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Originally Posted by Sage of Earth
Since the Pope is using authority that the Church itself has invented, and which is stated nowhere in the Bible, he is abusing authority that was never given to him in the first place by the religion he so claims to be upholding.
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Matthew 16:19 "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven."
Of course, in the literal Greek, this says something more like "what you shall bind on earth shall already have been bound in heaven...", which is where the doctrines of infallibility arise. What the Church (and specifically Peter, and by extension his successors) declares doctrine is not
made doctrine, but is
already true.
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Since the Pope is also the head of the Catholic church, his existence is, in part (and a large part at that), responsible for the many feuds between Catholics and Protestants, and before that, feuds between the Church and other religions in history.
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Christ is the head of the Catholic Church. The Pope is merely acting in the person of Christ, doing the work He gave to Peter. Prior this would be stated as "vicar of Peter," or "vicar of the principal apostle," but Peter was effectively the vicar of Christ, so the
Vicarius Christi title was adopted to emphasize the role.
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Being one of the most influential people on the planet, if he excommunicates the leader of a nation
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When the Pope "excommunicates" the leader of a nation, he is not, in fact, doing anything at all besides declaring a pre-existing excommunication. Excommunication is merely the commission of a sin that damages or perverts the community of Christ in a substantial way. This would be necessary to declare in the case of prominent public figures in order to clarify the Church's disapproval of their religious practice or political exercise with respect to the Church.