Contd

As for your stating that the charism of authority given by Christ to St Peter and all his successors and the bishops in communion with him has been enjoyed by them from day one, there is, with respect, a certain naivety in this. It confuses investing of authority with proper exercise of it. History shows that under successive popes and bishops terrible things were done in the name of Christ through abuse of this authority. Which is why divine authority to teach and preach cannot lie solely with the bishops, since denial of this would entail implicit moral acceptance of past (and present) abuses of episcopal authority...and a denial of the need for Pope John Paul II to have apologised, in the year 2000, for the grave moral offences of the papacy and episcopacy in past centuries.