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#8213
Anonymous
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[quote:1bsxre75]There have been pretty bad Popes and thank God they were too busy sinning to have any impact on the Church.[/quote:1bsxre75]

Yup, something the Church has not tried to hide. Rather it points out our human frailty and need for grace. It also shows the distinction between the individual, and the office. Peter (just for giggles lets set aside his post as first Pope) as an Apostle was chosen by Christ Himself. Our Lord knew Peter’s shortcomings, knew he would deny Him, but he sought out this lowly, poorly educated, rough fisherman, and told him that he would become a fisher of men. Peter travelled with Jesus during His public ministry, he heard our Lord preach. When the discourses where done, he was taken aside with the other Apostles and explained in greater detail what it was the Jesus said to the crowd, (the first seminary) he ate, slept, and joined Jesus in prayer. Jesus knowing Peter’s human side, all his human weakness, still appointed him to the office of Apostle, still laid hands on him and breathed on him and told him that who’s sins he forgave where forgiven. Jesus told Peter that those who heard him, (Peter) heard me, (Jesus) all the time knowing that in his day to day capacity as a man, entrusted with the office of Apostle he could err. So we can plainly see that the authority, and charisms that are entrusted to the man, are gifts that Christ shares with him, and are based on the office entrusted not on the worthiness of the individual man. It is this principle that is followed in the Sacraments. We do not merit any grace simply by our reception of the Sacraments, any merit we gain is based on the Sacraments being a work of Christ, a channel or means instituted by Christ for us to receive the Graces He merited. The Sacraments (as we started out with discussing Peter and his office of Apostle, in this case the Sacrament is Holy Orders) are works of Christ, in these works, He (Christ) uses outward signs, and human beings who preform the actions but in there very essence it is Christ who both preforms the action, and supplies the spiritual or internal Graces that the outward actions signify. Our role in the Sacraments is to cooperate with Christ and His Grace which He imparts through our cooperation with Him by following His commands. (Go therefore and baptize. Do this as an anamenis of Me. etc)