Apostolic Succession

On July tenth, Pope Bennedict issued a statement to the effect that Protestant churches are not churches in the proper sense. This upset a lot of people. I'm not entirely sure why he felt that he had to make that statement, and I'm also not sure that anybody should be upset by it.

First of all, what did the Pope mean by 'churches in the proper sense?' Let's face it, the Roman Catholic church has long thought of itself as 'The Church,' and all others as 'churches.' The statement goes on to refer to products of the Protestant reformation as 'ecclesial communities.' What exactly is an ecclesial community? I don't claim to know, but I suspect that it is something close to what the rest of us would consider a church, just not under papal authority, and thereby not granted papal recognition.

Secondly, I suspect that a good portion of the motivation behind the timing of the statement, if not the statement itself, is the fact that the Roman Catholic Church has, in recent times, been more and more liberal about recognizing other denominations--particularly those whose doctrine is closest. Lately, though, there have been some events that threaten that relationship (an openly gay bishop, a priest who claims to be both Christian and Muslim). I suspect that Pope Bennedict felt that it was time to reiterate the Catholic belief that there is only one true church--the Roman Catholic Church.

The claim rests on the doctrine of Apostolic Succession. The logic is, that there were the original twelve apostles, and they only ordained men that they knew had a good understanding of the precepts of the faith. Those men, in turn, ensured that the men that they ordained to the clergy also had good understanding. Part of the reasoning behind Apostolic Succession is that, on occassion, heretics arise and debate the accepted interpretation of Scripture, twisting the words of Scripture to support their own doctrine. In those instances, since the dispute cannot be resolved strictly by the authority of Scripture, then one can rely on the source of knowledge (that is, who did you study under? Where did you learn this idea that you are proposing?) That makes good sense. At the same time, some Protestant churches branched off from the Roman church with substantial numbers of clergy. These men coninued the practice of Apostolic Succession within their denomonations. Pope Bennedict has stated that this is not true Apostolic Succession, because there was a break with 'The Church' (for some reason, this logic does not apply to the Orthodox Church). To be honest, this smacks of circular logic to me (you aren't a true church because you don't practice Apostolic Succession. Well, you do, but it isn't true Apostolic Succession, because you aren't part of the true church). Maybe there's more to it that I don't understand.

Something else that bothers me about this. When exactly did Apostolic Succession become such an important part of doctrine? I can see why it's an important part, but I can't help but wonder: When Peter was teaching and ordaining new clergy, did he sign ordination papers? I suspect that he did not. During times of persecution, the possession of such papers could make one a serious target. So when did ordination papers come about? Probably not until after Constantine, at least. When did written records showing Apostolic Succession come about? I'm thinking probably not until later still. So, how does one go back and trace three hundred years of ordinations with no written records? Probably not very well.

Look, the bottom line is this: You can't be an effective leader in any Christian church unless you are well founded in Christian doctrine. If you have a piece of paper that shows that you were ordained (and, presumably verified as knowing your stuff) by someone who was ordained by... and that piece of paper traces your succession all the way to the Apostles, that's nice. But if you know your stuff, and you don't know who ordained the bishop that ordained you, what of it? I can't help but think about what the Wizard of Oz told the scarecrow, "Back where I come from, we have universities, seats of great learning, where men go to become great thinkers. And when they come out, they think deep thoughts and with no more brains than you have. But they have one thing you haven't got: a diploma." A diploma is a piece of paper that really says more about what learning one was exposed to than what one has actually learned, and I suspect that the papers showing succession are very much the same.