The authority of the Bishop of Rome: How Catholics and Protestants differ: Part 2

June 18, 8:18 PMJackson Presbyterian ExaminerDaniel Townsend

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What do Protestants say about the Pope? Protestants generally believe that Christ founded the church upon himself and upon Peter’s confession of Jesus as the Messiah. The “rock” wasn’t the man Peter himself, but rather Peter’s statement, “You are the Messiah, the son of God.” It was that confession of Jesus’ being Messiah, not Peter the man, that will prevail against the gates of hell. Furthermore, the “keys to the kingdom”, the power and authority to spread the gospel throughout the world and oversee the church, wasn’t given to Peter especially, but the entire apostolic community. Jesus addressed Peter simply because Peter was functioning as the spokesman for the Twelve. This topic is expounded upon in depth by the 16^th century reformer Philip Melancthon’s book, The Primacy and Power of the Pope.

Peter and the other apostles that were called by God to found the church and write the New Testament were inspired by God and preserved from teaching error. Protestants differ with Catholics when it comes to the assumption that the infallible teaching authority possessed by the apostles has been passed down from generation to generation, right down to the current Pope. “Apostolic succession” is not taught in Scripture, Protestants say, but it is based rather on inconclusive tradition. Even if Peter was the infallible head of the first century church, what basis do we have for saying that every succeeding bishop of Rome from now until the end of the world will be Christendom’s infallible head?

The church doesn’t need an infallible interpreter in the form of a human Vicar of Christ on earth because the church has been given the gift of the Holy Spirit who leads us into all truth, Protestants argue. The Spirit is our ultimate source of unity and our ultimate safeguard against heresy. Furthermore, if Scripture can’t be understood apart from an infallible interpreter, the emphasis and focus all too often shifts from Scripture itself to the interpreter of Scripture, and Protestants accuse Catholics of giving more credence to the Pope than to the Bible itself. To say that the church can’t function properly without an infallible head to explain to the people what the Bible really means is to undermine the sufficiency of Scripture. If Scripture really is God-breathed revelation given to us so that the man of God may be “thoroughly equipped” for every good work, (as Paul says in his epistle to Timothy) why would we need something above and beyond that which already thoroughly equips us?

The idea that churches or individuals that don’t recognize the infallible authority of the Pope are somehow out of fellowship with the one true church is in conflict with Paul’s writing in Galatians, Protestants say. When Paul was called by God to be an apostle, he made a trip to Jerusalem to meet Peter, James, and John, the “pillars of the church”, but he didn’t seem to be going to them for authorization of his ministry. Paul is emphatic that he’d been called by God himself, and that his ministry wasn’t contingent on any man. Not only did Paul not look to Peter to accredit him, during the debate about circumcision that took place in the early church, Paul publicly rebuked Peter for being in the wrong, an odd thing to do if Paul considered Peter to be Christ’s infallible vicar on earth. In his own epistle, Peter said, “I appeal to you as a fellow elder.”

Far from describing himself as the head of the universal church, Peter simply identifies himself as a fellow elder. We’ve no record indicating that Peter ever applied the title “Pope” (which, as I said, means “father”) to himself. “Didn’t Christ, in his denunciation of the Pharisees in Matthew 23, warn his disciples not to let anyone on earth call them ‘father’,” Protestants ask. “You have one Father, and he is in heaven,” Jesus said. Many Christians, Catholic as well as Protestant, refer to their clergy as “Father” So-and-So, and whether this is a big deal, I’m not sure. But surely calling the bishop of Rome “Holy Father” as many Catholics do is borderline blasphemy! In Jesus’ prayer for his disciples in John 17, he addressed God Almighty as “Holy Father.” Protestants say that no man should take such a title upon himself.

The authority of the Pope, Protestants say, wasn’t a feature of the first century church, but a gradual trend. It wasn’t until the fifth or sixth century that the lion’s share of the authority in the church was seen to be proceeding from the Church of Rome. Disbelieving in an infallible human head of the church doesn’t inherently lead to disunity and heresy either, Protestants argue. Ascribing the role of head of the church to any besides Christ, Protestants say, actually deters people from following Christ as faithfully as they should. As the Westminster Confession of Faith says:

“The Lord Jesus Christ is the only head of the church and the claim of any man to be the head of the church and the vicar of Christ, is without warrant in fact or in Scripture, even anti-Christian, a usurpation dishonoring to the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Looking away from Scripture to the pages of history, Protestants say that it’s clear that not all of the Popes have always been in agreement with each other. When Martin Luther was called upon to recant his writings at the now famous trial at the Diet of Worms, he insisted that his accusers show where he was in the wrong using the Bible, not by appealing to “popes and counsels that have often contradicted each other.” Pope Leo of Luther’s day excommunicated Luther as a subversive teacher of false doctrines.

The Council of Trent, called by the Roman Catholic Church in the late 16^th century to address the Protestant movement, declared dogmatically that anyone adhering to the doctrine of “justification by faith alone” (a key Protestant doctrine then and now) should be considered anathema—that is accursed by God. The second Vatican Council of the 1960s, however, taught that Catholics should now look upon Protestants as “separated brethren”, that is, true Christians, albeit cut off from full fellowship with the one true church. Which Pope and which council was speaking infallibly for God, the Protestants ask? The one that excommunicated the Protestants, or the one that, in a sense, welcomed them back as “separated brethren”?

It seems logically impossible to see how both councils and both popes could’ve been inspired by God since they arrived at such radically different conclusions. It’s not that Protestants consider each individual Pope as being himself a bad man. In disbelieving in an infallible papacy, Protestants aren’t opposing any particular man (the actual bishop of Rome at any given time may, himself, be a good man), but rather opposing the idea of an infallible papacy itself.

Should this controversy be a source of division? Whether or not it should be, it certainly has. Though the doctrine of the papacy is an error, Protestants ought not to write off “papists” as unchristian people. It’s one thing to consider a fellow Christian to be mistaken or misled about a particular doctrine; it’s an entirely different matter to call someone an apostate over a particular doctrine. The bitter hostility that some Protestants have demonstrated to followers of the Pope in the past is completely shameful and would no modern day Protestants would follow their uncharitable example! Won't heaven be populated by plenty of people who followed the Pope, as well as by plenty of people who never paid any attention to him?

Until very recent times, Catholics have written off Christians that didn’t follow the Pope’s authority as unchristian. Doesn't this, however, lay a burden upon Christians’ backs that is nowhere called for in Scripture? It was this dogmatic insistence that the Pope be followed at all costs that led the Lutherans to label the papacy as the antichrist itself. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved,” Paul said. It’s shameful to add to the pure and simple gospel an additional requirement of submitting to a particular bishop. This is legalism of the worst sort, adding a salvific requirement that is nowhere mandated in Scripture.

Again, this is a drastic oversimplification of things, no doubt. But hopefully this helps put in perspective the basic difference between Catholics and Protestants concerning the Pope.