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What's the Big Deal About Priests?
Garry Wills, in Why Priests, provides some interesting thoughts on the significance of the Roman Catholic priesthood (Chapter 2, p. 20): The most striking thing about priests, in the later history of Christianity, is their supposed ability to change bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus Christ. “From this unique sacrifice their…
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Garry Wills on the Title "Holy Father"
Garry Wills (self-identified Catholic, but rejecter of the papacy and transubstantiation), in “Why Priests?” has this interesting comment (p. 12): Jesus is telling his Followers not to be like the Sadducees and Pharisees who seek the “first places”: Everything they do is done to impress people. They enlarge their tefillins and lengthen their tassels. They…
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Garry Wills on Community Functions in Paul's Epistles
Garry Wills (self-identified Catholic, though he does not accept Transubstantiation and the priesthood) in “Why Priests?” describes the evidence in Paul’s epistles regarding the community functions (pp. 10-11): Thus community functions (not offices) are direct gifts (charismata) of the Spirit, making the early community charistmatic in the root original sense, entirely guided by the Spirit,…
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Evangelii Gaudium – the BBC Has Overstated the Pope's Liberal Leanings
BBC News has the headline: “Pope Francis calls for power to move away from Vatican” and the opening line: “Pope Francis has called for power in the Catholic Church to be devolved away from the Vatican, in the first major work he has written in the role.” The document in question, Evangelii Gaudium (“Gospel’s Joy”)…
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Pope John XX as the Test of Papal Infallibility and Apostolic Succession
In the late 1950’s and early 1960’s there was a pope who took the name “John XXIII.” I get the sense that John XXIII is popular among the less traditionalist segment of Roman Catholicism. For example, Joseph Biden is quoted as saying (source): I was raised as a Catholic, I’m a practicing Catholic, and I’m…