I'll confess that I suspect some gossip has ensued. Or I felt setup. Not in a premeditated way: she took an opportunity and wasted no time.
Reading "So What's the Difference?" ... never heard of it ... comparative religion ... monotheism and the branches of Christianity ... whispering ... are, um, none of you are Catholic, are you?
Did she look full in my direction when she asked? Really not anonymous anymore.
Where in the Bible does it say that we need priests to act as intercessors?
She suggests the special Peter material in Matthew and the rehabilitation material in John 21 as possible scriptural foundations for a papacy. Then she paraphrases Ridenour's book that Peter never served in such a leadership role. If she bothered to check, Fr. Raymond Brown, SS, offers a similar disclaimer *(see note below) ... requiescat in pace.
I wasn't in the mood to explain or defend, so I let her talk. When she asked me if there was a reason for a priesthood in Catholicism, I said, "Yes, there probably is" and then I talked about something else.
But not something else entirely. Something related. At least I think it's related. And it's this:
Whenever a Christian group wants to discredit another Christian group, the charge of innovation is leveled. The Orthodox accuse the Western Church of innovation. The Reformation sought to leave off the innovations of the medieval Church and return to the Scriptures. The Orthodox priest will tell you that they haven't changed since the 5th century** ... you look at them and you believe it!
But I am comfortable with development. The thinking of previous generations fuels our understanding. The Renaissance gave the Reformers historical perspective by which to lay hold of an even earlier period.
I was thinking "progress" but I didn't dare say "progress".
The woman who asked said she loved the old hymns but can now appreciate more contemporary worship music. I hadn't in mind this type of development, but at least she was trying to relate my words to her own experience.
No doubt, she has more issues with Catholicism that she would like to discuss. Maybe she will some other time.
* actually, Fr. Brown's words are more nuanced than I suggest from his Introduction to the New Testament, page 221-222: "this Petrine passage can be set alongside Luke 22:31-32 and John 21:15-17 as evidence that in the Gospels written in the last third of the 1st century, after Peter's death, he was remembered as a figure whom Jesus had assigned a special role in support of other Christians. This NT evidence is a manifestation of what many theologians call the Petrine function in the ongoing church. Obviously it was a major step from that NT picture to the contention appearing later in history that the bishop of Rome is successor to Peter. That development would have been facilitated by various factors [...] Christians today are divided, mostly along denominational lines, on whether the development of the papacy should be considered as God's plan for the church; but given the NT evidence pertinent to the growth of the image of Peter, it is not easy for those who reject the papacy to portray the concept of a successor to Peter as contradictory to the NT."
** I exaggerated. I don't know how well my listeners know history ... I'm not even sure they are familiar with Orthodox Christianity (a beautiful Wiki page, btw)!
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