Calvin’s Institutes, IV.7.19-22: “Later Papal claims contrary to principles of Gregory 1 and Bernard, 19-22”
IV.4.7.19: “The Present-day Papacy in its claim to power”
Observations:
1. Calvin grants that the bishops of Rome, e.g. Leo and Gregory, had wide and extensive jurisdiction, but with the substantial caveats and limits previously noted. By Calvin's time, the Papacy was imperialistic to the core. It still is. As an aside, for the discerning, they will understand the paedophilia scandals in light of the historic and standing legal and moral claims made by the Pontiffs. With respect to paedophilic priests skirting and avoiding legal prosecution, the American Archbishops and Bishops were following orders--secrecy and remandment of all such cases to Rome for secret adjudication...without any civil interference. The American press, including the Boston Globe and Herald, never understood or covered the deeper legal, decretive and historic issues. Although no Papist (in my case), I had intimate details of paedophilic Chaplains in the military, having helped the press to "out" the corruption in very high levels. Trust me, the stories were ugly, including top leadership maneouvres of Papists, including one Chief of Chaplains (a Papist Admiral). I made enemies, but then, as a Psalm-singing Calvinist, a Prayer Book praying Anglican, and Bible-reading Christian man, to hell with the Papist doctrines and attitudes in Rome! As a Prayer Book man, I pray daily, "Good Lord, spare us the gross and detestable enormities of Rome." 10 AM and 4 PM daily. Count on it. It was no mistake that Papist paedophilic priests were "shielded,""covered up," "forgiven," and "re-shuffled" to another environment by their Bishops (Papist). I knew a lawyer, a Romanist, from TX with divinity degrees from Un. of Louvain, who was outraged and a class action lawyer for victims. He gave me copies of the secret orders as well as the "Liturgy for Penitent Priests." Have it around here somewhere. Instructive below will be Clement VI's correspondence; where it can get away with it, Rome claims its own universal jurisdiction.
2. Given that, however, Calvin draws astute and vigorous contrasts between Gregory’s days and Calvin’s days.
3. The false bishops of Calvin’s day claim: “…declare with great arrogance that the power to command is in their hands while with others rests the necessity to obey.”
4. “All their pronouncements are to be so received as if confirmed by Peter’s voice.”
5. “That provincial synods, because they do not have the pope present, have no force.”
6. “That they themselves have power to ordain clergy for any church whatsoever.”
7. “And to summon to their see those ordained elsewhere.”
8. Calvin notes he could recite other “reservations” of power claimed by Rome, but he halts “lest I bore my other readers unduly.”
9. Calvin’s great objection in this section is unbridled and unaccountable powers. He says: “…they leave o jurisdiction on earth to control or retrain their lust if they abuse such boundless power…no one has the right to review the judgments of this see…it will be judged neither by emperor, nor by kings, nor by all the clergy, nor by the people….This is the height of imperiousness for one man to set himself up as judge of all, and suffer himself to obey the judgment of none.”
Correlations:
1. The Second Vatican Council’s Decree on Ecumenism explains: “For it is through Christ’s Catholic Church alone, which is the universal help towards salvation, that through the fullness of the means of salvation can be obtained. It was to be the apostolic college alone, of which Peter is the head, that we believe that our Lord entrusted all the blessings of the New Covenant, in order to establish on earth one Body of Christ into which all those who should be fully incorporated who belong in any way to the People of God.” (CCC, 816).
2. Bull, Unam Sanctum, 18 Nov 1302 by Boniface VIII: “With Faith urging us we are forced to believe and to hold the one, holy, Catholic Church and that, apostolic outside of which there is no salvation nor remission of sin, the Spouse in the Canticle proclaiming, `One is my dove, my perfect one. One she is of her mother, the chosen of her that bore her [Cant.6.8]…certainly Noe had one ark at the time of the flood…and we are taught by evangelical words that in this power of his are two swords, namely spiritual and temporal…Therefore, each is in the power of the Church, that is, a spiritual and temporal sword…It is necessary that we confess the more clearly that spiritual power precedes any earthly power both in dignity and nobility, as spiritual matters themselves excel the temporal…Therefore, if earthly power deviates, it will be judged by spiritual power; but if a lesser spiritual power deviates, by its superior; but if the supreme (spiritual power deviates), it can be judged by God alone, not by man, as the Apostle testifies: `The spiritual man judges all things, but he himself is judged by no one.’[1 Cor.2.15]…Furthermore, we declare, say, define, and proclaim to every human creature that they by necessity of salvation are entirely subject to the Roman Pontiff.” [emphasis added] Henry Denzinger, The Sources of Catholic Dogma (Fitzwilliam, NH: Loreto Publications, 1954. Nihil obstat: Dominic Hughes, OP, Censor Deputatus and Imprimatur by ABP Patrick O’Boyle, Washington, 1955.
3. Clement VI, Super quibusdam, a letter to the Consolator, the Catholicon of the Armenians, 20 Sept 1351. A few clips from the lengthy letter:
a. “Peter received complete power of jurisdiction over all faithful Christian from our Lord Jesus Christ.”
b. “…the same plenitude in the jurisdiction of power over the complete and universal body of the militant church which Peter himself received from our Lord Jesus Christ.”
c. “…the legitimate vicars of Christ and full of power in the highest degree, have received immediately from Christ Himself over the complete and universal body of the church militant, every jurisdiction of power which Christ s fitting head had in human life.”
d. “…have been able, are able, and will be able directly by our own power and theirs [PV, theirs = successors from the context] both to judge all those subject to our jurisdiction and theirs, an to establish and delegate judges to whomsoever we wish.”
e. “…Roman Pontiffs who have been, of us who are, and those who in the future will be, has been, is and will be so extensive, that by no one have they been, can we be, or will they in the future be able to be judged; but they have been, we are, and they will be reserved for judgment by God alone; and that from our sentences and judgments it has not been possible nor will it be possible for an appeal to be made to any judges.”
f. “…that it is possible to transfer patriarchs, the Catholicon, the archbishops, bishops, abbots, and whatsoever prelates from the offices in which they have been established to other offices of greater or lesser jurisdiction, or, as their sins demand, to demote, to depose, excommunicate, or to surrender them to Satan.”
g. “…Pontifical authority cannot or ought not be subject to any imperial or regal or other secular power, in so far as pertains to a judicial institution, to correction or to deposition.” [PV, we add that these claims are the legal underpinnings—unexplored by the press—in the paedophilia cases. The Archbishops and Bishops were “secretly” following orders from Rome.]
h. “…the Roman Pontiff alone is able to establish sacred general canons, to grant plenary indulgences to hose who visit he thresholds of the apostles, Peter and Paul, or those who go to the Holy Land…”
i. “…who are obedient to the Roman Pontiff…who observe studiously and with devotion the forms and rites of the Roman Church in the administration of the sacraments and in ecclesiastical duties, fasts, and other ceremonies do well, and by doing this merit eternal life.” Henry Denzinger, The Sources of Catholic Dogma, 203-206.
Interpretation:
Calvin correctly draws an extremely powerful contrast between the days of Gregory 1 and those of his own time. There is no accountability or correction for infallible Popes with their doctrinal fictions and their "half-Christ."
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