The Purpose of the Papacy

Purpose of the Papacy, The

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Title: The Purpose of the Papacy
Author: John S. Vaughan
Release Date: July 8, 2005 [EBook #16242]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's
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origin for orgin; and changed the | | case of "sees" to "Sees". |
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THE PURPOSE OF THE PAPACY

BY THE RIGHT REVEREND JOHN S. VAUGHAN, D.D. BISHOP
OF SEBASTOPOLIS
AUTHOR OF "THOUGHTS FOR ALL TIMES," "DANGERS OF
THE DAY" "LIFE AFTER DEATH," ETC., ETC.
"Let us go back to the beginning of the sixteenth century. Either there
was a Church of God then in the world, or there was not. If there was
not, then the Reformers certainly could not create such a Church. It
there was, they as certainly had neither the right to abandon it, nor the
power to remodel it."--J.K. STONE.
London SANDS & CO. 15 KING STREET, COVENT GARDEN
EDINBURGH: 21 HANOVER STREET
ST. LOUIS, Mo., U.S.A.: B. HERDER
1910

INTRODUCTION.
It may seem an impertinence on the present writer's part to indite a
preface to the work of a brother Bishop; and it would be a still greater
one to pretend to introduce the Author of this little book to the reading
public, to whom he is so well and so favourably known by a stately
array of preceding volumes. Nevertheless Bishop Vaughan has been so
insistent on my contributing at least a few introductory lines, that, for
old friendship's sake, I can no longer refuse.
It is a remarkable and outstanding fact that never before in the history
of the Church has the Roman Papacy, though shorn of every vestige of
its once formidable temporal might, loomed greater in the world, ruled
over such vast multitudes of the faithful, or exercised a greater moral
power than at the present day. Never has the conscious unity of the
whole world-wide Church with its Visible Head--thanks to the
marvellous developments of modern means of communication and
transport--been so vivid, so general, so intense as in these times. Not

only does "the Pope's writ run," as we may say, by post and telegraph,
and penetrate to the inmost recesses of every part of the globe, so that
the Holy See is in daily, nay hourly communication with every bishop
and every local Catholic community; but never has there been a time
when so many thousands, nay tens of thousands of Catholic clergy and
laity, even from the remotest lands, have actually seen the Vicar of
Christ with their own eyes, heard his voice, received his personal
benediction. Well may we say to Pius X. as to Leo XIII.: "Lift up thy
eyes round about and see; all these are gathered together, they are come
to thee; thy sons shall come from afar, and thy daughters shall rise up at
thy side. Then shalt thou see and abound, and thy heart shall wonder
and be enlarged, when the multitude of the sea shall be converted to
thee, the strength of the Gentiles shall come to thee" (Isaias, lx. 4, 5).
But not only is the present position of the Papacy thus unique and
phenomenal in the world; as the Author of this little book shows in his
first part, its career across the more than nineteen centuries of the
world's chequered history, from Peter to Pius X., is no less unique and
no less phenomenal. This is a fact which may well rivet the attention,
not of the Catholic alone, but of every thinking man, be he Christian or
non-Christian, and which surely calls for some explanation that lies
beyond and above that of the ordinary phenomena of history. The only
possible satisfactory solution of this problem is the one so concisely,
yet so simply, set forth in the following pages.
The second part is concerned with a more particular aspect of the same
problem, in its relation to the Church in this country, and especially to
that incredible latter-day myth which goes by the name of "the
Continuity Theory". It is difficult to us to realise how such a theory can
possibly be held by thoughtful and earnest men and women who have
even a moderate acquaintance with history.