Roman Catholics (questions asked by them)
|
9. Why do you refuse to accept the pope as the Head of the |
|
The reason is because the apostle Peter was not at all established
head of the |
|
If you read carefully the Writings of the New Testament you will see
that the Head of the Church is only one, that is, Jesus Christ who is now at
the right hand of God the Father. This concept is affirmed by Paul. |
|
He says to the Ephesians that God raised His Son from the dead and seated
Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and
power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this
age but also in that which is to come, and “hath put all things under his
feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his
body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all” (Ephesians 1:22-23) and
also: “But speaking the truth in love, [we] may grow up into him in all
things, which is the head, even Christ” (Ephesians 4:15), and: “Christ is the
head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body” (Ephesians 5:23).
Therefore, as the head of the wife is only one person, that is, his husband,
so the Head of the Church (which is the wife of the Lamb) is only one person,
that is, Christ, her bridegroom or her husband. |
|
Paul says to the Colossians: “And he is before all things, and by him
all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the
beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the
preeminence” (Colossians |
|
Therefore, the one you call pope, who claims to be the Head of the
Church, commits a sin of pride and he is presumptuous for he has not received
from God such a title. The title of ‘Head of the Church’ is a title that the
pope has inherited from his predecessor, who in turn had received it from his
predecessor and so on. |
|
The first supposed successor of Peter that claimed to be the ‘Head of
the Church’ or that claimed to be the pastor of all the churches was Leo I
called Great (440-461) – who is called by many ‘the first pope’ – he affirmed
clearly and with much strength that Jesus gave unto Peter the primacy of the
apostolic dignity, which afterward passed to the bishop of Rome, so the care of
all the churches belongs to him. This title became very strong during the
seventh century when the Emperor Foca, in 607, to repay the friendship and
the adulations of the bishop of Rome, acknowledged the supremacy of the
‘apostolic see of Peter over all the churches’ (caput omnium ecclesiarum) and forbade the patriarch of Constantinople
to use the title ‘universal’ (for that patriarch had claimed to be the
universal patriarch) which from that moment on had to be given only to the
bishop of Rome, who at that time was Boniface III, who, unlike Gregory the
Great (the predecessor of Boniface III), forgetting what his predecessor had
declared with regard to this matter (Gregory the Great had stated that the
bishop who claimed to be the ‘universal bishop’ was forerunner of the
antichrist and no Christian must take that name of blasphemy), accepted to be
called ‘universal bishop’. Foca gave that title to the bishop of |