In this slim volume (only 109 pages) well known expert on Islamic terrorism (he is author of 25 books dealing with Jihadism and Internet Webmaster of Jihad Watch), Robert Spencer explains why he left the Melkite Catholic Church to return to Greek Orthodoxy. He had "discovered" that there was no historical justification for Papal supremacy and infallibility. The New Testament, the early Church , God-bearing Fathers, and Ecumenical Councils, provide no evidence for a papacy wielding a universal authority and jurisdiction over other bishops, much less an infallibility in the teaching of doctrine.

Spencer writes irenically to "illuminate the truth" having the advantage to "see clearly each side's arguments". A careful analysis of his arguments, however, reveal a prejudicial obsession and fixation that the Popes had only a "primacy of honor" and prevents him from utterly grasping the import and meaning of the famous Petrine texts of Scripture ( Matt: 16: 18-19; Lk: 22: 31-33; Jn. 21: 15-17). There is confusion in his treatment of the texts of the Fathers and Councils which refer to a real authority bestowed upon Peter as Chief of the Apostles, and consequently upon his successors, the Bishops of Rome. Such texts are stripped of their original meanings in conformity with the author's illusion that Peter's Primacy (and that of all his successors, the Bishops of Rome) consisted solely of a Primacy of honor with no authoritative or juridical resonance.

Thus follows the result of Spencer's presumed "rational consideration of the available evidence":

"There is no papal primacy there [in Scripture and Tradition] at all : no indication whatsoever that Peter's occupies a place above the other Apostles" or that the Bishop of Rome had any "unique authority", certainly not by divine right that could be exercised over other Bishops who were all equal in power. Moreover, "the early Church by no means took for granted the idea that the Pope of Rome was [Peter's] successor in a way that others were not." (pp.20-21)

However, it will not take long for the reader of this volume to grasp the utter incoherence in the author's understanding of the hierarchical nature of the Church as established by the Eternal Word made flesh. Far more realistic a grasp of Christ's actions in establishing His Church may be cited here the judgment of another inquirer examining the famous Petrine texts concerning the role of Peter in the Church:

"The conception of an empty toothless primacy of honor established by Our Lord among His Apostles is so revoltingly contrary to His powerful words in the Gospels (Matt: 16: 18-19; Lk: 22: 31-33; Jn. 21: 15-17) as to be nothing less than blasphemous. The Pope would have a Primacy of honor, to be sure, but that Primacy was essentially grounded in the Primacy of supremacy he had in the Universal Church as the successor of Peter."

To secure his own negative conclusions, our author does not scruple to suppress the striking witness of Fathers and Councils to Papal supremacy. For example, nowhere in this volume will be found St. Maximos the Confessor (7th c.) writing of the universal authority of the Roman Pontiff :

"He is writing in vain when he does not ratify and beg forgiveness of the Blessed Pope of the Holy Roman Church, that is, of the Apostolic See. This See, from the very Incarnate Word of God, and also from all the holy Councils according to the sacred canons and definitions has received universal and supreme dominion, authority, and power of loosing and binding over the holy Church of God all over the world. For when this binds and looses, so also does the Word in heaven who rules the heavenly virtues."

This was the same St Maximos the Confessor who died a martyr declaring to his heretical Monophysite captors, "I have no doctrine of my own, but the common doctrine of the Catholic Church."

Similarly, nowhere will be found the following words of Pope Boniface I writing in 422 AD to his vicar and to all his Eastern Illyrian bishops of the solicitude which St. Peter –and through him his Papal successors– have through divine commission over the whole Church. He emphatically asserted that the Eastern Churches had always referred matters of greater importance (in majores negotiis in quibus opus esset discepttione majores) to the Roman See and asking for aid. Elsewhere he stated :

"The universal institution of the budding Church acquired her authority from the honor granted to the blessed Peter, in which rest her rule and her highest power; because from her fountainhead has emanated the ecclesiastical discipline which has permeated all the Churches with the ever increasing cultivation of religion... It is certain, therefore, that this Church bears the same relation to all the other churches of the world that the head does to the other members of the body: whoever cuts himself off from her becomes an exile from the Christian religion". (Ep. 14)

In addition to expressing the Popes' care to govern by the canons, the same Roman Pontiff warned of the danger of pride which might influence bishops to challenge him in whom:

"Our Christ poured the pinnacle of the priesthood... Whoever arises in contumely against him cannot be an inhabitant of the kingdom of heaven, "To thee, He says, 'I shall give the keys of the kingdom of heaven' where nobody shall enter without the favor of the Key-bearer, 'Thou art', He says, 'Peter and upon this Rock I shall build My Church'... If you would like to review what has been laid down by the canons, you shall find which see, after the Roman Church, is second, or which is third... and indeed this teaching of the canons has endured from of old, as it lasts even now, through the favor of our Christ. For nobody ever rashly laid hands at Antioch, preserve these dignities through the canons, having the knowledge of ecclesiastical law. They preserve the statutes of the ancients." (PL 20: 782)

By the time of the ecumenical Council of Chalcedon (451 A.D.), the 3 major Sees (Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch) had become a Pentarchy of 5 Patriarchs engaged in the government of the Church with the Eastern Sees of Alexandria, Antioch Jerusalem, and Constantinople subject to the overarching care of the See of Rome. As Pope Leo the Great (441-461) would explain:

"...among the blessed Apostles, in the likeness of their office, there was a certain difference in authority, and although all were equal in their election, yet was it granted to one to be pre-eminent over the rest. From this pattern a distinction also arose among bishops, and by a great ordinance provision was made to prevent them all from claiming all authority for themselves, rather in each province there would be bishops whose sentence was to be considered first among the brethren, and again, bishops in the greater cities were to undertake a wider solicitude, through whom the care of the Universal Church would flow unto the one See of Peter, and nothing ever dissent from its head..." (PL 54:676).

It is incomprehensible how anyone familiar with the Letters of the orthodox Popes of the first Millennium could deny that they taught and held a Primacy of universal authority and jurisdiction in the Church. Their possession of such supreme authority alone can explain the historical FACT that said Popes:

1. often interfered (when there was need) in the internal affairs of churches, East and West.
2. Even before the Council of Sardica (382 A.D.) which codified appellate appeals to Rome, the Pope was hearing such appeals from Bishops in all parts of the Church.
3. excommunicated and deposed heretical Eastern Patriarchs and Bishops.
4. restored deposed Eastern and Western Bishops to their Sees.
5. unilaterally quashed heretical synods and Councils.

It is unfortunate that Spencer betrays great ignorance concerning the procedures of the Roman Church in dealing with fellow bishops. They took care not to act as tyrannical despots, but rather sought the advice and counsel of other bishops, especially local Italian synods and particularly their own Roman synod. Therefore, whether in the future "Peter spoke through Leo" or "Peter spoke through Agatho", this did not forestall those Popes taking counsel with other bishops before making important decisions, especially doctrinal or dogmatic ones. In fact, both Roman Pontiffs did issue definitive dogmatic judgments during the 4th (Leo the Great) and 6th (Agatho) Ecumenical Councils to end controversies harming the Unity of the Church.

The entire collapse of Spencer's anti-Catholic polemic is strikingly confirmed by these words of Pope Gelasius (5th c,) which echo the teaching of his predecessors and reflect the common belief of orthodox Catholics throughout the first thousand years:

"... Yet we do not hesitate to mention that which is known to the Universal Church, namely that the See of Blessed Peter the Apostle has the right to loose what has been bound by the judgment of any bishops whatsoever, and since it has jurisdiction over every other church, so that no one can pass judgment on its verdict, the canons providing that an appeal should lie to it from any part of the world, no one is permitted to appeal against its judgment."
The Roman See... "ratifies each Council by its authority and safeguards it by its ceaseless oversight, in virtue of its leadership/chief authority [principatu], which the blessed Apostle Peter received by the word of the Lord, and which by common agreement of the Church he has always possessed and still retains."

It is to be noted that these orthodox Popes heralded as saints in the Byzantine Greek Liturgical books referred not only to the existing canons of the Church justifying their universal jurisdiction, but above all to the words of Christ Himself establishing Peter as the visible head of the one and only Church of Christ.

As a result of his skewed understanding of the hierarchical structure of the Church, Spencer finds contradictions where there are none (ex. Papacy vs. Ecumenical Councils; Papacy vs. collegiality; ex cathedra pronouncements vs. other irrevocable condemnations (contraception, abortion, euthanasia, women's ordination). In treating the Ecumenical Council of Ephesus (431A.D.), he totally ignores that Council's witnessing to papal supremacy because to his mind papal supremacy never existed. But at that precise Council where almost all the bishops present were from the East, no protests were made when the papal legate Philip stated in the firmest terms:

"There is no doubt, and in fact, it has been known in all ages, that the holy and most blessed Peter, prince and head of the Apostles, pillar of the faith, and foundation of the Catholic Church, received the keys of the kingdom from Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior and Redeemer of the human race, and that to him were given the power of loosing and binding sins, who even to this time and always, lives and judges in his successors Our holy and blessed Pope Celestine, the bishop, is according to due order his successor and holds his place."

At the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon (451 A.D.), the papal legate Paschasinus affirmed:

"We have in our hands the instructions of the blessed and apostolic bishop of the city of the Romans [Pope Leo the Great] who is head of all the Churches."

In truth, all the special privileges and prerogatives that were displayed by the Popes in the exercise of their supremacy of universal authority in the Church were but manifestations of their being and acting as the visible head of the Universal Church. The Popes of the first Millennium understood the Catholic Church was the visible extension of Christ in this world, and among its rulers (the bishops in the Apostolic Succession), there was a supreme head or ruler charged with maintaining the Visible Unity of the Church against the inevitable heresies and schisms arising from the wild and errant intellect of fallen man. A visible Church lacking such a visible head and center of unity could not possibly be the one and infallible Body of Christ commissioned to "make disciples of all nations" and to stand before the world as "the City on the mountain" open to all the nations a world-wide Church which could not be hidden from view. It was Our Lord's own invisible and infallible Headship that is manifested in the Petrine headship of the one Bishop in the Church who held the Keys of the Kingdom, charged with "strengthening his brethren", and commissioned to "Feed/Rule all the lambs and sheep of Christ". St. Paul declared that Christ "is the Head of His Body, the Church; He, Who is the beginning, the first-born from the dead, that in all things He must have the first-place" [the preeminence; the primacy, primatum in Latin, proveton in Greek] (Col. 1:18). The Petrine Primacy of the Pope serves as the visible icon of Christ's own Headship and teaching authority in the Church. Spencer has grasped nothing of the deep, mystical, and theological significance of the Petrine Primacy as instituted by Christ.

When I exchanged some correspondence with Spencer some years ago and insisted that the Church as a visible Body must have a visible head, he admitted, "It makes sense." (see pp. 83-84). Now arguing that "to be truly 'catholic' means 'according to the whole', he has denied the Church its indispensable major organ", having failed to understand that the Petrine primacy of visible headship is necessary for the Church to exist as a whole visible body. In favoring the artificial, sham, and impossible theory of all the bishops acting collectively as the "one successor of Peter", he has left the Church exposed to anarchy and unresolvable schisms. His resultant assemblage of multiple national-ethnic Churches has no visible Unity and is neither One nor Catholic. Eastern Orthodox may claim to be the pre-Schism Catholic Church, but everyone knows who the "Catholic heretics" are, whom rabid Orthodox polemicists attack and whose valid sacraments (Baptism, Chrismation, Eucharist) some Orthodox foolishly deny.

It is ironic that Spencer finds himself repeatedly contradicting himself.

Denying there was any Chief Apostle , he notes that at the Council of Jerusalem St. Peter was "the chiefest and first of the apostles" and "the leader of the apostles and chief herald of the Church". (p. 43) He quotes Pope St. Gregory the Great as affirming in the plainest words:

"As to what they say of the church of Constantinople, who doubts that it is subject to the Apostolic See? This is constantly owned by the most pious Emperor and by our brother and Bishop of that city. And also, if any fault is to be found among bishops, I know not anyone who is not subject to it (the Apostolic See), but when no fault requires otherwise, all are equal according to the estimation of equality." (p. 70)

How Spencer could give those quotes and not realize he is contradicting the entire main thesis of his book, is baffling. But it shows, if there was yet need, the fatal incoherence in his ecclesiology which is that of Byzantine schismatics in the post-1054 period. He totally distorted the teaching of Pope Gregory the Great. The Pope refused the "perverse" title of "universal bishop" to himself (out of profound humility). He also mistook it as a claim to be the one Bishop in the Church (solus conetur appellari episcopus). In no wise was he rejecting the existence of that papal supremacy involving a universal jurisdiction which he had well expressed in the words above. That universal jurisdiction was clearly held by both his predecessors and successors, as admitted by both Protestant and Orthodox scholars (for the Orthodox, cf. Frs. Meyendorff, Schmemann, Clement, Cleenewerck, etc.)

In our previous correspondence, Spencer accused me of confusing readers by not giving a full quotation from Pope Gregory the Great regarding the See of Peter "in three places". I had written: "Though there were many Apostles, only the See of the Prince of the Apostles... received supreme authority in virtue of its very principate." To evidence his theory that the See of Peter was held collectively by other bishops (those of Alexandria and Antioch who could trace their founding to St. Peter or his disciple, St. Mark), he wrote that the full quotation reads this way: "Though there were many Apostles, only the See of the Prince of the Apostles, which is the See of one in three places, receives supreme authority in virtue of its very principate." I had emphasized, of course, that Pope Gregory held his Roman See had supreme authority in the Church whereas Spencer precisely denied there was any central supreme authority in the Church. Thus his desperate effort to redefine what "supreme authority" meant thereby contradicting the meaning held by all Pope Gregory's predecessors! If the See of Peter was "one in three places, the supreme authority in the Church was clearly in one place, the See of Rome". It was also clear that both Alexandria and Antioch had fallen into heresy years earlier and that Pope Gregory had attempted to renew relationships by drawing them closer to Rome by such honorific language which had its roots in those Eastern patriarchal sees' association with Peter. No Eastern patriarch ever claimed or possessed that supreme authority of headship over the entire Church.

Incidentally, Pope St. Gregory the Great was one of many Pre-Schism orthodox Popes who taught the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father and the Son (Filioque).

There are other factual errors in the book.

On pp. 59-60 our author makes it appear that Pope Leo III (795-826) was adamantly opposed to the Filioque being added to the Creed (a liturgical question) with the implication he denied the doctrinal truth of the eternal Procession of the Spirit from the Father and the Son that was widespread in the Western Church. He did not deny that truth of Faith and, in fact, wrote a Letter to the Eastern Churches clearly expressing the Catholic doctrine on the Procession of the Holy Spirit: "We are sending you this symbol of orthodox faith so that both you and all the rest of the world may hold to the right and inviolate faith in accordance with the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Faith... We believe the Holy Spirit proceeds equally from the Father and the Son and is consubstantial and co-eternal with the Father and the Son... The Holy Spirit, proceeding from the Father and the Son, is fully God."

On pp. 74-77. he rehashes the old Protestant and Orthodox objection to papal infallibility, namely "the condemnation of Pope Honorius as a heretic by the Sixth Ecumenical Council".
But, as he himself pointed out, in ratifying that Council as "Ecumenical", Pope Leo II made a clear distinction between the chief heretics (Theodore, Sergius, Paul, Pyrrhus and Peter) condemned by the Council, and Honorius who was also anathematized as a "heretic"... But in what sense as a "heretic" was Honorius condemned ? A careful examination reveals he was condemned as one who sadly helped spread the heresy of "one will in Christ" by his "negligence". But, Pope Leo II did not include his predecessor Honorius as a formal heretic but rather as one who "did not, as becoming the Apostolic authority, extinguish the heretical teaching in its first beginning, but fostered it by his negligence."

It should be recalled that Honorius' condemnation by the Council occurred 42 years after his death, and there were important defenders of his orthodoxy. No less than the greatest theological opponent of Monothelitism (the "one will" heresy), St. Maximos the Confessor, esteemed Honorius "among the saints". Both the Greek writer of his letters, Abbot John Symponus and Pope John IV wrote Letters exonerating Honorius of any heretical intent. Moreover, during the Sixth Council, the same which condemned Honorius, the assembled bishops heard without protest Pope Agatho declare that all his predecessors had stood fast in the right doctrine and that none had defiled the Petrine Primacy by teaching formal error in the Church of God. Moreover, Honorius had defined nothing. He made no formal dogmatic or 'ex cathedra' decision but imprudently allowed the situation to get worse and heresy to spread. So, he was rightly condemned for his inexcusable negligence.

The famous "case of Honorius" fails as "proof" of his being a Monothelite heretic. True, he was condemned by "two Ecumenical Councils and papal successors" afterwards. But as Spencer admits , it was "with reservations" and it was those "reservations" that prevent Honorius from having fatally "polluted" the inerrancy of the See of Rome which was loudly proclaimed at that same Sixth Council by the "Peter who speaks through Agatho".

In happier days, there was a fine article "The Truth about Pope Honorius" by Robert Spencer which concluded that "he [Honorius] was no heretic". His study of the controversy, moreover, led Spencer to become "an infallibilist, a Catholic with faith in the Pope as the Vicar of Christ and successor of Peter. The Church will live beyond the trials of these days as it did those of Honorius' days." It must be said that the Catholic Church will survive Spencer's loss of faith based on a sorry denial of the overwhelming historical evidence for papal supremacy.

Much more could be written concerning Spencer's view that the group of 14-16 autocephalous Pan-Orthodox Churches represent identity with the unchanging Catholic Church of the first thousand years. The truth is that they represent an unhappy rupture with Sacred Tradition resulting in their loss of Unity and Catholicity and the integral Faith bequeathed by the ancient Fathers, Councils, Popes, and Bishops of the first 11 centuries. The present Schism between the Churches of Constantinople and Moscow and their autocephalous supporters reveals a communion of Churches torn with divisions and dissent: doctrinal, canonical, and jurisdictional. The solution to their continuing estrangement and actual Schism with the See of Rome was pointed out by the Council of Florence (1439) which restored communion with the Apostolic See of Rome and whose decrees remain relevant to all seeking Unity in Christ.

Let all our readers pray for Mr. Spencer that he return to the true Church founded not on the shaky sand of "patriarchal consensus" but on the indefectible Rock of Peter. Contrary to his belief (p. 98) that the Church "rejected the popular idea that 'Outside the Church there is no salvation'" Vatican II taught a profound and properly nuanced doctrine of salvation (Lumen Gentium, # 14-17), noting that "Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or remain in it" (Lumen Gentium, #14)

In conclusion, I would note that Robert Spencer was indeed treated shamefully by his own Melkite Catholic bishop and other Catholic bishops who were offended by his scholarly-supported opinion that Islam was "not a religion of peace". One well-known Catholic priest even accused him of being a dissenter from Catholic doctrine for holding that opinion when there is no such doctrine binding on Catholics. In fine, it is utterly scandalous that pro-Islamic propaganda should have found acceptance among the bureaucrats of the United States Catholic Conference, and consequently among some bishops.

Spencer writes beautifully concerning his hope for the Reunion of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches but his vision for that eventuality is marred by his false understanding of the hierarchical structure of the Church: that in the first thousand years there was no supreme and universal authority in the Church, namely the Bishop of Rome as heir and successor of Peter, Chief and Head of the Apostles.

History and Logic prove otherwise.

 

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