Reason for Church Hierarchy
Recently Pope Benedict stated that the hierarchical nature of the Catholic Church was willed by God to ensure unity of faith. The biblical evidence for this is when Christ, after his resurrection, asked Peter if he loved the Lord. After the third and final resigned answer by Peter, Christ asks him to feed his lamb. Feeding His lamb means to ensure that the correct message about and of Jesus’ mission is propagated to all mankind.
Unity of command is also the natural order of things in all social groups. No commercial enterprise, orchestra or family can progress without a single person being in charge. It would be chaos if everyone wants to do his own thing. This wouldn’t be belonging to a group with shared objectives and values.
In a recent Time Magazine issue, there was an article about the reasons for Sunni and Shiate Muslims murdering each other in Iraq and elsewhere. The author points out that the origins of the hatred amongst these groups lie in the fact that Mohammad failed to appoint an heir to succeed him upon his death.
If we contrast the development of Christianity from its beginnings to that of Islam, we can see that it was the leadership of the Popes (with the help of the Holy Spirit) that was the cohesive factor. Without this single leadership role, Christianity would have ended up in heaps under the assault of human pride and attacks from the non-believers, either Jews, pagan Romans or Arians.
Let us today thank God that the Holy Spirit has guided the Catholic Church to stick to the Truth despite the failings of her leaders including sinful Popes. We should also thank God for drawing Christians to the unity that He desires. In fact, despite the schisms that began in the 11th century, Christians have come to forgive each other today. Whereas, the Muslims are still in dispute with each other although their acrimonious relationship started before Christianity’s mutual excommunications.
The glue that holds or brings Christians together is the concept of Love and Forgiveness, which doesn’t exist in Islam. Islam believes in self-honor and avenging wrongs. During this Lent, let’s practice the virtue of forgiveness and love.
