Apostolic Succession

Quoted below is from Catholic Answers Forums  on Founding a religious order  written by Weeorphan [1]:

Weeorphan
Oct '06

St Francis of Assisi was a lay person before he started gathering a small brotherhood by preaching in the streets barefoot. It was only after his audience with the Pope that he was given permission to expand as an authorized mendicant Religious Order. He had to be ordained a Deacon to ‘officially’ preach from a pulpit. Otherwise, he would likely have been hounded by authorities to historical insignificance, relegated to merely a homeless gadfly preacher with an unwashed band of tick-infested ‘hippie’ misfits.

So he reluctantly succumbed to the Church’s demand, deeming himself unworthy of ordination. Interestingly, St Francis later grew somewhat disgusted over his rapidly expanding and highly structured organization with thousands of neophytes attending schools of higher education, stuffing their nuts for winter and feathering their nests. He delegated administration of his worldly brotherhood while preferring to be alone in prayer.

His original twelve disciples stayed to his rugged course of taking no thought for the morrow. He suffered with blindness from his mission to Jerusalem, his crippling stigmata, and the anguish that Jesus’ teachings were being diluted in his Order to a worldliness beyond his control. His severe self-denial caused an early death, but no saint has more closely followed Christ’s example to willingly suffer much in obedience to God. I suspect Jesus Christ has been feeling much the same angst about his beloved Church.

It was Christ Who told Francesco d'Assisi to rebuild His Church.  As Weeorphan noted above, "St Francis of Assisi was a lay person before he started gathering a small brotherhood by preaching in the streets barefoot." [2]  He was no where near the line of succession of the Apostles, yet he was holy enough to suffer the stigmata.  He also suffered "the anguish that Jesus’ teachings were being diluted in his Order to a worldliness beyond his control," which led to Weeorphan's insightful conclusion: "I suspect Jesus Christ has been feeling much the same angst about [H]is beloved Church." [3]

It is not time to wake up from the reality that Christ's beloved Church is being continually diluted "to a worldliness" so secular [4] that the Church is ever so gradually becoming more and more indistinguishable from any of the world's social and political institution?  Is it not time for more and more Catholics to answer the call that seems so far removed from the heart and so faint to the ear to begin living lives of humility with complete faith in and love for God so that every moment can be filled with joy while preaching the words of Christ in a manner and with a voice that reflect a quiet and steady peace within that is alive and joined with the peace of Christ?

Are those who act as such but who do not have approval from a Catholic bishop who is along the line of Apostolic succession causing more wounds upon the Body of the already-wounded Christ because they do not necessarily agree with the Magisterium based on what the pope and bishops say and do?  Are they heretics?  Was San Francesco d'Assisi a heretic when he first started preaching to the birds [5]?  According to Saint Augustine of Hippo who himself was a fornicator who had an illegitimate son named Adeodatus with one of his many mistresses [6], it seems that Francesco d'Assisi who had preached (fed the Lord's sheep) initially without any prior apostolic blessing could have been deemed a heretic.  This was what Augustine said (quoted from catholic.com) [7]:

"[T]here are many other things which most properly can keep me in [the Catholic Church’s] bosom. The unanimity of peoples and nations keeps me here. Her authority, inaugurated in miracles, nourished by hope, augmented by love, and confirmed by her age, keeps me here. The succession of priests, from the very see of the apostle Peter, to whom the Lord, after his resurrection, gave the charge of feeding his sheep [John 21:15–17], up to the present episcopate, keeps me here. And last, the very name Catholic, which, not without reason, belongs to this Church alone, in the face of so many heretics, so much so that, although all heretics want to be called ‘Catholic,’ when a stranger inquires where the Catholic Church meets, none of the heretics would dare to point out his own basilica or house" (Against the Letter of Mani Called "The Foundation" 4:5 [A.D. 397]).

Interestingly, according to Frank A. James III, Monica (a saint), Augustine's mother, had "persuaded [her son Augustine] to send his unnamed mistress away so that he might acquire the hand of a high-society Milanese girl." [8]  Sinfulness, one can suppose if the foregoing is true, does not fall far from the womb, nor does saintliness, according to the Catholic Church based on this mother-son relationship.

In this blogger's opinion, it seems that those whose lives have benefited from the Church, Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Eastern or Oriental, or otherwise, whether financially, educationally, authoritatively or otherwise, are the ones most supportive of the concept of Apostolic succession even though there are Christian religions without Apostolic succession have come into existence and continue to exist.  These, perhaps, are the strongest published words against Apostolic succession: "Alignment with scriptural teaching, not apostolic succession, is the determining factor of the trueness of a church." [9]

Even within the family of religions that believe in Apostolic succession, they are not unified, as they ought to be, for the disciples had been taught to love one another, to wash and dry the feet of one another.  Love and humility are not found among the successors of the different Apostles today and the divisions among them will likely continue into the foreseeable future due to differences in culture, language, practices and so on, not to mention the reluctance to forego pride and power.

As one year ends and another begins, the need to bring about a new universal Church that is truly catholic that is unified under the teachings of Christ ought to stir within the hearts of true Catholics, leaving aside those with hearts of hypocrites who may be in the Vatican, the parishes, the seminaries and in towns and cities everywhere who are more concerned with their own communities, their own countries, their own troops, their own kind with similar culture, upbringing, political beliefs and secular outlook than with the whole of humanity whose collective heart is inextricably linked to God, the Creator.

Admittedly, it is not easy to keep in mind those who are either different from oneself or are not part of and close to one's life but pray true Catholics ought to for all, not forgetting those had been martyred, among them were 21 Coptic Christians who were beheaded in Libya in 2015 who were found buried in a grave "in the town of Sirte, once held by ISIS militants, after a former captive of ISIS provided the location of the bodies." [10]

http://dailycaller.com/2017/10/11/bodies-of-the-21-coptic-christians-isis-beheaded-found-to-be-returned-to-families/

http://www.egyptindependent.com/families-21-coptic-christians-killed-libya-demand-remains/

http://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/cwn/2017/october/bodies-of-21-christians-found-beheaded-by-isis-in-mass-grave-in-libya

True Catholics ought also to pray for all of those far away from the bloody beach where the executions took place and whose memories may have been clouded by the passage of time beginning with the moment the idea of invading Libya was instigated culminating in the execution and completion of that invasion who had directly and/or indirectly brought this fate to these martyred Christians, that they (with their hands forever stained with the blood of all the martyred) may visualize vividly the pains, the sufferings and the faces of each of these decapitated men day and and night for the remainder of their lives so that they may come to regret their actions and humble themselves before God ask God for forgiveness of their compound sins and for mercy upon their eternal souls.

Those with enough faith and love to die in the name of the Lord Jesus are in this blogger's opinion apostles of Christ whether or not they are Apostolic successors as defined by those who see themselves as successors and potential successors and those benefiting and about to benefit from the ordained Apostolic successors.

Situated directly opposite all of Christ's apostles who had been martyred are those who do the works of Satan, who destroy lives and families, by betraying Christ and all that Christ represents, who fall in line with the Apostle Judas Iscariot, and who ought to be deemed as apostolic successors as well.  Even though there is no symbolic gesture conferring their succession, they nevertheless cannot be mistaken as true successors of the Apostle Judas Iscariot by their betrayals and Satanic works except by those already blinded by Satan and can no longer see God clearly.

Seeing God clearly is not so easy.  Sin is like cataract in the eye that clouds one's vision of God, but unlike the medical condition, eyes clouded by cataract of sin can often see clearly Satan present in others but rarely, if ever, in oneself. This malady is non-discriminatory.  It plagues the average person just as it plagues those who are in seats of power, and that includes the current successor of Peter the Apostle, his infallibility notwithstanding, who speak on behalf of the Vatican City State and the Catholic Church.  To be sure, Bergoglio, in the opinion of this blogger, is neither a visionary, a saint nor someone who is holy and infallible.  He is, however, a gifted secular politician.

In summary, it is not Apostolic succession that defines the trueness and oneness of the universal Church, the Catholic Church that Christ wants; it is how closely a religious order or church, whether it be Catholic, Orthodox or otherwise, adheres to the teachings of Christ [11] that defines universality, Catholicity, unity and authenticity.

Is this conclusion heretical according the the Catholic Church?  Yes, but not absolutely.  Giving a nod to the Protestants, the Vatican after presenting arguments for Apostolic succession said, "To say this is not to say that the ecclesial and spiritual qualities of the Protestant ministers and communities are thereby negligible. Their ministers have edified and nourished their communities. By baptism, by the study and the preaching of the word, by their prayer together and celebration of the Last Supper, and by their zeal they have guided men toward faith in the Lord and thus helped them to find the way of salvation. There are thus in such communities elements that certainly belong to the apostolicity of the unique Church of Christ." [12]  Despite this acknowledgement by the Catholic Church, the Protestants have their own problems and disagreements among their many divisions, without regard to the elements of apostolicity.

So to where does true  Apostolic succession lead?  A genuine universal Catholic Church, one that unifies, embraces and welcomes all who are humble and apolitical, who have the suffering Christ at the center and in clear focus as well as the grace to revive and inspire those spiritually dead to Christ, especially those leading empty lives consumed by their wealth, fame, pride, possessions, perversions and denials. This is the focus the Catholic Church ought to have and the direction it ought to go, beginning with these several days left in 2017 and into new year until the end of the world.  However, given the likelihood that its focus and direction will likely become more and more secular, a new Church with genuine Catholicity needs to be built from the ground up without deliberate delay. [13]



[1] https://forums.catholic.com/t/founding-a-religious-order/56515/3
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] A lifesitenews.com  article dated December 22, 2017, entitled Catholics shocked that Vatican Christmas tree has no Christian symbols  reported that "[t]he decorations on the Vatican Christmas tree in St. Peter's Square this year are devoid of Christian religious symbols, that "'[t]here are peace signs, and the oriental yin-yang signs, but no angels, no depictions of the Magi, no images of Mary, nothing but universal symbols,'" according to an observer while another remarked, "'I too saw that there seemed not to be a single Christian symbol on the tree, unless the star on the top of the tree could be considered a sign of the star that led the Magi to the Christ-child.'" See https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/catholics-shocked-that-vatican-christmas-tree-has-no-christian-symbols
[5] https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-francis-and-the-birds/
[6] http://www.christianitytoday.com/history/issues/issue-15/augustines-sex-life-change-from-profligate-to-celibate.html
[7] https://www.catholic.com/tract/apostolic-succession
[8] http://www.christianitytoday.com/history/issues/issue-15/augustines-sex-life-change-from-profligate-to-celibate.html
[9] https://www.gotquestions.org/apostolic-succession.html
[10] http://dailycaller.com/2017/10/11/bodies-of-the-21-coptic-christians-isis-beheaded-found-to-be-returned-to-families/
[11] http://www.usccb.org/bible/mark/12, 28-31; http://www.usccb.org/bible/matthew/22:1517, 34-40; http://www.usccb.org/bible/lk/10:52, 25-28.
[12] http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_cti_1973_successione-apostolica_en.html
[13] Any suggestion is welcomed.