They Attend Byzantine Catholic Churches

But are they Byzantine in their thinking? Matt Fradd and Trent Horn:



full episode

Yes, I’m a parishioner at a Byzantine parish. Next Tuesday I will have my pastor come on the podcast to talk about it.

— Trent Horn (@Trent_Horn) January 5, 2020

And here is that podcast by Trent Horn: #250 – Why I attend a Byzantine Catholic parish (with my pastor!)


Of course the papacy is the key controversy, and it is not clear to me that Trent Horn has left behind Latin theology. Applying the model of the civil government of Israel, the monarchy and the vizier (vicar), to the understanding of the Church is not straightforward if the power of the keys given to St. Peter is passed on to all of the bishops, not just the bishop of Rome. Who is the pastor of the Church? The bishop of the local church, if we accept the monoepiscopate as a fixed norm. (And it is not clear to me that it is so.) But if the Church Universal is a communion of bishops and their flocks, is there a place for a primus? A leader or a facilitator and spokesman? A leader may be a facilitator and spokesman, but one can be a facilitator and spokesman without being a leader, in the sense of having authority over those one represents as a spokesman. There is no historical evidence that St. Peter exercised primacy as it is defined by the Latin Councils of Florence, Trent, Vatican I, and Vatican II or claimed by various bishops of Rome over the past 1500 years. So if the primus episcopus is overstepping his boundaries and attempting to lord his primacy over the church, what recourse or sanctions do other bishops have? What else is there besides warning the bishop of Rome that he is in danger of cutting himself off from the communion in charity that is proper to the Church Universal? If a Latin thinks that there is no recourse whatsoever, and that other bishops must just suffer or bear it though not necessarily obeying commands the bishop of Rome has no authority to give, he still thinks like a Latin.

And Trent Horn's latest podcast: St. Peter: Pope or Nope?


Downloadable versions of the two podcasts can be found at player.fm and podbay.


Matt Fradd did do a subsequent interview with Fr. Michael O'Loughlin, which I will have to finish.