Benedict XVI

[Kaine for Senate '18]

Discuss. 

I'm sure this will devolve into a hatefilled idiot fest pretty quick.

Hopefully not.

The big problem with Benedict XVI is that people will invariably compare him to St. John Paul II, who is the most well known Pope in the 2,000 year history of the Church.  And, for so many Catholics, St. JP2 is the only Pope they've known as adults, which will color how they feel about him.

I think it's too early to judge his Papacy, but he has done a good job so far, although I dislike some of his views.

[Kaine for Senate '18]

Discuss. 

I'm sure this will devolve into a hatefilled idiot fest pretty quick.

Hopefully not.

The big problem with Benedict XVI is that people will invariably compare him to St. John Paul II, who is the most well known Pope in the 2,000 year history of the Church.  And, for so many Catholics, St. JP2 is the only Pope they've known as adults, which will color how they feel about him.

I think it's too early to judge his Papacy, but he has done a good job so far, although I dislike some of his views.

Simon called Peter...call on line two...paging Simon called Peter...

Very few people believe that Peter was the first Pope.

[Kaine for Senate '18]

Discuss. 

I'm sure this will devolve into a hatefilled idiot fest pretty quick.

Hopefully not.

The big problem with Benedict XVI is that people will invariably compare him to St. John Paul II, who is the most well known Pope in the 2,000 year history of the Church.  And, for so many Catholics, St. JP2 is the only Pope they've known as adults, which will color how they feel about him.

I think it's too early to judge his Papacy, but he has done a good job so far, although I dislike some of his views.

Simon called Peter...call on line two...paging Simon called Peter...

Very few people believe that Peter was the first Pope.

Ummmmmm....

I had thought the general consensus was that Peter never served as Pope.  Does the Church say differently?

[Kaine for Senate '18]

Discuss. 

I'm sure this will devolve into a hatefilled idiot fest pretty quick.

Hopefully not.

The big problem with Benedict XVI is that people will invariably compare him to St. John Paul II, who is the most well known Pope in the 2,000 year history of the Church.  And, for so many Catholics, St. JP2 is the only Pope they've known as adults, which will color how they feel about him.

I think it's too early to judge his Papacy, but he has done a good job so far, although I dislike some of his views.

Simon called Peter...call on line two...paging Simon called Peter...

Very few people believe that Peter was the first Pope.

Ummmmmm....

I had thought the general consensus was that Peter never served as Pope.  Does the Church say differently?

It depends on what you mean by "served" certainly the Church believes he was the first Pope, as named by Christ, and that the line of Popes extends from him.  Was he the honest to God bishop of Rome, probably not in the way that we think of a bishop today.

Okay, now I get it.  Thanks.

[Kaine for Senate '18]

To clarify further, we believe that Simon became the first "Pope" when he was named "Cephas" by Jesus:

Matthew 16:

 13
    When Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?"
14
    They replied, "Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets."
15
    He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?"
16
    Simon Peter said in reply, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God."
17
    Jesus said to him in reply, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.
18
    And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.

At this point, he became the chief priest and leader of Christ's Earthly Church.

Peter eventually went to Rome to preach to a Christian Community which already existed there.  Now, at this time in the Church, we know there were bishops, but the bishops weren't what we think of as modern day bishops... at least not in the strictest sense.  Rather these people were merely Church elders and preachers... actually more closely akin to what we would think of as merely "priests".  One city could actually have several Bishops.  But even back then (by 100 AD it was firmly established in all faith communities) there was one head priest.  This person, back then, called the "Patriarch".

As Peter was one of the original 12, we can safely assume that once he entered Rome, he would have been regarded as the Patriarch of the faith community, even if tradition didn't tell us this was so.

Now, after Peter was martyred another Patriarch would have replaced him.  we are told this man was named Linus.  By Linus' time, the system of local Church hierarchies had been firmly established (keep in mind that some of the original apostles, such as John were almost certainly still alive at this point), and on many early Church lists, Linus was, in fact, placed as the first true "Bishop of Rome" (talking early early, 2nd century).

The Catholic Church believes in what is called "Apostolic Succession".  This means that, as Jesus ordained the original 12, so they ordained others to take their place, administer sacraments, etc in an unbroken line all the way to the present day.  Basically, modern priests are the direct spiritual decedents of the original 12.  Though many would deny it, there is certainly biblical evidence of this practice and tradition holds to it, so as is Catholic practice, we follow tradition when scripture leads in that direction.

This is all by way of me saying that we know that the practice of identifying certain episcopal sees to certain apostles and early saints goes back to at least the 2nd century.  Jerusalem was identified with James the Greater, Antioch with Andrew, Alexandria with Mark (not one of the 12 Apostles, you might note) and Rome with Peter.  Tradition tells us that this meant more than simply assuming the title.  It meant that you were regarded as the spiritual decedent of that person.  Since Peter was the Vicar of Christ, appointed by Jesus, the Patriarch of Rome became the Vicar of Christ via Apostolic Succession (Jesus is the head of the Church, that is never forgotten, the Pope is merely the High Priest and Chief Steward).

As an interesting side note, no diocese ever claimed the mantle of Thomas, despite his status as one of the 12.  Tradition taught that Thomas went to India, and nothing more was really known for close to 1700 years, until Europeans arrived in India and indeed found a Christian Church which had been isolated for centuries.  They did, indeed, claim to have been founded by the Apostle Thomas.

As it happened, during the Roman persecutions, but after the Church got organized, there emerged four "Big Dude" patriarchies, the four I mentioned above, which came to be the centers of their "spheres" in the ancient world.  The title of Patriarch for all heads of cities fell out of use, and as words have a tendency to do, semantic drift occurred.  The word "episkopos" (from which our word "bishop" derived) ceased to mean all priests and started to mean the "head priest" of a city.  "Presbyteros" which originally meant what we would call a "deacon" soon took on the meaning the Bishop once had.

Even during the time of the four "Big Dudes", however, we still have evidence that the Patriarch of Rome was seen as the leader.  Letters exist going from Rome all across the known world.  The letters of Pope Clement I being the first known examples (these letters were just barely left out of the canon, BTW).  These letters expressed both general and specific concerns for specific Christian communities... no such letters exist from the other Patriarchs going to non-local areas on matters of teaching... though we do have letters that the other three wrote to ask questions of, and engage in theological exchange with the Patriarch of Rome.

Again, not quite what we think of now, but it was a different world.

Anyway, to round off the story, "Patriarch" means "father" in Greek.  In Latin this translates to "Papa" which then in English was transliterated into "Pope"... and that's what that's all about.

Thanks for clarifying that for me.  In that case, JP2 is the most well known Pope in modern times.

[Kaine for Senate '18]

Is anyone going to see him during his tour of the US?

[Kaine for Senate '18]

I'm really impressed by this guy, after watching him on C-SPAN.  I never saw JP2, so I cannot compare them, but Benedict seems very strong and impressive.