The Church

May 9, 2018 By Sam Guzman 7 Comments

The Future of the Church

The late 1960s were a time of social, political, and religious upheaval. Revolution was in the air and threatening all the most time-honored traditions and institutions. Then, as now, many were uncertain about the future of the Church. How could the Catholic faith hope to survive in an increasingly secularized world? What would the future of the Church look like? How would the Church function as she lost her political and worldly influence?

In 1969, the young, rising theologian, Joseph Ratzinger, (the future Pope Benedict XVI) was asked about the future of the Catholic church during a radio broadcast. And his answer was profound—as relevant today as it was nearly 50 years ago. Here’s what he said.

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“The future of the Church can and will issue from those whose roots are deep and who live from the pure fullness of their faith. It will not issue from those who accommodate themselves merely to the passing moment or from those who merely criticize others and assume that they themselves are infallible measuring rods; nor will it issue from those who take the easier road, who sidestep the passion of faith, declaring false and obsolete, tyrannous and legalistic, all that makes demands upon men, that hurts them and compels them to sacrifice themselves. To put this more positively: The future of the Church, once again as always, will be reshaped by saints, by men, that is, whose minds probe deeper than the slogans of the day, who see more than others see, because their lives embrace a wider reality. Unselfishness, which makes men free, is attained only through the patience of small daily acts of self-denial. By this daily passion, which alone reveals to a man in how many ways he is enslaved by his own ego, by this daily passion and by it alone, a man’s eyes are slowly opened. He sees only to the extent that he has lived and suffered. If today we are scarcely able any longer to become aware of God, that is because we find it so easy to evade ourselves, to flee from the depths of our being by means of the narcotic of some pleasure or other. Thus our own interior depths remain closed to us. If it is true that a man can see only with his heart, then how blind we are!

“How does all this affect the problem we are examining? It means that the big talk of those who prophesy a Church without God and without faith is all empty chatter. We have no need of a Church that celebrates the cult of action in political prayers. It is utterly superfluous. Therefore, it will destroy itself. What will remain is the Church of Jesus Christ, the Church that believes in the God who has become man and promises us life beyond death. The kind of priest who is no more than a social worker can be replaced by the psychotherapist and other specialists; but the priest who is no specialist, who does not stand on the [sidelines], watching the game, giving official advice, but in the name of God places himself at the disposal of man, who is beside them in their sorrows, in their joys, in their hope and in their fear, such a priest will certainly be needed in the future.

“Let us go a step farther. From the crisis of today the Church of tomorrow will emerge — a Church that has lost much. She will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning. She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity. As the number of her adherents diminishes, so it will lose many of her social privileges. In contrast to an earlier age, it will be seen much more as a voluntary society, entered only by free decision. As a small society, it will make much bigger demands on the initiative of her individual members. Undoubtedly it will discover new forms of ministry and will ordain to the priesthood approved Christians who pursue some profession. In many smaller congregations or in self-contained social groups, pastoral care will normally be provided in this fashion. Along-side this, the full-time ministry of the priesthood will be indispensable as formerly. But in all of the changes at which one might guess, the Church will find her essence afresh and with full conviction in that which was always at her center: faith in the triune God, in Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man, in the presence of the Spirit until the end of the world. In faith and prayer she will again recognize the sacraments as the worship of God and not as a subject for liturgical scholarship.

“The Church will be a more spiritual Church, not presuming upon a political mandate, flirting as little with the Left as with the Right. It will be hard going for the Church, for the process of crystallization and clarification will cost her much valuable energy. It will make her poor and cause her to become the Church of the meek. The process will be all the more arduous, for sectarian narrow-mindedness as well as pompous self-will will have to be shed. One may predict that all of this will take time. The process will be long and wearisome as was the road from the false progressivism on the eve of the French Revolution — when a bishop might be thought smart if he made fun of dogmas and even insinuated that the existence of God was by no means certain — to the renewal of the nineteenth century. But when the trial of this sifting is past, a great power will flow from a more spiritualized and simplified Church. Men in a totally planned world will find themselves unspeakably lonely. If they have completely lost sight of God, they will feel the whole horror of their poverty. Then they will discover the little flock of believers as something wholly new. They will discover it as a hope that is meant for them, an answer for which they have always been searching in secret.

“And so it seems certain to me that the Church is facing very hard times. The real crisis has scarcely begun. We will have to count on terrific upheavals. But I am equally certain about what will remain at the end: not the Church of the political cult, which is dead already, but the Church of faith. It may well no longer be the dominant social power to the extent that she was until recently; but it will enjoy a fresh blossoming and be seen as man’s home, where he will find life and hope beyond death.”

October 5, 2015 By Sam Guzman 7 Comments

Enemies of the Cross of Christ

The Gospel is undoubtedly good news. It is news of hope and mercy and salvation and of eternal happiness. As Christians, we are promised the resurrection. We are promised that all our pain and sorrow will be alleviated, and that one day God will wipe every tear from our eyes. We know that heaven awaits those who are faithful to the end, and that in heaven we will find the fulfillment of all our deepest longings, and that there we will know eternal joy.

Yes, the Gospel is good news—but it has always been a challenge too, for Jesus demands everything. He asks us, his disciples, to take up and carry our crosses after him on the narrow way. Why? Is it because he is capricious and mean? Hardly. It is because he is the great physician, and he must cure us of what is killing us, namely the deadly passions that would choke the life from our souls.

The disease of sin and death dwells at the deepest level of our being, and this sinful nature must be crucified if we are to be saved. This crucifixion is what is known as repentance. We must die to ourselves if we would be saved. “For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for my sake will find it” (Matt. 16:25). “And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Gal. 5:24).

So the Gospel is Good News, but it is also a sentence of death on our old nature. We cannot understand Christianity until we understand this fact: Heaven can only be found through the hard wood of the cross. There simply cannot be a joyful Easter without there first being a Good Friday.

Enemies Within

Sadly, at the very highest levels of the Church, there are men who are opposed to the Gospel of Christ. They despise the cross and they want a Christianity free from it. They want a Catholicism sanitized of sacrifice, of repentance, of dying to self, of carrying one’s cross to follow Christ. They want an easy religion—a religion that accommodates us in our sin, that pats us on the back and assures us that everything will be ok, a faith that requires nothing of us.

To create this crossless religion, they believe they must change the Church and her immutable teachings. All their thought is bent upon it, and they are currently using every machination in their power to accomplish their aim. Perhaps their chief method is to question what is settled—to whisper like the serpent of old, “Did God really mean what he said?”

Put simply, these men are “enemies of the cross of Christ” (Phil. 3:18). They are traitors to their Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. More than this, they would attack and mar Christ’s bride, refashioning her in their own image. This is a painful reality because we want to believe the best about our shepherds. We want to believe they can do no wrong, that they will always remain faithful and they have our best interest at heart. But tragically, this isn’t always true.

Yet, those who would soften the Gospel message are nothing new. Indeed, the wolves in sheeps clothing have existed from the earliest days of the Church. St. Paul frequently warned of such men who would come to lead souls astray:

“I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock;and from among your own selves will arise men speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them” (Acts 20:29)

What to Do

Knowing that such enemies of the truth exist is not enough. The question arises, What should we do about it?

First, we must “hold fast to the traditions,” firmly rooting ourselves in what Catholics have always believed and done. When we are formed by the teachings and traditions of the faith, we will more easily discern truth from error.

Second, we must strengthen ourselves by frequent use of the sacrament of confession and reception of the Holy Eucharist. Only when we are in a state of grace will have the strength to pray and live as we ought in difficult times.

Third, we must stay close to the Immaculate Virgin Mary. She and Satan are engaged in an intense battle, a battle in which she will ultimately crush his head. The saints assure us that those who stay close to her will never be deceived and will never fall away. So learn to love your spiritual Mother.

Finally, pray and sacrifice. Pray for our shepherds. Pray for the Holy Father. Pray for priests and bishops everywhere. Every one of them has a target painted on their back, spiritually speaking. The devil loves nothing more than to discourage, and if possible, destroy our leaders.

The conclusion of the matter is this. There are enemies of the truth within the walls of the Church, those who would distort and pervert the Gospel of Christ. We cannot be complacent or assume that just because we know the gates of hell will not prevail against the Church that we can relax and do nothing. We must realize that we are engaged in a spiritual war, a war in which the only two outcomes are life and death. This war that must be fought and won with spiritual weapons. Pray, pray, pray.

July 28, 2015 By Fulton J. Sheen 9 Comments

Truth and Tolerance: Why the Church Can’t Change Her Teaching

“The Catholic Church is intolerant.” That simple thought, like a yellow-fever sign, is supposed to be the one solid reason which should frighten away any one who might be contemplating knocking at the portals of the Church for entrance, or for a crumb of the Bread of Life. When proof for this statement is asked, it is retorted that the Church is intolerant because of its self-complacency and smug satisfaction as the unique interpreter of the thoughts of Christ. Its narrow-mindedness is supposed to be revealed in its unwillingness to cooperate effectively with other Christian bodies that are working for the union of churches. Within the last ten years, two great world conferences on religion have been held, in which every great religion except the Catholic participated. The Catholic Church was invited to attend and discuss the two important subjects of doctrine and ministry, but she refused the invitation.

That is not all. Even in our own country she has refused to lend a helping hand in the federating of those churches which decided it was better to throw dogmatic differences into the background, in order to serve better the religious needs of America. The other churches would give her a royal welcome, but she will not come. She will not cooperate! She will not conform! And she will not conform because she is too narrow-minded and intolerant! Christ would not have acted that way!

Such is, practically every one will admit, a fair statement of the attitude the modern world bears to the Church. The charge of intolerance is not new. It was once directed against Our Blessed Lord Himself.

Immediately after His betrayal, Our Blessed Lord was summoned before a religious body for the first Church Conference of Christian times, held not in the city of Lausanne or Stockholm, but in the city of Jerusalem. The meeting was presided over by one Annas, the primate and head of one of the most aggressive families of the patriarchate, a man wise with the deluding wisdom of three score and ten years, in a country in which age and wisdom were synonymous. Five of his sons in succession wore the sacred ephod of blue and purple and scarlet, the symbols of family power. As head of his own house, Annas had charge of family revenues, and from non-biblical sources we learn that part of the family fortune was invested in trades connected with the Temple. The stalls for the sale of bird and beast and material for sacrifice were known as the booths of the sons of Annas. One expects a high tone when a priest goes into business; but Annas was a Sadducee, and since he did not believe in a future life, he made the most of life while he had it. There was always one incident he remembered about his Temple business, and that was the day Our Lord flung his tables down its front steps as if they were lumber, and with cords banished the money-handlers from the Temple like rubbish before the wind.

That incident flashed before his mind now, when he saw standing before him the Woodworker of Nazareth. The eyes of Jesus and Annas met, and the first world conference on religion opened. Annas, ironically feigning surprise at the sight of the prisoner whom multitudes followed the week before, opened the meeting by asking Jesus to make plain two important religious matters, the two that were discussed later on in Lausanne and Geneva and Stockholm, namely, the question of His doctrine and the question of His ministry. Our Lord was asked by a religious man, a religious leader, and a religious authority, representative of the Common faith of a nation, to enter into discussion, to sit down to a conference on the all-important questions of religion-ministry and discipline-and He refused! And the world’s first Church Conference was a failure.

He refused in words which left no doubt in the mind of Annas that the doctrine which He preached was the one which He would now uphold in religious conference, namely, His Divinity. With words, cut like the facets of a diamond, and sentences, as uncompromising as a two-edged sword, He answered Annas : “I have spoken openly to the world . . . and in secret spoke I nothing. Why asketh thou Me? Ask them that have heard Me, what I spoke unto them: behold, these know the things which I said.”

In so many words Jesus said to Annas: “You imply by your questioning that I am not Divine; that I am just the same as the other rabbis going up and down the country-side; that I am another one of Israel’s prophets, and at the most, only a man. I know that you would welcome Me to your heart if I would say that I am only human. But no! I have spoken openly to the world. I have declared My Divinity; I say unto you, I have exercised the right of Divinity, for I have forgiven sins; I have left my Body and Blood for posterity, and rather than deny its reality I have lost those who followed Me, who were scandalized at My words. It was only last night that I told Philip that the Father and I are One, and that I will ask My Father to send the Spirit of Truth to the Church I have founded on Peter, which will endure to the end of time. Ask those who have heard Me; they will tell you what things I have said. I have no other doctrine than that which I declared when I drove your dove-hucksters out of the Temple, and declared it to be My Father’s House; that which I have preached; that which angels declared at My birth; that which I revealed on Thabor; that which I now declare before you, namely, My Divinity. And if your first principle is that I am not Divine, but am just human like yourself, then there is nothing in common between us. So, why asketh thou Me to discuss doctrine and ministry with you?”

And some brute standing near by, feeling himself the humiliation of the high priest at such an uncompromising response, struck Our Blessed Lord across the face with a mailed fist, drawing out of Him two things: blood, and a soft answer: “If I have spoken evil bear witness of the evil: but if well, why smitest thou Me?” And that soldier in the court-room of Annas has gone down in history as the representative of that great group that bears a hatred against Divinity, the group that never clothes that hatred in any intellectual language, but rather in violence alone.

All that happened in the life of Christ happens in the life of the Church. And here in the court-room of Annas I find the reason for the Catholic Church’s refusal to take part in movements for federation such as those inspired by present world conferences on religion. Happy the Church is that there should be a desire for the union of Christendom, but she cannot take part in any such conference. In so many words the Church says to those who invited her: “Why askest thou me about my doctrine and my ministry? Ask them that have heard me. I have spoken openly through the centuries, declaring myself the Spouse of Christ, founded on the Rock of Peter. Centuries before prophets of modern religions arose, I spoke my Divinity at Nicea and Constantinople; I spoke it in the cathedrals of the Middle Ages; I speak it today in every pulpit and church throughout the world. I know that you will welcome me to your conferences if I say I am not Divine; I know Ritualists throughout the world feel the need of my ceremonials, and would grasp my hand if I would but relinquish my claim to be Divine; I know a recent writer has argued that the great organization of the Church could be the framework for the union of all Christendom, if I would give up my claim to be the Truth; I know the church doors of the world would rejoice to see me pass in ; I know your welcome would be sincere; I know you desire the union of all Christendom-but I cannot. ‘Why do you ask me?’ if your first principle is that I am not Divine, but just a human organization like your own, that I am a human institution like all other human institutions founded by erring men and erring women. If your first principle is that I am human, but not divine, then there is no common ground for conference. I must refuse.”

Call this intolerance, yes! That is just what it is-the intolerance of Divinity. It is the claim to uniqueness that brought the blow of the soldier against Christ, and it is the claim to uniqueness that brings the blow of the world’s disapproval against the Church. It is well to remember that there was one thing in the life of Christ that brought His death, and that was the intolerance of His claim to be Divine. He was tolerant about where He slept. and what He ate; He was tolerant about shortcomings of His fish-smelling apostles; He was tolerant of those who nailed Him to the Cross, but He was absolutely intolerant about His claim to be Divine. There was not much tolerance about His statement that those who I receive not in Him shall be condemned. There was not much tolerance about His statement that any one who would prefer his own father or mother to Him was not worthy of being His disciple. There was not much tolerance of the world’s opinion in giving His blessing to those whom the world would hate and revile. Tolerance to His Mind was not always good, nor was intolerance always evil.

There is no other subject on which the average mind is so much confused as the subject of tolerance and intolerance. Tolerance is always supposed to be desirable because it is taken to be synonymous with broadmindedness. Intolerance is always supposed to be undesirable, because it is taken to be synonymous with narrow-mindedness. This is not true, for tolerance and intolerance apply to two totally different things. Tolerance applies only to persons, but never to principles. Intolerance applies only to principles, but never to persons. We must be tolerant to persons because they are human; we must be intolerant about principles because they are divine. We must be tolerant to the erring, because ignorance may have led them astray; but we must be intolerant to the error, because Truth is not our making, but God’s. And hence the Church in her history, due reparation made, has always welcomed the heretic back into the treasury of her souls, but never his heresy into the treasury of her wisdom.

The Church, like Our Blessed Lord, advocates charity to all persons who disagree with her by word or by violence. Even those who in the strictest sense of the term-are bigots, are to be treated with the utmost kindness. They really do not hate the Church, they hate only what they mistakenly believe to be the Church. If I believed all the lies that are told about the Church, if I gave credence to all the foul stories told about her priesthood and Papacy, if I had been brought up on falsehoods about her teachings and her sacraments, I would probably hate the Church a thousand times more than they do.

Keeping the distinction well in mind between persons and principles, cast a hurried glance over the general religious conditions of our country. America, it is commonly said, is suffering from intolerance. While there is much want of charity to our fellow-citizens, I believe it is truer to say that America is not suffering so much from intolerance as it is suffering from a false kind of tolerance: tolerance of right and wrong; truth and error; virtue and vice; Christ and chaos. The man, in our country, who can make up his mind and hold to certain truths with all the fervor of his soul, is called narrow-minded, whereas the man who cannot make up his mind is called broadminded. And now this false broadmindedness or tolerance of truth and error has carried many minds so far that they say one religion is just as good as another, or that because one contradicts another, therefore, there is no such thing as religion. This is just like concluding that because, in the days of Columbus, some said the world was round and others said it was flat, therefore, there is no world at all.

Such indifference to the oneness of truth is at the root of all the assumptions so current in present-day thinking that religion is an open question, like the tariff, whereas science is a closed question, like the multiplication table. It is behind that strange kind of broadmindedness which teaches that any one may tell us about God, though it would never admit that any one but a scientist should tell us about an atom. It has inspired the idea that we should be broad enough to publish our sins to any psychoanalyst living in a glass house, but never so narrow as to tell them to a priest in a confessional box. It has created the general impression that any individual opinion about religion is right, and it has disposed modern minds to accept its religion dished up in the form of articles entitled: “My Idea of Religion,” written by any nondescript from a Hollywood movie star to the chief cook of the Ritz-Carlton.

This kind of broadmindedness which sacrifices principles to whims, dissolves entities into environment, and reduces truth to opinion, is an unmistakable sign of the decay of the logical faculty.

Certainly it should be reasonably expected that religion should have its authoritative spokesmen, just as well as science. If you had wounded the palm of your hand, you would not call in a florist; if you broke the spring of your watch, you would not ask an artesian-well expert to repair it; if your child had swallowed a nickel, you would not call in a collector of internal revenue; if you wished to determine idle authenticity of an alleged Rembrandt, you would not summon a house painter. If you insist that only a plumber should mend the leaks in your pipes, and not an organ tuner, if you demand a doctor shall take care of your body, and not a musician, then why, in heaven’s name, should not we demand that a man who tells about God and religion at least say his prayers?

The remedy for this broadmindedness is intolerance, not intolerance of persons, for of them we must be tolerant regardless of views they may hold, but intolerance of principles. A bridge builder must be intolerant about the foundations of his bridge; the gardener must be intolerant about weeds in his gardens; the property owner must be intolerant about his claims to property; the soldier must be intolerant about his country, as against that of the enemy, and he who is broadminded on the battlefield is a coward and a traitor. The doc¬tor must be intolerant about disease in his patients, and the professor must be intolerant about error in his pupils. So, too, the Church, founded on the Intolerance of Divinity, must be equally intolerant about the truths commissioned to her. There are to be no one-fisted battles, no half-drawn swords, no divided loves, no equalizing Christ and Buddha in a broad sweep of sophomoric tolerance or broad-mindedness, for as Our Blessed Lord has put it: “He that is not with Me is against Me.”

There is only one answer to the problem of the constituents of water, namely, two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen. There is only one answer to the question of what is the capital of the United States. There is only one true answer to the problem of two and two. Suppose that certain mathematicians in various parts of this country taught diverse kinds of multiplication tables. One taught that two times two equaled five, another two times two equaled six, another two times two equaled seven and one fourth, another two times two equaled nine and four fifths. Then suppose that some one decided it would be better to be broadminded and to work together and sacrifice their particular solutions for the sake of economy. The result would be a Federation of Mathematicians, compromising, possibly, of the pooled solution that two times two equaled five and seven eighths. Outside this federation is another group which holds that two times two equals four. They refuse to enter the federation unless the mathematicians agree to accept this as the true and unique solution. The broadminded group in conference taunts them, saying: “You are too intolerant and narrow-minded. You smack of the dead past. They believed that in the dark ages.”

Now this is precisely the attitude of the Church on the subject of the world conferences on religion. She holds that just as the truth is one in geography, in chemistry, and mathematics, so too there is one truth in religion, and if we are intolerant about the truth that two times two equals four, then we should also be intolerant about those principles on which is hinged the only really important thing in the world, namely, the salvation of our immortal soul. If the assumption is that there is no Divinity, no oneness about truth, but only opinion, probability, and compromise, then the Church must refrain from participation. Any conference on religion, therefore, which starts with the assumption that there is no such thing as truth, and that contrary and contradictory sects may be united in a federation of broad-mindedness, must never expect the Church to join or cooperate.

As we grew from childhood to adolescence, the one thing that probably did most to wreck our faith in Santa Claus-I know it did mine -was to find a Santa Claus in every department-store window. If there were only one Santa Claus, and he was at the North Pole, how could there be one in every shop window and at every street corner? That same mentality which led us to seek truth in unity should lead us in religious matters to identically the same conclusion.

The world may charge the Church with intolerance, and the world is right. The Church is intolerant; intolerant about Truth, intolerant about principles, intolerant about Divinity, just as Our Blessed Lord was intolerant about His Divinity. The other religions may change their principles, and they do change them, because their principles are man-made. The Church cannot change, because her principles are God-made. Religion is not a sum of beliefs that we would like, but the sum of beliefs God has given. The world may disagree with the Church, but the world knows very definitely with what it is disagreeing. In the future as in the past, the Church will be intolerant about the sanctity of marriage, for what God has joined together no man shall put asunder; she will be intolerant about her creed, and be ready to die for it, for she fears not those who kill the body, but rather those who have the power to cast body and soul into hell. She will be intolerant about her infallibility, for “Lo,” says Christ, “I am with you all the days even unto the end of the world.” And while she is intolerant even to blood, in adhering to the truths given her by her Divine Founder, she will be tolerant to those who say she is intolerant, for the same Divine Founder has taught her to say: “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.”

There are only two positions to take concerning truth, and both of them had their hearing centuries ago in the court-room of Solomon where two women claimed a babe. A babe is like truth; it is one; it is whole; it is organic and it cannot be divided. The real mother of ‘the babe would accept no compromise. She was intolerant about her claim. She must have the whole babe, or nothing-the intolerance of Motherhood. But the false mother was tolerant. She was willing to compromise. She was willing to divide the babe-and the babe would have met its death through broadmindedness.

Excerpt from the book “Moods and Truths” (Published in 1932)

January 20, 2015 By Tyler Blanski 3 Comments

The Biblical Boots of the Papacy

Do you remember that one scene in Toy Story when Sheriff Woody, unsure of his vocation, doubts his authority over the rest of the gang? Woody’s been insulted and abandoned, his motives have been questioned, threats to domestic security are only getting scarier, and he’s feeling very, well, very human. It’s been a long story, a toy story. Frustrated, Woody sighs and leans over to look at his boots. On the bottom of his right boot, scrawled in permanent ink, is the name Andy. Suddenly, he remembers his purpose. Woody’s deepest identity, his special role among Andy’s other toys, ultimately rests in…Andy.

The metaphor breaks down, as all metaphors do, but I invite you to have fun with it. For some two thousand liturgical years the pope has been insulted and abandoned, his motives have been questioned, the threats to domestic security are only getting scarier, and all the while he’s been feeling very human. It’s been a long story, a salvation story, and how often has the good pontiff doubted his authority over the rest of the gang? How often has he sighed and leaned over to look at his boots? And when he does, he remembers his purpose. For on the bottom of his right boot, so to speak, is the name Jesus. The pope’s deepest identity as St. Peter’s successor, his special role among Christ’s other apostles, ultimately rests in…Jesus.

It’s always a good time to remember the biblical boots of the papacy. Much has been written against the pope—most of it clouded by exaggeration and fabrication. But when we open our Bibles, Peter’s role in salvation history begins to make sense. It comes alive in a way that makes the story more Christ-exulting and soul-nourishing, and we are invited to worship the triune God with grateful and obedient hearts.

Gathering the Tribes

Jesus went up into heaven and left behind something to finish his mission. What did he leave behind? He did not leave behind the Bible or little quips about sola-this and sola-that. Rather, he left behind those loveable and very human men, the twelve apostles. Jesus had carefully chosen them: he went out to a mountainside to pray (Luke 6:12) before he designated them to be his twelve apostles (Luke 6:13), and throughout his public ministry he trained them for this important job. In order to understand the papacy, we first need to remember the significance of the Twelve.

Why twelve? The only answer is because as the new King in the royal line of David, Jesus was gathering the twelve tribes. Richard Bauckham suggests the significance of the Twelve “undoubtedly related to the Jewish hopes for the restoration of all twelve tribes in the messianic age.” The Twelve “correspond symbolically to the twelve princes of the tribes of Israel in the wilderness (Num. 1:4-16).” He concludes: “Jesus’ appointment of the Twelve symbolized the claim that in his own ministry this messianic restoration of Israel had already begun in nucleus.”

The Kingdom of God is the Davidic kingdom to the umpteenth degree, the fulfillment of the Old Covenant, what Jesus calls “my Church” (Matthew 16:18). As heaven’s outpost on earth, the Church is not of this world, but in this world. It’s not just a theory. Inaugurated in the present, the Kingdom will be consummated when the Son of Man returns—but until then, it remains present. The Church follows inevitably from the incarnation. She is the social continuation of the incarnation, the hypostatic union of Christ’s divinity and humanity. You could literally touch the body of Jesus, and you can literally touch the Church. Like the Davidic Covenant, but now open to gentiles, this New Covenant is a social reality—a Kingdom.

The continuity between the two covenants

“The New Testament lies hidden in the Old,” wrote St. Augustine, “and the Old is unveiled in the New.” It could also be said that the Church lies hidden in Israel and Israel is unveiled in the Church. In fact, even in the Old Testament the Kingdom of David was a manifestation of God’s own Kingdom: “You think to withstand the kingdom of the Lord in the hand of the sons of David?” (2 Chron. 13:8). Raymond Brown says: “The kingdom established by David was a political institution to be sure, but one with enormous religious attachments (priesthood, temple, sacrifice, prophecy)…It is the closest Old Testament parallel to the Church.”

Now, David and his lineage, the anointed kings of Judah, did not govern alone. As king Solomon appointed twelve officers to rule his kingdom (1 Kings 4:7), so also Jesus appoints twelve apostles to rule his Kingdom after his ascension (Matt. 19:28). The Twelve are his royal cabinet, the body of men authorized to do the King’s will, to represent him as they rule over his New Israel, the Church: “He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me” (Luke 10:16). Jesus even gives them the power to forgive sins: “‘As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.’ And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained’” (John 20:21-23). Christ planned to bless the world “through their message” (John 17:20).

In choosing twelve men to be the ministers of his Kingdom Jesus knew exactly what he was doing. And the apostles were no fools. They knew that Jesus was the new King David, and that he had gathered the twelve tribes. They knew that they held an office, and that an office left vacant must be filled. After the death of Judas, Peter says to the others: “Let another take his office” (Acts 1:20). There was no debate. And Matthias was chosen to be numbered among them.

The Lord intended his Church to be governed through the apostolic succession. The apostles and their successors—the bishops—are empowered by the Holy Spirit “to care for the church of God” (Acts 20:28). To submit to their authority is to submit to Christ: “He who receives any one whom I send receives me” (John 13:20). Even after Christ’s ascension, the Kingdom was to remain a social reality. Jesus had gathered the tribes.

A peg in a sure spot

The biblical boots of the papacy sink deep into Israel’s history, to Jerusalem and her kings, and to the ministers of the kingdom. And the most important minister of the king was called ’asher ‘al-habayith, the “royal vizier,” or the “Master of the Palace,” (literally the “one over the house”). He was the na‘ar, the steward, of the king’s house (2 Sam. 9:9; 19:18). This was the office given to Joseph by the Pharaoh (Gen. 41:40; 45:8). He was the highest ranking official in the kings royal court, not unlike a prime minister, appointed to manage the day-to-day affairs of the kingdom. Continued in Solomon’s reign on (e.g. 1 Kings 4:6;18:1-5), the office was second only to the king in authority. He governed in the king’s name, and acted for him in his absence. He was not the king himself, but he was the king’s mouthpiece, his right-hand man, the court of final appeal. While the king had many ministers who had power to bind and loose, the prime minister could bind what the others had loosed and loose what the others had bound. He had plenary authority, total veto power.

When you think of the steward, John Bergsma invites us to think of Denethor in Tolkien’s “The Return of the King:” the man in authority second only to the one true king. During the lifetime of the prophet Isaiah, a man named Shebna was the ’asher ‘al-habayith of the kingdom. But he prepared a tomb for himself in the special place reserved for the royal sons of David. Like Denethor, he confused his role with that of the king and was no longer worthy of his office. So God sent Isaiah to Shebna with news that he would be replaced by a more righteous man, Eliakim the son of Hilkiah:

Thus says the LORD to Shebna, master of the palace:

“I will thrust you from your office and pull you down from your station.

In that day I will call my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah;

I will clothe him with your robe, and gird him with your girdle,

and give over to him your authority.

He shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to the house of Judah.

I will place on Eliakim’s shoulder the key of the House of David;

he shall open, and none shall shut;

and he shall shut and none shall open.

I will fix him like a peg in a sure spot,

to be a throne of honor to his father’s house” (Is. 22:19-23).

Although this royal steward is mentioned elsewhere in Scripture (e.g. 1 Kings 4:1-6; 18:3; 2 Kings 15:5; 18:18, 37; 19:2), here we learn so much about this unique office. Notice, for example, that the symbol of the prime minister’s authority was a key, as he had the power to open doors as well as to close doors to those who sought the king’s presence. He wore special robes of honor and a girdle, a traditional priestly garment (Lev. 8:7). His office did not cease with his death: it was a chair to be filled by one man succeeding another. He was “a father” to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. He was someone who you can hang a lot of weight on, like a peg in a sure spot.

How firm a foundation

The Church lies hidden in Israel and Israel is unveiled in the Church. Naturally, then, there are parallels between the two. For while Christ appointed twelve ministers, only one of them was made “prime minister.” Only one could bind what the others loose and loose what the other bound. In Matthew 16:17-19 we read: “When Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples: ‘Who do people say that the Son of man is?’ And they said, ‘Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’ He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter replied, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’” The text continues:

“Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona!

For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but by Father in heaven.

And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock 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 loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

By gathering together the bishops-in-training of his Church to discern his identity, Jesus just held something like the first ecumenical council. As a council, however, they are unable to say. But Simon steps forward with a revelation given to him from the Father: “You are the son of God!” And in the presence of the other ministers, Jesus then appoints Simon to the office of the ’asher ‘al-habayith by paraphrasing Isaiah 22:19-23. The thematic parallels are strong: “what he opens, none shall shut” and “what you bind on earth will be bound in heaven,” the “sure peg” and the “rock,” the “key of the House of David” and the “keys of the Kingdom of Heaven.” Jesus appointed Peter as the new “master of the palace” in his Kingdom so that he could shepherd the people in his name.

Peter’s modern-day successor—the pope—serves as the current prime minister in Christ’s Kingdom. Like Eliakim, who was a “father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem,” the pope leads as the “Holy Father” of the Church. As in the Davidic kingdom of old, the pope is the King’s premier representative.

Not buying it yet? That’s okay. Let’s take a closer look at the “rock” and the “keys.”

The rock

“On this rock I will build my Church” (Mat. 16:18). In the future Jesus is going to build his Church on a foundation, the fisherman he just named “Rock” (in Aramaic, Cephas). Jesus literally invented this name, and to translate it into Greek, Matthew did something really practical: he took a feminine word, petra, and “masculinized” it so that it could be for the first time a man’s name, Petros, or Peter. The only other men God personally re-names are Abram and Jacob, and every new name represents covenant, headship, fatherhood, and authority. Naming Simon “Rock” may be a reference to Abraham: “Look to the rock from which you were hewn and to the quarry from which you were dug. Look to Abraham your father” (Is. 51:1-2). It may also be a reference to Solomon, who built the temple on a large foundation stone (Is. 28:16). But I think there is something more.

Christ is the foundation of the Church. “For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 3:11). Yet the Church is built on the foundation of the apostles: “you are built upon the foundation of apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone” (Eph. 2:20). In Revelation 21:14 we read, “The wall of the City had twelve foundations, and on them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.” Christ is the firm foundation of the Church…yet so are the apostles. Christ is the solid rock on which we stand, yet in Matthew 16:17-19 the Lord says Simon is the “Rock.”

Notice the scene: Jesus gives Simon a new name when he “came into the district of Caesarea Philippi” (Matt. 16:13), a city named in honor of Caesar Augustus situated on an enormous rock wall about 200 feet high and 500 feet long at the foot of Mount Hermon.

The cave in present times, waters flowing from underground

From the base of this rock bursts springs that fed the Jordan, an important river in Judaism. On this rock pagan temples and sacrifices were made to Pan and Caesar was worshiped. Beneath it there was the “Cave of Pan,” and inside this cave there was a seemingly bottomless pit considered to be the very gates of hell. The scene is striking. Far out in unclean Gentile lands, on a rock dedicated to the worship of Caesar—this is the spot where Jesus points to Simon and says, “You are Rock…and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18). The message is clear: Jesus is the one true God, not Caesar, and he was said he would establish his Church, not on the false rock of pagan worship, but on the true rock that is Peter.

Jesus could also have been refering to the Jerusalem Temple’s foundation stone. In Jewish tradition, the Temple was considered to be the center of the universe and the foundation stone, was the crossroads between the physical and the spiritual.

The Foundation Stone in the floor of the Dome of the Rock shrine in Jerusalem

God used this rock to build the world and protect it from the evil spirits beneath and the chaos of hell. It covered the Well of Souls. Jesus redeems this popular tradition. As God built his world on the foundation stone, God will use Peter to build his Church and protect his people from the chaos of hell.

Jesus has gathered the twelve tribes. He has appointed twelve ministers, and one prime minister, one ‘asher ‘al-habayit. There is one King, Jesus Christ, and one Kingdom. He has established it in stone.

The keys

Why does Jesus mention keys? The keys are a symbol of the King’s power, authority, and control (cf. Rev. 22:16; 3:7). In his commentary on Matthew 16:17-19, W.F. Albright says: “Is. 22:15ff undoubtedly lies behind this saying. The keys are the symbol of authority…the same authority as that vested in the vizier, the master of the house, the chamberlain, of the royal household of Israel.” Albright continues:

Eliakim is described as having the same authority in Isaiah; it was Hilkiah’s position until he was ousted, and Jotham as a regent is also described as ‘over the household’ (1 Kings 15:5). Significantly, the first Chaldean governor after the deportation of 586 B.C., Gedaliah, is given the same title on his official seal. It is of considerable importance that in other contexts, when the disciplinary affairs of the community are being discussed (Matt. 18:18; John 20:23) the symbol of keys is absent, since the sayings apply in those instances to the wider circle.

Jesus invests a lowly fisherman with plenary authority in this Church, the “keys to the kingdom of heaven” and the powers to “bind and loose.” And since he promised that his Church would do even greater things than he did (John 14:12), is it any wonder that he provided for its continuation? For the keys symbolize succession. They are an office of authority. And an office left vacant must be filled.

If it was necessary that Judas’s office not be left vacant, what about the prime minister’s office? Did our King mean for his newly established Kingdom to scatter into disorder and chaos after Peter’s death? No, he meant for there to be a continued order and peace through the work of Holy Spirit “even unto the end” (Matt. 28:20)? Our King might have ascended into the heavens, but he left behind his prime minister to rule until his return.

Be not deceived

Our Lord did not abandon us to a book and everyman’s interpretation. He left us a living voice of authority in his apostles. Jesus says to the Twelve: “It is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you” (Matt. 10:20). The Church cannot teach heresy because God the Father cannot teach heresy. As Christ is “not deceived” (infallibilis: from in– ‘not’ + fallere ‘deceive’) neither will his Church be deceived.

Papal infallibility can be one of the most difficult Catholic teachings, but it is one of the most important. St. Paul can say that the Church is “the pillar and foundation of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15) because the Lord invested the apostles with the authority to be his living voice, because by giving Peter the keys Jesus took practical steps to ensure that the Church would never be deceived. Like Eliakim, the reliable peg that could bear a heavy load, Peter’s office is a rock, something you can build on. And despite 2000 years of enemies from within and persecution from without, the teaching of the Church has remained pure.

But let’s set the record straight. Infallibility does not mean impeccability. Popes sin. Peter was the first to say, “I am a sinful man!” (Luke 5:8). Popes err in private judgment. What they mutter to themselves when they’re brushing their teeth is not “infallible.” The charism of infallibility also does not “inspire” the pope to teach new doctrines. It is witnessed, rather, when the pope officially and dogmatically teaches the truth “received once and for all” (Jude 1:3). God makes it his official job to “see to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ” (Col. 2:8). Infallibility is witnessed when the pope teaches truth regarding faith and morals ex cathedra, “from the chair”—a phrase, it turns out, that also has biblical boots.

From the chair

You see, when at last Jesus gathered the tribes he placed above them “the thrones of the house of David” (Ps. 122:4-5), and it’s no coincidence that as soon as Jesus tells his apostles that they will sit on thrones to judge the tribes of Israel (Luke 22:28-30), he immediately turns to Peter and tells him to strengthen the others (Luke 22:31-32), to feed his sheep (John 21:17). What Jesus gives to the apostolic college as a whole—“Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Matt. 18:18)—he gives to Peter individually: “Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Matt. 16:19).

“Binding” and “loosing” refers not only to the “throne of honor” of the prime minister, but also to the authority of the rabbis in Jesus’ time. The rabbis had the power to make “binding” and “loosing” decisions about the interpretation and enforcement of the Law. When Jesus’ said of the teachers of the law and the Pharisees, “They sit on Moses’ seat (cathedra). Therefore do whatever they tell you” (Matt. 23:2-3), he was referring to a tradition that goes way back to Exodus 18:13-16. The scribes were the successors of Moses’ teaching authority. By sitting in his “seat” they held the unique authority to interpret the Mosaic law. They could be hypocrites by not practicing what they preached, but their authority remained. In Matthew 16:17-19 Jesus appointed Peter to be the chief rabbi with this same ultimate teaching authority. He is the one who, in partnership with the other apostles, preserves Christ’s message “delivered once for all.”

In this light we can see that Peter’s successors, in doctrinal agreement with the magisterium, may speak ex cathedra. That Paul rebuked Peter for refusing to eat with Gentile Christians at Antioch in order not to offend certain Palestinian Jews does not disprove infallibility (Gal. 2:11–16). The problem was that, like the hypocritical Pharisees in Moses’ seat, Peter wasn’t following his own teaching.

How can we follow and obey Christ’s teachings, if we do not know what is to believed? When it comes to what is the truth and what is a lie, we must have a firm foundation to build on. We need the chair. And the Holy Spirit guarantees the pope’s infallibility when he speaks from Moses’ “seat,” Eliakim’s “throne of honor,” the Cathedra Sancti Petri.

Peter and the Bible

Let’s quickly survey Peter’s preeminence within the apostolic college throughout the New Testament. There are little hints of it everywhere. For example, St. Paul writes that Christ was raised on the third day “and that he appeared to Cephas and then to the twelve…” (1 Cor. 15:3-5). But there are also really big examples too. For example, Peter announces that Judas’ office must be filled (Acts 1), Peter preaches the first sermon (Acts 2), Peter performs the first miracle (Acts 3), Peter speaks in Solomon’s portico, Peter speaks before the Council (Acts 4), and it is Peter who Paul must see when he visits Jerusalem (Gal. 1:18). Peter decides to confirm the first Samaritans (Acts 8) and to baptize the first Gentiles (Acts 10). He alone could have stood up and announced the final decision of the first council (Acts 15). Numerous scholars have speculated that Peter is likely Mark’s primary source for the Gospel—and Mark is the primary source for Matthew and Luke. Peter alone is the holy father of the new family of God, the keeper of the keys, the rock, the vicar of Christ. And despite all of this, he remains nothing compared to his King. For God gave Peter this office despite his obvious personal deficiencies so that God alone would get the praise.

According to the Bible, the Bible is not a sufficient guide apart from the apostolic tradition. St. Paul tells the Corinthians, “Maintain the traditions even as I have delivered them to you” (1 Cor. 11:2). He tells the Thessalonians, “Stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter” (2 Thess. 2:15), and “Keep away from any brother who is living in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us” (2 Thess. 3:6). He commands Timothy, “What you have heard from me before many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also” (2 Tim. 2:2). Notice that he mentions the first four generations of apostolic succession—his own generation, Timothy’s generation, the generation Timothy will teach, and the generation they will someday teach. So it was that the apostolic tradition was passed down after the deaths of the first apostles. Jesus did not establish a Bible people could use as an excuse to form a thousand little clubs but a Kingdom. And the Church is as Petrine as it is apostolic, a two-thousand year succession of truth and unity.

So it is that the early Church Fathers acknowledged the leadership and prerogatives of Peter. Dionysius of Corinth, the twelfth pope, wrote in AD 170: “You have also, by your very admonition, brought together the planting that was made by Peter and Paul at Rome.” In AD 200, Tertullian says with joy: “Was anything withheld from the knowledge of Peter, who is called ‘the rock on which the Church would be built’ with the power of ‘loosing and binding in heaven and on earth’?” Cyprian of Carthage wrote in 256: “Would heretics dare to come to the very seat of Peter whence Apostolic faith is derived and whither no errors come?” Augustine of Hippo summed up the ancient faith succinctly: “Rome has spoken; the case is closed.”

These very few quotes barely scratch the surface of the patristic witness to the pope’s primacy in the apostolic college (Stephen Ray or William Jurgens are good beginning resources), a primacy that does not belittle or relegate the other bishops, but blesses and encourages and serves them.

True, the papacy has undergone development through the centuries, but it has not departed from the essential components given it by the Lord, acknowledged by his contemporaries, and accepted by the early Church. The papacy was God’s original idea, established for the good of his Church, for the glory of the Trinity’s great name. For Peter’s successor is still what Christ said he would be: a rock. When the pope solemnly defines an issue, we can join the fathers of the Council of Chalcedon with joy: “This is the faith of the fathers! This is the faith of the apostles! Peter has spoken!”

Is Christ divided?

So why should we submit to the authority of a lowly fisherman as cocksure and foolhardy as Peter? Because there, on the bottom of his right boot, weather-beaten but scrawled in permanent ink, is the name Jesus. Because the Petrine office was established by none other than Christ himself. Because Peter’s deepest identity and mission ultimately rests in…Jesus.

The Kingdom of God is nothing less than the gathered tribes of Israel, the visible Church left behind by Christ to be governed by his apostles. It is a city on a hill that cannot be hidden (Matt. 5:14), and you are either in this city or you are out of it. The Church is the social continuation of the incarnation, the Body of Christ. To those who would remain out of communion with the pope, St. Paul’s question is a challenge: “Is Christ divided?” (1 Cor. 1:13).

I’m not asking you to start singing Toy Story’s theme song, “You’ve Got a Friend in Me,” but I am asking you to honestly consider the biblical boots of the papacy. Like Sheriff Woody in Toy Story, the successors of St. Peter might face hard times and be called upon to fight tough battles. They might doubt their authority over the rest of Christ’s flock. But when the good pontiff looks at the bottom of his right boot he finds nothing less than the name Jesus. When we remember the biblical boots of the papacy we are invited to follow and obey our Lord Jesus Christ, to bring glory to the Father in the loving bond of the Holy Spirit. The goal of the papacy is the goal of the Church—the glory of the most adorable Trinity.

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Tyler Blanski is a writer who once possessed a beard of medieval proportions. Tyler is the author of When Donkeys Talk and Mud and Poetry.