Page 14 - Read and Recognize

The Papacy

secration! Certainly the Apostles did not address Peter as father but as
brother, that is to say as first among them. His word was the law. His
decisions were respected because JESUS ordered it thus. Peter, how-
ever, did never forbid his fellow Apostles either this or that, and lay
claim to them.

As we have written before, GOD appointed and established Peter as
the one who unites, that is, as first among equals. CHRIST also wanted
everything as He ordained it to last for all time, i.e. in this way to be
perpetuated. CHRIST let us know about this explicitly:

Matth. 20,25ff But Jesus called them to him and said: „You know that the
princes of the Gentiles lord it over them and they that are the greater exercise
power upon them. It shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be the
greater among you, let him be your minister. And he that will be first among
you shall be your servant. Even as the Son of man is not come to be minis-
tered unto, but to minister and to give his life a redemption for many.“

But this is really not the case! And even if I criticize here and now the pa-
pacy, in no way the “succession of Peter” as JESUS would have it, but
the man-made royal cult, the papacy thick with ceremonies. Not even
JESUS receives this royal cult when He is made present on the Altar
during the Holy Consecration. But for all that JESUS is the King, yet the
Pope His servant!

The Pope is greeted with a genuflection and a kiss of the ring. However,
at the reception of JESUS (in the Holy Communion) they render HIM not
the least show of reverence!

This has nothing to do with the person of the Pope; among them were
really great Saints, who all, however, (more or less) suffered from this
non-divine constraint introduced by men.
An old story goes that once a hermit living in extreme poverty took
more pleasure in stroking the silky skin of a cat than the holy Bishop
Ambrose did in humbly having to submit to the Church’s sumptuous
pomp and enter a town in all splendour.
So it is not about the person of the Pope but about the papacy bursting
with ceremonies!

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