How did the Church come into being?
For an answer, we helpless Goans and other Asians have to depend on the
wisdom of the Europeans & their institutions.
Here is what an American Archdiocese (of St Paul) has to say:
By his Cross, Jesus gave birth to the Church. The origin and growth of
the Church are symbolized by the blood and water which flowed from the
open side of the crucified Jesus.
The Holy Spirit revealed the Church at Pentecost, empowering the
Apostles to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
[So where is this mysterious Spirit to be found? Does he live in London
or Mapusa? Such questions must not be asked.
We Asians must just believe whatever the wise ones of the West say.]
NOW FOR SOME HISTORY:
The New Testament began with the letters of St Paul from about 48 CE
until his death by Roman Emperor Nero in 64 CE.
When Paul died, not a single Gospel had been written. Paul was a
controversial figure and a reading of Galatians shows that he clashed
with Peter and the Jerusalem church leaders. There are irreconcilable
differences between Paul’s views and the account in the Book of Acts
(supposedly about Paul’s work). Paul never mentions Jesus’ supernatural
birth and has a different idea of his resurrection.
The official Church piously believes that Peter was Bishop of Rome but
nobody has said so and there is no document as evidence.
Let's move a few centuries ahead.
Innocent I became Pope in 401. He was the son of the previous pope,
Anastasius I (399-401).
The Church at the time preached that babies who died without baptism (a
Catholic ritual) went to hell for all eternity. But other Popes went
further. They believed that if baptized babies died without communion,
they went straight to hell.
SOME WEIRD EVENTS
In the closing years of the 9th century, rival factions battling for the
Chair of St Peter brought chaos to Rome. In 896 the deranged Pope
Stephen VII (belonging to one faction) decided to unearth the 9-month
old corpse of a Corsican predecessor, Pope Formosus (891-96) who had
belonged to another faction. He had the corpse dressed in full papal
robes and placed on the throne in the Lateran palace. He then proceeded
to interrogate ‘him’ personally. Formosus was charged with becoming pope
under false pretences.
After being found guilty by the Synod, the corpse was stripped of all
but a hair-shirt clinging to the withered flesh. The two fingers used to
give the apostolic blessing were hacked off. The body was dragged
through the palace and hurled on to the mob in the streets. They in turn
dragged it to the river Tiber and flung it in. The corpse held together
by the hairshirt was recovered by Formosus’ supporters and given a
decent burial. It was eventually returned to its tomb in St Peter’s.
Later in the same year 896 Stephen himself was siezed and strangled. His
supporters elected a certain Cardinal Sergius as pope while the opposing
party elected one of their own. In the violence that followed, Sergius
and his supporters were chased out of the city. Over the next 12 months,
four more popes (among them Romanus and Theodore II) scrambled onto the
bloodstained Chair of St Peter, maintaining themselves precariously for
a few weeks (or even days) before being hounded out.
The first pope of the 10th century was Benedict IV (900-03). His
successor, Leo V, reigned for just one month when he was seized and
imprisoned by a usurper, Cardinal Christopher. Meanwhile Cardinal
Sergius who had tried for the papal office some seven years earlier now
tried again. His supporters got both Leo and Christopher murdered and
their leader became Pope Sergius III in 904.
Sergius decided to honour Pope Stephen VII with a handsome epitaph and
to overturn the judgement that had re-instated Pope Formosus’ character.
In fact, Sergius had Formosus, now ten years dead, re-exhumed and
condemned once again. The corpse was then beheaded, three more fingers
cut off and thrown into the river Tiber. The headless body was caught in
a fisherman’s net and returned a second time to St Peter’s.
[MORE PAPAL DRAMA TO COME]
Eddie
