Catholic Church -- Controversial literature; Catholic Church -- Doctrines
Before coming to any direct proofs on this subject I may state that, in
the Old Law, the High Priest appointed by Almighty God filled an office
analogous to that of Pope in the New Law. In the Jewish Church there were
Priests and Levites ordained to minister at the altar; and there was,
also, a supreme ecclesiastical tribunal, with the High Priest at its head.
All matters of religious controversy were referred to this tribunal and in
the last resort to the High Priest, whose decision was enforced under pain
of death. “If there be a hard matter in judgment between blood and blood,
cause and cause, leprosy and leprosy, ... thou shalt come to the Priests
of the Levitical race and to the judge, ... and they shall show thee true
judgment. And thou shalt do whatever they say who preside in the place
which the Lord shall choose, and thou shalt follow their sentence. And
thou shalt not decline to the right hand, or to the left.... But he that
... will refuse to obey the commandment of the Priest, who ministereth at
the time, ... that man shall die, and thou shalt take away the evil from
Israel.”(153)
From this passage it is evident that in the Hebrew Church the High Priest
had the highest jurisdiction in religious matters. By this means unity of
faith and worship was preserved among the people of God.
Now the Jewish synagogue, as St. Paul testifies, was the type and figure
of the Christian Church; for “all these things happened to them (the Jews)
in figure.”(154) We must, therefore, find in the Church of Christ a
spiritual judge, exercising the same supreme authority as the High Priest
wielded in the Old Law. For if a supreme Pontiff was necessary, in the
Mosaic dispensation, to maintain purity and uniformity of worship, the
same dignitary is equally necessary now to preserve unity of faith.
Every well-regulated civil government has an acknowledged head. The
President is the head of the United States Government. Queen Victoria is
the ruler of Great Britain. The Sultan sways the Turkish Empire. If these
nations had no authorized leader to govern them they would be reduced to
the condition of a mere mob, and anarchy, confusion and civil war would
inevitably follow, as recently happened to France after the fall of
Napoleon III.
Even in every well-ordered family, domestic peace requires that someone
preside.
Now, the Church of Christ is a visible society—that is, a society composed
of human beings. She has, it is true, a spiritual end in view; but having
to deal with men, she must have a government as well as every other
organized society. This government, at least in its essential elements,
our Lord must have established for His Church. For was He not as wise as
human legislators? And shall we suppose that, of all lawgivers, the Wisdom
Incarnate alone left His Kingdom on earth to be governed without a head?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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