7 min read 1479 words Updated Sep 05, 2026 Created Sep 05, 2026
#apologetics#ecclesiology#orthodox#papacy

Papal Supreme Authority vs. Liturgical Abuse

The Objection

A personal, sincere message from a Catholic in an ongoing thread, sharing videos of Novus Ordo liturgical abuse. Asks whether you'd attend a Novus Ordo parish, why the Pope — who holds supreme authority — hasn't stopped the priests in the videos, and argues the liturgical abuse itself (not filioque or original sin) is the real impediment to RC–EO union.

Diagnosis

  • Claim (steelmanned): Widespread, uncorrected liturgical abuse in Novus Ordo parishes — which the Pope's supreme authority could in principle stop but visibly hasn't — is a bigger practical impediment to RC–EO union than the doctrinal disputes (filioque, original sin), and this raises the personal question of whether you'd ever attend such a parish.
  • Actually contested: Not liturgical abuse itself, but whether papal supremacy functions the way Rome's own doctrine says it must. He's stumbled onto the Orthodox structural critique of centralized papal monarchy from the inside, without naming it as such.
  • Interlocutor: Honest — sincere, personal, vulnerable question from someone wrestling with scandal in his own communion. No hostile tells.
  • Fallacies: None rising to formal fallacy — this is candid grief plus a direct question, not an argument being pressed on you.

Where It Goes Wrong

He's treating the gap between claimed supreme authority and actual on-the-ground correction as an implementation failure — a good office, badly staffed. It's actually a structural problem: Vatican I claims the Pope holds immediate, universal, ordinary jurisdiction over every diocese and parish on earth — not an honorary title, an actual governing power reaching down to the parish level. If that power is real, its chronic non-exercise across thousands of parishes for decades isn't a personnel problem, it's evidence the claim itself overstates what any single human office can actually deliver.

The Orthodox Position

Orthodoxy never stakes ecclesial unity on one man's capacity to police every altar. Authority is held collegially — a bishop governs his own diocese, is accountable to his synod, and the whole Church tests reception of teaching and practice over time (conciliarity). Orthodoxy has never promised what he's discovering Rome can't deliver either: liturgical abuse and bad priests exist in Orthodox parishes too, and no single office magically prevents that. Orthodoxy doesn't found its identity on the claim that concentrating supreme jurisdiction in one man guarantees purity of worship — so watching that claim fail on the ground isn't a scandal that unsettles Orthodox ecclesiology, whereas it does unsettle the very thing Vatican I promised.

On the personal question: as an Orthodox Christian you would not commune at a Novus Ordo Mass — a different Eucharistic communion, not a matter of rite preference (the same holds for a reverent Eastern Rite/Byzantine Catholic liturgy despite closer aesthetic resemblance). Attending without communing (a family wedding, a funeral) is handled through pastoral discretion (oikonomia) in many jurisdictions rather than a flat rule, and varies by priest and situation — worth asking your own priest directly rather than treating this as settled guidance.

Scriptural Ground (OSB/LXX)

  • Galatians 2:11 — Paul publicly opposes Peter to his face over his conduct at Antioch. Even granting Peter's unique place among the apostles, correction came from a fellow apostle standing his ground, not from Peter's office self-correcting from within.
  • Matthew 18:15-17 — Christ's instruction for dealing with unrepented fault runs through direct address, then witnesses, then "tell it to the church" (the local assembly) — a graduated, local, communal process, not a single universal office of last resort.
  • Acts 15:13-21 — the apostolic council resolves a real doctrinal-practical crisis (Gentile circumcision) collegially, James presiding, not through one man's unilateral ruling.

Patristic Witness (verified)

  • St. Cyprian of Carthage, De Unitate Ecclesiae 5 — "the episcopate is one, and each bishop holds a part of it in solidum [as a whole]" — authority is distributed across the collegial episcopate, not concentrated in one see as the mechanism guaranteeing unity or purity.
  • Third Council of Constantinople (680–681), accepted by Rome — posthumously condemned Pope Honorius I as a monothelite heretic. The historical version of exactly what he's describing now: a "supreme" office failing to stop doctrinal corruption, requiring correction from the wider conciliar Church rather than fixing itself from within. (Sourced in source_dyer_sspx_ordinary_magisterium and orthodox_vs_catholicism_debate_prep.)

Their Inconsistency

He affirms the Pope holds supreme authority sufficient to stop this — while personally handing over video evidence, plural, of it going unstopped for years. If supreme authority reliably fails to reach the parish level in practice, the honest move is to ask whether it was ever structured to, not to file each new instance as one more disappointing exception. Rome's own current internal crisis runs the same fault line from the opposite direction — Denzinger 1683/1698/1722/1792 and Canon 752 bind Catholics to submit even to non-infallible ordinary teaching, which is precisely why SSPX-aligned and sedevacantist Catholics feel entitled to reject correction they dislike while liberal parishes ignore correction in the other direction. One office, two directions of uncorrected drift — that's what happens when unity is staked on a single juridical center rather than a living conciliar tradition. (source_dyer_sspx_ordinary_magisterium)

What They'll Say Next

Likely: "That's abuse of the office, not the office itself — a bad pope doesn't disprove what a good pope could do." Response ready: Orthodoxy makes the identical office/officeholder distinction at the level of a bishop or synod — a bad bishop doesn't disprove episcopal authority either. This move doesn't rescue papal centralization as a structural advantage over conciliarity; it concedes that concentrating supreme power in one man is exactly as fragile against a bad occupant as any other office, quietly giving up the "we have a mechanism you lack" claim that was the point of the concentration.

Charity Check

He's not attacking — he's grieving something real and asking a direct, vulnerable question. Lead with the personal answer and genuine acknowledgment that what's in the videos is a real wound, not a talking point to win. Keep the structural observation brief, non-triumphalist, framed as "Orthodoxy has thought about this too," not a scoreboard. He offered links in good faith; nothing here should read as gloating over Rome's crisis.

Vault Gaps (queue for /apologetics-gap)

  • No dedicated note on Orthodox practice/economia regarding attending non-Orthodox liturgical services (weddings, funerals) without communing — filled 2026-08-06: concept_oikonomia_attending_non_orthodox_services.
  • No note directly addressing Orthodox parish-level liturgical abuse/scandal for honest comparative reference (avoid a "we don't have this problem" overclaim).
  • Denzinger 1683/1698/1722/1792/1830 citations used here on the strength of source_dyer_sspx_ordinary_magisterium's summary — not independently re-verified against primary Denzinger text this session; re-check before quoting numbers publicly.

Draft Reply Used

To answer directly: no, I wouldn't commune at a Novus Ordo Mass — that's a different Eucharistic communion, not really about rite (I'd say the same of a reverent Eastern Rite/Byzantine Catholic liturgy, even though it looks closer to home). Attending without communing, for something like a family wedding, is something a lot of Orthodox handle case-by-case with their priest rather than by hard rule — genuinely worth asking your own priest that, not me.

On the bigger question — I think you've actually put your finger on something real, just aimed it at the wrong target. If the Pope really holds the kind of immediate, universal jurisdiction Vatican I claims, reaching down to every parish, then this isn't happening despite that authority, it's happening under it, for years, across many parishes. At some point that's not "bad luck with personnel," it's evidence that no single human office can actually deliver what's being claimed for it. Even in Rome's own history — an ecumenical council Rome accepts, Constantinople III in 681, condemned a pope, Honorius, as a heretic. The "supreme office" needed a correction from outside itself even then.

That's actually the Orthodox answer to your question too: we don't stake unity on one man being able to police every altar. Authority is collegial — a bishop over his diocese, answerable to his synod, tested by what the whole Church receives over time. That doesn't mean Orthodox parishes are immune to bad priests or bad liturgy — they aren't — but we've never claimed a single office guarantees otherwise, so watching that claim strain under its own weight isn't a scandal for us the way it is for a system that promised it.

Sources Drawn On

Engagement Log

  • 2026-08-06 — private message thread — honest — "would you attend Novus Ordo? why hasn't the Pope stopped these priests? liturgical abuse is a bigger impediment than filioque/original sin" — drafted reply, not yet posted