Can Papal Supremacy be relinquished?
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Papal primacy belongs to the very nature of the Church. No one can change how Christ Himself constituted His Church.
The First Vatican Council defined (Pastor Æternus ch. 2) the dogma that there will be a perpetual line of successors of St. Peter, the first pope, with "Primacy over the universal Church":
If, then, any should deny…that blessed Peter should have a perpetual line of successors in the Primacy over the universal Church…: let him be anathema.
Si quis ergo dixerit, non esse … ut beatus Petrus in primatu super universam Ecclesiam habeat perpetuos successores…: anathema sit.
(taken from my answer here)
Thus primacy is also perpetual.
Upvote:0
No, he cannot, or at least, he can't without saying that the past two-hundred years of Catholic theology is wrong.
Either the Pope has the power of infallibility or he does not. If he does, then he cannot renounce it because he has it by the nature of his position (it is part of his office as established by Christ). If he does not, then both Vatican councils are wrong (as they explicitly proclaim that he does), and it is likely that 14 of the Catholic Ecumenical Councils will need to be revised or rejected (as they were done without the inclusion of the Eastern Patriarchs).
It is not, however, impossible for the Pope to "retire" and leave the seat vacant. So long as the See of Peter is vacant, there is no one to take up claim to Papal Infallibility.
All of that said, there are more issues involved in the schism than just the infallibility of the Pope.
On Jurisdiction
So, based on the comments below, I've been asked to expand this answer to relate to jurisdictional questions. My understanding is that this situation already exists. Namely, that the Pope does have a certain level of jurisdictional control over the Eastern Catholic churches, and Pope John Paul II did create a loose framework called Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, but that they have the right to create their own set of canons amending these canons and are specifically encouraged to do so.
Could a future Pope assert some sort of dominance over the Eastern Churches? Yes. Is that likely? No.
The Orthodox, as a whole, are still uninterested in full communion.
Upvote:0
The quick answer is no; the Roman Catholic Church will never relinquish papal supremacy. The reason is because of its asserting same over near 2,000 years. Here is its Catechism formulation.
552 Simon Peter holds the first place in the college of the Twelve;283 Jesus entrusted a unique mission to him. Through a revelation from the Father, Peter had confessed: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Our Lord then declared to him: "You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it."284 Christ, the "living Stone",285 thus assures his Church, built on Peter, of victory over the powers of death. Because of the faith he confessed Peter will remain the unshakable rock of the Church. His mission will be to keep this faith from every lapse and to strengthen his brothers in it.286
553 Jesus entrusted a specific authority to Peter: "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."287 The "power of the keys" designates authority to govern the house of God, which is the Church. Jesus, the Good Shepherd, confirmed this mandate after his Resurrection: "Feed my sheep."288 The power to "bind and loose" connotes the authority to absolve sins, to pronounce doctrinal judgments, and to make disciplinary decisions in the Church. Jesus entrusted this authority to the Church through the ministry of the apostles289 and in particular through the ministry of Peter, the only one to whom he specifically entrusted the keys of the kingdom.
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