-ecumenicity, since after all a council held without or against the See of St. Peter is not ecumenical, ecumenicity depending essentially on the participation of Rome, the supreme apostolic see” (61).
· “the breach between ‘Catholicism’ and the Christianity of the mere written word” [Protestants] (63).
· “the breach between Christianity based upon the Roman office of Peter, and Christianity severed from it” [Orthodox] (63).
· “In both cases it is ultimately the ‘office’ which causes the parting of the ways. Does this not recall in terrible fashion that quarrelling began even among Christ’s disciples for the places to the right and to the left of the master, that is, for the offices in the coming messianic kingdom? And ought it not to recall to both sides the words of the Lord, that the greatest must be as the least, and the servant of all? This is not to do away with the office; the mandate to Peter and the mandate to the apostles are not withdrawn. But it is a demand of ultimate urgency addressed to both those who, vested with the office, are preachers of the word, and to their listeners. To the former that they should strive to be in very truth servi servorum Dei; to the latter, not to refuse to be outwardly the ‘last’ in order to know, in humble joy, that, precisely thus and not otherwise, they are first. Only if both—those in office and those without—seek the spirit of the Gospel in unconditional integrity can there be hope for a union of those who would never have been torn asunder without a denial of this spirit” (63).
All emphasis in the original.
Other books shown here:
Catholicism: A Study of Dogma in Relation to the Corporate Destiny of Mankind by Henri De Lubac, S.J. (NY: Mentor-Omega, 1964, pb, 1959 imprimatur).
While Peter Sleeps by E. Boyd Barrett (NY: Ives Washburn, 1929, cloth).
Letters From Vatican Council II: The Debates During the Second Session at St. Peter’s Basilica by “Xavier Rynne” (NY: Farrar, Straus & Company, 1964, cloth).
The Mystery of the Church by Fr. Humbert Clerissac, O.P. (pb, 1936 imprimatur).
Crown of Glory by Hatch and Walshe (NY: Hawthorn, 1957, cloth 1st edition).