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Faith Alive!-No. 13 MIDST Mar-24-2008 (840 words) xxxe
The papacy through the ages
An image of St. Peter is seen on the vestments of Pope Benedict XVI. (CNS/Paul Haring) |
By Father Robert L. Kinast
Catholic News Service
The papacy is the official structure through which the pope exercises his role as head of the church.
The term derives from the word for father, papa.
Just as individual fathers differ in how they understand and fulfill their paternal role, so the popes have shown a great diversity through the ages.
Although the line of popes from St. Peter to Benedict XVI is unbroken, the papacy itself has undergone significant changes over the centuries.
The current practice of the College of Cardinals electing the pope, for example, began in 1059 under Pope Nicholas II. Prior to that, popes were chosen by synods of bishops or appointment by nobles and emperors and occasionally by popular acclaim.
Many of the changes in the papacy were prompted by internal, ecclesial factors such as relations between Eastern and Western churches, settling doctrinal disputes, correcting erroneous practices such as the buying and selling of church offices (simony) or the appointment of relatives to those offices (nepotism), standardizing liturgical rites, promoting missionary endeavors, encouraging new religious orders and centralizing the organization of the church.
Other changes were the result of external, social factors such as the conversion of Constantine and the establishment of Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire followed by the invasion of tribes from the East and the collapse of the Roman Empire, the spread of Islam, the dominance of medieval monarchies and the formation of nation-states, the rise of European universities, the cultural renaissance of the 14th to 16th centuries, the philosophical Enlightenment and rationalist rejection of religion, and modern political movements.
In the first centuries the church of Rome, which became synonymous with the papacy, was one of five major centers (patriarchates) of Christianity, the others being Jerusalem, Antioch (Syria), Alexandria (Egypt) and Constantinople (Turkey).
The patriarchs viewed the pope as first among equals because of the association of Peter and Paul with the city of Rome, but they did not consider him their superior with universal authority over them.
The first pope to approximate this authority was Leo I (440-461), one of only two popes given the title "Great." His stature was established when he persuaded Attila the Hun not to invade Rome, but his real claim to prominence was his influence on the Council of Chalcedon (451), which defined the unity of Christ as one person with two natures.
The other pope designated as "Great" is Gregory I (590-604). He was a prolific author whose treatise "Pastoral Care" was the essential guide for bishops well into the Middle Ages. He codified liturgical differences in the Gregorian Sacramentary, gave his name to Gregorian chant and initiated the missionary effort to England. But he also moved the papacy in a new direction.
When the Lombard tribes from Germany began invading northern Italy, he negotiated a peace treaty with them which gave him authority in civil matters. In addition, he reorganized the papal estates which had begun with a generous land grant from the Emperor Constantine.
This enabled him to provide needed relief to the poor, but it also moved the papacy into the realm of secular power and led to the establishment of the Papal States in the eighth century.
Over the next several centuries the papacy played both a spiritual and temporal role. Although the latter was supposed to support the former and had been declared subordinate to it by Pope Gelasius I (492-496), it often became a source of conflict and sometimes scandal as individual popes gave more attention to their secular responsibilities than their spiritual ones.
The entanglement of the spiritual and secular realms was epitomized by the dispute over lay appointment of bishops (the lay investiture controversy), and it precipitated the major schism between Eastern and Western Christianity (1054).
This rupture became permanent during the Fourth Crusade (1202-1204) during which Western armies, responding to the exhortation of Pope Innocent III, established political power and gained economic advantage in Constantinople.
The abuses of this spiritual/secular confusion, embodied by the Renaissance popes, came to a head with the Protestant Reformation.
But beginning with Pius IV (1559-1565), the papacy led a counter-reform based on the Council of Trent, championed by the Jesuits and typified by the publication of the Roman Catechism, the Roman Missal and the reorganization of the Roman Curia more than by the Inquisition or the Index of Forbidden Books.
The 18th-century Enlightenment, the French Revolution and modern trends toward democracy greatly diminished the secular power of the papacy.
In its place, beginning with Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903), popes have used their spiritual and moral authority to be advocates for justice, peace and human rights while continuing to promote, especially through the Second Vatican Council, changes within the church and dialogue among the churches and world religions.
The history of the papacy is the history of a dynamic structure within the church. Its form and influence have changed over the centuries and will continue to do so as the church and history move forward.
(Father Kinast is a pastoral theologian in Prairie Village, Kan.)
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