This blog post originates from a conversation I had with a good friend of mine. I was telling him about a “class” I just started attending at my parish. I hope to post more about what I learned in the class and share it here. I am going to another one tonight. Here is a brief overview of what I wrote to him:
The class is on apologetics. Apologetics does not mean “to apologize”. It comes from the Greek work “apologia”, which means defense or explanation. In 1 Pet 3:15, Peter says, “…Always be ready to give an explanation (apologia) to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope…”
In this case our “reason for hope” would mean our hope or faith in Christ and that when asked about it we must be prepared to give a defense or explanation when asked about it.
He (Jim Blackburn) talked about Church authority and how the Church got the authority from Christ and proving that in the bible. He said that Jesus left us with a Church and didn’t leave us with a bible. The bible as we know it today wasn’t developed until a couple of hundred years after Jesus death. So it was left up to the apostles to spread the gospel through oral tradition (preaching/ homilies) and letters. Well, obviously the apostles died and the gospel still had to be spread so the apostles had to give the authority to their predecessors, exactly like when Jesus knew he was going to die, he had to give the teaching authority to his processors, i.e., the apostles. This is called “apostolic succession”.
Jim talked about “papal succession” as well. In scripture he pointed out the there had to be someone in charge of the Church after he died. In other words a visible representative that can speak infallibly on issues of faith and morals. Peter was the first person with that authority (Matt 16). After Peter died, that authority had to be passed on. It went to Pope St. Linus and then to Pope St. Cletus, then to Pope St. Clement and so on, all the way down to Benedict XVI. This is historically verified.
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