A List of Apologies from the Catholic Church
While surfing YouTube the other day, I randomly ran across the following presentation by Christopher Hitchens:
This got me thinking about the question of priesthood authority in the Judeo/Christian tradition - and, like Forest Gump’s box of chocolates, when I get to thinking, you never know what you're going to get.
In all the catalog of Christian churches in the modern world, there are, in my view, only two who bring to the table reasonable arguments in support of their claims to authentic priesthood authority.
The first and oldest is the Catholic Church. Catholic doctrine maintains (Catholics please correct me if I get anything wrong) that St. Peter was ordained by Jesus as the first pope and that, notwithstanding the dubious behavior of a number of popes along the way (see Catholic author Eamon Duffy's book "Saints and Sinners - A History of the Popes"), the apostolic, papal authority has been successfully transmitted through an unbroken chain of 266 popes from St. Peter to the present pope, Pope Francis. The moral character or behavior of individual popes had no impact on this transmission of priesthood authority. Catholics cite the following scripture - the words of Jesus to Peter - in support of this argument:
"And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." - Matthew 16:18
Again, implicit in the Catholic argument concerning priesthood authority is the reasoning that, though some popes were historically documented to have been grossly wicked by Christian standards - a matter of historical record no informed Catholic disputes (again, see Duffy's book) - priesthood authority nevertheless passed through each of them and on to their successors in the papacy.
What then of the priesthood authority of the panoply of churches that sprang from the Protestant Reformation? There are somewhere between 200 and 5,000 protestant denominations depending on how they are counted. Simply stated, if the Catholic argument on priesthood authority is correct, then that authority always resided exclusively with the Catholic Church and still does today.
Accordingly, if the Catholic argument is correct, all of Protestant Christianity is apostate and without essential priesthood authority. The Protestants themselves have understood this. Even if they were breaking away from a church that had demonstrably become apostate, even if they, as they maintained, were separating themselves from a church whose priesthood authority had become corrupted and invalid, how could they, drawing from a polluted well, lay claim to any valid priesthood authority?
The biblical methodology for conveying priesthood authority is clear - via anointing and laying on of hands - in exactly the way Jesus ordained and authorized his disciples.
St. Paul, speaking of priesthood authority and how it is bestowed, said this to the Hebrews:
"And no man taketh this honor [priesthood authority] unto himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron." - Hebrews 5:4
How did Aaron obtain his priesthood authority? He was called of God, annointed and ordained by the laying on of hands - under the hands of God's prophet, Moses.
Accordingly, the Protestants had to ask, "If we reject Catholic priesthood authority, where does our authority come from?" Where were the empowered hands that might ordain and endow the recalcitrant Protestants with valid priesthood authority, acknowledged by God? The kind of authority Jesus spoke of when he said to his apostles:
"Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." - Matthew 18:18
However valid their arguments might have been against a corrupt Catholic Church, did the Protestants have a Moses or Jesus to lay hands upon them and give them the priesthood power Moses and Aaron held, the authority that Jesus, the Great High Priest, and his ordained apostles held? They did not, and they knew it. They knew from scripture that they could not "take this honor unto themselves". They had to concoct some other idea of priesthood authority.
Accordingly, in CYA mode, of necessity ignoring the ancient order of things, Protestants, bless their hearts, claim their authority somehow comes from the Bible or some obscure and amorphous entity they call “the priesthood of all believers”. Last I checked, the Bible, for all its truth and wisdom, has no hands and can't ordain anybody.
So, in summary, the Catholic argument, if true, neatly dispenses with any claim Protestants might have to priesthood authority, leaving them to scramble around in search of some alternative that doesn’t fit the biblical pattern.
But what if the Protestants were right about the corruption and apostasy of the Catholic Church? What if the Catholic argument concerning the transmission of priesthood authority is not valid? What if, consequent to its rampant corruption, the Catholic Church had forfeited its claim to valid priesthood authority? Where would that leave the whole world in relation to the power of God given to men on earth?
Enter Joseph Smith, a country bumkin with little formal education. In 1820, at fourteen years of age, amidst a Christian revivalist upheaval, he went alone into a forest in upstate New York to seek guidance from God regarding which among the many contending churches he should join. He claimed to have received there a glorious vision of God the Father and his Son Jesus Christ, who called him by name and "spoke to him face to face" as Jehovah did anciently to Moses (Exodus 33:11). During the course of that glorious visitation, Joseph was instructed that he should join no church, for there was none that was teaching the truth. In describing these churches, Jesus said to Joseph:
"They honor me with their words, but their hearts of far from me. They teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof."
As the vision closed, Joseph was again admonished to join no church, but to wait to receive further instructions from heaven.
The rest is history.
In 1829, Smith and his companion, Oliver Cowdry, claimed to have been visited by the resurrected personage, John the Baptist, who laid hands on and ordained them to the lesser priesthood, the Aaronic Priesthood, which gave them the authority to preach and baptize. Shortly thereafter came another visitation by Jesus's resurrected apostles, Peter, James and John, who ordained Joseph and Oliver to the High Priesthood - the same priesthood held by Jesus and the Apostles.
In March, 1830, when Smith was 23 years old, following numerous angelic visitations, he published the Book of Mormon, what he claimed to be the transcription of the history, engraved on gold plates, of an ancient Israelite people who had lived somewhere in America from about 600 BC to 400 AD. The history claimed to contain "a fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ". Around 200 million copies have subsequently been printed.
In April of the same year, Smith founded, with six members, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Today the church has a worldwide membership of more than 17 million.
Between the 1830 and 1844, the year he was assassinated at the age of 38, Smith - then and now regarded by church membership as "The Prophet of the Restoration", a prophet on the order of Moses - received numerous revelations - many purporting to contain the words of God spoken in the first person - concerning church doctrine and administration. These are collected and published in the church's "Doctrine and Covenants.
There's more, but you get the general idea.
But back to the main topic - priesthood authority.
As noted above, quite apart from the conflict in traditional Christianity between the Catholic and Protestant churches on the subject of priesthood authority, if the miraculous events Joseph Smith claimed to have happened did happen - and I believe the evidence that they did happen is overwhelming - then God himself, out of his own mouth, has declared the entire collection of traditional "Christian" churches apostate and without valid authority to act or teach in God's name.
Important to note here this is not a condemnation or rejection of the faith of individual Christians, but of organized, institutional Christian churches in general. Smith wrote the following:
For there are many yet on the earth among all sects, parties, and denominations, who are blinded by the subtle craftiness of men, whereby they lie in wait to deceive, and who are only kept from the truth because they know not where to find it." - Doctrine & Covenants 123:12
As noted, Smith and Cowdery claimed to have been ordained to the Aaronic Priesthood and High Priesthood under the hands of those who held those priesthoods - first John the Baptist and then Peter, James and John, according to the ancient order. Smith and Cowdery then ordained others according to that same order. Every priesthood holder in the LDS Church today can trace his priesthood lineage back to those two ordinations.
But is this modern-day restoration of these ancient orders of priesthood unconditional, as the Catholic Church claims in its argument for having an exclusive, direct link to priesthood authority back through a rough-and-tumble history? If there is a dispensation of valid priesthood power, does it always remain, no matter what?
No - and herein lies the great and critical distinction between the two arguments:
The exercise of priesthood authority - God's own authority given to men to act in his name - depends absolutely on the personal righteousness of the priesthood holder.
As recorded in the Doctrine and Covenants, here is what I believe to be the only correct doctrine concerning the exercise of the priesthood authority of God:
"Behold, there are many called, but few are chosen. And why are they not chosen?
"Because their hearts are set so much upon the things of this world, and aspire to the honors of men, that they do not learn this one lesson—
"That the rights of the priesthood are inseparably connected with the powers of heaven, and that the powers of heaven cannot be controlled nor handled only upon the principles of righteousness.
"That they may be conferred upon us, it is true; but when we undertake to cover our sins, or to gratify our pride, our vain ambition, or to exercise control or dominion or compulsion upon the souls of the children of men, in any degree of unrighteousness, behold, the heavens withdraw themselves; the Spirit of the Lord is grieved; and when it is withdrawn, Amen to the priesthood or the authority of that man.
"Behold, ere he is aware, he is left unto himself, to kick against the pricks, to persecute the saints, and to fight against God.
"We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion.
"Hence many are called, but few are chosen.
"No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned;
"By kindness, and pure knowledge, which shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy, and without guile -
"Reproving betimes with sharpness, when moved upon by the Holy Ghost; then showing forth afterwards an increase of love toward him whom thou hast reproved, lest he esteem thee to be his enemy;
"That he may know that thy faithfulness is stronger than the cords of death."
- Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Doctrine & Covenants 121:34-44
According to this doctrine, does a someone who is evil but claims to hold the priesthood, or who at one time was ordained to the priesthood but subsequently abandoned its precepts, have any power to pass it along?
In the context of what I have written above, I invite the reader - especially the Catholic reader - to click on the YouTube link below to attend a presentation by Christopher Hitchens to what I assume to be a largely Catholic audience. A high-ranking Catholic prelate is present. As you take in Hitchens' presentation, consider the Catholic theory of priesthood compared to that set forth by Joseph Smith. Which one makes more sense in terms of the letter and spirit of Christian doctrine as you understand it?
Torquemada