Papal system

This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.

The papal system is the name given to the system of Christian church sovereignty in the Catholic Church as it has developed since the beginnings of the bishops of Rome.

As early as the 2nd century , the Christian church was of the opinion that the bishops were the successors of the apostles and that the office of bishop was a divine basis for the church constitution . Since the 4th century , the idea has been linked that Peter was given a special priority among the apostles and that this priority was passed on to his successors in the Roman episcopate, see also under Pope .

The Tridentine Council finally legislated these beliefs, especially in response to the Reformation . The relationship between the bishopric and the papacy was fluctuating for a long time in doctrine and practice. The theories referred to as the episcopal system and the papal system are linked to this. The old primatus honoris of the popes gradually became, but in different parts of Christianity at different epochs, a concrete priority of power ( primatus jurisdictionis ). In the West this primacy of power only asserted itself at the time of the Carolingians .

The forgery of the pseudoisidor was of great importance for the formation of the papal system . The continued effect of the tendencies of Pseudoisidor led to the highest development of the papal system from Gregory VII to Innocent III. and then up to Boniface VIII. Between 1075 and 1300 the papacy ruled the West and large parts of the Orient. The bishops were merely officials and governors of the Pope.

The reform councils since the beginning of the 15th century represent a sharp reaction against the papal system . After overcoming this reaction, the actual restoration of the papal system in the medieval sense took place at the Tridentine council , which was only contradicted in France . Here, following the Basel Council, a form of the episcopal system was established in the form of Gallicanism , which was closely connected with the state authority (the monarchy) and which restricted the Pope to the old primatus honoris until the French Revolution . It was only after the Revolution that the papal system was enforced in France by Napoléon Bonaparte , with which the country was then incorporated into the universal papal system.

The papal system reached its last climax through the dogmas of the First Vatican Council on the primacy of jurisdiction and the infallibility of the Pope.

The Old Catholicism and the Reformation put the papacy in history.