Sunday, October 30, 2016

Can Vatican I Be Preserved?

Regarding Msgr. McPartlan's opinion on the Chieti document, who in recent years has advanced a maximalist interpretation of Vatican I's teaching on the authority of the pope and given an explanation of what the following mean?

1. full power has been given by our lord Jesus Christ to tend, rule and govern the universal Church
ordinary jurisdiction means?
2. the Roman Church possesses a pre-eminence of ordinary power over every other Church, and that this jurisdictional power of the Roman Pontiff is both episcopal and immediate.

[The rest of paragraph 2 is probably highly objectionable to Orthodox: "Both clergy and faithful, of whatever rite and dignity, both singly and collectively, are bound to submit to this power by the duty of hierarchical subordination and true obedience, and this not only in matters concerning faith and morals, but also in those which regard the discipline and government of the Church throughout the world."]

What are the limits to papal authority? What is to prevent the pope from banning married men from becoming priests? Or to imposing the Roman rite on all apostolic Christians?