If So Many Mediators, Why Only One Pope?

Published on by D. G. Hart

Here is part of Charles Pope’s (real name) response to a Protestant who insists that the Bible teaches that Christians have only one mediator, Jesus Christ:

Rather we speak of a subordinate mediation when we seek the prayers of the saints, or of one another. For indeed we could have no communion with them or each other if it be not for Jesus Christ, who as the head of the Body the Church, unites all his members and facilitates our communion with each other.

You seem to speak of there being one mediator in an absolute sense, excluding any other possible interaction or any subordinate mediation. But Consider, that if there is only one mediator in the absolute sense you say, then you ought never again to ask ANYONE to pray for you. Neither should you attend any church, read any book, listen to any sermon or even read the Bible (since the Bible mediates Jesus words to you).

Now, a “mediator” is someone or something that acts as a kind of go-between, as something which acts to facilitate our relationship with Jesus. And though Jesus mediates our relationship to the Father, he also asked Apostles, preachers and teachers to mediate, to facilitate his relationship with us.

Thus Jesus sent apostles out to draw others to him. And St. Paul says, How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ. (Rom 10:14-15, 17) And thus Jesus has his relationship with us mediated through his Word, and through the apostles and others who announce that Word and draw us to him.

But since you say there is absolutely only ONE mediator, and no subordinate or deputed mediators, there is therefore no need to ask ANYONE or ANYTHING to mediate. So burn your Bible, stop asking anyone to pray for you, seek no advice, NO ONE can mediate a single thing to you Gerry. No one can do this because there is, as you say in an unqualified sense, absolutely only ONE mediator. ONE!

Aside from the squishy word play (Framelike) which takes one sense of interacting with other believers (including a very porous idea of speaking to dead saints) and using that to justify prayers to dead, I wonder if Pope would be that expansive in explaining papal supremacy. In other words, why be so particular with the authority of one particular bishop and not equally particular about the work of Christ? Inquiring minds and all that.

26 thoughts on “If So Many Mediators, Why Only One Pope?”

  2. I suggest that some of these stressed out defenders of Rome take a vacation/pilgrimage to Medjugorje in beautiful Bosnia where the Marian apparitions appear to certain people (mediators?) on a regular schedule. Much more exciting than a BOOK and going to church every Sunday.

    http://www.medjugorje.org/

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  4. Medjugorje does not have papal approval but it runs wild anyway — one of top Catholic sites in the world. So much for mechanisms. Fundies will find plenty to relate to in this:

    Our Lady continues to give messages to six people from the village of Medjugorje: Ivan, Jakov, Marija, Mirjana, Vicka, and Ivanka. These six people (referred to as “visionaries”) have received apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary since June 24, 1981. In addition to Her public messages, Our Lady is to give each of the six visionaries a total of ten “secrets” or happenings that will occur on earth in the near future. Some of the secrets pertain to the whole world while others concern the visionaries themselves or the local village. Only one of the secrets has so far been revealed by the visionaries. In the third secret Our Lady has promised to leave a supernatural, indestructible, and visible sign on the mountain where she first appeared. Our Lady said: “This sign will be given for the atheists. You faithful already have signs and you have become the sign for the atheists. You faithful must not wait for the sign before you convert; convert soon. This time is a time of grace for you. You can never thank God enough for His grace. The time is for deepening your faith, and for your conversion. When the sign comes, it will be too late for many.”

    http://www.medjugorje.org/overview.htm

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  10. In Florida, it has not been uncommon for people to see the Blessed Virgin reflected in office buildings windows and flock there. It’s our version of finding a potato chip that looks like Mary in the Ruffles bag and then selling it on eBay.

    You’d think Rome would crack down on this stuff. But she doesn’t. Of course, this is the same group whose weekly miracle cannot possibly be verified, even though when Jesus healed people, you could tell something happened.

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  11. Kenneth, what’s so silly? To say Christ is the sole mediator is not to deny human intercession. But how does one go from affirming human intercession to co-redemption? But if it helps, some Protestants take greater comfort in knowing the Holy Spirit prays for them even when he’s not petitioned.

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  12. Amen, Zrim.

    Kenneth, so Jesus the Mediator prayed to the Father, preached to the lost. So prayer and preaching now define what it means to mediate? Jesus prayed for his people and I also pray… he’s the Mediator, so I must be an under-mediator when I pray for someone? And now all the functions of the members of Christ’s body are examples of mini-mediation? And to mediate is to facillitate?? Where’s the dictionary?! To pray is to mediate? To teach is to mediate? To encourage another is to mediate?

    In Rome all is mediation after a kind, I guess… Really, don’t you think this argument by Pope is little more than a conflating and blurring of distinctions or simply defining mediation down?

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  13. Mike Horton, People and Place, p 203– In Christ language throughout Ephesians is unmistakably concerned with participation, but it is the kind of koinania that obtains between covenant partners–who remain partners even in union as the marriage analogy suggests. The husband and wife becoming one flesh can hardly mean fusion or assimilation.

    Horton: “Although Reformed theology also appeals to the totus Christus motif without scruple, it is always connected with the historical economy: sharing in Christ’s death and resurrection, so that what has happened to Jesus will also happen to us. Christ is the representative head in a covenant, not the “corporate personality” in whom his own identity as well as ours is surrendered to the whole.”

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  14. Paul Zahl (a short systematic): God become flesh in Jesus Christ two thousand years ago, but where is he now? He is “present in his absence,”Jesus is not present among us in the same way that he was bodily present to his disciples two thousand years ago. His ascension brings us an experience of absence, despite our Lord’s promise to be present with us to the end of the age.,

    Zahl: We might want to interpret Christ’s absence through a theology of the cross. “He deserves to be called a theologian,” Martin Luther tells us in his Heidelberg Disputation, “who comprehends the visible and manifest things of God seen through suffering and the cross.” In Luther’s theology of the cross the hiddenness of God is grounded in the creator’s free decision to hide himself in the world he has made—and most particularly in those events and objects that sinners find most humiliating and inglorious. God confronts sinners in their pride and self-righteousness by revealing himself in weakness and suffering, in those things that are opposite to himself .

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  15. Andrew Purves, The Crucifixion of Ministry, IVP, 2007, p57—“Making the incarnation something that we do can easily assume that the living Christ is not present and active. But it is Christ’s ministry that is
    primary, for His ministry alone is redemptive.”

    quotation from Todd Billings, “A Critique of Incarnational Ministry”, in Union with Christ,, Baker, 2011

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  17. Glenn Kenny at Ebert.com gave “Inside Llewyn Davis” four stars and said it could be their best movie yet.

    I wanted to see it last night, but I must live in a cultural backwater since it wasn’t here yet.

    I saw “Don Jon” instead for $1 and thought it was interesting. It had some good insights into the Roman Catholic penitential system. The system doesn’t do much to help the protagonist avoid sin.

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  18. re. TomWoods’podcast (linkabove)

    If the pope decides that a topic is sufficiently “faith-and-morals,” then isn’t the RC faithful obligated to sit down and shut up?

    I didn’t hear a word on economics I disagreed with from TW. And in fact I completely “get” the (artificial) RC distinction regularly made between criticism in one kind (OK) and in the other (notOK). It’s what allows there to be any intellectual ferment among their ranks at all.

    But in the end, TW doesn’t get to decide how far his dissent is allowable. I wonder: would TW would “pull a Galileo” if he was called on that carpet? If told his life was on the line for his economic stance, would he too publicly recant? How much a disciple of truth is he really?

    TW and JATC are both remarkably (on their chosen turf) protestant about their catholicism. Each protests his own conviction against the pope. In the end, Romanism is ultimately about submission to the church, whenever wherever it demands it. That’s why we’ve rightly called it Papistry for 500yrs.

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  21. The Des Moines Register editorial page, fully committed to Liberalism, ran glowing articles on Pope Francis’ recent pontificating on economics. This does not make me want to heed the Call. Maybe my paradigm is all wrong but I’m not in favor of giving all my money to (allegedly) well-meaning government bureaucrats who will ensure that life is fair.

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  22. In the end, Romanism is ultimately about submission to the church, whenever wherever it demands it. That’s why we’ve rightly called it Papistry for 500yrs.

    And there it be.

    Well put.

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  23. Thomas Woods throws out vast quantities of Roman Catholic teachings because it disagrees with his other faith, Austrian economic rationalism.Yet he believes he very orthodox because he wants his liturgy in Latin. He is a runaway from Lutheranism and really ought to go back there, for his own good.

    Woods sold his birthright for a pot of message.

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  24. RE: TW, I’ve interacted with Jeff Tucker, another anarcho-capitalist (like myself) Latinophilic Catholic (not like myself) associated with the Mises Institute (not like myself).

    On one hand, they’ll say, yes, statist economic policies are *immoral*. However, when you say, hey, Pope Whoever (so many to choose from) is advocating, as a matter of *morals*, this statist economic policy …

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  25. Whoa, Woods was born a Lutheran? Didn’t know that.
    Very interesting. Ron Paul, who he um has (ghost)written for, started out the same, but is a Baptist, now – I think.
    But Woods is another knee jerk “the early church is the Roman church” proponent.
    He should stick to his expertise.

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  26. The Pope and Philomena

    http://amestrib.com/opinion/joan-vennochi-pope-church-and-real-philomena

    Just as Pope Francis promotes the image of a kinder, gentler Roman Catholic Church, along comes “Philomena’’ to remind the world of another chapter in church history that is anything but warm and fuzzy.

    The movie — based on a true story — stars acclaimed British actress Judi Dench as an Irish woman named Philomena Lee who becomes pregnant at age 18 in the 1950s and is sent to a convent in Roscrea, Ireland, that takes in unwed mothers. She gives birth to a son, who at age 3 is adopted by wealthy American parents. Philomena has no chance to say goodbye. Watching her son peer out the back window of a departing car is her last glimpse of him.

    Martin Sixsmith, a British journalist, chronicled the saga in “The Lost Child of Philomena Lee: A Mother, Her Son and a Fifty Year Search.” It’s one of thousands of cases involving unwed mothers in Ireland. Viewed by the church as sinners, these young women were forced to sign away parental rights. Church officials deny “baby-selling’’ allegations, but the children ended up with families who contributed generously to the church.

    As with the sexual abuse scandal, the church is once again cast as cold and heartless, determined to hide the truth of what is going on. The nuns who oversee the heart-rending process of taking children from mothers seem especially cruel.

    After a New York Post critic described “Philomena’’ as “another hateful attack on Catholics,” the real Philomena Lee, who is now 80, responded with a letter which stresses her continuing Catholic faith. Her letter and excerpts from the Post critique were featured last week in a full-page ad in the New York Times that was placed by the movie’s Hollywood distributor.

    “Decide for yourself,” the ad blares to potential movie-goers.

    I’m no film critic, but it’s hard to describe Dench’s performance as anything but riveting, even if some comedic touches seem a little patronizing. As the real Philomena told the New York Times, “They really make me look like a silly billy, don’t you think?”

    As far as Catholic-bashing, it’s not. It’s truth-telling.

    Tragically, Philomena is never reunited with her son. When he was dying of AIDS in 1995, he tried to find her in Ireland, but, as Lee told the Times, “The nuns told him that I had abandoned him when he was 2 weeks old. He believed that his whole life. I have to live with that.”

    He donated money, so the nuns agreed to bury him at Roscrea. Philomena learned what happened after he died. Yet, still she retains her faith. In the movie, there’s a pivotal scene where she forgives the nun who blocked her son from finding her. It’s Steve Coogan, the actor who plays journalist Sixsmith, who says he can’t forgive what happened. And neither could I.

    Understanding that the movie fictionalizes some parts of Philomena’s story, there’s still enough truth in it to enrage Catholics, lapsed and practicing. It’s another illustration of moral rigidity from a church that too often in the recent past has been at odds with Christian principles of compassion and mercy.

    “Philomena’’ comes in the midst of a very successful effort by Pope Francis to soften the image of a church obsessed with below-the-belt morality issues. His every utterance seduces a receptive media, whether he is denouncing trickle-down economics, gently scolding “sourpusses,” or emphasizing the need for universal access to health care and education.

    When it comes to church history as depicted in ”Philomena,” Pope Francis cannot change it. But he could call it for what it was.

    Joan Vennochi can be reached at vennochi@globe.com.

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