New Encyclical and What of Ecumenical Councils

Pope Benedict just released his newest encyclical: Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth)!

I have opened it up but haven’t started reading it yet–it will probably take me a week or two to do so.

I want to talk about an issue brought up by a commenter (Chris) in the post about the canon of Scripture:

My comments clearly contend that Prot[estant]s can hold to the first 7 ecumenical councils as authoritative, even if the majority of Prots (despite lip service) don’t currently do so.

Three interesting subjects to ponder come to mind at this point:

1. Ecumenical Councils

Ecumenical Councils have been held in Christ’s Church since the beginning.  We see the precedent and pattern for these Councils in Acts 15, the Council of Jerusalem, but the next one to be convened was at Nicaea in 325 AD (centuries later).  The bishops of Christ’s Church under the Pope (who appears in person or through legates he sends) have met in Councils when a pressing matter of faith, often a controversial teaching by a bishop or priest, must be dealt with and decided upon.  What is truth and what is heresy is determined in these Councils, and sometimes binding decisions are made by them (when they declare something to be true or heretical on an issue of faith and morals and that teaching is intended to apply to all the faithful universally).

Pope Benedict's Crest

In the comment above, Chris opines that Protestants can hold the first 7 Ecumenical Councils as authoritative.  Since typically the Council in Acts 15 is not numbered in the list (or it’s at number zero), that would mean that the 7th Council was the second one held at Nicaea in 787 AD.

Most Protestants I know would have a hard time with various teachings of these first 7 Councils, including the third one in Ephesus in 431 AD declaring the Virgin Mary to be the “Mother of God”.  In spite of this, I commend Chris for taking a bold stand in saying that Protestants can hold these 7 Councils as authoritative.

But the point I want to make is, why did they stop being authoritative?  Why did God design His Church such that, for 700 years, Ecumenical Councils were the way in which vitally important matters of the faith were discerned and proclaimed but then remove His authority from them such that they could no longer be used nor trusted?  If Chris is right, we are now left in a state where, in practice, Ecumenical Councils can no longer be held, and we have been in this state for about 1250 years.

It should be noted that only the Catholic Church has continued to hold what she claims to be Ecumenical Councils.

The Pope

Pope Benedict XVI

Similarly, the Papacy has been a fixture of Christ’s Church since the beginning.  But, if the Protestant Reformation is true, it means that, after 1500 years of having a Bishop of Rome, the Prince of the Apostles, the successor of St. Peter to whom Christ gave the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven, the Papacy was eradicated by God.  No longer would His Church have a leader, a servant of the servants of God.  Instead, His Church was left to follow whatever “leaders” declared themselves so in whatever “churches” they founded by their own authority.

Encyclicals

And without a Pope, among many other things, we no longer have any encyclicals.  We do not have teachings promulgated for all the faithful and people of good will throughout the world to read and ponder from Christ’s Vicar on Earth.  We have books you can read by Christian men and women (Your Best Life Now!, and C.S. Lewis, to give a broad spectrum) but not any authoritiative teachings from the successor of St. Peter.

Conclusion

So, if Chris and Protestantism are right, we are now left in a Church that has no binding authority, in spite of what Christ definitively told Peter; we have no Pope despite his existence since the beginning; we have no more Councils on which we can know what is true and what is false with confidence that God infallibly guided the decisions; we have no more authoritative teachings which all the faithful can read and benefit from.  We are like sheep without a shepherd again.

Not an Encyclical