Papal Primacy: From Its Origins to the Present (Theology)

Rating:
Summary: An excellent overview
Review: I strongly recommend Klaus Schatz "Papal Primacy" for any who want balanced overview of the history of primacy in the papacy. While maintaining the validity of Catholicism's current perception of the papacy, Schatz attempts to mark out the road that lead to this understanding with honesty and impartiality towards its adversaries. Of additional value are the extensive footnotes Schatz uses to document his account. These are useful in their own right for any interested in doing further research into the foundational primary and secondary texts.

Briefly, he organizes the primacy history around the theme of a central concept of raw and largely undefined initial primacy that then goes through subsequent historical interpretations, including the conversion of aristocratic Rome, the Germanic migration into Europe, Feudalism, the rise of absolute monarchism, and then the enlightenment and modernity, each with its own perception of what that primacy meant. Through this churning kaleidoscope of historical context, he records the contests the papacy had for supremacy in the Church with the Roman empire, other episcopal sees in both the East and West, Western European kingdoms and conciliarism, with the culmination of its victory over these various forces in Vatican I.

Vatican II is viewed very much as a work in progress, and with its integration with Vatican I still in doubt, Klaus ends with a note of caution that its efforts to rebalance Catholic ecclesiology with greater collegiality and a communio based ecclesiology are in danger of being perceived in opposition to Vatican I with a renewal the sorts of contests that ultimately rejected Gallicanism in favor of Ultramontanism.

Rating:
Summary: Refreshing work of European scholarship
Review: Schatz brings a refreshing work of outstanding historical scholarship and theological analysis on the development of the primacy, unlike his North American counterparts. He assumes a Catholic readership and a basic background of patristics and church history. He avoids the common historical pitfalls that are typical of current polemical discussions, where even Catholic apologists sometimes hastily introduce modern concepts into the early developments of the Church. Rather, he asks how the standards for Church unity were established and what the significance of the Roman church was in that context?