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ANSWERING COMMON
OBJECTIONS THE POPE -
HOLY FATHER
This program deals with one
of the most misunderstood and often attacked aspects of the Church: the Pope.
Scott shows from Scripture and tradition how the Pope is not an authoritarian
overseer but rather a spiritual father appointed by Christ to care for the
Family of God on earth. This is the
first in a series of five presentations that we are going to be giving on
Answering Common Objections to the Catholic Faith. Now, this morning's
presentation is going to be dealing with the Pope. I have subtitled it Holy
Father because I hope that this week will give you a chance to integrate in
your own heart a vision of the church that Christ has established as the
Family of God. This is a theme that Vatican II really emphasized. Introduction Many people
think that Vatican II's primary vision of the Church as a communion was
summarized in the phrase, "The People of God," but the Old
Testament roots for that phrase, "People of God," "am'
Yahweh" actually has as its primary meaning, "Family of God."
That term "people," am' literally denotes kinship, so it could be
translated "kinsmen" or "Family of God," and that's how
most Old Testament scholars translate it. So when we look at the Pope, as we
will this morning, we are going to be looking at him, not as some tyrant, not
as some authoritarian "know-it-all" and not as some magician who
can just kind of concoct a new revelation to satisfy all parties, or anything
like that. We are going to be looking at a father figure that Christ has
established over the family that He has purchased with His own blood. Now, there are
many misconceptions that people have. They sometimes think that the teaching
of the Church is that the Pope is infallible; therefore, he can't sin. That's
nonsense, although the present Pontiff goes to confession, I understand, at
least once a week. He's got to have something to confess for it to be a valid
sacrament administered to him. Others think that he always says the best
thing at the right time. No, the Church has never insisted upon the fact that
the Pope will always say the best thing at the right time. Rather, the
teaching of the Church would allow for the Pope perhaps to postpone out of
cowardice, a right thing. Or when he says the truth, when he teaches the
truth, he might do so in a way that includes an ambiguity. So we are
responsible as Catholics to understand, not only what the Church teaches, but
what the Church doesn't teach to help clear up these misconceptions. The
Church teaches in a simple summary that the Holy Father, the Pope, the Bishop
of Rome, as the successor to Peter and the Vicar of Christ, when he speaks as
the universal teacher from the Chair of Peter in defining faith and morals
does so with an infallible charism or an infallible gift through the Holy
Spirit so that we can give to him the full assent of our intellect and our
will, and we can hear the voice of Christ coming to us through the voice of
the Pope when he is speaking in this capacity. Now we are
going to flush off on the meanings of this as time goes on, but there are
three basic issues or problems. First of all, can we prove Papal Primacy,
that is, that the Pope is not just the first among equals but that he has a
certain primacy, a unique supremacy in relation to all of the Bishops. We
have to begin by showing that Jesus conferred this gift upon Peter. Then
secondly, we have to establish the doctrine of Papal succession. If we can
prove from the Bible that Peter was granted by Jesus a certain primacy, that
doesn't go far enough. We then have to go on to establish Papal succession;
that is, Peter had successors to whom would be entrusted the same gift or
charism. Then thirdly, we have to establish evidence for Papal infallibility,
that is that God grants a gift to the successors of Peter for them, not to
give new revelations. The Church insists that no Popes have ever given new
revelation. Revelation has been, once and for all deposited by Christ through
His Apostles and with the death of the last Apostle came the close of all
public revelation. The Popes, in a sense are given the task of preserving and
of transmitting, explaining and enforcing that revelation, but not giving new
revelation. So that third doctrine is the doctrine of Papal infallibility,
that when they transmit, when they explain, when they enforce it, they are
granted a charism or a special spiritual gift preserving them from error. Infallibility,
in a sense, is a negative gift. It doesn't mean he always says the right
thing, it's always the right time; but that when he speaks with the authority
that Christ gives to him, we have this Divine guarantee, because Christ
promises that "I will build my Church." The Church of Christ is not
a human institution first and foremost. Jesus identifies it as His own.
"My church" and the institution and edification and up-building of
the Church Jesus claims for himself, "I will build my Church." So,
whatever instruments that Jesus chooses to use, ultimately are going to be
under His control and He is going to be using them with this ultimate
intention in mind, of building His Church, of governing His family and thus
bringing about the guarantee that He imparts in Matthew 16, as we will see,
that the gates of hell will not prevail against the Church, and will not
prevail against the Rock which is Peter and the Popes who are in the line of
succession with Peter. Now, I have just
given to you a very quick, bird's-eye view of all that we have to do. Now I
have to confess from the bottom of my heart and with total sincerity that we
are not going to be able to do an adequate job this morning. This is just too
much! If I talk as rapidly as I possibly could and try to get everything
across and go through all the others and everything else, I still couldn't
get through 20 percent of it. So I'm not going to talk your ears off. I'm not
going to try to plow through all of this and take three or four hours.
Instead I'm going to try to focus upon the mountain peaks, the real
highlights, so that you can see from scripture and from history and from the
Church, the key ideas that we need to use and present and share as evidence
and support for our belief and our practice as Catholics. We are going to
first and primarily look at scripture. We are also going to look at the
historical development of the Church's understanding and then, finally, we
are going to focus on some of the Church's teachings relative to the Pope and
his authority. Before I go on, having given you this qualification, I think I
need to recommend some sources for your study over, above and beyond our time
this morning. First of all, I
would like to recommend a book entitled, Catholicism and Fundamentalism and
the Attack on Romanism by Bible Christians. It's written by Karl Keating, the
founder and director of "Catholic Answers" in San Diego. You may
also wish to write him for a catalog of other materials that Catholic Answers
publishes, but this book is a very adequate treatment of all of the common
objections against the Catholic faith, many of them we are not going to be
able to cover this week, and how, from scripture and also Church history, we
can answer these in a very convincing and persuasive way. The second book
that I recommend is by Dr. Alan Schreck. It's entitled, Catholic and
Christian, an Explanation of Commonly Misunderstood Catholic Beliefs. This is
a very positive and constructive, I'd say, pastoral presentation of the
Biblical evidence and historical reasons for the Catholic beliefs. This is
not directed as much against Fundamentalists as perhaps Evangelical
Protestants and it really helps them a great deal. There are two
other books written by one of the greatest philosophers of our century,
Stanley Jaki. The first one is on my right, And on This Rock, the Witness of
One Land and Two Covenants. He shows the geographical, historical and
Biblical background for what Jesus intended to say when He renamed Simon,
"Rock" or Peter. A very interesting book. Then, this other book of
his, The Keys of the Kingdom, a Tool's Witness to Truth focuses upon, not the
Rock so much, but the keys of the kingdom that Jesus entrusted to Peter and
his successors. These two are full of some of the most valuable information,
interesting data, that you will come across. At a more
popular level and something you can read in ten or fifteen minutes, Catholic
Answers puts out two little brochures, two little tracts or pamphlets. One is
entitled, Papal Infallibility and the other one is entitled, Peter and the
Papacy, and you could write Catholic Answers for that. And lastly, if you
will permit me, I'll recommend a tape that I made sitting at a desk about a
year ago, up in my study in Jolliet, Illinois, before we moved to
Steubenville. It's entitled, "Peter and the Papacy" and in this
tape I focus primarily on Matthew 16, verses 17 through 19. I focus upon
three aspects that we are going to begin with this morning: the Rock, the keys
and the guarantee of Jesus that the gates of hell will not prevail. Papal Primacy and
Succession Now that's
going to be our starting point and I'm going to take the liberty here, if you
will permit me, of summarizing what I've said on that tape - not because I
assume you have listened to the tape or you will, but because you can, if you
are so interested. And I don't want to go into an hour's worth of detail just
on one passage when there are other important passages to cover as well. But
those three ideas are closely associated with the very important passage that
we find in the first gospel, the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 16, verses 17
through 19. Let me read
that passage and then I will back up and consider those three aspects. Let's
drop back to verse 13, "Now when Jesus came into the district of
Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, 'Who do men say that the Son of
Man is?' And they said, 'Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, others
Jeremiah or one of the prophets'." Rather impressive testimony because
these people constitute the Old Testament Hall of Fame of Saints, here.
"He said to them, 'But who do you say that I am?'" And as is
characteristic throughout Matthew's gospel, Peter steps forward, or I should
say, speaks up. Peter is the only one to walk on water. Peter is the one who
often speaks up, representative of the twelve disciples. Verse 16,
"Peter replied, 'You are the Christ,' -- the Christos, the Anointed One
in Greek or the Messiah in Hebrew, 'the Son of the Living God. You are the
Christ, the Son of the Living God.' And Jesus answered him, 'Blessed are you
Simon Bar-Jonah for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my
Father who is in heaven, and I tell you, you are Peter (Petra) and on this
Rock (Petros), I will build my Church and the gates of Hades shall not
prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and
whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven and whatever you
loose on earth will have been loosed in heaven.'" And then He strictly
charged the disciples to tell no one that He was the Christ. Now, let me
just get a little personal here. Six or seven years ago, a couple years
before I became a Catholic, I had been studying the doctrine of the Covenant.
I came to an understanding of the Covenant as a family, and with this insight
I began to discover all kinds of exciting truths, novel innovations, new
discoveries that I thought were really undiscovered before. Then as I began
to dig deeper into these libraries, I noticed that time and time again,
Catholic scholars -- I mean not just recently but going all the way back to
the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th Centuries, in the Middle Ages -- the saints and
the Doctors of the Church were consistently coming up with all of my brand
new discoveries and teaching them with a kind of ho-hum attitude like,
"You all know such and such." That really, at
first it provoked me. Then it scared me and then it led me to dig deeper and
deeper into Catholic sources to see how many of my discoveries they may have
found in practically every one of them, except the ones that were false. The
Pope, though, was a different matter. For me, the idea of a Pope who claims
primacy and succession and infallibility was a presumption, an arrogant
presumption that no man should make. But then one
day, as I was working through the Gospel of Matthew, because that stresses,
that gospel builds on the Old Testament more than any other and especially
the idea of David's kingdom. That really seems to be the central thrust of
Matthew's gospel, that Jesus is the Son of David and He is establishing the
Kingdom of David. That's how Matthew introduces Jesus. He is the only one of
the four gospel writers who traces His genealogy right back to David, and he
says, "Jesus, the Son of David" at the very start of Matthew.
That's a common and prominent theme throughout the gospel. So I wanted to
dig deep and see what I found in this particular passage, and on the basis of
that discovery, or I should say, on the basis of that study, I made some
discoveries. First of all, I discovered that when you read in verse 17,
"Jesus answered, 'And blessed are you Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood
has not revealed this to you but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you,
you are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church,' " I discovered
that all the evidence points to the fact that Peter is the "rock." Now you might
say, "That's as plain as the nose on your face. What's the excitement of
that discovery?" Well, non-Catholics frequently claim that it's Peter's
faith that Jesus is speaking of, or Peter's confession that Jesus is speaking
of when He says, "this rock." Or other Protestants object and say,
"No, Jesus says, 'And you are petros.'" You are petros, you are
rock, and on this petra, the Greek word for large rock, "I will build my
Church." So some Protestants object to the Catholic view and say,
"What Jesus is really saying is. 'You're a little pebble and on this
rock, namely Christ, the Rock, (1 Corinthians, 10:4 and so on) I will build
my Church.'" Now the closer
I studied the more I realized that those positions were untenable, simply
untenable. And I'm going to share in a few minutes the fact that most
conservative anti-Catholic Protestant scholars today will admit that readily
and candidly. The more I dug, the more I found that the evidence pointed to
the fact that Jesus was speaking of Peter. Peter is the Rock. Peter just
said, "You are the Christos," so Jesus says, "You are the
Petros." There is a little parallelism there. "You are the Son of
the Living God" and "You are the son of Jonah, Simon Bar-Jonah; you
are the Petros." Now people
could say, "Wait a second. There is a distinction in the Greek language
between petros," Peter's name and petra. Petros can mean stone, whereas
petra can often mean "big rock." The problem with that is two-fold.
First of all, Jesus probably didn't speak Greek when He was with the disciples.
I mean that is held by 99.9 percent of all scholars. It's overwhelmingly
unlikely that Jesus in His normal conversations spoke Greek. What's almost
certain is that He spoke Aramaic and in the Aramaic there is only one word
that could possibly be used and Kouman and other scholars have pointed to the
fact that if Jesus spoke Aramaic, He only could have said, "You are
Cephus, and on this Cephus I build my Church." So given our knowledge of
the Aramaic language, there is no possibility for Jesus to have made the
distinction between "little stone" and "big rock." The
Aramaic language doesn't allow it. Well, somebody
could say, "The Holy Spirit inspired Matthew to use two different words.
Well, that's true, because "petra" is the word in Greek that is
normally used for "large rock," but - I should say petra is the
Greek word that means "large rock" but it's in the feminine form.
In other words, the gender of this Greek word, petra, large rock, is
feminine. You do not apply a feminine form of the word in order to name a male.
You adopt it by giving the masculine form. In other words what Matthew was
doing, guided by the Holy Spirit, is something that was rather obvious and
practically necessary. That was to take the Greek from Jesus' saying and
start by saying, "I will build my Church on this massive stone, this
'petra' in the feminine but then to show that Peter gets the name,
"Rock" in its proper masculine form. You wouldn't
name him Josephine or Rockina or, you know, something like that. You give him
the masculine form of the word. I should also add that there is absolutely no
archeological evidence from antiquity for anybody having been named Peter
before Simon. In other words, Jesus was taking a word that had never been
used as far as all the many records we have are concerned, never was used to
designate an individual person and Jesus gives that name, gives that word to
Simon. Again, I
suggest the fact that Simon is the Rock. I should say a few things along
these lines because I mentioned that I have these Protestant quotes. I have
note cards that I actually put together when I was preparing a paper for a
graduate seminar on the subject. I was still a Protestant minister, and I was
taking a graduate seminar on the Gospel of Matthew and the professor was a
Protestant. He was a Lutheran and he knew what I wanted to do for my project
and so I presented this paper, "Peter and the Keys" and I worked at
it because I knew that he might not be open to my conclusions, that I knew
what my conclusions were going to be at the end of my research. They were
rather Catholic, neither Presbyterian nor Lutheran. So, I worked
and worked and I put these notecards together and when I made the
presentation -- I should add, this was a very interesting experience because
all the other students who presented papers, the professor encouraged the
rest of the students to interact with the presenter. And he seldom, if ever
asked questions in interacting. He wanted the students to get involved. But
when it came to presenting a 30-page paper presenting the evidence that Peter
is the Rock and that the keys denote succession and that the Catholic
position is right, not one student spoke up for the entire two and one-half
hour seminar. He did all the talking and we even went over. I ended up
leaving the classroom like forty-five minutes after the seminar was supposed
to end. It was the most grueling cross- examination I'd ever undergone, and I
might add, I had intestinal digestive problems for about a week afterwards
because of how nerve- wracking it was. But at the end
of the whole ordeal he said, "I think your paper is flawless. The only
fault that I found is that you have the middle initial on one person's name
in one of your footnotes wrong!" He said, "I think your arguments
are persuasive, too. I'm just grateful that I don't think that Matthew is
historically reliable, so I don't have to follow the conclusions." I'm
glad you said that, you know, and not me. Protestants are
often ready to admit the fact that Peter is the Rock and that the keys of
succession are given to him to imply an office that will be filled by
successors. For instance, one of the top evangelical New Testament scholars
in the world, R.T. France says this in his commentary on Matthew,
"Verses 17 through 19 are addressed to Peter and have been regarded by
some as a late addition to support an early claim to the primacy of the
Bishop of Rome. Whether or not they give any such support, there is no
textual evidence for their addition to the gospel after its original
composition, and the strongly Semitic or Jewish character of the language
throughout these verses point to a relatively early origin in a Palestinian
environment." What is France saying? Well, many scholars have suggested
that Jesus could not have given this gift to Peter. Jesus could not have
given this original saying. Why? Because many scholars don't believe that
Jesus foresaw the building of the Church. They think that all of these
sayings of Jesus concerning the Church were added later by the Church to
support whatever had happened to the Church. Dr. France
says, "That's just not tenable." When you study this you realize
that all of the evidence in the text shows that this is one of the original
sayings of Jesus. He goes on to say, "Jesus' beatitude of Peter or His
blessing is given to Peter alone. The other disciples may have shared his
insight but Peter, characteristically expressed it. Matthew often illustrates
Peter's place at the head of the disciples' group. He was the spokesman, the
pioneer, the natural leader." He goes on to talk about how Peter is
referenced to the Rock. France says, "It describes not so much Peter's
character, that is the Rock. He did not prove to be rock-like in terms of
stability or reliability but rather the name Rock or Peter points to his
function as the foundation stone of Jesus' Church." This is a
non-Catholic. This is an Evangelical Protestant who has absolutely no
interest in supporting the Church's claims but he says, "The term Peter,
Rock, points to Simon and not his character because he could be very
unstable, but rather his official function as the foundation stone of Jesus'
Church. The word-play is unmistakable." He says, "It is only
Protestant over-reaction to the Roman Catholic claim, of course, which has no
foundation in the text, that what is here said of Peter applies also to the
later Bishops of Rome." In other words France is saying, "We can't
apply this to the Popes, the later Bishops of Rome." I'll overthrow that
opinion in a few minutes, I think, but France is very candid in saying,
"Look, it's only because we Protestants have over-reacted to the
Catholic Church that we are not frank and sincere in admitting the fact that
Peter is the Rock. He is the foundation stone upon which Jesus is going to
build the Church." One of the greatest
Protestant Biblical scholars of the century supports this -- W. F. Albright,
in his Anchor Bible Commentary on Matthew. I opened it up. I was surprised to
see, "Peter as the Rock will be the foundation of the future community,
the church. Jesus here uses Aramaic and so only the Aramaic word which would
serve His purpose. In view of the background in verse 19, one must dismiss as
confessional interpretation any attempt to see this rock as the faith or the
confession of Peter." In other words, Professor Albright is admitting as
a Protestant that there is a bias in Protestant anti- Catholic interpreters
who try to make Jesus' reference to the rock point only to Peter's faith or
confession. "To deny the pre-eminent position of Peter," Albright
says, "among the disciples or in the early Christian community is a
denial of the evidence. The interest in Peter's failures and vacillations
does not detract from this pre- eminence, rather it emphasizes it. Had Peter
been a lesser figure, his behavior would have been of far less consequence.
Precisely because Peter is pre-eminent and is the foundation stone of the
Church that his mistakes are in a sense so important, but his mistakes never
correspond to his teachings as the Prince of the Apostles." We will see."
Albright goes
on in his commentary to speak about the keys of the kingdom that Jesus
entrusted to Peter. Here's what he says, "Isaiah 22, verse 15,
undoubtedly lies behind this saying of Jesus. The keys are the symbol of
authority and Father Roland DeVoe rightly sees here the same authority vested
in the vicar, the master of the house, the chamberlain of the royal household
in ancient Israel. In Isaiah 22 Eliakim is described as having the same
authority." Now let's just
stop here and ask, "What is he talking about?" I think it's simple.
Albright is saying that Jesus in giving to Peter not only a new name, Rock,
but in entrusting to Simon the keys of the kingdom, He is borrowing a phrase
from Isaiah 22. He's quoting a verse in the Old Testament that was extremely
well known. This, for me, was the breakthrough. This discovery was the most
important discovery of all. Let's go back to Isaiah 22 and see what Jesus was
doing when He entrusted to Peter the keys of the kingdom. By the way, I
do not find hardly any Catholic defenders of the faith these days with
awareness of this particular point. This was the point above all points for
me. It was the point that the defenders of the Catholic faith in the 16th and
17th Centuries were very aware of, but for some reason amnesia has set in
upon many defenders and interpreters not aware of how crucial this particular
passage is. In Isaiah 22 beginning back in verses 19 and 20, we have some
very interesting background. This is where Jesus goes for a quotation to cite
this passage. What's
happening here? Well, in verse 19 it says, "I will thrust you from your
office and you will be cast down from your station and on that day I will
call my servant Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, and I will clothe him with your
robe and will bind your girdle on him and will commit your authority to his
hand, and he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the
House of Judah; and I will place on his shoulder the key of the House of
David." Now the House
of David is like, you know, the House of Bourbon. It's a dynastic reference.
The House of David is the Davidic kingdom, the Davidic dynasty. We know this
because David has been dead for hundreds of years when this is happening in
Isaiah 22, "I will give you the key of the House of David. He shall open
and none shall shut, and he shall shut and none shall open. He will become a
throne of honor to his father's house." Look at all of the symbols of
dynastic authority that are being given to this individual. First of all, an
office. Second, a robe. Third, a throne and fourth, keys, the key of the
House of David, these royal keys. Now, what is
going on here? I'll just summarize it in rather simple terms. Hezekiah was at
the time, the king over Israel. He was the son of David, hundreds of years
after David had died. He was in the line of David and also he was ruler over
the House of David. Now all kings in the ancient world had, as kings and
queens have these days, cabinet officers, a cabinet of royal ministers. Like
Margaret Thatcher is the Prime Minister, so there are other ministers under
the Queen in Great Britain. Hezekiah, as King, had as his Prime Minister
before Shebna who proved unworthy. So he was expelled, but when he was
expelled, he left an office vacant. Not only did you have dynastic succession
for the king, but you also have a dynastic office for the Prime Minister.
When Shebna is expelled, there is an empty office that needs to be filled and
that's why Eliakim is called to fill it. Now, Eliakim is
a minister in the cabinet, but now he is being granted the Prime Minister's
position. How do we know? Because he is given what the other ministers do not
have, the keys of the kingdom, the key to the House of David. That symbolized
dynastic authority entrusted to the Prime Minister and dynastic succession.
Why? Because it's the key of David; it's the House of David. Let me go back
and try to simplify this even further. I'll read the quote. Albright says,
"In commenting upon Matthew 16 and Jesus giving to Peter the keys of the
kingdom, Isaiah 22:15 and following undoubtedly lies behind this
saying." Albright, a Protestant, non- Catholic insists that it's
undoubtable that Jesus is citing Isaiah 22, "The keys are the symbol of
authority and DeVoe rightly sees here the same authority as that vested in
the vicar, the master of the house, the chamberlain of the royal household of
ancient Israel." In other words, the Prime Minister's office. Other
Protestant scholars admit it too, that when Jesus gives to Peter the keys of
the kingdom, Peter is receiving the Prime Minister's office, which means
dynastic authority from the Son of David, Jesus, the King of Israel, but also
an office where there will be dynastic succession. When I discovered that, it
was like the blinders fell off. Within a few weeks I had gotten together with
the leading Protestant theologians in the world, one of the most reputable
anti- Catholic Protestant theologians and spent ten hours with him and then
in a Mercedes we drove two hours and I presented this case, and his only
comment was, "That's clever." But he said, "You don't have to
follow the Pope because of that." I said, "Why not?" And he
said, "Well, I'm going to have to think about it." He said,
"I've never heard that argument before." And I said, "It' s
one of the basic arguments that Cajeton used against the Protestants in the
16th Century and Cajeton was one of the most well-known defenders of the
Catholic faith and you've never heard of him before?" I said, "I
had never heard of it before until I discovered it on my own and then found
it in all these other people." And he said, "That's clever."
Clever, perhaps. True, definitely; enlightening, illuminating, very
interesting. He goes on to
say some other things. "It is of considerable importance," Albright
says, "that in other contexts, when the disciplinary affairs of the
community are discussed, the symbol of the keys is absent, since the saying
applies in these instances to a wider circle. The role of Peter as steward of
the kingdom is further explained as being the exercise of administrative
authority as was the case of the Old Testament chamberlain who held the
keys." Now, what he
means there is that nowhere else, when other Apostles are exercising Church
authority are the keys ever mentioned. In Matthew 18, the Apostles get the
power to bind and loose, like Peter got in Matthew 16, but with absolutely no
mention of the keys. That fits perfectly into this model because in the
king's cabinet, all the ministers can bind and loose, but the Prime Minister
who holds the keys can bind what they have loosed or loose what they have
bound. He has, in a sense, the final say. He has, in himself, the authority
of the court of final appeal and even Protestants can see this. In fact, I
found this quotation in Martin Luther from 1530, years after he had left the
Church, "Why are you searching heavenward in search of my keys? Do you
not understand, Jesus said, 'I gave them to Peter. They are indeed the keys
of heaven, but they are not found in heaven for I left them on earth.'" This
is Jesus talking, "'Peter's mouth is my mouth, his tongue is my key
case, his keys are my keys. They are an office.'" Luther even saw it,
"'They are a power, a command given by God through Christ to all of
Christendom for the retaining and remitting of the sins of men.'" The
only thing that Luther won't admit is that there was succession after Peter
died, which is exactly what the keys denote, given their Old Testament
background. One of the
greatest reformed Biblical scholars of this century, Herman Liderboss, a
European scholar, in his Matthew commentary says, this is going back. I
should have read this a few minutes ago. But he says, "The slight
difference between these two words, petra and petros, has no special
importance. The most likely explanation for the change from petros, Peter,
masculine, to petra is that petra was the normal word for rock, because the
feminine ending of this noun made it unsuitable as a man's name; however,
Simon was not called Petra but Petros. There is no good reason to think that
Jesus switched from petros to petra to show that He was not speaking of the
man Peter but of his confession as the foundation of the Church. The words
"on this rock," petra, indeed, refer to Peter. Because of the
revelation he had received and the confession it had motivated in him, Peter
was appointed by Jesus to lay the foundation of the future Church." One of the top
Evangelical, non-Catholic scholars in America, Professor Donald Carson of the
Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in his book, God With Us, Themes from
Matthew says, "Jesus was simply using a pun to say that Peter is the
rock on which Jesus would build His Church." Now Dr. Carson is no
Catholic Apologist. He would try to set up arguments against the Catholic
faith, I'm sure; but he's sincere and, I think, also respectable as a scholar
in insisting upon the obvious evidence in the conclusions. This has led an
Evangelical Protestant German scholar, Gerhardt Meier, who wrote a famous
book that conservative Protestants frequently refer to, "The End of the
Historical Critical Method". In his article, "The Church and the
Gospel of Matthew," Gerhardt Meier says on pages 58 through 60,
"Nowadays, a broad consensus has emerged which, in accordance with the
words of the text applies the promise to Peter as a person." This is a
Protestant speaking now. "On this point liberal and conservative
theologians agree," and he names several Protestant theologians from the
liberal to the conservative side. "Matthew 16:18 ought not to be
interpreted as a local church. The church in Matthew 16:18 is the universal
entity, namely the people of God. There is an increasing consensus now that
this verse concerning the power of the keys is talking about the authority to
teach and to discipline, including even to absolve sins." Professor
Gerhardt Meier is a Protestant with no interest in supporting the Catholic
claim but, as an honest scholar, admits that Peter is the one that Jesus is
giving His power to. "Peter is the rock and the keys signify, not only
disciplinary power to teach, but even to absolve sins. With all due respect
to the Protestant Reformers, we must admit that the promise in Matthew 16-18
is directed to Peter and not to a Peter-like faith. As Evangelical
theologians, especially, we ought to look at ourselves dispassionately and
acknowledge that we often tend unjustifiably toward an individualistic
conception of faith. To recognize the authenticity of Matthew 16:17 and
following demands that we develop a Biblically based ecclesiology or doctrine
of the church." Gerhardt Meier
is showing, as an honest scholar, that the church which Jesus speaks of is a
universal church, not just a local congregation, another favorite ploy of
anti-Catholic apologists. He says, "No, the church He's talking about is
the one, holy, Catholic Church, the universal church and the rock on which it
will be built is Peter, not Peter's confession and the keys that Jesus gives
to Peter are keys not only to teach but even to absolve sins." He's not
saying, "We all should become Catholics, but what we should honestly do
is to grant the Catholics the point. Because if we are honest in interpreting
the Bible, we have to admit these conclusions." Another
Lutheran professor, a professor of scripture and theology at Concordia
Seminary in Hong Kong, Torg Forberg wrote an article entitled, "Peter,
High Priest of the New Covenant." Forberg insists that Jesus is the
ultimate High Priest in the New Testament, but he says, "Peter is
presented as some kind of successor to the High Priest in tradition used by
the final redactorate, Matthew 16:13-19. Peter stands out as a kind of chief
Rabbi who binds and looses in the sense of declaring something to be
forbidden or permitted. Peter is looked upon as a counterpart to the High
Priest. He is the highest representative for the people of God." This is
Protestant testimony. Elsewhere I
found in The Interpreter's Bible, "The keys of the kingdom would be
permitted to the chief steward in the royal household and with them goes
plenary authority, unlimited power, total. Post- apostolic Christianity is
now beginning to ascribe to the Apostles the prerogatives of Jesus." The
person who wrote this section in the Interpreter's Bible is saying, "I
don't think personally that Jesus ever said these words. How could Jesus give
to the Apostles prerogatives that are His own?" Well, the Church has
always said that Jesus said this and what Jesus is giving is His own grace,
His own power and His own authority to His Apostles. Now Bultmann,
one of the most notorious and well-known Protestant Biblical scholars of the
century argues that it is impossible to regard Matthew 16 as an authentic
saying of Jesus. He said, "How could He have envisioned the future
development of an organized congregation of followers and appointed for them
Peter as possessor of the power to teach and to discipline?" I have
several other quotations here. I won't go through them all, but let me just
summarize with a quotation from an English Protestant scholar, J.N.D. Kelly
in his book, Oxford Dictionary of the Popes. He says, "The Papacy is the
oldest of all Western institutions with an unbroken existence of almost 2000
years." We are reaching
a point these days in the scholarly dialogue that is exciting, where some of
the most essential points are now being admitted and acknowledged by both
sides. But I must say, as I listen to tapes that are made of debates that are
held across the country through these last few years, there are still many
Protestants, or I should say non-Catholics, out there who are so vehemently
opposed to the Catholic Church, they will still go back to the over-reaction
of the Protestants, the anti-Catholic misinterpretations and use them. A good friend
of mine was in a recent debate with a Protestant minister who was using it
right and left, even after the debates. My friend went up to him and said,
"Do you think, even though you are arguing that Peter isn't the Rock
because you were quoting this and that and the other thing, do you think that
Peter is the Rock?" And the anti-Catholic debater said, "Of course
I do!" Although he had argued against that position, he held it himself.
He just wanted to undermine the Catholic teaching. There is a broad consensus
emerging, and it's a strong and sure foundation that we can build on in discussions
and dialogues. I don't want to overdo it, but I think it is a very, very
important point. Common Objections to
Papal Infallibility Now, what I
would like to do at this point is to move beyond Matthew 16 and consider some
other factors that play into this as well. First, let me just throw out some
objections that may come into your mind. How could a human be infallible?
Isn't infallibility a prerogative of God alone? Then as Catholics I think we
should admit Mary who never sinned, although we never say that the infallible
Popes never sin. They sin. They are not impeccable; they are infallible As persons,
they sin. As persons, they make mistakes. As persons, they might hold the
wrong opinion inside their own minds; but Christ prevents them, through the
Holy Spirit in His omnipotent love, from ever sitting down in the Chair of
Peter and teaching the wrong opinions as Catholic beliefs. It's ultimately
the infallibility of Christ that is the foundation for whatever we ascribe to
the Popes. Now somebody could say, "Infallible? Teaching nothing but
truth? To err is human, to forgive divine. You know we don't need
infallibility. We can't have it. It isn't human." Well, I would say
this; two things. First of all, if I were to sit down and write a textbook in
say Algebra, and we got a thousand proof readers from across the world and
they all went through it with a fine tooth comb, and after years they didn't
find a single mistake, would you have to conclude this was not written by a
man but by God? There are no mistakes. No, of course not. I mean to err is human,
but to be human is not to err only and always, continually. We can make
mistakes, but we don't have to! And God can prevent us from doing so. You hear
Protestants says sometimes, like I always used to say, "You know this
idea of infallibility just doesn't belong to humans. But then you think about
it another minute. Non-Catholic Christians rarely admit that the Bible is
infallible because the Biblical authors were given the gift of infallibility:
Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter, Paul, James, Jude -- all of them wrote
infallible truth. In fact, the Bible Christians insist that the Bible alone
is our authority because the Bible is infallible. Well, ask them.
If God was capable of using thousands of sinners to infallibly communicate
infallible truth, then, so that the Church could see it as the truth, which
is the Bread of Life, which is Christ himself and all the teachings, if God
could do it then, with fallible sinners, like Peter and Paul and John and
Matthew, couldn't He still do it? In other words, certainly God is capable;
and if you look around at how the Church spreads throughout the world, and
how the Church encounters all kinds of crazies down through the ages, do you
suppose that Jesus would say, "Well, once I give the Church this
infallible scripture, there really is no need anymore for infallible
interpretations of scripture. The Church can hold together just with the
infallible Bible." Oh, really? In
just 500 years, there are literally thousands and thousands of denominations
that are becoming ever more numerous continuously because they only go with
the Bible. It points to the fact that we need an infallible interpretation of
this infallible book, don't we. I mean, can you imagine the fathers of our
country putting together the U.S. Constitution and mailing it out to every
citizen and saying, "Fend for yourselves. Go it alone; with the spirit
of Washington you will be guided to your proper interpretation." What do
you call that? Anarchy. We wouldn't have lasted a month as a nation. The
Constitution established a governmental structure with a court of final
appeal, the Supreme Court, that is final in all matters of constitutional
interpretation. Now that's in
the human sphere. If the constitutional founders had sufficient wisdom to see
the need for one little nation in 200 years to have a court of final appeal,
how much more would Christ see the need to establish and constitute in the
Church and putting in His constitution not only the truth but the official
organs for interpreting and enforcing and explaining and preaching and
proclaiming that truth. It's just common sense. It's not unprecedented
either. Somebody could
say, "Well, this idea of Peter speaking ex- cathedra, that's bogus,
that's novel, that's unheard of'." I would say, "No, it's not."
When the Church teaches about how, the Pope when he speaks from the Chair of
Peter, Ex Cathedra, "from the seat or from the cathedra" (we get
the word cathedral from the fact that's where the bishop's cathedra is) the
Church isn't inventing something new. It's building, rather, on the teachings
of Jesus. Turn to Matthew
23, verses 1 and 2, "Then said Jesus to the crowds and to His disciples,
'The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat. So practice and observe
whatever they tell you, but not what they do, for they preach but they don't
practice.'" They preach, but they don't practice what they preach.
What's he saying? Jesus says, "The scribes and the Pharisees." Now,
what does Jesus think of the scribes and the Pharisees? Well, read the rest
of Matthew 23 and you will discover it. He goes on in this chapter to call
the scribes and the Pharisees "fools, hypocrites, blind guides, vipers
and whitewashed tombs." He doesn't think too highly of the scribes and
the Pharisees, does He? But what does
He say here? "The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat."
Therefore, "you have to," it's in the imperative tense, "You
have to practice and observe whatever they tell you." "Whatever
they tell you," you have to practice and observe. Why? Because they sit
on Moses' cathedras. The Greek word is "cathedra". The Church, when
it speaks of Peter's authority and the Popes speaking ex-cathedra are simply
borrowing from Jesus' teaching. Now, I would
challenge anybody to go back into the Old Testament and find some explicit
text in the Old Testament where we find Moses establishing a chair, some
endowed seat, that will always have successors. You don't find a text
explicitly saying that. So why does Jesus refer to it. Because there is also
oral tradition, even in the Old Testament, which was used by God to transmit
certain essential terms that the covenant family of God requires and depends
upon for its life. Jesus doesn't quote a text. He appeals to a well-known
oral tradition that He assumes the scribes and the Pharisees know about as
well as His listeners. He doesn't just assume they know it, He assumes they
are going to submit to it, and that they have been submitting to it. It's
just that they have been experiencing problems because Old Testament priests
and bishops are sometimes just as troublesome as New Testament priests and
bishops are. But why do we follow, because they have so much charm and
charisma? No, because Jesus Christ has established in the Old Testament a
seat of Moses which is replaced in the New Testament with the seat of Peter. In the Old
Testament we don't have the full disclosure of all final revelation, but in
the New Testament Jesus tells us that He will guide us in all truth. We don't
say that Moses and his successors were infallible; because the fullness of
the truth had not yet been given. But once it is given to the Apostles and
their successors, we can see why Jesus guarantees that the gates of Hades
will not prevail against the Church. Why? Because of what Jesus has entrusted
to this cathedra, this Petrine seat, the sea of Peter in Rome. This is such
assurance for us that whether John XI or John XII, two of the most sinful
Popes in all of history or Alexander VI; I mean these guys were scoundrels.
We have had scoundrels for Popes. Out of the hundreds of Popes, it's amazing
to think that there were really only three or four scoundrels, but that
should bother you. But should it cause you to overthrow your confidence in
listening to the successor of Peter, the Vicar of Christ, the Pope? No, of
course not. For one thing, you can be grateful that these scoundrels were too
busy sinning to even attempt teaching from the seat of Peter. They didn't,
and they brought great confusion upon the Church so it is a deplorable
condition. But let's
consider one fact. Jesus chose twelve Apostles, didn't He? And what about
those twelve Apostles? One of them was Judas. Did Jesus know it beforehand?
You bet He did. Why did He choose him? Maybe to get us ready for Judas
priests in all generations. Peter's Place in the
Early Church But what does
the Church do after Jesus is ascended into heaven, after Judas has committed suicide?
Turn to Acts 1 to see what the Church does in response to Judas' death and
Jesus' departure. It's very interesting and important because Peter stands up
with the eleven in the Upper Room, verse 15, and He speaks about Judas' death
and He says, "It was known beforehand and had even been prophesied in
the Old Testament" and so what should we do now? Notice that
Peter -- and by the way, notice that it is Peter who stands up. He's not just
contributing an opinion. When Peter declares an opinion it is binding and
immediately following, exactly what he advises. And what is it he advises? He
quotes the Psalms, "Let his habitation become desolate and let there be
no one to live in it." But then he doesn't say, "Hey, guys, we're
from twelve down to eleven. We better hang together now or we might end up
hanging separately. No we're just down to eleven and it's going to be us from
now on." He doesn't say that. He says,
"His office, let another take." Or as the King James version says,
"His bishopric, let other men take." The word there is episcopae,
where we get the word episcopacy or episcopal. It's the word for bishop. In
other words, there's an epioscopal office that is now empty and vacant. Peter
stands up and says, "Well obviously, automatically, in line with the Old
Testament tradition, in line with this Old Testament practice of patriarchal
succession at every level in God's family, not just at top with Moses and his
seed and his successors, but even the seventy elders, when they died, they
left empty offices that must be filled," Peter is just obviously
appealing to this Old Testament precedent is saying, "Let another man
his bishopric, his office, take." And they draw
lots and they choose Matthias. No debate, no novelty. The other ten don't
say, "Huh, what are you talking about, Simon? This is weird." No,
they understand, but even more, they submit. There's no debate, no
discussion. Notice also in
Acts 2, Peter's responsibility, not just over the ten, but over all of
Jerusalem. He is the one who preaches the first sermon, that Pentecost, verse
14. He is the spokesman for the Church to the world at Pentecost. Then you go on
in chapter 3, we see Peter's second sermon. We also see that Peter is the
instrument by which the first real healing miracle occurs, the lame man in
the temple in Jerusalem in the portico called Solomon, I should say. Then in chapter
4, we see Peter's pre-eminence emerging even further as he exercises his
teaching authority over the Jewish senate, the Sanhedrin. He's put on trial,
so you think he's going to be defensive. He's going to come to His own
defense saying, "Oh gosh, guys, you know, please don't do these
things." But no. He puts the Sanhedrin on trial for crucifying the Lord.
He exercises supreme authority over the Jewish senate. It left them
flabbergasted! Who does this fisherman think he is? The vicar of Christ over
the family of God. And so they're set free. They are astounded at his
boldness. Then in Acts 5,
Ananias and Sapphira, two wealthy members of the Church, sell some land and
then lie about how much money they gave to the Church. Peter said to Ananias,
"What are you doing?" Ananias says, "Well I gave you all the
money." And Peter says, "You are lying to the Holy Spirit."
Ananias said, "No, I'm just lying to you, Peter." But no. In lying
to Peter, Ananias was lying to the Holy Spirit and to the Church. He's struck
dead! A few hours later his wife Sapphira comes along. Peter says, "What
happened?" "Oh, we sold the land for this amount, and we gave you
all the money." And, "Hark, the footsteps of the men who just
carried out your husband are coming for you." She drops dead! "And
great fear came upon all those who heard of it," in verse 5. No wonder.
Petrine promise was rather apparent here. I mean Peter's pre-eminence was on
display for the whole Church and the whole world and all the Jews to see and
to behold. And it goes on and on and on. We see Peter, for instance, in Acts
11 and 12 -- even before that -- Acts 8, the first time non-Jewish
half-breeds, Samaritans are brought into the Church. They are baptized. Word
reaches Jerusalem that these non-Jewish half-breeds, the Samaritans are
coming into the Church. Immediately, what do they do? Send Peter and John.
They go down there and what do they do? Well, a Confirmation action, here.
"They lay the hand," verse 14, "When the Apostles in Jerusalem
heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to
them. When they arrived, they prayed they might receive the Holy
Spirit." They were baptized but they hadn't received this additional
grace that we often associate with Confirmation. Then the laying on of hands;
they received the Holy Spirit and then Simon Magus tried to buy the gift and
Peter rebukes him. "May your
money," verse 20, "May your money perish with you because you
thought you could buy the gift of God with money. You have no part to share
in this ministry because your heart is not right before God. Repent of this
wickedness and pray to the Lord and perhaps He will forgive you for having
such a thought in your heart, for I see that you are full of bitterness and
captive to sin." At this point Simon, who probably had heard of Ananias
and Sapphira was trembling, you know. "Pray to the Lord for me so that
nothing you have said may happen to me." I mean, even if some don't see
Peter's promise, at least Simon Magus, the first heretic in the Church did.
He said, "Please pray for me that I won't become the next Ananias and
Sapphira." Acts 11, now
we're not talking about half-breeds; now we are talking about just plain
outsiders, the Goene, the Gentiles, the swine, those that the Jews had often
considered to be mere beasts. Cornelius, the first Gentile believer is going
to be let into the Church? This is going to cause scandal. What's the Holy
Spirit going to do? Have Peter be the first to authorize and admit the first
Gentile Christian. So Peter has
this vision and in Acts 10 and 11, I should say, he has this vision: he's
being commanded by God in this vision to kill and to eat these unclean animals
that symbolize the Gentiles. He says, "I've never done it." Three
times later he says, "Okay, okay, I'll do it." And then these
people come and say, "We're being sent from Cornelius, the Gentile
Centurion." In a dream, in a vision, the Lord had said to Cornelius,
"Send for a guy named Peter." So Peter comes and what happens?
Well, Peter goes up to his house and he perceives, verse 34, he says after
he's baptizing Cornelius, "I now realize how true it is that God does
not show favoritism but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do
what is right." So then he goes
ahead, preaches the gospel, baptizes these Gentiles and admits the first
non-Jewish believers into the Church. And I mean, this could have been the
greatest crisis of all, but there isn't even a fizzle, practically. But look
at chapter 11, verse 2, "When Peter went up to Jerusalem, the
circumcised believers criticized him and said, 'You went into the house of
uncircumcised men and ate with them.'" And he explained exactly what
happened and said, "Hey, God told me." It's Peter and they stopped.
But the crisis
reaches an even higher point in chapter 15. We have the famous Council of
Jerusalem where there's a huge debate tearing apart the Church. These Gentile
believers, do we circumcise them or not? Well you might say, "How
important is that?" Well, gentlemen, if you were in your twenties,
thirties and forties and you were considering conversion and along with
conversion, you had to get circumcised, you might end up considering conversion
a lot longer than if all you needed was baptism, right? There was sort of a
strategic purpose behind all of this. But notice, as the debate is raging,
all of a sudden it stops. When? Verse 6 and 7, "The Apostles and elders
met together. After much debate Peter stood up and addressed them," and
he basically says the Holy Spirit purified their hearts through Baptism,
circumcision isn't needed; end all debate! The only thing that follows is
that James, the Bishop of Jerusalem, adds the kind of qualifying proviso so
that the Jews are not needlessly scandalized in Gentile lands. But Peter's
word was final and absolute. The debate ended. Peter had spoken. Now you might
say, "Well, this is just Peter." No, the keys symbolize succession,
an office which is left vacant must be filled. This is something that the
Church understood. This is something that was well-known to the early Church.
I hardly have time to get into this, but I have all these note cards about
the early Church, after the death of the last Apostles, recognizing that the
Bishop of Rome had Peter's authority and that was final and absolute. Early Church Fathers
Recognized Papal Primacy and Succession Clement of
Rome, about 96, writing to Corinth about this disunity, "But if any
disobey the word spoken by him, Peter, through us." Remember Linus, Cletus,
Clement, Sixtus? Those were the first Popes. Irenaeus,
writing in the 2nd Century says, "Anyone who wished to discern the truth
may see in every Church in the whole world, the Apostolic succession clear
and manifest." We saw that in Acts 1. I mean, if Judas' office when left
vacant is filled by a successor, then why should we be scandalized and lose
our faith if a Pope is a scoundrel? You know, you may say, "The Pope
shouldn't be a scoundrel." I'd say, "Yeah and amen." But Jesus
knew that it wasn't going to be human strength and human authority that would
put it all together for the Church. That's why He chose a Judas in the first
place, to assure our hearts that no matter who was in the Apostolic seat,
whether it's Peter or the other Apostles, his Bishops, it's Jesus' omnipotent
love for His family that will see us through to the truth, no matter what may
come. Irenaeus goes
on and says, "We can enumerate those who were appointed as bishops in
the churches by the Apostles and their successors down to our own day, but as
it would be very long in a book of this kind to enumerate the successors of
all through the churches, I will point out the Apostolic tradition in faith
announced to mankind." And it goes on. Speaking about the two most
glorious Apostles, Peter and Paul at Rome -- I won't read the whole quote, it
goes on, but there also we see Iraneaus in the 2nd Century underscoring the
Bishops as the successors to the Apostles and the Bishop of Rome, in
particular, as the successor to Peter. Tertullian in
the late 100's and the early 200's A.D. said, "Was anything withheld
from Peter who was called the Rock on which the Church should be built, who
also obtained the keys to the kingdom of heaven with the power of binding and
loosing in heaven and earth?" Origen, in the
late 100's spoke of Peter first because, "He was more honored than the
rest." St. Cyprian
spoke of the Roman Church founded on Peter who fixed his chair in Rome. He
speaks of the Church in Rome as our Mother Church, "the root of universality
and Catholicity." Hilary in the
300's speaks of the foundation of the Church on the Rock from which the
Church was built. In other words, the early Church Fathers recognized this.
The Protestant historian, Goodspeed, in his history book says, "The claim
of primacy among the bishops for its head began under Victor in the 2nd
Century and progressed under Calistus who claimed the power of the keys and
reached a peak under Stephen in the 3rd Century, who professed to occupy the
chair of St. Peter." Now even Cyprian, when he opposed Stephen as Pope,
didn't oppose authority but opposed his opinions. Then finally, because
Cyprian is St. Cyprian, he gave in to the Pope which is why he became a
saint. St. Cyprian says, "A primacy is given to Peter and it is thus
made clear that there is but one Church and one Chair." I have about
thirty quotes from a Syriac saint and Father, St. Ephraim. He is the one who
just reaches to the clouds for words to describe the authority of Peter and
his successors in the Sea of Rome. I don't have time to go through these all,
but I recommend a three- volume work written by a Professor Jurgens, The
Faith of the Early Fathers, and it goes through all the Fathers and the many,
many things they said to show that they recognize this authority in the Pope.
Augustine, for instance, "Even if some traitor crept into this order of
Bishops which is drawn from Peter, himself, up to Anastasius who now occupies
the same See, he would not prejudice the Church." He speaks of the cathedre
Petri. When you look
at St. Augustine, a great saint and Father that the Protestants revere,
Augustine had more things to say about the Popes as successors to Peter with
all of his plenary authority than almost anybody else in the first seven
centuries of the Church. It's astonishing. Augustine said, "Who is
ignorant that the chief Apostolate is to be preferred to any
Episcopate?" Of the dignity of Peter he says, "in whom the primacy
of the Apostles shone forth with excelling grace." Objection: Why Wasn't
Papal Infallibility Defined Until the 1800's? The Bible Never Mentions Papal
Infallibility. Now, we could
go on and on. Somebody could say, "Now, wait a second. Why wasn't Papal
infallibility defined until the 1800s? The Bible never says Papal
infallibility." No it doesn't. But the Bible never says Trinity, either.
And all non-Catholic Christians affirm the Trinity. Why wasn't the word
"Trinity" used? Well, because the word Trinity wasn't necessary
until heresies arose that forced the Church to formulate and to defend the
doctrine of God, one God in Three Persons adequately and sufficiently. At
that point, they came up with a very helpful term, "Tri-unity" or
Trinity to do so. Likewise, in
looking at Matthew 16 and the unconditional guarantee that Jesus gives to
Peter, the recipient of the keys, the gates of Hades will not prevail against
the Church which is built upon the Rock. The gates of Hades will not prevail
against Peter and his successors. Well, the gates of Hades derive their power
from error, from untruth, from falsehood, the father of lies. If one lie is
allowed into the Church's pure, sacred teaching, that's like taking a window
pane and putting one crack into it. I'll tell you what happens. I was driving
down a highway in Milwaukee and a little pebble bounced up and just touched
the windshield, a little crack. What happened? Over the next few months, my
wife will tell you, that crack grew and grew, and we had to replace it
because the whole thing could have been shattered. Conclusion If one should
admit one falsehood, defined as truth, the gates of Hades have prevailed.
Christ has given us an unconditional guarantee that they will not prevail
because he will build His Church upon Peter and His successors, the Rock, the
foundation stone. This gives us confidence because the family of God on earth
is never left without a father figure to teach and to help us. Now, if a
Judas-type occupies the Chair, you better believe that God will graciously
pour out an extra measure of the Holy Spirit to protect His children and see that
that scoundrel is out, quick. And they were. And to show that these people
were exposed -- every Catholic historian will admit that certain Popes, a
very, very few, were scoundrels who were acting too scoundrelish to even
bother teaching, thanks be to God. But this gives to us the kind of
confidence we need as God's sons and daughters to listen to the Holy Father,
John Paul II, and hear the voice of Christ because this awesome grace that is
given to the Pope is one of the many graces that Christ died to give to us. Let's treasure
it. Let's cherish it and let's live it out with God's grace and power. In the
name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, we pray, Our Father, etc. The
electronic form of this document is copyrighted.Copyright (c) Trinity
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