I had a Protestant student once who started arguing with me about the papacy. I pulled out Matthew 16:18-19, John 21, and quotations from the Church Fathers, but somehow he still wasn’t on board.
“I believe all that,” he said, frustrated. “I just don’t believe that he has superpowers.”
I’m pretty sure I laughed in his face.
For those of you who might be new to this pope thing, riding the media bandwagon that’s following all the cardinals around waiting to see who our next pope will be, let me explain something to you: the pope does not have superpowers. He can’t fly or walk through walls. In most areas, he’s just a normal man. The pope can sin–as far as I know, every pope has sinned, some in very impressive ways. The pope can even be wrong on matters of faith and morals.
What makes the pope special (aside from being the leader of the biggest Church/religion/group of people in the world) is what’s called infallibility. When we say the pope is infallible, we don’t mean that he can’t ever be wrong. We mean that he is incapable of error when speaking authoritatively on matters of faith and morals. This might help:
Q: What’s the lowest score the pope could get on a trigonometry test?
A: Zero. Infallibility has nothing to do with trig.
Q: What’s the lowest score the pope could get on a theology test?
A. Zero. The pope can be wrong when he’s not speaking infallibly.
Q: Okay, fine. What’s the lowest score the pope could get on a theology test if he were taking it infallibly?
A: Zero. He could leave the whole thing blank.
You see, infallibility isn’t a superpower that gives the pope the magical ability to know all things. It’s actually very limited. It only applies when the pope is speaking ex cathedra1 on matters of faith and morals. Scholars differ as to how many times this has happened, but the general consensus seems to be two. That’s right, twice ever.2 Suddenly it doesn’t seem like so much of a superpower, does it? And it doesn’t even guarantee that the pope will say all the right things, only that nothing he says will be wrong. It’s a very limited charism, but an essential one if Christ’s Church is about Truth and not just feeling good.
Despite this limitation, the issue of the papacy remains a huge one for non-Catholics–and, to be honest, for many Catholics as well. The idea of one man having the ability to exercise such authority, of all Christians submitting to one man, and not even necessarily a very holy one at that? Well, folks, if it weren’t so Biblical and Traditional and logical, I wouldn’t be a fan either.
Obviously, our go-to Scripture passage is going to be today’s Gospel,3 Matthew 16:17-19:
Jesus said to him in reply, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the Kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
The first thing Jesus does here is give Simon a new name–Peter–one that had only been used as a name one time in recorded history up to that point. He gives him the name “Rock” (Peter) to tell us that he is a new creation from this point. Every time we see Simon called Peter (in every Gospel and a number of other books as well), it’s a reminder that Simon was just a fisherman but became something more.
What did he become? The Rock the Church was built on, of course. Why else would Jesus give him the name Rock and then start talking about building the Church on a rock? Certainly, Jesus is the cornerstone, the true foundation of the Church. But it’s no coincidence that he gives Simon the name Rock and then declares that he will build his Church on this rock.
Next, he tells Peter that he will give him the keys to the kingdom. These aren’t the symbolic “keys to the city” that they hand out to people at the end of superhero movies. In the ancient world, a key was a large, heavy object. You’d only really lock your house if you were leaving town for a while and you wouldn’t take your key with you. You’d give it to someone who was staying back home, putting that person in charge of your estate while you’re away.
So the automatic connotation for anyone in the ancient world is that by giving Peter the keys, Jesus is putting Peter in charge in his absence. For the Jews, this is even more clear. Jesus’ language is strongly reminiscent of Isaiah 22, the reading that we often hear as a first reading when Matthew 16 is the Gospel:
On that day I will summon my servant Eliakim, son of Hilkiah; I will clothe him with your robe, gird him with your sash, confer on him your authority. He shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to the house of Judah. I will place the key of the House of David on his shoulder; what he opens, no one will shut, what he shuts, no one will open. (Is 22:20-22)
Here Eliakim is given the authority of Shebna, master of the palace, symbolized by his being given the key of the House of David. And in case you didn’t catch the connection, that last line is just about identical to Matthew’s binding and loosing. Just as Eliakim had the authority of Shebna, it seems, Peter is given the ability to exercise the authority of Christ.
This authority is expressed in Isaiah and Matthew as the power to bind and loose. An ability given later to all the Apostles gathered,4 this binding and loosing is the power of infallibility, the power to speak with the authority of Christ, individually in Peter’s case and collectively in the case of the Apostles, the first bishops.
Essentially, Peter is the steward of Gondor.5 Jesus is the King of Gondor, leaving his kingdom in the charge of his steward. For hundreds of years his line may be gone. In that time, the steward exercises his authority because it was entrusted to him by the king. But he never takes the king’s throne–his chair is smaller and to the side, because while he functions as king, he is not the king. In the same way, the pope has the authority of Christ as head of the Church because Christ gave him that authority. Jesus knew that his Church would need leadership and an infallible voice in his absence6 and so he left us with just that in the person of the Pope.
But the argument doesn’t stand or fall on Matthew 16 alone, or even on the new name or the fact that Peter is listed first in every list of Apostles. How about John 21, where Jesus the Good Shepherd tells Peter three times to take care of his sheep? Jesus knows he’s going away for a time and he tells Peter to be the Good Shepherd in his place. Then there’s Galatians 1:18 where super-educated Paul goes to uneducated Peter to make sure that he–Paul–is teaching the right Gospel. He’s not concerned with the other Apostles, just wants Peter’s seal of approval. Sounds like Peter’s more than just an impetuous fisherman.
The argument isn’t really about Peter’s authority, though, so much as it is about his successors’. “Sure, Peter was the leader of the early church,” people will say, “but what on earth does that have to do with Pius and Leo and Johns ad infinitum?”
That, my friends, is a question for another post. Rest assured, the writings of the Church Fathers and the brains we have in our very own heads will make it clear that Peter’s office isn’t just for him but for those who take his place as well.7 For now, let’s appreciate the fact that the office of the papacy is entirely Biblical and that nobody has to pretend that the pope can do magic in order to be a Catholic. The Pope’s superpowers are certainly not in the Bible–unless you mean infallibility. Cause that one is.
Tune in…you know…eventually for parts 2 and 3: Tradition and logic. Happy Feast Day!
- From the chair, meaning on his authority as the successor of Peter. He doesn’t actually have to sit in Peter’s chair. Speaking of which, happy Feast of the Chair of St. Peter! You still can’t eat meat today. [↩]
- Or at least in the modern age. Immaculate Conception in 1854 and Assumption in 1950 if you’re keeping track. [↩]
- I’m actually writing this last night and too lazy to bring up the USCCB’s readings page. But our Church is so logical that I know this is the Gospel without even looking. [↩]
- Matthew 18:18–can we say ordinary Magisterium? [↩]
- If you haven’t read The Lord of the Rings–read the books, not seen the movies–you probably want to skip this paragraph. [↩]
- More on this in a few days. [↩]
- Acts 1:20–apostolic succession ftw. [↩]
Come back to Frankfort I miss you already!! Hope you are having a good time in South Bend and the other places in Indiana you are going to!
I loved this and learned from it and p.s. am reading Fellowship of the Rings but don’t know about the steward yet. Just got to Tom Bombadil’s house… xx
Sometimes it just cracks me up when people argue with me about the pope being infallible all the time, about how it is wrong to pray to Saints, and things like that. I’m thinking in my head, “Um, do you even have Google?”
This was wonderfully written…per usual.
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“Um, do you even have Google?” -Exactly!
I love the title on this! Good thoughts…especially as we head into such exciting times for the Church
Thanks for your post. I’m intensely Catholic and my boyfriend is protestant and we frequently discuss matters of church authority. He agrees with me that Peter was given a special authority by Jesus and that, yes, the church was built upon Peter (the rock). But he still believes that the Bible does not explicitly teach or show that this authority was to be handed down or that the authority was given to the “Seat of Peter” and not just to Peter.
I think that he’s right in saying the Bible does not explicitly teach it. We can show places where the apostles did the “Laying on of hands” and replaced Judas as an apostle, etc. But nowhere does it clearly state that the authority given to Peter must be passed down and will remain an office of authority.
I know you said you’d write part 2 and 3 on tradition, so I am very interested to read it and see if you can address the fact that the Bible doesn’t really show it. Of course we can turn to the Church Fathers, but what do you tell someone who won’t believe it unless it is clearly laid out in Scripture, which, according to his opinion, is the only thing we can be sure of that is infallible?
Did those later posts help?
I just finished reading your most interesting article about Peter and how the church was built on him. That part is true. The bible clearly states that fact. What it doesn’t state is a line of succession after Peter. By that I mean there is no biblical foundation for the mistaken belief that Peter was the first pope, and all authority was passed down from pope to pope. In fact, it was Constantine who would most
qualify as the first pope and the “claim” of authority over religious matters was not passed down, but was in fact seized and claimed not passed down by God. When making claims of such great authority over so many lives, those claims must be supported by scripture. The claim of succession from Peter is not supported in even the slightest by the bible.
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