The Crisis of Authority in Catholic Modernity

The post-Vatican II era has created a serious problem for Roman Catholics.  And that problem is precisely how to reconcile the claims of the church with the facts of history – and sometimes with the facts of its own history!   It is not that this is a new problem but rather that the world and …

“Pope Leo the Great”

“Pope Leo the Great” (pope from 440–461 AD) probably gave a fuller impetus to the medieval papacy than any other pope from the first millennium. J.N.D. Kelly, “The Oxford Dictionary of Popes”, (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, ©1986) says of Leo: An energetic and purposeful pontiff, Leo infused all his policies and pronouncements, especially his …

The Crafting of the 4th Century Roman Church, Doctrine, and Papacy

There is no question that there were “bishops” in Rome, likely beginning in the late second or early third centuries. But these were not “bishops” as we would understand them today. Roger Collins, in his work “Keepers of the Keys of Heaven: A History of the Papacy”, New York, NY: Basic Books, a Member of …

The papacy is 1600 years old, not 2000 years old

In news accounts concerning the upcoming retirement of Pope Benedict XVI and a new papal conclave, one way to check to see if the particular news outlet you are watching had actually checked its facts is if it maintains that the papacy is a 2000 year old institution. In fact, the overwhelming preponderance of scholarship …

The Papacy: Neither Biblical Nor Historical

This month and next, we’ll all be treated in the media to the spectacle of another conclave to select another pope. The media will fail to understand the genuine historical roots of the papacy lie neither in the Bible, nor in the history of the earliest church, but rather were an exercise if self-admiration of …

Ever wonder where “Papal Conclaves” come from?

Writing about what has been called “The First Reformation”, Diarmaid MacCulloch says: The idea of a Reformation in the sixteenth century is probably a familiar one, but it must be realized that an equally crucial Reformation took place in the Western church during the eleventh and twelfth centuries. It was not a rebellion in the …