I have seen Pope Pius XII Encyclical of 1943
40. But we must not think that He rules only in a hidden[59] or extraordinary manner. On the contrary, our Divine Redeemer also governs His Mystical Body in a visible and normal way through His Vicar on earth. You know, Venerable Brethren, that after He had ruled the "little flock"[60] Himself during His mortal pilgrimage, Christ our Lord, when about to leave this world and return to the Father, entrusted to the Chief of the Apostles the visible government of the entire community He had founded. Since He was all wise He could not leave the body of the Church He had founded as a human society without a visible head. Nor against this may one argue that the primacy of jurisdiction established in the Church gives such a Mystical Body two heads. For Peter in virtue of his primacy is only Christ's Vicar; so that there is only one chief Head of this Body, namely Christ, who never ceases Himself to guide the Church invisible, though at the same time He rules it visibly, through Church rested not on Him alone, but on Peter too, its visible foundation stone. That Christ and His Vicar constitute one only Head is the solemn teaching of Our predecessor of immortal memory Boniface VIII in the Apostolic Letter him who is His representative on earth. After His glorious Ascension into heaven this Unam Sanctam;[61] and his successors have never ceased to repeat the same.
41. They, therefore, walk in the path of dangerous error who believe that they can accept Christ as the Head of the Church, while not adhering loyally to His Vicar on earth. They have taken away the visible head, broken the visible bonds of unity and left the Mystical Body of the Redeemer so obscured and so maimed, that those who are seeking the haven of eternal salvation can neither see it nor find it.
And yet, St. Ignatius exhorts us to look upon the bishop as we would look upon Christ Himself. (Epistle to the Ephesians, Chapter VI)
"You're like a father to me" and "You are my father" are two very different concepts. What St. Ignatius says, if you are quoting him correctly is to look at the bishop as we would look upon Christ. What Pius XII said was in the same line of the second sentence: "The Pope and Christ are one" and not "The Pope is like Christ". Even if he was stating the second, by attributing exclusively to the Pope what is common to all bishops, he would be in mistake.
Trying to avoid the "two-headed" figure above, which is the logical conclusion of the "visible-invisible heads" image, Pope Pius XII states an even greater blasphemy, that the Pope and Christ are one, that the Pope is Christ made visible:
Christ and His Vicar constitute one only Head
That doesn't say that the Pope is Christ made visible. Besides, don't we Orthodox understand the priest to be making Christ visibly present when he acts as liturgical minister of the sacramental mysteries?
Because they are like Christ and because the bread and wine actually become the flesh and blood of Christ. So yes, that bread and that wine are one with Christ, and not visible symbols of Him. What Pius XII is claiming for his chair is such a sacramental union, though he does it analytically and not synthetically.
Which would then explain why a RC priest once said that the Pope is also present in the host,
You're making this up, right?
No. It was told me by a convert priest. It is a radical statement, but a perferctly acceptable conclusion of the idea that the pope and Christ are just one head. If the Pope *is* the visible head of the Body of Christ how could he not be present in the Eucharist, or is it a headless Body of Christ?
which again, is a logical conclusion of such statement. So, according to RC eclesiology, either the Body of Christ has two heads, or the Pope and Christ are one.
Or else you're torturing Latin ecclesiology to make it fit your twisted polemics. Like you, I don't agree with the Latin doctrine of the Church and its preaching of papal sovereignty, but I think you owe it to your opponent to make sure you understand him correctly so that your polemical arguments actually make cogent sense. Right now you're just setting up a straw man so you can make it appear you're knocking something down.
Peter, I'm sorry, but I think you're the one who does not understand Latin doctrine. It is far worse than an exalted perspective of a Patriarch. Papism, in the strict sense, is what it is. Not all RCs are actuall worshippers of the Pope but in what they consciouslly or uncounsciouslly deviate from that, they deviate from the synthesis of Latin doctrine.
See, for example, the ex-cathedra myth. The Pope is infallible only he speaks dogmatically ex-cathedra. When required to define what ex-cathedra means and to give examples of ex-cathedra statements, ambiguity ensues and the number of such statements varies from source to source. This is point one.
Point two consists of the many callings to obedience even to the non-ex-cathedra statements for various reasons.
A natural consequence of these two points, and which is never stated, is that, after all you should obey the Pope and the Pope alone in everything as it were a proclamation of God Himself. He is not God, but should be treated as if he was because he is "one with Him".
Latin apologetics is filled with these incomplete sylogisms. They say "every man is mortal", they say "Socrates is a man", and when someone points "Socrates is mortal" they shout "we never said that!" but get very glad when someone acts according to the conclusion.
Now, 1) the Body of Christ has a visible (the Pope) and an invisible head (Christ); 2) because there cannot be two heads, these two heads are one, what is torturing logic is the claim that the statement that the Pope is Christ made visible is iconic like in Orthodox theology which, by no means follows from 1 and 2. Sure thing, that the Pope not only is an icon of Christ but is blasphemously usurping the role of Holy Spirit as Spirit of Truth, source of the Sacraments and revealer of Christ cannot be ever openly said, for the expression of this linguistically would defuse the madness that RC is, just like in any psychoanalysis.