Expert: Griff Ruby - 8/24/2004

Question
Hello.   I have a couple questions.

Why is the pope elected in a political way?  Shouldnt the next pope be chosen directly by God to avoid choosing someone who might not always be faithful to the church?  What about the corrupt Popes of the Crusades and Inquistions?  Also, did the Popes who were involved in awful crimes lose the authority they had over the Church?  You think they would, but then we couldn't claim a unbreakable line.  Why don't they lose their authority and if they do, how can it be restored when the next Pope comes to office?  

Is it considered doctrine when we say we accept a certain religions baptism as Christian? I have heard that in the past Mormon baptism was accepted and now it is not.  Would this be considered a doctrinal change?  I was always taught that the doctrines of the church never change.  Thanks for answering my questions.  I appreciate it.

Answer
God does not appear to have done it that way.  One supposes that if God had wanted to, He could let the bishops and cardinals of the Church all gather in a room or a field and then a glowing dove would settle on the head of the next successor of Peter, but as we know this does not happen. Neither does any other dramatic supernatural event.  For that matter, God could have simply sustained the life of the Apostle Perer himself all these years, thus not necessitating a chain of successors, but obviously He has not seen fit to do that either.
One might wonder, why not have each Pope choose his successor?  But if the successor dies and the previous Pope also before naming another, then what?  The classical custom was that the clergy in Rome voted on the leader of their diocese, who being the Bishop of Rome thereby became the Pope.  In time, this "clergy in Rome" (a rather amorphous and difficult-to-define group) was formalized into the cardinalate which is the norm.  The ideal would have been to have the bishops elect him (and this is a fallback for when we run out of cardinals), but given how they were scattered over remote parts of the earth and given the severe dangers of travel, it was obviously impractical.  Today, it would make a lot more sense.
As for the question of corrupt and criminal popes, one must understand that the Church is guaranteed precisely one thing from its leadership, and that is infallible truth.  Even in Jesus' day when the Jews held sway, there existed a predecessor to the Chair of Peter and that was the Seat of Moses.  Of those inhabiting the Seat of Moses (who were in fact quite corrupt, as they arranged for His crucifixion) He said "Do as they say but do not do as they do, for they sit in the Seat of Moses"  (Matthew 23).  Look to the Popes of the Church for nothing more than reliable Faith and Morals, and final authority.
As for Mormon baptisms, they have been rejected by the Church from the beginning.  While it is possible that some few baptisisms performed by Joseph Smith way back in the beginning, before he formed his peculiar theology, might indeed have been valid (as Protestant baptisms are often valid today), but somewhere his entire definition and intend of baptism changed, and with that they ceased whatever validity the previous ones might have had.