The picture above was taken on a vacation/pilgrimage that friends Adam, Erik, and Abu Daoud, and wife Kendra and I took to Rome last week. The experience has left much on which to reflect. Benedict's message was on Tertullian, and moreover how this Church Father's engagement with "secular" philosophy could be a guide for how we, as 21st-century Christians, can engage with our culture.But I find myself ruminating more on the essence of the Roman Catholic Church. Help me out, here, readers: I know the Pope is held to be the "Vicar of Peter"...apostolicity incarnate, through succession, tracing back to Christ's institution of Peter as the Rock on which Christ would build his Church.
But what, exactly, is the Pope's relationship to/with the Roman Catholic Church? Is the Pope seen to be the representation of the Church entire? Or merely the apostolic head thereof? Or am I erring greatly in my usage of such terms?
I guess one of the things I'm trying to figure out is how one "evaluates" (yes, a very Protestant way of thinking--see post below) the Roman Catholic Church, perhaps most especially in terms of practice. Does one consider merely the Pope himself? The full magisterium? Clergy and lay persons alike? Some representative cross-section?
These concepts are important to my seeking understanding of the essence of the Roman Catholic Church. Admittedly, I am very much influenced by my Protestant and American bent toward pragmatism (something I'm dealing with in another corner of my mind)...but for the present, it's where I am. Helpful advice welcome!
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Patrick,
First, it sounds like you need to put on a spam blocker considering the first comment.
Secondly, good question that you raise. With the current pope in office I would like to say that the pope does stand for Roman Catholicism, but that is really just because I love and respect Benedict XVI so much. I think the Pope is the physical manifestation of the unity of the Catholic Church, but he certainly does not represent the whole thing. Cardinal Newman saw the Church as three bodies of bishops, theologians, and lay (which included priests) with the Pope as the head of all three offices but not the 'end-point' of all three.
So as far as evaluating goes, the Pope is the one main difference which Roman Catholicism has from every other form of Christianity, but it should not be seen as the whole of Roman Catholicism boiled down. In calculus terms, if you take the limit of the Roman Catholic Church as it approaches naught I don't think you end up with the Pope, but whatever you do end up with he is the most central hierarchical portion of it. I don't know if that helps.
Thanks! That's helpful. I'll still need to run some details by you at a later date...once I get things figured out in my head.
Nonetheless, this is a good starting-point.
Great question, have posted a link over at Islamdom.blogspot.com.
I think when we approach any church (broadly speaking) we need to consider all the levels of its life, from the local congregation, to the clergy, to the bishop, to the head bishop. RC's failure is largely on the local level, while Anglicanism's failurre in many ways is at the top level.
But here is RC's advantage is this: If you have good guys at the top, you can always revive the bottom. In Anglicanism, bad guys at the top will eventually stifle the guys at the bottom.
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