Hi Athanasias!
You asked me to talk with you and join you in this thread.
this office of the Papacy to be divinely inspired by Jesus Christ himself. I hope in doing that I will be able to give you some good reasons why we catholics hold to this office(even if you end up disagreeing) .
To clarify, Jesus did not give a direct, clear order for this supremacism.
I call them Gods 3 secret weapons. They are Mary, The Eucharist/Mass/ and the office of Pope.
Main PRACTICAL reason EOs don't want to reunite with ROme is because of third "secret weapon" of RCs. LOL You are even referring to this problem as your "secret weapon".
" INFALLIBILITY: The gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church whereby the pastors of the Church, the pope and bishops in union with him, can definitively proclaim a doctrine of faith or morals for the belief of the faithful (
891). This gift is related to the inability of the whole body of the faithful to err in matters of faith and morals "
So infallibility to a Catholic is a gift that is given by the Holy Spirit that protects the teaching church ie the Bishops and the Pope in union with them from formally teaching a theological error in matter of faith or doctrine or morals. This does not mean that Popes or Bishops cannot ever error and it also does not mean that Popes and Catholic Bishops are perfect and never sin(impeccability). In fact if you have been watching the news in the past 12 years and studied Church history you will know that Catholic Bishops and Popes are sinners and do make mistakes some times grave ones.
I remember when I was trying to decide weather I was really Catholic or not thinking that infallibility made sense. I mean no matter what Christian religion I was going to be whether it be Lutheran or Catholic or Orthodox or even Baptist I would still believe that the Church that Jesus founded had this gift or charism of infallibility and at times could and did use it. I believe that because it seemed logical to me for a few reasons. Scripture to me seemed to indicate that the Jesus himself is God(Jn 20:28) and He is Truth itself(Jn 14:6). Scripture also seemed to indicate to me that Jesus who is Truth speaks through his Church and if we hear the Church we hear Jesus but if we reject his Church we reject him(Lk 10:16). But the nail in the coffin for me personally was that from my understanding the Church Jesus was to found would have the Holy Spirit guiding it into all truth(Jn 16:12-14). In fact the Holy Spirit guided the first church council (Acts 15:28) That "all truth" means no error at least at times on important theological truths of faith and morals. That seemed evident to me. In fact it seemed so much so that St. Paul would call the Church of Christ the pillar and foundation of truth( 1 Tim 3:15).
So to me it seemed logical and still does that no matter what type of Christian I am I ought to believe that the Church Jesus founded historically had that gift of infallibility and still does. That only seemed logical as well. The futher historical evidence of the Ecumenical Councils in the early Church and the canon of scripture made this even more evident to me. This is why I rejected sola scriptura personally when I looked into it because it seemed to negate a living tradition in the Church that had apostolic authority behind it(2 Thess 2:15) and it also negated a living body or Ecclesia with real teaching authority via succession to the apostles that had a real authority to bind and loose doctrines(Matt 16:18, Matt 18:18, Acts 15:28) and what ought to be believed on the congregation universal. Thus I saw the Church doing this in her early Ecumenical Councils binding the creeds on the Church universal. That spoke miles to me.
So I hope that helps. Now the Infallibility and general universal authority of the Papacy of the Bishop of Rome is as we see it a logical extension of the infallibility of the Church. He has this due to his office which to us as we see it fulfills the role of High priest and the Davidic prime minister or steward over the Church.He does not use it often. Infact the Church as a whole in union with him speaks infallibly in ecumenical councils much more often then he does from the chair. But its his office that he can do that if called upon. And its Christ and the Holy Spirit who guides that office and protects it and not the sinful man in office who himself has that power.There is no comparing the Pope to God or Papal worship because the Pope is a mere man whose office is divine and protected in certain circumstances in our view but the man can be a horrible sinner. In fact Judas a handpicked Bishop committed the ultimate sin and the first Pope of Rome St. Peter denied Christ 3 times publicly and had a cussing problem. Now how is that for scandel!
Yes, EOs disagree with this. Only maybe Bible and Councils are infallible for EOs.
But the Catholic view is that God's grace and truth is stronger then mans sin so even when a sinful man may be in office that God founded God the Holy Spirit may prevent him from officially declaring a bad doctrine or teach truth through him despite himself. God did this also in the NT at times with the High Priest of the old covenant.
Whether you think this is true or not is only provable in the believer's own arbitrariness.
If you accept everything Pope teaches ex cathedra, then you have no real problem maybe.
But EOs DON"T accept everything Pope teaches ex cathedra, so we don't agree.
This is all circular reasoning and arbitrariness whether in real life Pope is infallible ex cathedra. It's like SOLA SCRIPTURA- it COULD be true in theory, but we don't think it's realistic.
A protestant COULD read Bible sola scriptura and by a miracle have perfect answers to everything from Infallible Bible. But this is not realistic because humans are fallible in understanding.
God could use miracle powers to make all Pope decisions, including EX CATHEDRA ones infallible, but IMO I don't think it's realistic if we already know Popes have been heretics.
There is no way to disprove SOLA SCRIPTURA
in theory, just as there is no way to disprove PAPAL ex Cathedra INFALLIBILITY
in theory. Why? Because God could make miracles like you said through Holy Spirit so that Pope ex Cathedra is ALWAYS right EVEN THOUGH we know that Popes are fallible and cane be excommunicated as Popes.
In real life, we Orthodox believe that this is way too much power to give one simple fallible human man, whether or not he is your church leader! But we cannot
prove our belief to you, and you cannot
prove our belief to us.
My belief is that popes by virtue of their office are not "miracle men" or infallible, therefore, I think that God does not give them personal authority of infallibility "ex cathedra" like a Christian version of a "godlike" Roman emperor.
Orthodoxy has many centuries teaching against Papal infallibilty and papal supremacy. If we accept these things, we are not EOs any more but converts to Pope's rule and all his "ex cathedra" teachings. If you ask us to accept them, you are not making dialogue for equal reunion, but a dialogue to make EOs as a church
convert to Pope's Catholicism.
"But one of them, Ca'iaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, "You know nothing at all; you do not understand that it is expedient for you that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation should not perish." He did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus should die for the nation," (Jn 11:49-51).
Yes, but Caiaphas was not always "infallible" ex cathedra even if he could make a prophecy!+
Catholic view the Bishops in general but also the Pope especially as a fulfillment of the High priest who instead of sitting on the Chair of Moses sits now on the Chair of Peter. I was lucky that 2 of my professors in Grad school were converts to the Catholic faith from other faiths. One was a Jewish convert(Dr. Lawrence Feingold) to wrote 3 volumes of books to show just how the deep the Jewish fulfillments of Catholic theology truly are. I was amazed to read his 3 volume work and discovered other Jewish authors seeing similar things and converting to Catholicism. I will if you desire to see it bring out all the Jewish fulfillment in our understanding of the NT office of Pope in my next statement. There is alot there so I will not do it here but it may help you understand our position better. I think its really neat!
Catholicism's fulfillment of Judaism is neat!
Papal Supremacy over EOs over everything is not neat, just like a pre-Reformation Martin Luther becoming Pope over RCs is not neat for RCs.
So we do not worship the Pope or even come proximate to that. He is a man and a sinner and he can error and has in the past. Heck if you read my comments on Pope Francis you will see what I mean. But it does mean that we believe that the Church and the Pope can at times speak with full authority from their offices and the gift of infallibility will be there by the Holy Spirits protection.
Yes, you have a religious "faith" that the simple nonmiraculous, fallible man, the Pope has by virtue of his office a miracle gift of infallibility. This is not EO belief. It gives one simple nonmiracle fallible man an "infallible gift". It's like a slave mentality, but slaving to Pope's infallible ex cathedra statements.
(although some secular catholics seems to worship Popes in an tv idol kind of way that makes me sick). Pope can also disagree with on another and have. What a Pope cannot do is contradict another infallible statement by the Church or another Pope when speaking with his full authority.
Yes, this is why EOs cannot reunite. Because in practice it means losing real ability to contradict Pope.
Imagine this: New Pope makes "infallible" teaching against EOs, and RCs agree and EO bishops at an RC council agree. End of story for EOs. EOs cannot contradict this according to RC system. RCs will say "It's infallible! Pope said it was ex cathedra! Even EO bishops there agreed!"
So EOs lose all ability in practice to contradict any such bad supposedly "ex cathedra" decision by a Pope whom we KNOW is fallible in his person and even in his office when he doesn't speak ex cathdra.
For EOs, RC church has too many ideas about its own "infallibility". This is why Protestant Reformation happened and why EOs don't want to reunite. But supposedly "infallible" RC church has trouble seeing that.
So that is a general explanation. I hope that helps. The other areas I have not really touched upon deeply are the biblical, historical, miraculous, and negative. Those are 4 areas I believe also have good evidence for the Papacy in but we can get slowly to those in piece meal fashion. I am having fun so far and I hope you are too my sister. I look forward to more dialog and learning more from you in our next post. If you want me to go deeper on anything just let me know and if I don't see you asking I will just let the conversation develop where it will.
Have a blessed weekend my sister! And enjoy a blessed liturgy!
In Jesus through Mary,
Athanasais
RCs are very happy to talk about reunion. In reality, unless those RCs are able to consider give up papal infallibility, such talk is a big fish talking about eating a little fish, in that "infallible", "supreme" RCism would eat up EOism.
I want reunion to happen, but not in that way whereby EOs accept papal supremacism and get eaten.