Tag: Papacy

3 min read

The Church

What Is Apostolic Succession?

Msgr. M. Francis Mannion

April 20, 2023 7:00 am April 20, 2023

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While it is true that the original Twelve Apostles were unique in that they had been personally chosen by Jesus and had witnessed to the Resurrection, the Catholic Church believes…

While it is true that the original Twelve Apostles were unique in that they had been personally chosen by Jesus and had witnessed to the Resurrection, the Catholic Church believes that the ministry of Peter and the apostles continues in the Church, and that therefore the apostolic and Petrine ministries have been transmitted through the ages.

The Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium) states: “In order that the mission entrusted to [the apostles] might be continued after their death, [the apostles] consigned, by will and testament, as it were, to their immediate collaborators the duty of completing and consolidating the work they had begun, urging them to tend to the whole flock, in which the Holy Spirit had appointed them to shepherd the whole Church of God. They accordingly designated such men and then made the ruling that likewise on their death other proven men should take over their ministry” (No. 20).

The document continues: “Just as the office which the Lord confided to Peter alone, as first of the apostles, destined to be transmitted to his successors, is a permanent one, so also endures the office, which the apostles received, of shepherding the Church, a charge destined to be exercised without interruption by the sacred order of bishops” (Ibid.) Therefore the Church holds that “the bishops have by divine institution taken the place of the apostles as pastors of the Church” (Ibid). It reiterates this point by saying that when Christ called the Twelve, “he constituted [them] in the form of a college or permanent assembly, at the head of which he placed Peter, chosen from among them” (No. 22). Thus, “By the Lord’s institution, St. Peter and the rest of the apostles constituted a single apostolic college, so in like fashion the Roman Pontiff, Peter’s successor, and the bishops, the successors of the apostles, are related with and united to one another” (No. 22).

It is certainly the case that the relationships between the Twelve Apostles and their successors, and the relationship between Peter and subsequent popes, was in the beginning quite complicated; nevertheless the fundamental lines of Catholic doctrine on this matter are clear: The apostolic ministry continues in the Church through a succession of bishops up to the present time, and the ministry of Peter continues in the papacy down to today.

While it is true that the original Twelve were personally chosen by Jesus and encountered the resurrected Christ, nevertheless Christ, who lives in the Church by the power of the Holy Spirit, continues to call men personally to the Petrine and episcopal ministries, and that in the Eucharist, they encounter Christ risen from the dead.

As the Catechism of the Catholic Church points out, the whole Church constitutes an apostolic community, so that the ministry of Christ continues: “The whole Church is apostolic, in that she remains, through the successor of St. Peter and the other apostles, in communion of faith and life with her origin; and that she is sent out into the whole world” (No. 863).

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7 min read

Saints

The Throne of Truth: What is the feast of the Chair of St. Peter?

D.D. Emmons

January 26, 2023 6:00 am January 26, 2023

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The feast of the Chair of St. Peter has nothing to do with a piece of furniture. The “chair” symbolizes the authority of St Peter and his successors who have…

The feast of the Chair of St. Peter has nothing to do with a piece of furniture.

The “chair” symbolizes the authority of St Peter and his successors who have served the Church of Jesus Christ as the Bishop of Rome (the Pope). As a matter of fact, in Rome’s St. Peter’s Basilica, there is a chair, enshrined in the sumptuous Altar of the Chair of St. Peter by the great architect Bernini, but it is a symbol representing the 2,000-year-old papacy and unity the Pope continues to bring to Catholics around the world. Without such unity the Church would splinter into numerous sects and divisions.

Cathedra

So, every year on Feb. 22, the Church celebrates the continuing role of the Pope, the Vicar of Christ, beginning with St Peter. The use of the term chair in the feast day comes from the Latin term cathedra, meaning the seat of government. But how did such a feast day ever get started? We need to go back to the time of Jesus for the answer.

According to the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus asks the Twelve Apostles, “Who do you say that I am?” (16:15). The only response Jesus acknowledged was that of Peter, who said that Jesus was the son of the living God. Jesus in turn said to Peter, “Blessed art you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father” (v. 17). Peter’s answer is heavenly inspired, and from that point Peter is singled out among the apostles to be the rock of Christ’s Church on earth. According to Jesus, the Church will be so rock solid that “the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it” (v. 18).

Later, following the Resurrection, Jesus confirms Peter’s primacy over the other apostles as well as authority over His Church. He gives Peter the keys to the kingdom, telling him: to “Feed my lambs…. Feed my sheep” (see Jn 21:15-17). This authority, this responsibility given to Peter, is meant to be passed on to each of his successors. Jesus did not intend for the Church to end with Peter.

The Rock

St. Peter quietly begins to take on the role assigned by Christ beginning in the Upper Room. Pope Benedict XVI writes in his book “Holiness is Always in Season” (Ignatius Press, 2011): “So what was the ‘Chair’ of St Peter? Chosen by Christ as the ‘rock’ on which to build the Church (cf. Mt 16:18), he began his ministry in Jerusalem, after the Ascension of the Lord and Pentecost. The Church’s first ‘seat’ was the Upper Room, and it is likely that a special place was reserved for Simon Peter in that room where Mary, Mother of Jesus, also prayed with the disciples” (p. 65).

Even before Pentecost, Peter orchestrated the selection of Matthias to replace Judas, which was the first apostolic succession (see Acts 1:15-26). Peter preached on that day of Pentecost and was so inspirational that 3,000 people were baptized after listening to him (Acts 2:41). He was the first apostle to be given the grace to perform a miracle; curing the lame man at “the Beautiful gate” (Acts 3:1-10). King Herod Agrippa had Peter arrested and shackled in prison between two guards, but an “angel of the Lord” saved him (Acts 12:1-10). Peter’s decisive speech at the Council of Jerusalem in A.D. 50 resolved the debate there (Acts 15:6-12). That he was singled out for a special role among all the apostles is undisputable.

Around A.D. 34, Peter went to Antioch and established there a seat, or chair, of government. Antioch was a major metropolitan city of the ancient world with a diverse population and was the place where Christ’s followers were first called Christians. Peter remained there for seven years, and the Church would acknowledge his work in Antioch by establishing the feast of St. Peter’s Chair in Antioch, celebrated on Feb. 22 every year. That feast remained on the Catholic liturgical calendar until the 20th century.

Next, Peter went to Rome, the center of the civilized world. Peter’s efforts there would identify him as the first Bishop of Rome. Gifted by God and respected by man, he would continue his role as leader of all the Church, and as a result was the first pope. In A.D. 68, he was crucified by Emperor Nero.

The Feast of the Chair

His feast day, originally called the feast of the Chair of St. Peter in Rome, began in the fourth century. It was held on Jan. 18, as that was believed to be the day when Peter gave his first homily in Rome. At some point before the 16th-century Protestant revolt, the feast was combined with the feast of St. Peter’s Chair in Antioch. When Martin Luther revolted from the Church, Protestant heretics made the absurd claim that Peter was never in Rome and thus he could not have been the Bishop of Rome.

Consequently, in their opinion, there could be no pope as claimed by Catholics.

In order to reject this false Protestant challenge, Pope Paul IV (r. 1555-1559) reinstituted the feast of the Chair of Peter in Rome in 1558. As a result, for 400 years the Church celebrated two feast days regarding the Chair of Peter. One feast reflected on Peter’s role in Antioch, the other on his role in Rome. In 1962, Pope John XXIII combined the two feasts into one, which is the feast of the Chair of St. Peter, held Feb. 22 each year.

On this feast day, the universal Church acknowledges that St. Peter was the first pope and that his mission continues through the Holy Father today. Simply stated, that mission is to care for the people of God; to carry on the customs, rituals, teachings and truths of Jesus; and to uphold the unity of His Church. Moreover, the Church proclaims that the authority given to St. Peter by Our Lord has been handed down to Peter’s successors for the past 2,000 years.

This day is not just about apostolic succession in respect to the pope and the bishops. Among the laity, it symbolizes an unspoken confidence that the Church of Jesus does not change from age to age; that the truths of the Gospel still form the basis of our faith; that these eternal truths are reflected in every Catholic parish and in every Mass. It is a confidence that the leader of our Church adheres to and will never deny the precepts and principles of the Church of Jesus. We firmly believe that we are part of the mystical body of Christ, a holy people, a holy priesthood.

In the late fourth century, St. Jerome wrote to Pope Damasus I: “I follow no leader but Christ and join in communion with none but Your Blessedness, that is, with the chair of Peter. I know that this is the rock on which the Church has been built. Whoever eats the Lamb outside this house is profane. Anyone who is not in the Ark of Noah will perish when the flood prevails.”

D.D. Emmons writes from Mount Joy, Pa.

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4 min read

Papacy

The Pontifical Swiss Guard

Anna Laura Smith

January 21, 2023 7:38 am January 21, 2023

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4 min read

Swiss soldiers have long maintained a sterling international reputation for discipline and loyalty. Since the late 15th century, rulers throughout Europe have recruited them as bodyguards, ceremonial guards and palace guards. The Swiss Guard, as the group is called, found a place in the royal courts of France, Prussia, Austria, the Netherlands and several other nations.

The Pontifical Swiss Guard — the only guards of this type still in existence — have served as papal defenders for more than five centuries. Since 1506, these guardians have protected 42 popes and their home in the Vatican, the Apostolic Palace.

It was Pope Julius II (r. 1503-1513) who first asked Swiss leadership to provide a corps of brave men to protect him and the Vatican. Having once been bishop of Lausanne, Switzerland, he was well acquainted with the qualities of Swiss soldiers.

The first contingent of 150 soldiers set out marching to Rome in September 1505. They arrived Jan. 2, 1506, now considered the official date of the founding of the Guard.

Laying Down Their Lives

These troops were to become, in the words of Pope Julius II, the “Defenders of the Church’s Freedom.”

In 1527, the Pontifical Swiss Guard experienced their first and most significant hostile engagement. On May 6, 147 of the 189-member corps died defending Pope Clement VII during the sack of Rome by Emperor Charles V of Spain. The last stand of these brave men, massacred on the steps of St. Peter’s Basilica, allowed the remaining guards to escort the Pope as he escaped to safety.

Members of the Swiss Guard annually renew their vows of allegiance on the anniversary of this event in a ceremony in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican. Initiates in full armor with crimson-plumed helmets raise three fingers of their right hand to symbolize the Trinity, swearing to serve the pope “to the death”.

Roles and Uniforms

The elite papal corps is composed of approximately 100 young Swiss Catholics (men ages 19 to 30), who have completed mandatory Swiss military service. The Cohors Helvetica (which is their Latin title) has a commander and five officers, including a chaplain.

Barracks and apartments in Vatican City provide housing, and the Guard has its own chapel. Members are allowed to marry if a Vatican City apartment is available. During their tenure in Vatican City, they are considered Vatican citizens.

In 1970, Pope Paul VI disbanded the Vatican’s Palatine Guard and Noble Guard, and the ceremonial duties of these units were assumed by the Swiss Guard. Though their role is, today, primarily ceremonial, the Swiss Guard remain a specially trained security force — the smallest standing army in the world, and one of the oldest regiments.

The recruits sign on for a minimum of two years. Their duties include guarding the pope, controlling the entries to Vatican City, and guarding the Apostolic Palace. They can often be seen as honor guards at special ceremonies.

The design of their distinctive multicolored uniforms has been attributed to the Renaissance artist Michelangelo, but it was actually created by a commandant of the guards. These colorful uniforms were worn for the first time in 1914.

The Renaissance-style costumes have puffed sleeves and knickerbockers striped red, blue and yellow. The uniforms are produced by the Guard’s tailor shop in the Porta Sant’Anna barracks.

They wear armor and helmets plumed with ostrich feathers, and they carry halberds. (The halberd is a weapon that is part spike and part battle-ax, mounted on a six-foot handle.)

No historical descriptions are available of the uniforms worn before 1914. Presumably, earlier guards wore tunics similar to those of the soldiers today, perhaps with the white cross of Switzerland or the papal crossed keys sewn on their chest.

Swiss Guard members are posted at all the gates into Vatican City. Another stands watch, holding his halberd aloft, at Bernini’s bronze doors, the main entrance to the Apostolic Palace and the pope’s residence. Guards are also posted in the Paul VI Audience Hall for papal audiences, where they stand at attention amid the visitors.

The Guard is a favorite subject of tourists taking photographs, who typically know little more about them than their ceremonial roles. Yet they stand ready, as always, to defend to the death the reigning pope and his successors.

Annie Laura Smith’s publications include historical, inspirational and scientific articles, and three historical novels (“The Legacy of Bletchley Park,” “Will Paris Burn?” and “Saving da Vinci”) for young readers.

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1 min read

Papacy

What’s An Antipope?

Father Ray Ryland

August 26, 2022 7:05 am August 26, 2022

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An antipope is someone who makes a false claim to be the pope based on a process of election, installment or even self-appointment that is contrary to the Church’s laws….

An antipope is someone who makes a false claim to be the pope based on a process of election, installment or even self-appointment that is contrary to the Church’s laws. Historians typically recognize as antipopes only those false claimants with a significant following, such as large numbers of the faithful, powerful political backing or some portion of the College of Cardinals.

Lists of antipopes compiled by scholars vary because questions have arisen in particular cases over how to harmonize historical criteria with those of theology and canon law. The Annuario Pontificio (Pontifical Yearbook), the annual directory of the Holy See, lists 37 antipopes, beginning with Hippolytus, whose false claim to St. Peter’s throne lasted from A.D. 217 to 235, and ending with Felix V (1439-1449).

Antipopes in the early Church were typically promoted by rival ecclesiastical parties in Rome. In later centuries, they were more often puppets of secular rulers attempting to undermine or co-opt papal power. A few, however, had broad enough international support within the Church itself to become serious rivals to the popes they opposed.

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6 min read

Papacy

Was There A Woman Pope?

Matthew Bunson

August 14, 2022 11:05 am August 14, 2022

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There’s a narrow street in Rome on the route between the Lateran Basilica and the Vatican that for many years in the Middle Ages was shunned by the popes. Rather…

There’s a narrow street in Rome on the route between the Lateran Basilica and the Vatican that for many years in the Middle Ages was shunned by the popes. Rather than chance journeying down its dark way, the pontiffs made certain that all processions went around it.

The reason the popes tried so hard to avoid one particular street? It was here, the story goes, the shocking discovery was made in the year 858 that Pope John VIII — who had already reigned for two years — was actually a woman.

How the papal court learned the truth was even more scandalous, for the female pope gave birth to a child while in procession to the Lateran and was promptly stoned to death.

According to the myth, this female pope, called forever after “Pope Joan,” was originally from Mainz, Germany, and had made her way to Athens as a young woman in the company of a lover. As she had a great aptitude for scholarship, she disguised herself as a man and became proficient in law, theology and philosophy.

Having won notoriety for her learning, she was soon invited to Rome where, still pretending to be a man, she was ordained and rose swiftly in the papal service. When Pope Leo IV died, she was promptly elected bishop of Rome around 855 and served for two years, seven months and four days before her true identity was revealed.

Her downfall was her love for an official in the Curia. She gave birth to his child before she could reach the safety of the Lateran Palace, where the newborn would be hidden from the eyes of the world.

Absolute Fiction

Truth be told, of course, the tale of Pope Joan is an absolute fiction and has long been dismissed by all reputable scholars. Still, the spurious story has been believed by many people over the centuries, and, not surprisingly, it was adopted by Protestant polemicists in the 16th century to promote anti-papal sentiment. It has found new believers even today.

The simple fact is this: There’s not a single piece of historical evidence to support the claim that Joan ever existed or that there was ever a female pope. The very date of the hypothetical election makes the story easily dismissed, for the interregnum between Popes Leo IV and Benedict III was much shorter than two years (it lasted only a few weeks).

Then there is the curious fact that no legitimate historical source exists that mentions a woman pontiff until the middle of the 13th century, some 400 years later. Had such a scandal occurred, the many enemies of the popes during the Middle Ages would certainly have made great use of it.

The legend had its actual start not in the ninth century, when it allegedly happened, but in the 13th century, thanks to the flamboyant account of a female pope by two Dominican chroniclers, Jean de Mailly and Stephen of Bourbon.

The fairy tale was soon spread with greater embellishments through the writings of the Polish Dominican Martin of Troppau, later in the 1200s.

Much as it is today, once the lie was told, popular culture embraced it, and the idea of Pope Joan caught the imagination of writers, satirists and clowns in the medieval carnivals who lampooned popes and bishops to the amusement of the common folk.

With the start of the Reformation in the 16th century, the old urban legend was given new life as a weapon against the papacy. Such was the widespread retelling of the story that in 1601 Pope Clement VIII felt it necessary to issue a formal statement that Pope Joan never existed.

Scholarly Debunkers

Pope Clement was not alone in his concern. In 1587 the French historian and jurist Florimond de Raemond published the book Erreur populaire de Pape Jane (“The Popular Error of Pope Joan”). With remarkable attention to historical and logical detail, Florimond destroyed the notion of a female pope, and the book itself became something of a bestseller that was published in 15 editions over the next century.

Just as important was the work of the 17th-century French historian David Blondel. His research concluded that Pope Joan was a total invention and perhaps had its origins in a satire related to Pope John XI, who died by violence at a young age in 935. What made Blondel’s contribution all the more significant, however, was that he was a Protestant.

Against the frequent accusation that the popes had merely ordered the true accounts to be censored or removed from the histories, the opposite is apparent from the various records found throughout Europe. The annals and official papal lists demonstrate changes from time to time, but the alterations were clearly not to remove the mention of some female Pope John VIII.

Instead, the changes are actually much later additions to the texts (at the bottom of the page or in the margins) inserting references to a female pontiff by someone hoping to include salacious stories about the popes or to perpetuate the myths of an earlier age.

Amazingly, the fable of Pope Joan still endures. It is dredged up these days by secularists and anti-Catholics in the wake of “The Da Vinci Code” and especially by those working to change the teachings of the Church on the ordination of women.

In late 2005, for example, the ABC television program “Primetime Live” broadcast a breathless documentary entitled “On the Trail of Pope Joan,” and several recent books have treated the subject as a serious historical possibility.

Fortunately, modern scholars are just as adamant as Florimond and Blondel were in their eras: Pope Joan never existed, regardless of anti-Catholic wishful thinking.

As for the dreaded street in Rome, popes in the Middle Ages did avoid it. But they were not thinking of Pope Joan. Several pontiffs were assassinated along its path by enemies of the Church, and the later popes wanted both to escape a similar end and to honor the memory of their fallen predecessors.

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1 min read

Papacy

What are the qualifications needed to be elected pope?

Michael R. Heinlein

August 12, 2022 7:30 am August 12, 2022

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Canon 332 of the Church’s Code of Canon Law states: “The Roman Pontiff obtains full and supreme power in the Church by his acceptance of legitimate election together with episcopal…

Canon 332 of the Church’s Code of Canon Law states: “The Roman Pontiff obtains full and supreme power in the Church by his acceptance of legitimate election together with episcopal consecration. Therefore, a person elected to the supreme pontificate who is marked with episcopal character obtains this power from the moment of acceptance. If the person elected lacks episcopal character, however, he is to be ordained a bishop immediately.”

Now, in consideration that Canon 1024 states: “A baptized male alone receives sacred ordination validly,” it is concluded that one only needs to be a baptized male in order to be elected pope. Even married men, as much as that might seem as fantasy to some, could be elected pope! Many bishops in the early Church had been married first, however they would cease to live in the conjugal state. That would not annul or dissolve one’s marriage, however.

Michael R. Heinlein is editor of Simply Catholic. Follow him on Twitter @HeinleinMichael.

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