@GratefulDisciple I mean... the argument about a current generations leaders being corrupt is significantly more ... significant for the catholics and their essentially single point of failure.

the problem as I see it even after that nice answer, is that it still is a legalistic framework. And forgiveness and stuff is not legalistic.

Also... you'd have to accept purgatory.

@Wyrsa Sure, Catholics are the most vulnerable: single point of failure. But they can also visibly demonstrate the most unity and solidarity. It's a trade off.

@GratefulDisciple what do you mean? Everytime they change something there are videos of people losing their minds about it...

Whereas the EOC just doesn't change stuff, we don't have that risk

we do address new issues of course, but there hasn't been anything that requires a new sacred tradition for over 1000 years...

it is almost like 7 ecumenical councils was enough. (okay, 8 if you count that fivesix synod, but it was a synod)

@Wyrsa Oh, you're talking about liturgical changes? About Traditional Latin Mass?

@Wyrsa It appears that yes, EO sacred tradition is quite stable. Haven't studied that much to "pick on" it :-). But putting my "Catholic apologist" hat, I would characterize the changes over the centuries as responding to new philosophies (Aristotle, modern philosophies), new social situations (like democracy, capitalism, industrialization, Internet), new cultures (Eastern cultures), new religions (Buddhism, Confucianism, Shintoism), and scientific findings (evolution, neuroscience, etc)

Second Vatican Council focused on 1) making the liturgy more intelligible, 2) that Catholics understand the Bible and the doctrines more, and 3) more friendly to other denominations and religions. I have attended both TLM and Novus Ordo Mass and though visually TLM has more symbolism, if NO Mass is conducted reverently I prefer the latter. But maybe if I take the care of understanding Latin I may like the former better.

So not so much as "new teaching" or "new tradition" but about refining and pruning sacred tradition in light of her engagement with the wider world and with the advance of knowledge.

Those inner "fightings" among cardinals / bishops / think tanks, I would characterize as necessary dialectics (confrontation to arrive at a greater truth) conducted hopefully with charity to avoid ultimate rupture. I'm not that surprised that Pope Francis foments this dialectical dialog in his signature move (the Synodal church), consistent with his being Jesuit.

@Wyrsa I think "temporal punishment" is an unfortunate term OR we moderns project our legalism onto the term. After reading the answer, and especially after listening to Eleonore Stump about divine love and the human condition, I don't see it as legalistic anymore.

The key starting points are these: 1) human nature has a concupiscence problem; 2) God has done all he can to love us; 3) we as rational creature are given dignity to fix our concupiscence problem in a rational manner with God's assistance (if we receive it); 4) all humans are IN a "punishment" already (whether in Christ or not): decaying body after middle age ending in death.

The answer focuses on how God and the Church helps us to do #3 after receiving forgiveness and sonship given in #2: reversing the temporal corruption caused by our messed-up reason and will BY our own graced-reason and graced-will. Penance is the work not to be construed as "paying God" or "paying others", but as the penitential work (notice the prison terminology) to dishabituate us from unlovingness toward ourselves and others.

@Wyrsa Purgatory should be seen as the logical consequence of that work being potentially unfinished before we die. In this sense, purgatory begins NOW. There is a book I want to read by a Protestant(?) Christian philosophy professor Jerry L. Walls that he ingeniously titled Purgatory: The Logic of Total Transformation. I think the title itself is already an apology for Purgatory.

I also want to read his 2 other books: Hell: The Logic of Damnation and Heaven: The Logic of Eternal Joy.

Turns out Jerry Walls is a Protestant (at least as of 2015). Read this blog article on him and his Purgatory book.

Now I recalled his co-authored book: Roman But Not Catholic: What Remains at Stake 500 Years after the Reformation that I read, in which he provided more details of his denomination background (a Wesleyan IIRC). So he was still a Protestant in 2017. Who knows he has swam the Tiber, since. I was surprised to learn that Eleonore Stump used to be Anglican IIRC.

@GratefulDisciple I re-read my kids textbook where I had that boneheaded answer about "no authority above the parish" that was actually the definition of Presbyterianism.

There were some interesting points about the reformation that the textbook subtly makes and Hilaire Belloc in "How the Reformation Happened" not so subtly makes. Because it seems like "The Protestants" were simply the activists who where against Emperor Charles V, not against the Pope.

Belloc does a good job of separating "The Spirit of Protestantism" from Lutheranism. He says that it was the Institutes of the Christian Religion that invented what we know as Protestantism, not Henry VIII or Luther

@PeterTurner That's completely wrong; it's supposed to be for a Congregationalist church. Presbyterian system of church government is hierarchical. My childhood church was Presbyterian. The "parish" (local church) send delegates to synodal meetings then to a higher level meetings (don't remember how many levels).

@PeterTurner Reformation is a complex movement, not just theological. So "just simply" characterization wouldn't work. What you pointed out though maybe true as for the political element. Especially because at that time, the Pope intervenes heavily in political matters.

@GratefulDisciple it may be that the Catholic Church considers the particular heresy "Presbyterianism" but doesn't make a distinction for "Congregationalism".

@PeterTurner I may agree with Fr. Thomas White's saying that pure Protestant theology can indeed be found in Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion. But there are at least 6 major flavors of Protestants: Reformed, Lutheran, Wesleyan, Anglican, Pentecostal, Pietism. So when seeking a "standard" definition, it's necessarily going to be thin. I think @KenGraham's answer is accurate enough.

@PeterTurner I'd like to see a reference please, it doesn't sound right to label a form of church government "heresy", that label should be attributed to a theology, maybe a certain theology of ecclesiology. As ecclesiology position that motivates a certain type of church government, "Presbyterianism" is very different than "Congregationalism".

Anyway, if you really want to know the heart of a Protestant, see the book in my comment:

Just to clarify potential misunderstanding in @KenGraham's answer, when it says "excluding a distinct episcopacy or priesthood", it's basically a denial of the reality of "ministerial priesthood" (Catholic term). I'm not sure whether this is true of Anglicans though; Anglicans is always hard to pin down.

> John Calvin also had his own ideas about how the Chuch should be governed. He said that there should be no bishops. He wanted the Church to have no real authority above the parish level. He thought parishes should be ruled by groups of elders - called presbyters - who would elect a pastor. When a parish is governed by a body of elders, it is called Presbyterian

> The story of Civilization - Volume III - Phillip Campbell

now is that ^^^ not true?

And when it says "excluding tradition and Church authority", it should be understood in proper sola scriptura way, not that we Protestants don't HAVE tradition or don't CONSIDER councils / creeds as authoritative, but we place them below Scripture.

Because I don't have much trouble emailing the publisher and it's kind of annoying to have my kids learn the wrong things about anything let alone Protestantism

@PeterTurner Why don't you pose it as a historical question vis a vis John Calvin's own view? What I described just now is how Reformed churches NOW operates, not necessarily what John Calvin envisioned.

@PeterTurner My kids are home schooled too, and they also read textbooks similar to yours, but with a Protestant slant (my wife picked them), and I cringed and was rather horrified to see the unfair bias in that book against Catholicism, which taught me that out of any disciplines, History is the most susceptible to narrative manipulation.

The lesson for both of us being: Wikipedia is the cheapest and best material for our kids to learn that nothing is simple when it comes to religion. For those who are interested to learn more, buy one or more books from Wikipedia footnotes, or one of academically-vetted college-level textbooks on church history.

@PeterTurner If I have time, I would love to read that Phillip Campbell Volume 3 and point out the "bias" which will mostly by omission or by false attribution of motivation or oversimplified picture of the historical personages involved.

@PeterTurner To respond in specifics: 1) yes, both Presbyterian and Congregational churches are ruled by elders who would elect a pastor. Maybe only in Presbyterian church that elder is called "presbyter". In a Baptist / CMA church I have been, they are not called "presbyter". 2) on "When a parish is governed by a body of elders..." there are multiple names, not necessarily Presbyterian. Many times it's simply "Church".

@GratefulDisciple It's a more-or-less a middle school textbook so don't expect much - much of the book is attempted to be written as a story. If you really want to pick apart an argument try reading Belloc's take on the reformation archive.org/details/howreformationha0000bell/page/n3/mode/2up

3) "there should be no bishops" This is true. "Church to have no real authority above the parish level". Not true, "real" here is from the point of view of the Catholic notion of authority, i.e. invested in a Person (like a Bishop). In Presbyterian system, the authority comes from collective decision making by representatives sent from below who democratically voted in some kind of annual meetings.

@PeterTurner Thanks for the reference.

@PeterTurner I think the Q is well formed enough. To comment on "pastoral council", the "board of elders" (Congregationalist church's term) is functionally similar although the relationship with the pastor/priest is reversed: "board of elder" can hire / fire pastor even though the pastor usually has a seat in the "board of elder" too. But "pastoral council" seems answerable to the priest assigned by the bishop to the parish.

@PeterTurner What's the process of selecting members of a pastoral council in a Catholic parish? Are deacons, priests, and religious automatically members of the council too?

@GratefulDisciple so I guess my question is, did that come from Calvin and the original reformers or was that something they fell into and then split into Presbyterian and Congregational churches?

@GratefulDisciple vatican.va/archive/cod-iuris-canonici/eng/documents/…. is the canon law reference

@PeterTurner You should include that in the question (original vs. now). Basically, in Protestantism things change a lot. About "some folks here are telling me that this describes Congregationalism" it's more accurate to say "some folks here are telling me that this describes also describes Congregationalism"

@PeterTurner That sounds wise. Parish pastor/priest seems to be the one that most know situation on the ground. Had to laugh at the term "NOrmies".

@GratefulDisciple yeah, I don't mean it pejoratively, I'm a NOrmie most Sundays.

@PeterTurner Good to know it's not. It sounds cute.

As a historical note, not 100% sure though, in Calvin's lifetime there is no such thing as "congregationalism" yet. That form of government came later.

@GratefulDisciple so the hierarchy came first? OK, I would have assumed it was the opposite

Especially after 2 minutes scanning The Institutes of the Christian Religion...

@PeterTurner Not too sure. But city authorities seem to be mingled in church government too.

TBH, I don't know much about the history of church governments. I only observe what's going on in the various churches I attended. What I sense on the ground though, that no-one justify their church government as sanctioned by Institutes of Christian Religion.

@PeterTurner BTW, can you clarify the various titles of a priest in a parish? I have come across Pastor, Rector, Parochial Vicar, etc. The only title that is obvious is Parish Deacon. How about Parish Director; is it the head of the Parish Council?

There is also Associate Pastor, is that the same as Parochial Vicar?

@GratefulDisciple Pastors are like Bishops of their Parish - the Parish span a large geographical area or be a small one in a city. Not all Parishes will have pastors, they have to be ceremoniously installed, so if there's a mixup, you might have a Parochial Administrator for a while, with Parochial Vicars (other priests) to help.

I don't want to make stuff up, but my guess is that an Associate Pastor is more like an Auxiliary Bishop. I've never seen an "Associate Pastor" appointment though.

If there's a Parish Director, my guess is that that is just a position of a lay person that the Pastor hires.

@PeterTurner Example of "Associate Pastor": here. Example of "Parochial Vicar" and "Parish Director": here.

The Parish Council is almost entirely advisory though, they still put on some airs of having some authority, but more-or-less need to do what the priest tells them. Of course, they can probably get the ear of the Bishop a lot better than any random parishioner.

@PeterTurner So authority is only on the Pastor but not Administrator / Vicar, commensurate with visible (ceremonial) installation? How about Rector?

Oh ha, I did ask this a few years ago christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/77928/…

Example of "Pastor", "Rector", and "Associate Pastor" in a parish: here.

@GratefulDisciple You could have a rector at a seminary or a different Catholic institution. We call the houses that a priest lives in a rectory, but that's only a convention I think.

@GratefulDisciple yeah, it'd make sense for a cathedral to have a rector

See how the Bishop is the Pastor of the Cathedral Parish there.

@PeterTurner Would that be equivalent to be Auxiliary Bishop?

No, an Auxiliary Bishop is fully ordained to the order of Bishop (Episcopos)

@PeterTurner Yes, so your explaining Pastor is a "bishop" to a parish makes total sense.

@PeterTurner So what are their different duties in a cathedral parish (rector vs. auxiliary bishop)?

I wonder if the Pope (please pray for him) is technically the Pastor of St. Peter's Basilica.

@PeterTurner Wouldn't that logically follow from his being "Bishop of Rome"?

But yes, I can see how it would be too overwhelming.

@GratefulDisciple This is my guess, but I think it's true because I used to go to Mass at the Cathedral in Madison before it burnt down, I think the Priest who I thought was the Pastor was technically the Rector; he also served as the Bishop's right hand man (which has another name I can't remember).

@PeterTurner ok, will read the answers.

OK. Gotta go. Nice chatting with you. Great that we come away with greater understanding of our respective branches.