Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Far too big for his RC robes

Revd Richard Perkins (Pastor of the Co-Mission church, Christ Church, Balham) has had a few Doctrine Slot blogposts on Roman Catholicism and quotes this amazingly overblown statement of official Roman Catholic teaching about the Pope:

The Pope takes the place of Jesus Christ on earth …. By divine right the Pope has supreme and full power in faith and morals over each and every pastor and his flock. He is the true Vicar of Christ, the head of the entire church, the father and teacher of all Christians. He is the infallible ruler, the founder of dogmas, the author of and judge of councils; the universal ruler of truth, the arbiter of the world, the supreme judge of heaven and earth, the judge of all, being judged by no one, God himself on earth
Now, I'm all for the authority of pastors as under-shepherds of Christ, even as his representatives (not substitute) on earth, and I could live with "Father" and "arbitrator" and stuff, but this is surely too much?

Does anyone happen to know the precise source? Is it Vatican I? Presumably the RC church can never change or repediate such authoritative teaching but has there been an attempt to "reinterpet" or soften this?

5 comments:

Big Pete said...

I'll ask Perks for you

Marc Lloyd said...

Thank you, Pete. I tried to post a comment on his blog asking but it was not permitted!

Ros said...

And if you're asking him about that, can you ask him to start permitting comments? Tell him I have lots of things I want to say...

Big Pete said...

Perks has updated his blog with the source, to save you time looking up is:

The New York Catechism, quoted in Lorraine Boettner’s book, ‘Roman Catholicism’, published by Presbyterian & Reformed.

Marc Lloyd said...

Thanks, Pete. You'd make someone an excellent study assistant - in some ways.