I appreciate the continued interaction and hospitality, here, friends.
I resonate in some sense with article 41 of "Mystici Corporis" -
"...so obscured and so maimed, that those who are seeking the haven of eternal salvation can neither see it nor find it."
One thing I often say to my Roman and Orthodox friends, when they try to persuade me of their respective claims, is that none of this seems obvious to me.
Now, we could question whether the truth needs to be obvious. I suppose that it doesn't. Some truths are not. But, if the papacy is the difference between life and death, heaven and hell, then I'd expect God to make it a little clearer for the rest of us.
The papacy seems like a whole lot of mileage to get out of Matthew 16.
Now, unlike many other non-RCs, I actually do agree with the RCC that Jesus, in this passage, gives Peter a foundational role in the Church. In light of how the history played out (Pentecost, in Acts 2), I don't think that Jesus is just playing on words, here, referring to Himself (if you weren't aware, that's a common non-RC interpretation). No, Peter at Pentecost played a unique role in the founding of the Catholic Church, and it's simplest to interpret Matthew 16 in light of that.
And of course I believe in apostolic succession.
But, to tie Petrine succession only to a particular See (ignoring Avignon for the moment) so that the succession in only linear, and so that the consecration is at the hands of others not in Petrine succession, seems odd. But far more odd is the notion that Peter's foundational role is part of what his successors inherit. The Church is built upon a rock--the image is of a building's foundation. That the Church was built (in this sense) upon Peter is a historical reality. It happened in the past. The foundation was already laid.
If God wants us to know that this gives the bishop of Rome primacy over all other Catholic bishops, He must have communicated that elsewhere, because it's not in this text.
If nobody had questioned the papacy prior to the Reformation, then perhaps I'd be forced to look at this differently -- I'd at least ask what I'm missing.
But the fact that the whole Eastern Church says that the Catholic Church was historically conciliar, and that the Primacy of Rome developed over time until the East had to say that enough was enough, gives me great pause.
The papcy doesn't pass the Vincentian Canon: All times, all places, all people. I don't mean to be unnecessarily offensive, but it just doesn't seem sufficiently Catholic. The East claims to have never recognized it.
If I get to the gates of heaven, and St. Peter asks me why I, in Pennsylvania, did not place myself under the pastoral authority of his successor (even granting that the pope is his successor, despite not having pope-to-pope consecrations), in Rome, I'll have to say that I submitted to the pastoral authority of the bishops of the globe in council together, but had no clear way of knowing that I was directly under the personal authority of one bishop of a different region of the world.
I don't know if ya'll are cradle RCs or converts, so perhaps this just seems obvious to you, but it does not seem at all obvious to me. I was born into a faithful Baptist home, and inherited at my place in history a fractured Church. As I looked over the ecclesial landscape, trying to figure out how all this mess came about, and where I was supposed to be, the evidence eventually seemed to indicate that the historic episcopate was intended by the apostles (although this itself is not obvious to many whom I take to be good, conservative brothers). But even trusting that the Church is my Mother, and the pillar and ground of the truth, and that the Vincentian Canon is therefore a helpful principle, the papacy is just not so clear, historically.
There are Sees in Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, Georgia, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Serbia, Russia, Greece, Poland, Romania, Albania, Czech Republic and Slovakia, and Rome.
ONE of those says that the papacy is true.
FOURTEEN of those say they have never recognized such a thing.
Along comes I, an outsider to the whole shebang... how is it obvious to me that the Papacy is truly Catholic when 14 of 15 Sees says that it never has been?
Again, I'm not here to cause trouble. I do hope that this helps you see where I'm coming from, though.
Peace to you all!
ACat