Hi juan,

Pope Benedict XVI is a very intelligent man. I respect him very much for his intellectual achievements-- he's a very good academic.

I also like his sense of style and tradition. Watch carefully whenever he offers Mass. He is doing his best to "re-orient" the Church through his liturgical arrangement. That's why he authored Summorum Pontificum, I think. He wanted the usage of the extraordinary rite of the Mass (the so-called "Latin Mass") to help cross-pollinate and enrich the saying of Paul VI's Mass.

I think it's truly a blessing to have him as Pope.
Why disgust, my friend? In a world which is increasingly secular, you will find that a principled man and able defender of the rationality of Christian faith like Pope Benedict XVI is far more of an ally to you than many other people. Always look for the good, and you will find it. Part of the Christian mission is turning our pre-reflexive disgust for our fellow man into joy in finding Jesus in them-- just as we ought to identify Jesus in the faces of the poor, the imprisoned and the hungry (cf. Matthew 25), why ought we not identify Him in those whom we categorize as spiritually poor, imprisoned and hungry?

"Inherently corrupt?" I think it is a sad reality that any system with people will be inundated with sin, but it is far from inherently corrupt. Disperse the disgust with good Christian love.
Do you agree, then, that Jesus did build His Church on the rock of Peter?

As for the process of succession, surely it only begs the question to assume that it must be in Scripture, doesn't it?
The claim was imprecise. It would be more accurate to say that specific members of the Church wrote the Bible (under divine inspiration). The more important claim is that the Church canonized the Scriptures. It was through the Church's support and recognition that we came to our official understanding of the limit and extent of the canon of Scripture. This is a much more difficult objection, for sola scriptura cannot reach back beyond its origins to determine itself.
Catholics would wholeheartedly agree. Private prayer and devotion is a central pillar of the Catholic spiritual life.
To talk to God? Of course not. But I have a feeling that you mean something else.

Your reasoning here is a bit problematic. Let me explain.

You reason that:

The Pope is a man.
No man is holy.
Therefore the pope has no more religious authority than anyone else.

But we can see that this has several steps, and in fact, several 'hidden' premises within it. Let me try to make them explicit.

P1. The Pope is a man.
P2. No man is holy.
C1: The Pope is not holy.

Now, you seem to suggest that because of this he has no religious authority over anyone else.

So, let's assume:

P3. No [person who is not holy] is [someone who has religious authority over someone else].
P4. (C1) The Pope is a person who is not holy.
C2. Therefore, No [the Pope] is [someone who has religious authority over someone else].

Now that's a valid syllogism!

Now, I would disagree with you on several counts.

P2 is manifestly false. I prove it thus: any person regenerated by God by forgiveness of sins and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is holy. All Christians are such people. Therefore, Christians are holy. One counterfactual claim destroys the premise. Besides, the NT scriptures testify that Elizabeth and Zechariah were "righteous in the eyes of God" (Luke 1:6). James characterizes Elijah as a righteous man (James 5:16-18).

P3 is also false. A person's holiness is quite simply irrelevant to a person's spiritual authority. This error is called the Donatist heresy. Now, you'd agree with me that spiritual authority is given by God as a gift. Hence, spiritual authority depends on the gift of God, and not on the personal ability of the person who received it (after all, it is far beyond his person ability). But if it depends on the gift of God, and not the person's holiness, then P3 is false.

I've undermined both P3 and P4 (C1), which means I have utterly undermined the conclusion.

The real questions to ask are: does God give any special religious authority to men? The answer is: yes. Note the special authority of the apostles, and of the bishops, presbyters and deacons whom they appointed. The next question is, did God give any special religious authority to Peter above the other apostles? The answer seems to be yes, for Peter is recorded as, being 1. called the rock on which the Church is built, 2. is given the power to bind and loose singularly (whereas the apostles are given it only as a group together), 3. is given the keys to the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 16:16-18).
The real question is, "what constitutes the Bible?" While Protestants accuse the Church of adding to Scripture, the Church thinks that it has Scripture in a complete form. That is to say, one could easily fault Protestants for removing Scripture (and the Scriptures also states, as you say, that no part ought to be removed). So it seems that a stalemate will occur if we simply accuse one or the other side of adding to or removing from Scripture. The better path to take would be, what belongs in Scripture and on what basis ought we to ultimately decide this?

-Rob

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