Primacy of The Bishop of Rome - Opposition To The Doctrine

Opposition To The Doctrine

Stephen Ray asserts that "There is little in the history of the Church that has been more heatedly contested than the primacy of Peter and the See of Rome. History is replete with examples of authority spurned, and the history of the Church is no different."

The doctrines of papal primacy and papal supremacy are perhaps the greatest obstacles to ecumenical efforts between the Roman Catholic Church and the other Christian churches. Most Eastern Orthodox Christians, for example, would be quite willing to accord the Bishop of Rome the same respect, deference and authority as is accorded to any Eastern Orthodox patriarch, but resist granting him special authority over all Christians. Many Protestants are quite willing to grant the pope a position of special moral leadership, feel that according to the pope any more formal authority than that would conflict with the Protestant principle of solus Christus, i.e., that there can be no intermediaries between a Christian and God except for Christ.

Read more about this topic:  Primacy Of The Bishop Of Rome

Famous quotes containing the words opposition to, opposition and/or doctrine:

    “At times it seems that the media have become the mainstream culture in children’s lives. Parents have become the alternative. Americans once expected parents to raise their children in accordance with the dominant cultural messages. Today they are expected to raise their children in opposition to it.”
    —Ellen Goodman (20th century)

    “My opposition [to interviews] lies in the fact that offhand answers have little value or grace of expression, and that such oral give and take helps to perpetuate the decline of the English language.”
    —James Thurber (1894–1961)

    “But the doctrine of the Farm is merely this, that every man ought to stand in primary relations to the work of the world, ought to do it himself, and not to suffer the accident of his having a purse in his pocket, or his having been bred to some dishonorable and injurious craft, to sever him from those duties.”
    —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)