Papal Primacy in the First Millennium With Erick Ybarra

Also, see this compilation of the Greek Fathers on the papacy.

From One Peter Five

By Timothy Flanders

Dear OnePeterFive donors, supporters and readers,

It was a joy to recently speak to my long-time friend, Erick Ybarra, about the topic of Eastern Orthodoxy and its claims against the Roman dogmas of Vatican One. This fits in well with the most recent piece we published from Mr. Al Ruhl regarding Catholic Robert Spencer succumbing to the shallow Orthodox apologetics and entering one of the Greek schisms. See all of our articles against the Greek schisms here.

This podcast is very important to show just how much Catholics – despite the uncertainties of our crisis – can have confidence in the dogmas of Roman, Petrine primacy from the first thousand years.

We respectfully but publicly call our Catholic brethren who have chosen the path of Greek schism to cope with our crisis – Rod Dreher, Robert Spencer, Joseph Sciambra and others – to return to the Mystical Body of Christ and the divinely instituted Roman Primacy, for the salvation of their souls, and so that we can all suffer together and overcome together.

As I said in my essay “I Left Eastern Orthodoxy for the Church Led by Pope Francis, and I Don’t Regret It“:

This is the reason why anyone who does not submit to Rome risks his eternal salvation: rejecting Rome is an objective denial of charity. What pervades the Orthodox churches is a pathology, a spirit of unforgiveness destroying charity, which darkens their intellects to reject the papacy and choose schism. They are afflicted by a woundedness that attacks anything Roman only because it is Roman, and they cannot see their own errors.

Now we should hasten to concede to our separated brethren that the Latins (and even Popes, as we discuss) have also fallen into “latinisations” regarding what is Greek in such a way as to be harmful to the Mystical Body. The difference is that these errors on our side can be overcome by those same means exercised by the One Church of the first millennium – the ecumenical, universal apostolic authority of the episcopate, in union with the Roman primacy.

The various Greek schisms have shown themselves incapable of exercising this first millennium power of the Church to resolve their own issues, much less resolve the east-west dispute.

And thus this mark of the Church from the first thousand years in missing on their side.

Mr. Ybarra cuts through the shallow and superficial bad blood (on both sides!) of the past and produces a penetrating analysis of these complex matters. If you are a Catholic who is struggling with his faith in the Roman dogmas as a result of this pontificate and crisis, Mr. Ybarra’s work is essential reading:

The Papacy: Revisiting the Debate Between Catholics and Orthodox

The Filioque: Revisiting the Doctrinal Debate Between Catholics and Orthodox