How do you answer James White's claim that medieval forgeries were essential to the development of the papacy?
A viewer asks for a good response to James White's claim that medieval forgeries, specifically the pseudo-Isidorian Decretals, were essential to the Church's development of the papacy.
Answer
Get our book, Keys Over the Christian World, by Scott Butler and John Dahlgren, which I edited; look up the pseudo-Isidorian Decretals in the index and you will find the full answer. James White is invested in this because he has to justify following a group of people who came along in the 1500s, fifteen hundred years after the apostles, ignoring fifteen centuries of Bible interpretation, theology, and sacraments. To do that he has to make grandiose accusations that the Church is false, using forged documents and false people, the way the Mormons do; the only way these men can ascend to where they think they belong is to get the Catholic Church out of the way. He becomes his own authority, his own pope, declaring which decrees are false and imagining the Spirit blessed him over everyone who went before him.