Traditional Catholic Teaching - Lesson 5- The Pope

Lesson 5 - The Pope

The head of the Catholic Church on earth is the Pope. And the reason why he is obeyed and reverenced by Catholics can be summed up very simply. It is because he is the successor of St. Peter whom Christ appointed to be the head of His Church on earth. What we have to do therefore is:

1. to see what exact position and powers Christ gave to Peter and
2. to show how those powers have descended to the Popes ever since.

Simon Peter

The name Peter was born with was Simon Bar-Jona, Simon son of John, Simon Johnson in fact. It was his brother Andrew who first brought him to Our Lord. And the first words Christ spoke to him were these:

Thou art Simon the son of Jona. Thou shalt be called Cephas (which is interpreted Peter). (John I.)

That was all. The word Cephas in Aramaic — the language spoken in Palestine in Our Lord's time — means a rock. No doubt from time to time Simon wondered why Our Lord had picked that particular name. But the explanation did not come until nearly three years later. During those three years Simon was one of the twelve Apostles who were closest to Our Lord whom He trained especially for the work He had for them to do.

Peter, The Shepherd Of The Flock

Now let us take a leap over the intervening years and come to one of the last meetings between Our Lord and Simon. (John 21.) It was on the shores of the Sea of Galilee
after Christ's resurrection. In the grey light of the early morning a fisherman's boat is approaching the land. In it are Peter and others. They see a figure standing on the shore and when John said: "It is the Lord") Simon Peter jumped overboard and splashed ashore.

Christ had prepared a meal for them and after they had eaten He took Simon aside and He said to him: Simon son of John lovest thou Me more than these?

Simon replied: "Yea Lord Thou knowest that I love Thee."

Christ said to him: "Feed My lambs."

He said to him again: "Simon son of John lovest thou Me?"

Simon replied: "Yea Lord Thou knowest that I love Thee."

Christ said to him again: "Feed my lambs."

He said to him a third time: "Simon son of John lovest thou Me?"

Peter was grieved because He had said to him the third time Lovest thou Me? (Perhaps Peter remembered that on the night of Christ's arrest he had denied three times that he knew Him.) He replied: "Lord Thou knowest all things. Thou knowest that I love Thee,"

And Christ said to him: "Feed My sheep."

What was Christ doing? Obviously He wasn't handing over a flock of animals to Peter. Equally obviously what He was doing was giving to Peter the title which He had given to Himself when He said: "I am the Good Shepherd"

How Peter Is To Feed The Flock?

He told Peter to feed His flock. What food was He to give the flock? We can understand this better if we remember that Christ used the word "food" in three different ways. Once He had said: "Not in bread alone doth man live but in every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God." (Matt. 4.)

Food here means the word of God, the truth.

On another occasion He said: "My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me." (John 4)

Food here means doing the will of God. It means law.

And again He had said: "He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood hath everlasting life." (John 6)

And food here is the sacrament and the life of which Christ said: "I am come that they may have life and have it more abundantly." (John 10)

In short He is appointing Peter to be the guardian of the way, the truth and the life. Three titles which Christ had particularly claimed as His own.

Peter The Guardian Of The Faith

These words of Christ threw a flood of light on what Christ had previously said. The Apostles understood now what He meant when at the Last Supper He had said to Peter:

Simon, Simon. Satan has claimed power over you so that he can sift you like wheat. But I have prayed for thee that thy faith may not fail; when, after a while, thou hast come back to Me, it is for thee to be the support of thy brethren. (Luke 22.)

Notice how Christ makes a distinction between you (all the Apostles) and thee (Peter). He knew that Peter through fear would shortly deny that he knew Him. But He also knew that Peter would come back to Him and He had prayed specially for Peter so that then he would be the guardian and the mainstay of the faith of all the rest.

Peter The Rock Foundation Of The Church

And they understood now what Christ had meant some months before, when He had at last explained what was meant by the name Peter, the rock.

The occasion was after some six months spent in the exclusive company of His Apostles. They were at a place in the north of Palestine called Caesarea Philippi and Christ put the question to them:

Who do men say that the Son of Man is?

But they said: some John the Baptist and other some Elias and others Jeremias or one of the prophets. Jesus said to them:

But who do you say that I am?

Simon Peter answered and said: Thou art the Christ the Son of the Living God. And Jesus answering said to him:

Blessed art thou Simon Bar-Jona because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee but My Father Who is in heaven. And I say to thee that thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build My Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it and I will give to thee the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth it shall be bound also in heaven and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth it shall be loosed also in heaven. (Matthew 16.)

Peter The Supreme Head On Earth

Now take all those passages together and see just what position is given to Peter. He is to take the place of the Good Shepherd. He is to be the guardian of the way, the truth and the life. He is to be the support of the brethren. He has the power personally given to him of binding and loosing, of making laws, that is, and decisions, He has the power of the keys. (We still present a key to a king when he enters a city to show we acknowledge his rule over it.) He is to be the foundation of the Church upon earth, the foundation which keeps a building united, makes it a building instead of a heap of loose stones.

In the Sermon on the Mount Christ had spoken about the:

wise men that built his house upon a rock, And the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew, and they beat upon that house and it fell not for it was founded on a rock, (Matthew 7.)

That was the position then given to Peter. He was to be a real ruler with real authority over the whole Church to take the place of Christ when He shou1d be gone.

Peter's Position Acknowledged

Pick up the Acts of the Apostles and see how the position of Peter as a leader stands out.

As he had been the first to acknowledge Christ as God during the lifetime of Christ, so now he was the first Apostle to see Christ risen from the dead.

He was the first who preached to the people after the coming of the Holy Spirit. He was the first who confirmed his preaching by a miracle.

He was the first in taking the lead in filling up the numbers of the Apostles to twelve again after the suicide of Judas.

He was the first to convert the Jews, the first to convert the Gentiles.

After St. Paul had been converted by a miraculous vision on the road to Damascus he spent three years in solitude in prayer with God. But before he began his missionary journeys be tells us:

I went to Jerusalem to see Peter and I tarried with him fifteen days. (Galatians 1.)

Peter's Successors acknowledged

When Peter died it was the accepted thing that his successor took over all his powers. For example, in the year A.D. 95 Clement, the third successor of St. Peter as Bishop of Rome, wrote a letter to Corinth to settle a dispute among the Christians there. He writes with the authority of a man who knows his position:

"If any man," he says, "should be disobedient unto the words spoken by God through us let them understand that they will involve themselves in no slight transgression and danger. Render obedience to the things written by us through the Holy Spirit."

He wrote this letter, notice, when the Apostle St. John was still alive; and the letter was welcomed and obeyed by the Christians of Corinth. It was read frequently in their churches for nearly a hundred years, being put almost on a level with the Scriptures.

It is surely common sense to take it for granted that Peters powers would not end with his death. The foundation would not be pulled from under the Church just when it was most needed.

England Acknowledged Peter's Successors

To see how the power of the Pope was accepted let us simply take our own country. In the year 314 before even the Anglo-Saxons had landed in England there was a Church Council held at Arles in France. Three British Bishops were present including Eborius of York and Restitutus of London. It passed a number of laws and sent a copy of them with a most respectful letter to the Pope whom they called their "very sacred Master and Brother Silvester" asking him to:

"Send letters about these laws to all according to custom."

When the Britons had been driven up into Wales and the West country the new Apostle to convert the Anglo-Saxons was Augustine sent by Pope Gregory in the year 597.

Alcuin who died in 804 wrote:

"Let no one contend against the authority of the Church, And lest he be found a schismatic and not a Catholic, let him follow the approved authority of the Holy Roman Church." (Letter 90 to the Lyonese.)

St. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, who died in 1109 wrote:

"It is certain that he who does not obey the ordinances of the Roman Pontiff, which are issued for the maintenance of the Christian religion is disobedient to the Apostle Peter whose Vicar he is nor is he of that flock which was given to him (Peter) by God." (Faith in the Trinity, Book 4, Letter 3.)

Thomas Bradwardine, died 1349, another Archbishop of Canterbury wrote:

"I will commit myself to that ship which can never perish, the ship of Peter. For in it our only head and master Christ in safety sat and talked, to teach us mystically that in the boat of Peter, the Church of Rome, the authority and teaching of all Christian doctrine should abide." ("God's Cause" in the Preface.)

Until the Change of Religion in England these were the opening words of the oath taken by the Archbishops of Canterbury when they were appointed:

"I . . . Archbishop of Canterbury, will be from this hour henceforth faithful and obedient to St. Peter and to the Holy Apostolic Roman Church and to My Lord the Pope. . ." (Rymer's Foedera, Vol. 6, p. 8o.)

These words could be multiplied hundreds of times over from all parts of the Church, The Pope is acknowledged by all to be the supreme head of the Church on earth because he is a successor of Peter, the rock on which Christ founded His Church.

The Pope is Infallible

The Pope then has the primacy of the Church. This is not just an empty title, It means he has real power to rule the Church. Moreover we hold that the Pope is infallible. The word must be carefully understood. It means that the Pope cannot make a mistake when as shepherd and teacher of all Christians he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church.

This is very important. Let me repeat it. We believe that Christ has promised to prevent the Pope from making mistakes only when he is

1. acting as shepherd and teacher of all Christians;

2. is defining a doctrine concerning faith or morals;

3. is insisting that this doctrine be held by the whole Church.

Only when these three conditions are all fulfilled together is the Pope infallible.

Infallibility does not mean that the Pope can do no wrong. The Pope is a man like other men and may be a sinner. He has to save his soul with as much difficulty as other men, and indeed with more difficulty because he has greater responsibilities. (There have been Popes who have been weak-kneed in following what they knew to be the right course. They have been severely reprimanded in their lifetime for it, as was Pope Eugenius by St. Bernard and indeed St. Peter by St. Paul.)

Infallibility does not mean that the Pope can never be mistaken. He can make mistakes about anything just like any other man. It does not mean that the Pope can never make a mistake in religious matters. He might preach a sermon and make mistakes through ignorance or carelessness.

Infallibility simply means that when he speaks solemnly stating for the benefit of the whole Church: "This is the doctrine of Christ"; then he cannot go wrong.
The successor of Peter would not be giving food but poison to the flock and the gates of hell would have prevailed.

Again notice it does not mean that the Pope always knows all the answers. God does not put the answers into his head. He is not inspired like the writers of the Bible. When he proposes to make a solemn statement (a "definition" is the technical term) be must use ordinary human means, study, prayer, consultation, to find the answer.

The promise of Christ is simply that when the time is ripe and he states the doctrine of the Church then he will state it exactly, without error.

Naturally Catholics will give obedience and reverence to the Pope even in his ordinary day to day rules and advice to the Church. Just as a son will give a loyal and loving obedience to his father.

We know that God will certainly give special helps to the Pope as He always gives special help to every man to do the task which falls to him

The Immense Benefit Of The Papacy

The immense benefit which Christ has given to His Church by the foundation of the Papacy is this: Here is a simple and clear way of finding the true Church — "Where Peter is — there is the Church", wrote St. Ambrose (died in 397).

And here is a simple and effective way of keeping His Church united—on the rock foundation of Peter.

A Catholic knows that the Church's teaching will not vary from day to day. He knows that Bishops in his Church will not be able to teach entirely opposed doctrines.

He will not expect that he is going to be able to turn up a little book and find a set answer for every difficulty. In his every day life he will have to make decisions according to his conscience and his knowledge. Certain questions may still be debated among Catholics. It may be centuries before the answer is quite clear. But he knows that when an answer has been given the Church will stand by that answer and not change. He is in no danger of shipwreck through finding that the chart has been altered or light-houses have been moved. This is what Christ intended and that is why the Church remains because it is founded on a rock.

"Bad Popes"

A word must be said about the problem of "bad popes". Among the 267 men who have reigned as Pope there have been saints, good men, middling men and a few bad men. In fact the Popes have been men. God never guaranteed that every Pope would be a saint. Every man has to save his own soul with the help of God. A Pope can fail to save his own soul like any other man. All Christ guaranteed was that no Pope in the exercise of his office would mislead the Church in his teaching. In fact the record of the personal character of the Popes is outstandingly good. No less than eighty.seyen are acknowledged saints of God. The number on whose moral character after they became Pope any serious shadow lies is not more than a handful. This is a record which will hardly be equalled by any line of rulers in history.

It is one more witness to the divine nature of the Church that even a Pope who was personally a bad man has never diminished in the slightest degree in his teaching the high ideals of the Christian Faith, nor tampered with the truth of Christ.

The Pope is the test of the true Church.

Where Peter is — there is the Church.

Where Peter is not — there is no true Church.

End of Lesson 5

Supplement A

See Appendix 1: "The Role of the Pope In Christ's Church"

See Appendix 2: "The Role of the Pope in Guiding the Interpretation of Doctrine

Supplement B "Peter's Reinstatement"

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