Time to rethink papal primacy?

"[A]n apostolic administration, or perhaps even a patriarchate of the kind to which the Uniate Eastern churches belong, is an arrangement that could serve to preserve the cause of Tradition within the Church and, we hope, bring about its restoration throughout the Roman Rite at large." (Ferrara and Woods, The Great Facade, 2nd ed., 297)

The crisis we are facing in the Church is one of cheap modernity that seeks to make a mockery of the Apostolic faith turning it into a quasi-form of Protestantism. This is excellently detailed by Christopher Ferrara and Thomas Woods in their compelling work, The Great Facade. Should Catholics start rethinking their views on papal jurisdiction and primacy? Would this work to resolve the issue? I'm a Melkite so I am not bound to the jurisdiction of the Pope but I would argue that if Roman Catholics started reconsidering, it may indeed result in the effort to preserve and reclaim tradition with the Church. When you have a Pope as schizophrenic as Francis, and sometimes even heretical, you may not be left with many options at this point. Pope Francis sticks out from Pope John XXII and Pope Honorius I though. Pope Francis has already led an attempt to bind the Church to his opinion on the death penalty which has been held by very few, if any saints. Pope Francis has actively partaken in the worship of idols. And Pope Francis has recently led a prayer group of all faiths mentioning nothing related to Christ or the need for conversion to Christianity but only the one Masonic brotherhood.

In saying all of this, it is not my intention to disparage the Holy Office of the Pope. I think the Holy Office of the Pope is essential to the Christian faith. It was the Pope that the early Church sought to for guidance on spiritual matters and even many legal manners. I only intend to call out the behavior of the individual who occupies that office of Pope. I think it is time for Catholics to seriously consider the limitations not only of papal infallibility but also the limitations of papal jurisdiction.

Ferrara and Woods note in regard to Vatican I, "[w]hat is most striking about the...definition [of papal infallibility] are the strict conditions it imposes upon the charism of infallibility" (117).  Referencing Cardinal Newman, "these conditions of course contract the range of infallibility most materially" and that he "noted the crucial distinction between the divine inspiration of the original Apostles, and the divine assistance provided to the Church throughout history" (117). They conclude "it is only by divine assistance, not divine inspiration, that the Pope is protected from the possibility of error--and then only when he defines defines a matter of faith and morals as a doctrine to be believed by the whole Church" (117). Later on, they mention that the Pope cannot change Church teaching, not even through infallible proclamations (136). The Pope's infallibility must be derived from the Church's teaching authority, not the other way around.

There is strong reason to believe that Pope Honorius I taught heresy and indeed was a heretic. Charles Coulombe states, "[i]n 638, Sergius issued an exposition of [Honorius I's] teaching, the Ecthesis, which set forth this teaching, Monothelitism, as it is called" (Vicars of Christ, 115). The condemnation was maintained by Honorius I's successor, Severinus, and it was maintained by St. Martin I, who, after having the Ecthesis condemned, faced prosecution from the Roman Emperor Constans who ordered his arrest (122). If the Ecthesis contains the teachings of Pope Honorius I, then it is plainly seen that a Pope did, in fact, teach error.

And Pope Honorius I is not the only Pope. "Perhaps the most enduring event of [John XXII's] papacy occurred in compensation to the faithful for the way [he] had misled them on the Beatific Vision issue" (293). That makes two Popes that have taught error on the Church's teachings. It's not that papal infallibility is undermined by their error. It's that papal infallibility is shown to be taken in a limited sense. So then what of jurisdiction? If the Pope is not automatically free from error in spite of the doctrine of papal infallibility, then maybe also the Pope's jurisdiction is not to be made absolute?

Stanislas Tyskewicz, writing in 1939, stated

A juridicocanonical system, organizationally perfect, healthy, and solid, is the best assurance against the penetration of canonicism into the interior life of the Church. We cannot too strongly insist on it: Catholicism, precisely in virtue of its strong canonical coordination, preserves the supernatural sobornost' against the untimely invasions of legalism. What Orthodox theologians so deeply fear, the "Vatican", with all its precise judicial apparatus, is a solid dyke against the unchained floods of "legalism", such as arise when no authority exists able to put an end to the interminable polemics on rights of such a particular church, or such-and-such a social element within the church: we know how prejudicial these polemics are to charity, to the sobornost'. What might be called "unilegalism" tempers the paralyzing action of centrifugal and dessicating multilegalisms. It is the lack of judicial precision that gives rise to most of the conflicts which bring disaster on the organic universality of Christian charity. (cited by Nichols in Rome and the Eastern Churches, 23)

Aidan Nichols writes just before this, "[t]he 'universality' of jurisdiction with the Petrine officeholder does not consist in his being the sole hierarch with a pastoral care for Catholics who may be anywhere on earth's surface. Even the prelate of the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross...is another such bishop!" (22, emphasis mine). Nichols points out that the Pope has the sole operational taxis of the episcopal hierarchy, but this tends to be the limits of his jurisdictional authority. The Pope is who the early Church would go to settle disputes of varying degrees at least when the faith was concerned (Chapman, Studies on the Early Papacy, 10-11, 13). But we have to distinguish between questions of faith and questions of discipline (10-11).

That's why I conclude with this note. It may be time to reconsider some of the jurisdictional authority the Pope has over the West. It may even be crucial to recovering and keeping intact the rites of old in the West which include the Mozoarabic rite, the Ambrosian rite, the Gregorian rite, and the current English rite that has been brought into practice through the Anglican Use Churches. It's not that the Pope should sideline. The Pope should be seen as the uniting figure in all of our Church disputes as he historically has. But he should not seek to control and govern the rites of the West as he does not govern the rites of the East. We are tied, as Catholics, to unity with the Pope. But we are not all in his jurisdiction. The Pope still plays a key role in approving of the appointment of Eastern rite bishops. But a limited jurisdictional authority in the West may allow the West to have as much of a chance of surviving as the East has so far. The East, in many cases, has made the mistake of Latinizing, but in cases where this has happened, even those liturgies are still far superior to the modernistic liturgies.

I think it is a point of discussion that Ferrara and Woods bring up in their massive and wonderful work which exposes the modernistic takeover in the Church. It would be interesting to see if movements like these will or can be created in the West. Again, discipline is not a matter of doctrine. The Western rites could feasibly do as the Eastern rites have done. And this would certainly maintain their liturgical culture free from much of the insane liberal governance going on right now. We'll have to see if this starts happening.