Justification, unity, and papacy: A blind spot

Posted on March 16, 2017 by Joseph T. Richardson

One of the most frequent charges I hear, when I point out the inherent chaos and disunity of Protestantism, is that “there is a lot of disagreement in the Catholic Church, too” — that somehow disagreements within the Catholic Church are equivalent to, or excuse, the fundamental doctrinal disagreements between diverse Protestant churches. In particular, opponents point out the large number of self-identified Catholics who practice artificial birth control or support abortion or same-sex marriage in contradiction to the teachings of the Church. My response is that there is a fundamental distinction between what the Church teaches — the one, consistent, unified and unambiguous teaching of the Church’s infallible Magisterium, as summarized in the Catechism of the Catholic Church — and what individual Catholics do and believe, the doings and failings of fallible people who may make mistakes and stray from the flock. Even if a large number of people should disagree, sin, or fall away from the truth, it does not change the truth that is taught or besmirch the teacher.

The leading charge of the Protestant Reformation is that the Church had fallen away from a true understanding of the doctrine of justification as taught by St. Paul — that in contrast to the claims of Protestants, that justification is “by faith alone” (sola fide), the Catholic Church taught a doctrine of “works’ righteousness,” that somehow by our own working we can deserve or earn our own salvation. I have written a lot on justification and presented frequently here that this is not what the Catholic Church actually teaches. I have attempted to make the distinction before, and I have a new post in the docket in which I want to explore the point further: Catholics do believe in justification by faith and not our own efforts; where Protestants disagree is only in proposing that no human response at all is necessary.

Antonio Rodríguez, Saint Augustine (Wikimedia).

It’s clear from history that the Church has never actually taught a doctrine of “works’ righteousness,” the thesis that man, by his own effort, can in any way save himself. This is the heresy of Pelagianism, which the Catholic Church has always and consistently condemned. Saint Augustine, Saint Thomas Aquinas, and other monuments of Catholic theology consistently maintain that justification is only by the grace of God through faith and not human effort. Alister McGrath, in his brilliant Iustitia Dei: A History of the Doctrine of Justification, demonstrates convincingly that even throughout the rigorous scholastic debates of the Middle Ages, the teachers of the Church never abandoned the orthodoxy that no effort or merit of man can save him apart from God’s grace. The teaching of the Church, then, I’ve believed, was always consistent in teaching justification by God’s grace alone: what the Protestant Reformers charged and challenged was nothing new and nothing needed.

A blind spot

Gentile da Fabriano, Thomas Aquinas, detail from Valle Romita polyptych, c. 1400 (Wikimedia).

In my recent forays into the history of the Reformation era, I’ve come to realize that in this I may have had a blind spot. Despite the Church’s consistent condemnation of Pelagianism (“works’ righteousness”); despite the clear teachings of Augustine and Thomas and other theological lights; the situation among the Catholic faithful and even many clergy in the late Middle Ages and early modern era prior to the Reformation may have been much like the situation today — with many believing something that wasn’t true, something that was contrary to the actual teachings of the Church. And this idea of the “actual teachings of the Church”: to presume the kind of monolithic unity that we have today, to be able to point at a single compendium of doctrine, the Catechism, and say, “This is the one, consistent teaching of the Catholic Church” — may be projecting an anachronism onto that era. There was no such book in the sixteenth century; there were few printed books at all, at the dawn of the age of printing, and the vast majority of the faithful were illiterate. The “one, consistent teaching of the Catholic Church” was scattered among myriad tomes, among the writings of numerous Church Fathers and the canons of numerous councils; and though it was one and consistent, it was not digestible in a form that any but the most learned academic could grasp. In practice, the actual teaching of the Catholic Church was what individual bishops and priests actually taught the faithful, and the truth is, in very many cases this was pretty shoddy.

John Calvin, by Titian (16th century) (Wikimedia).

For Protestants, the doctrine of justification is the very core of the Gospel, the fundamental essence of the truth, the sine qua non of salvation. This emphasis on justification may be myopic: Sacred Scripture devotes only a few words in a few passages to the idea of justification — much more pervasive ideas being the love and mercy and grace of God. Prior to Augustine in combating Pelagianism, no Christian author paid much attention to the doctrine of justification; in him, both Catholics and Protestants find the foundations of their doctrines. In Eastern Christianity, justification has never been a major focus, let alone the cornerstone of the Gospel. In the West, between the times of Augustine and the Council of Trent, the mechanics of justification were mostly a subject for scholastic exposition and debate, not “the doctrine by which the Church stands or falls.” So I think Protestants too have something of a blind spot in this regard.

But I concede that a lack of emphasis on justification and grace by the teachers of the faithful in the early modern era may have led to poor understandings by many about something that is crucial: how we can have a relationship with God, and how we can be saved. When Protestant preachers arrived on the scene in the sixteenth century, in many cases the idea of justification by faith alone caught on like wildfire, to those who felt they had been striving in themselves for salvation. Even if this belief in human effort leading to salvation was an incorrect understanding of what was in fact the true and orthodox Christian doctrine, it was the failure of the Church, in her individual pastors, to teach that truth. As much as we may deplore the breakdown of Christian unity that followed in their wake, in this even Catholics owe the Protestant Reformers a debt of gratitude, in returning the focus of Christian teaching to the grace of God.

The failure of the papacy?

I recently read a review of Brad S. Gregory’s book The Unintended Reformation by Reformed author Carl Trueman. In Gregory’s book, he argues that many of the foibles of modernity, in secularism and postmodernism, were the unintended fruits of the Protestant Reformation’s denial of authority, and the resulting diversity of Protestant interpretations of Scripture and inability to affirm one, unified truth. Trueman’s response is essentially, “That may be so, but what you offer is even worse.” “Perspicuity [the belief that the Scriptures themselves teach a single, clear truth] was, after all,” Trueman writes, “a response to a position that had proved to be a failure: the Papacy.”

Alexander VI (Cesare Borgia), one of the more notorious Renaissance popes. (Wikimedia)

I was taken aback to read this. The papacy — a failure? Honestly, in all my years, even as a Protestant, I don’t think such a thought ever crossed my mind, that the institution of the papacy was a failure. Trueman presents several respects in which he thinks the papacy was a failure: the medieval papacy was corrupt and caught up in politics and worldiness; the Western Schism of the papacy was such a mess that it took several councils just to sort out who the pope was; the early modern papacy failed to reform the Church with due speed and diligence following the Fifth Lateran Council even when many corruptions and failures were known. Yes, these things are all true. I would add my own: many popes of the medieval and early modern papacy failed to make the pastoral care of souls their chief concern; failed to make teaching the doctrines of the faith the heart of their work; failed to appoint bishops who would do the same. There was a breakdown, and yes, reform was desperately needed. But was the breakdown, the failure, in the office of the papacy, or in the men who held it, who allowed the world to pull their focus from what it should be?

Perhaps the most central concern is whether the papacy is a failure for what we maintain Christ intended it to be: as a guarantor of the truth and unity and orthodoxy of the faith. Yes, some men who held the office of the papacy were failures in some respects: they failed to be “good Christians,” perhaps even good pastors; they failed to keep the heart of the gospel, the salvation of souls, at the center of their concerns. Perhaps they even failed as teachers, in that they could have taught the truth, and overseen the teaching of the bishops, with much better clarity and focus and consistency. But we look to the papacy as the final safeguard between orthodoxy and heterodoxy, the one to whom all other bishops must guide in teaching the truth, to ensure that error is not taught. In this respect, the only way that the institution of the papacy could be a failure is if the pope in fact taught error with regard to doctrine or morals. As near as I can figure, this has never happened. In contrast to the to multiplicity of contradictory interpretations from “perspicuous” Scripture alone, the papacy has taught a single course of doctrine.

The triumph of the papacy

The Council of Trent.

So some men of the papacy failed, for a time, even for centuries. Perhaps if popes had done better at keeping the Church on the right course, if they had been reforming the Church all along, then the violent upheavals of the Protestant Reformation might never have occurred. But I maintain that in its essential purpose, the papacy never failed at all — not the way dependence on the “perspicuity” of Scripture has failed. And even the men of the papacy did not fail forever. I would argue that the Council of Trent and the Counter-Reformation, the way that, by God’s grace, the Catholic Church reformed itself, reaffirmed her doctrines, and has driven forward into modernity with a renewed heart and focus, is the greatest triumph of the papacy. I would argue that many modern popes — for example, Pius V, Pius X, and even the popes of recent memory, John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis, do present to the world the gospel of Christ the way a pastor and successor of Saint Peter should. Having divested itself of political and temporal encumbrances, and gained the publicity of mass communications media, the papacy of today, rather than being a “failure,” is succeeding in its mission of maintaining the unity of the faith and guiding the Church toward the gospel and salvation of Christ, perhaps better than it has in many centuries.

Was Peter the First Pope? A Comprehensive Response

Posted on May 8, 2014 by Joseph T. Richardson

Friends, here’s a very detailed post I’ve been working on, answering as comprehensively as I could, from Scripture and history, a question often asked by Protestants: Was Peter really the first pope? I’ve been working hard on this for a couple of weeks, so I hope you enjoy it. If anyone has any further questions or objections, please feel free to throw them at me.

The Pope’s Holiness and Infallibility

Posted on March 23, 2013 by Joseph T. Richardson

I’m on a roll here! Three posts in as many days! In response to this post:

My Protestant friend asks:

So the pope’s word is supposed to be infallible, right? When does it become so? Was his word as a “cardinal” infallible? And since he’s still alive does his word continue to be infallible? If not, how does one go from being fallible to infallible and back to fallible again? Talk about a rollercoaster ride! And also, is Benedict still the most-holy or is he only normal-holy? Or is he even Benedict anymore?

Blessings and Prayers for our new Holy Father Pope Francis

Hi again. I appreciate that you are interested in asking questions and having a respectful dialogue. It doesn’t look like you’ve gotten any adequate answers here. I do hope you will consider me your “Catholic friend” and, I do hope, “brother.” I look forward to your response to my other comments on the authority of the papacy.

I’ll try to reply here in brief, and then we can expand if you wish.

Your question about infallibility again reflects some misunderstandings. I think you are misunderstanding the ways in which the Catholic Church sometimes uses the word holy. For the sake of discussion, let’s define that word. From TheFreeDictionary.com:

ho·ly [ˈhəʊlɪ]
adj. ho·li·er, ho·li·est
1. Belonging to, derived from, or associated with a divine power; sacred.
2. Regarded with or worthy of worship or veneration; revered: a holy book.
3. Living according to a strict or highly moral religious or spiritual system; saintly: a holy person.
4. Specified or set apart for a religious purpose: a holy place.
5. Solemnly undertaken; sacrosanct: a holy pledge.
6. Regarded as deserving special respect or reverence: The pursuit of peace is our holiest quest.
7. Informal Used as an intensive: raised holy hell over the mischief their children did.

When we call the pope the “Holy Father,” that is an aspect of his office — that office is (1) “belonging to, derived from, or associated with a divine power,” the Church, and his office is (4) “specified or set apart for a religious purpose”; that office is (5) “solemnly undertaken,” and because of that office, he is (6) “regarded as deserving special respect or reverence.” The pope, as a man, may or may not be holy as in (3), “living [a holy life],” being “a holy person.” Certainly there have been popes who were not!

To say that God is holy is an entirely different sense of the word. God alone is infinitely holy and (2) “worthy of worship”; He is also, by his nature, (1) “a divine power” and “sacred.” The saints (sancti, holy ones, those set apart), on the other hand, are holy first and foremost because they (3) lived holy lives, and we believe that after their deaths they’ve gone to Heaven and are with Jesus and are thus (1) associated with a divine power. They are (2) deserving of veneration, not akin to worship but more akin to (6), a special respect or reverence.

Prayers are blessings to our Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.

Now, to your question about infallibility: Again, you are misunderstanding the Church’s claims. Infallibility is an aspect of the office of the papacy, not of the person of the pope. There was nothing “infallible” about Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger before he was pope, or about him now that he is no longer the sitting pope. And this is why I got into that about holiness: you ask how holy he is: well, he’s only as holy as the life he lives. Having read his writings and followed his life for the past eight years, I think he’s a pretty holy guy — but there’s nothing divine about him as a person, and never was. Further, there is nothing infallible about the person of Pope Francis, or the former Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio.

With regard to infallibility: the best way to think about it is not so much about the pope being infallible, but that when he sits in the captain’s chair, it’s really God steering the boat. Literally, that’s pretty much exactly what the Church teaches: by the formal definition of the doctrine, the pope is only said to be infallible when he speaks ex cathedra (“from the chair” of the episcopate) regarding matters of faith and morals (and “the chair” is not a literal chair). Jesus said that the Holy Spirit would guide the Church into all truth (John 16:13), and it’s only as an aspect of that that the pope is ever considered infallible. And his infallibility only “kicks in” when he invokes it; and it is only formally invoked in very limited circumstances. The pope in his day-to-day life isn’t infallible when he declares his favorite pizza or gives his opinion about football (soccer, you know), or even when he writes encyclicals about Church practice or discipline (which are not considered ex cathedra, but, by analogy, written standing up). He is considered to have authority when he writes such, just as a prominent pastor or scholar is considered to have authority when he speaks, by nature of who he is and what he knows. But papal infallibility has only really been invoked a few times in the past couple of centuries. And ex cathedra pronouncements are only ever made in union and agreement with the cardinals and bishops of the Church.

May Blessed Pope John Paul II, of happy memory, pray for us.

It all boils down to this: Papal infallibility is an assurance that the Holy Spirit, not the pope, is guiding the Church, when push comes to shove. That is not to say that the pope is the Holy Spirit, or always follows the Holy Spirit, or even necessarily lives in accord with the Holy Spirit — certainly there have been popes who have not. But even in the darkest times of the Church, corrupt popes have never promulgated doctrine that is contradictory to the teachings of Christ or the Bible or the Church: they have never declared, say, that the pope is divine, or that Mary is divine, or that Jesus is anything but divine. They have never declared that adultery or theft or murder is okay, or that everybody has to give all their money to the Church. The fact that even the most dastardly people who have held the office of pope, regardless of how they lived their personal lives, have never promulgated such heresy or error should be a confirmation of the truth of this doctrine. Infallibility — the guidance of the Holy Spirit — ensures that the Church will never run off the rails. And the fact that in 2,000 years it hasn’t is a sign of the Church’s Oneness, Holiness, Apostolicity, and Catholicity. You and I disagree about interpretations of Scripture — you may even disagree that the Church has never “run off the rails.” But in the 2,000 years of the recorded history of the Catholic Church, the Church has never promulgated any doctrine in opposition or contradiction to its own doctrines, or contradictory to the truth of Scripture. You would be hard pressed to prove that it has.

As an extension to the doctrine of infallibility: the Magisterium of the Church (Magisterium means “teachership” — the teaching authority of the Church) — that is, the collected body of bishops in communion with the pope, the chief bishop — is considered infallible in its agreement. This means that the ecumenical councils of the Church, from Nicaea to Vatican II, have taught infallible doctrine.

There you have an explanation of the Church’s teachings on infallibility. I will let you chew that up before I continue with the Marian doctrines.

A Biblical Argument for the Authority of the Papacy

Posted on March 22, 2013 by Joseph T. Richardson

El Greco, The Repentant Peter (c. 1600). (WikiPaintings.org)

Wowzers, you get two posts by me in just two days! I couldn’t help myself. I wrote this piece in response to another post, and come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever posted this argument here before.

The title “pope,” to which you objected on the grounds that it can’t be found in Scripture, is only an honorific one; “papa” in Latin is an affectionate term along the lines of “daddy.” The office is another matter. The “pope” is more formally the bishop of Rome, and the office of bishop (ἐπίσκοπος [episkopos]; episcopus in Latin, literally an “overseer”) is quite scriptural (1 Timothy 3, Philippians 1:1, Acts 20:28).

The Catholic Church does not claim, as you suppose, that the successor of Peter is the “earthly head” of the Church: as you say, there is only one Head, and that is Christ. Cf. the Catechism:

“Christ is the Head of this Body”

792. Christ “is the head of the body, the Church.” He is the principle of creation and redemption. Raised to the Father’s glory, “in everything he [is] preeminent,” especially in the Church, through whom he extends his reign over all things.

807. The Church is this Body of which Christ is the head: she lives from him, in him, and for him; he lives with her and in her.

The office of Peter and his successors is merely as the Church’s pastor, its shepherd, the vicar (stand-in, substitute, or representative — not replacement) of Christ:

936. The Lord made St. Peter the visible foundation of his Church. He entrusted the keys of the Church to him. The bishop of the Church of Rome, successor to St. Peter, is “head of the college of bishops, the Vicar of Christ and Pastor of the universal Church on earth” (CIC, can. 331).

St. Gregory the Great, by Francisco Goya (1797).

Surely you don’t object to pastors, called by God to be the shepherds of their churches? Just as God never left His people Israel without His authoritative voice — through prophets, priests, and kings — Jesus will never leave His people the Church without an authoritative shepherd. And Scripture affirms that He did not.

I think an honest reading of Scripture requires one to acknowledge that Jesus did delegate His authority, first to the Twelve Apostles as a group and then to Peter in particular. The references I could cite are numerous, but I will give you just a few of the most prominent and explicit:

Matthew 10:1: And He called to Him His twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every affliction.
Matthew 10:5–8: These twelve Jesus sent out, instructing them, “Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And proclaim as you go, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons. You received without paying; give without pay.” v. 40: “Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me.”
- By Jesus’s own words, His gave authority to His disciples, and they received something from Him: the authority to carry out their ministry in His name. He sends them out as His representatives: “Whoever receives you receives me.”

El Greco, Portrait of Pope Pius V (c. 1605) (WikiPaintings.org)

Matthew 18:18, to the Twelve, in the context of dealing out church discipline: “Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
- Binding and loosing are rabbinical terms and concepts, which, according to the Jewish Encyclopedia, mean “to forbid and permit” authoritatively with regard to doctrinal and disciplinary pronouncements, such that “they [those with this authority; in the context of the article, the Pharisees] possessed and exercised the power of tying or untying a thing by the spell [i.e. word or formula] of their divine authority, just as they could, by the power vested in them, pronounce and revoke an anathema upon a person.” “This power and authority, vested in the rabbinical body of each age or in the Sanhedrin, received its ratification and final sanction from the celestial court of justice.” I don’t know how you read this, but it sounds very clear to me, first that this authority was Jesus’s to invest in whom He chose (surely the Pharisees would have considered this a gross blasphemy), and second that He invested that authority in His Apostles.
Matthew 16:17–19, to Peter solely (using singular pronouns and verbs), after Peter confessed Jesus as the Christ: 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, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
- Protestants like to reject the “upon this rock” statement with an argument involving the supposed difference between πέτρος and πέτρα in the Greek — but this argument does not hold any weight in Greek, as even most knowledgable Protestant scholars of Greek admit. Jesus’s wordplay between Peter’s name, explicitly stated, “You are Peter (Rock),” and the “rock” upon which Jesus said He would found His Church, mirrors grammatically Peter’s statement: “You are the Christ.”
  
  What is more, that argument does not deal with the other, equally important parts of Jesus’s pronouncement. Jesus gives three separate blessings to Peter and Peter alone which cannot be interpreted in any way but as an explicit investment of authority:
  
  Pope St. Leo the Great, by Francisco de Herrera the Younger (1622-1685).
  1. You (Peter) are “Rock,” and on this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
  2. I will give you (Peter) the keys of the kingdom of heaven [mirroring “the gates of hell”].
  3. Whatever you (Peter) bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven [linked implicitly to the “keys”].
  The fact that each is clearly directed to Peter negates the argument of some that the “rock” of the statement was only Peter’s faith or his confession.
Isaiah 22:20–22, the passage which Jesus was clearly referencing in His speech to Peter, as acknowledged even by Protestant exegetes (cf. ESV Study Bible): [To Shebna, steward of the royal palace:] “In that day I will call my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, and I will clothe him with your robe, and will bind your sash 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. He shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open.”
- This passage describes a stripping of authority from one to whom it had been entrusted and an investment of that authority in someone new. In the context of the passage in Matthew and its application to Peter, the authority of binding and loosing with divine approval (“opening” and “shutting” the gates of the kingdom of heaven, with the key), which had been entrusted to the Jewish rabbinical body and the Sanhedrin, was now being removed and entrusted to Peter and the Apostles in Christ’s new order — from the rabbinical, teaching authority of the Jewish people to the episcopal, teaching authority of the Church, the Magisterium. Peter is installed as steward over the house of Judah, to exercise order over the household [the Church] in the absence of the king [Christ]. Christ certainly foreshadowed this stewardship in His parables about wise and foolish stewards or servants and their care for the affairs of the house while their master is away (Luke 12:35–48, Matthew 24:45–51). And what is more: he shall be called a father to the house of Judah: just as the bishop of Rome is called a Father to the Church: he is called the pope (papa), or the Holy Father. Given this understanding, the kissing of a ring — a very ancient sign of respect and acknowledgement of authority, not of worship — begins to make a bit more sense.
John 20:21–23, Jesus appearing to the Apostles after His Resurrection: Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending 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 them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.”

Our Holy Father Pope Francis
- Just as the Father sent [Jesus], Jesus sends the Apostles in continuation of His ministry and authority, “to make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:18–20) and continue doing what He was doing. Just as Jesus has the authority to forgive sins (Mark 2:10–12) — an authority with a clear association to physical healing (cf. James 5:13–16) — He imparts that authority to the Apostles — with an implicit connection to that of “binding and loosing,” but rightly exceeding any authority before claimed by any other rabbi.

Evidently, we Catholics interpret Scripture more literally and realistically than you, and accept it more readily for what it actually says in its plainest sense. I don’t think that leaves you much ground to stand on from which to accuse the Catholic Church of “unbiblical practices.”

Some Answers to Common Protestant Objections to Peter’s Ministry as Bishop of Rome

Posted on March 21, 2013 by Joseph T. Richardson

Peter Paul Rubens. St. Peter. c. 1611. Oil on canvas.

Hi. I am sorry that I’ve been such an absentee tenant lately, but I’ve been swamped in the mud bog of my thesis. Today has been a new day of positive meetings with my professors and friends, so I hope and pray I can put some step back into it.

I am thrilled by the election of Pope Francis to the See of Peter, and already love him dearly. Even many Protestants have been caught up in the worldwide excitement that he has elicited (SatelliteSaint has some thoughtful words on “that feeling”) — for both better and worse. While many, with the rest of Christendom, have been filled with great joy and fascination, others, as if to actively reject and deny that joy, have seized the opportunity to lash out in scorn and prejudice and carve even deeper the sad divisions in the Body of Christ.

Consequently, I have been having some random apologetic discussions here and there, and today I wrote a brief response (inspired by this post) to some common objections I’ve often heard from Protestants with regard to the Apostle Peter’s ministry in Rome as its first bishop — the foundations of the papacy. Since I’ve already written it, and thought it a direct and concise argument, I thought I’d share it with you.

Saints Peter and Paul (between 1605 and 1608), by El Greco.

Scripture clearly states that Christ called Peter to be the Apostle to the Jews, and Paul to be the Apostle to the Gentiles (Galatians 2:7–9, 2 Timothy 1:11, Romans 15:16–18). Therefore Peter would never have become bishop of Rome, a city of Gentiles.

Peter’s primary calling was to the Jews, just as Paul’s primary calling was to the Gentiles. But Peter’s ministry was not limited or restricted to the Jews, any more than Paul’s was restricted to the Gentiles: In fact Paul preached to Jews everywhere he went; his first stop was always the local synagogue (Acts 13, 14, 17, 18, etc.). Peter likewise ministered to the Gentiles: in fact it was to Peter, not Paul, that Christ gave the definitive vision that salvation was for the Gentiles as well as the Jews, and Peter is responsible for the first prominent Gentile converts in the family of Cornelius (Acts 10). To quote Peter himself at the Council of Jerusalem:

Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. (Acts 15:7)

This is not even to mention that there was a large and prominent population of Jews in Rome which Peter pastored: as many as the first ten popes are believed to have been Jewish Christians.

Apostle St. Paul (c. 1612), by El Greco.

Paul, in his letter to the Romans, writes of “imparting a spiritual gift” to the Roman Christians, that they may “be established” (Romans 1:11); so the Church at Rome was not established at the time of Paul’s writing and could not have been founded by Peter.

Nobody claims that Peter or Paul are responsible for the first Christian converts in Rome; Paul’s letter very well indicates that there was already a Christian community there. Also, nobody claims that Peter single-handedly founded the Roman Church: the Church teaches that the early ministries of both Peter and Paul, through Christ, laid the foundations of the Church, the pillars upon which the Church was built. By analogy, George Washington didn’t “found” the U.S., but he was nonetheless its first president and is called a “Founding Father,” even though many men had worked for the cause of revolution and independence before him. Likewise Peter and Paul are the “Founding Fathers” of the Roman Church.

Paul never mentions in any of his letters that Peter was in Rome, especially not in Romans 16 when he offers greetings to the people of the Church there, or in the accounts of Paul’s arrest, trial, and imprisonment in Rome (Acts 28). Therefore Peter was not there in Rome.

He wasn’t there yet. Paul likewise hadn’t set up permanent residence in Rome yet, but we know that Peter and Paul ministered there at the same time and both died there. Tradition holds that Peter ministered in Antioch (where he was also the first bishop) before coming to Rome, and together with Paul, in Corinth. All of this would have taken place after the Epistle to the Romans, the Acts of the Apostles, and many other New Testament documents, were written.

At the end of Paul’s life, in his final letter, Paul states that “only Luke is with me” in his final imprisonment in Rome (2 Timothy 4:11) — therefore Peter was not there.

Paul’s statement that “only Luke is with me” is not a statement that there were no other Christians in Rome — in fact there was a thriving Christian community by that time, or else there wouldn’t have been a letter to them. Certainly he meant “only Luke is with me” by his side, in prison, or in his house arrest.

The Crucifixion of Peter, by Caravaggio

Paul’s statement also that at his trial “all deserted me” (2 Timothy 4:16) likewise does not entail that “all” of the Church, or Peter specifically, deserted him, or were not in Rome at all. Certainly there was a substantial Church at Rome, as history records the first bloody persecutions of a great number of Christians under Nero around that time, during which both Paul and Peter met their martyrdom. In the context of this statement, Paul is clearly not referring to his desertion by the leaders of the Church, but by men of high rank or influence with whom he’d become acquainted whose testimony might have made a difference in his trial.

In fact, Peter himself tells us that he was in Rome:

She who is at Babylon, who is likewise chosen, sends you greetings, and so does Mark, my son. (1 Peter 5:13)

Certainly Peter was not literally writing from the ancient “Babylon,” which had lain in ruins for centuries, but from the modern Babylon, the great whore that John describes in the Revelation — Rome itself.

You don’t have to take my word for it. Here is the interpretation of the editors of the well-respected Protestant ESV Study Bible:

1 Pet. 5:13 She who is at Babylon, who is chosen almost certainly refers to the church in Rome, not a literal woman (cf. “elect lady,” 2 John 1, 13). Although the Babylon of the OT was in ruins, the reference resonates with the OT, where “Babylon” represents a center of earthly power opposed to God (cf. Isaiah 13:14; Jeremiah 50:51; see also Revelation 17:18), and in Peter’s day that city would be Rome. The language of “Babylon” and “chosen” forms an inclusio (a literary envelope) with the first verse of the book: the OT background to “Babylon” reminds believers that though they are exiles, they are “elect exiles” (1 Pet. 1:1) who will receive the promised inheritance. Mark is the same John Mark who traveled with Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey (cf. Acts 12:25; 13:5, 13; 15:36:39). Though he left Paul and Barnabas, he was later restored to his former usefulness (Col. 4:10; 2 Tim. 4:11; Philem. 24). Peter would have known Mark from the earliest days, because the church met in his mother’s home (Acts 12:12). In addition, this verse shows a close relationship between Peter and Mark (my son) and is one indication of the validity of the early church tradition that Mark wrote his Gospel at Peter’s direction.

These are only a few of the common Protestant objections to the claim of Peter’s ministry in Rome; but the facts speak for themselves, through incontrovertible biblical, historical and patristic, and archaeological evidence. The See of Peter can only be denied by denying these truths on their face.

Pope St. Gregory the Great

Posted on September 4, 2012 by Joseph T. Richardson

St. Gregory the Great, by Francisco Goya (1797). (WikiPaintings.org)

I’ve been having a rough time. I meant to post yesterday about Pope St. Gregory the Great (c. 540–604, r. 590-604)*, one of my most cherished popes and Church Fathers, but alas, my day was waylaid. Yesterday was his feast day — but I shouldn’t be such a perfectionist. It is worthwhile to write about him today or any day, and I am sure he appreciates being honored just as well.

* The Wikipedia article is pretty bad; you might be better off reading the Catholic Encyclopedia article.

There is so much I admire about this man, and so much I could say, but to do him a worthy tribute would require a lot more research and effort than I have time right now. He is called the father of the medieval papacy, for he did more to establish the role of the pope than anybody since Leo the Great. He stands at the juncture between the ancient world and the Middle Ages more clearly than anybody else, as old Rome decayed and passed away and the Church stepped forward to fill the void in the West. Historians know so much about him, and have written so much about him, because he left so much for us to read: over 800 letters documenting his correspondence with bishops and missionaries and kings and emperors all across the known world. He powerfully reasserted the missionary calling of the Church, and dispatched St. Augustine of Canterbury to return the Gospel to the English people, of whom he famously wrote (as recounted by Bede) that the fair-haired Angli (Angles) resembled angeli (angels), when he encountered a group of English boys in a Roman slave market.

Gregory the Great, by Francisco de Zurbarán (1627). (Wikipedia)

Gregory’s writings reveal him to be a man of passionate faith and a great care for souls, deeply learned but also deeply humble. Born to a wealthy and prominent Roman family, he sold all his family’s goods to benefit the poor and establish monasteries. He himself spent a third of his life in monastic service, and even as pope he maintained an austere mode of life. He is the first pope to stress his position as servus servorum Dei, the “servant of the servants of God,” a title he exemplified, and one so favored by his successor Pope John Paul II of blessed memory. He is the patron of both students and teachers, and very close to my heart.

Below is an excerpt of one of Gregory’s most famous letters, in which he gently rebuffed the Byzantine empress Constantina, who had written to him demanding a relic of St. Paul for a church she had constructed. This letter is important for documenting the veneration of the relics of Saints Peter and Paul in Gregory’s time, and is of particular interest to my research on the tomb of St. Peter. I translated this letter once for my Medieval Latin course; but the below is not my translation.

St. Gregory the Great (c. 1610), from the workshop of Carlo Saraceni. (Wikipedia)

The Serenity of your Piety, conspicuous for religious zeal and love of holiness, has charged me with your commands to send to you the head of Saint Paul, or some other part of his body, for the church which is being built in honour of the same Saint Paul in the palace. And, being desirous of receiving commands from you, by exhibiting the most ready obedience to which I might the more provoke your favour towards me, I am all the more distressed that I neither can nor dare do what you enjoin. For the bodies of the apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul glitter with so great miracles and terrors in their churches that one cannot even go to pray there without great fear. In short, when my predecessor, of blessed memory, was desirous of changing the silver which was over the most sacred body of the blessed apostle Peter, though at a distance of almost fifteen feet from the same body, a sign of no small dreadfulness appeared to him. Nay, I too wished in like manner to amend something not far from the most sacred body of Saint Paul the apostle; and, it being necessary to dig to some depth near his sepulchre, the superintendent of that place found some bones, which were not indeed connected with the same sepulchre; but, inasmuch as he presumed to lift them and transfer them to another place, certain awful signs appeared, and he died suddenly.

Besides all this, when my predecessor, of holy memory, was desiring in like manner to make some improvements not far from the body of Saint Laurence the martyr, it not being known where the venerable body was laid, diggings were made in the course of search, and suddenly his sepulchre was unawares disclosed; and those who were present and working, monks and mansionarii , who saw the body of the same martyr, which they did not indeed presume to touch, all died within ten days, so that none might survive who had seen the holy body of that righteous man. . . .

Who then, most serene lady, can there be so venturesome as, knowing these things, to presume, I do not say to touch their bodies, but even at all to look at them? Such orders therefore having been given me by you, which I could by no means have obeyed, it has not, so far as I find, been of your own motion; but certain men have wished to stir up your Piety against me, so as to withdraw from me (which God forbid) the favour of your good will, and have therefore sought out a point in which I might be found as if disobedient to you. But I trust in Almighty God that your most kind good will is in no way being stolen away from me, and that you will always have with you the power of the holy apostles, whom with all your heart and mind you love, not from their bodily presence, but from their protection.

Moreover, the napkin, which you have likewise ordered to be sent you, is with his body, and so cannot be touched, as his body cannot be approached. But since so religious a desire of my most serene lady ought not to be wholly unsatisfied, I will make haste to transmit to you some portion of the chains which Saint Peter the apostle himself bore on his neck and his hands, from which many miracles are displayed among the people; if at least I should succeed in removing it by filing. For, while many come frequently to seek a blessing from these same chains, in the hope of receiving a little part of the filings, a priest attends with a file, and in the case of some seekers a portion comes off so quickly from these chains that there is no delay: but in the case of other seekers the file is drawn for long over the chains, and yet nothing can be got from them. In the month of June, Indiction 12. (Register of Letters, Book IV, Letter 30)

On this Rock: An Analysis of Matthew 16:18 in the Greek

Posted on June 26, 2012 by Joseph T. Richardson

Peter Paul Rubens. St. Peter. c. 1611. Oil on canvas.

One of the Roman Catholic Church’s chief scriptural supports for the authority of St. Peter as the leading Apostle, who would become the bishop of Rome — whom we would eventually refer to as the first pope — is the verses of Matthew 16:17-19:

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, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.’

This is also a favorite passage of anti-Catholics to pick apart. But with even a basic understanding of the ancient languages, the wordplay that Jesus and the Evangelist were implementing here becomes clear: These verses cannot be interpreted any other way but as an explicit declaration of Peter’s authority. And they never were, until the time of Luther.

Let’s look at the Greek, especially of the critical verse 18 (Greek text from NA27; see also, in English, BibleGateway, Bible.CC, New Advent):

κἀγὼ δέ σοι λέγω ὅτι σὺ εἶ Πέτρος, καὶ ἐπὶ ταύτῃ τῇ πέτρᾳ οἰκοδομήσω μου τὴν ἐκκλησίαν, καὶ πύλαι ἅδου οὐ κατισχύσουσιν αὐτῆς.

Now, I don’t expect my readers to have a lot of Greek. If you do, I am delighted — but I’m here to make this as simple as possible. Here it is transliterated into Roman characters:

kagō de soi legō hoti su ei Petros, kai epi tautē tē petra oikodomēsō mou tēn ekklēsian, kai pulai hadou ou katischusousin autēs.

And one more time, all together: this time cribbed so you can understand it.

κἀγὼ [I, emphatically, in response to Peter’s delaration] δέ [and, also, postpositive: together with first word, and I or I also] σοι [2nd person singular dative pronoun, to you] λέγω [(I) say] ὅτι [that] σὺ [2nd person singular nominative pronoun, you, emphatically] εἶ [2nd person singular present active, are] Πέτρος [Peter], καὶ [and] ἐπὶ [preposition on, upon] ταύτῃ [this] τῇ πέτρᾳ [rock] οἰκοδομήσω [first person singular future active I will build, as in building a house] μου [my (lit. of me)] τὴν ἐκκλησίαν [church (lit. a calling out, a meeting, an assembly — but concretely and universally in Christian lit. refers to the Church)], καὶ [and] πύλαι [(the) gates] ἅδου [of hades] οὐ [negative particle, not] κατισχύσουσιν [3rd person plural future active, will overpower] αὐτῆς [it].

Now, the first thing to note about this is that Jesus addresses Peter in the second person singular: that is, he says you and not y’all. The distinction between the second-person singular and plural personal pronouns has died out in modern English; technically, the singular personal pronouns (thou, thy, thee) have died out and been replaced by the plural (ye, your, you). This is why the Southern U.S. y’all will save the English language. But back to the point: Jesus addresses Peter in the singular you — the King James’ Thou art Peter actually preserves the important distinction. So there can be no question that Jesus is speaking to Peter and to Peter alone here; not to all the Apostles; not to all Christians.

Second, and more important: the wordplay. The name “Peter” — Petros in Greek, Petrus in Latin — translates as “Rock.” Jesus is giving Simon a new name, Peter or Rock, in reference to his firmness or steadfastness.

And on this Rock I will build my Church. “You are Rock, and on this Rock I will build my Church.” That’s the proper way to understand the statement, had it been spoken in English.

Now, the common anti-Catholic refutation of this is thus (first put forward by Luther himself): the Evangelist uses different words in the Greek for Peter and Rock. You are Peter (Πέτρος, Petros) and upon this Rock (πέτρα, petra) I will build my Church. Not only are the two words different, but they are different genders — Petros is masculine and petra is feminine — and they have supposedly, according to the Protestant argument, different meanings in Greek. A petros is a small rock or a piece of rock; a petra is the bedrock or a massive rock formation. Therefore clearly, Jesus wasn’t referring to the same rock in both cases, so the argument goes.

There are several reasons why this argument doesn’t work. First of all, the context. Jesus had asked the disciples who they said he was: John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, some other prophet? And in one of the most dramatic moments of the Gospel, Peter confesses that Jesus is the Christ. And Jesus in turn confesses Peter: “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 say to you . . .” The episode would not make any sense if Jesus had said, “I rename you Peter, a steadfast Rock; and on this (other) rock I will build my Church.”

Not only does that not make sense — but Jesus doesn’t say “other” — he says ταύτῃ, this rock. And there doesn’t seem to be any other rock, any petra present. The common Protestant argument is that petra here refers to Peter’s confession or Peter’s faith. But if that were the case, why the wordplay on Peter’s name? Even more so, why the wordplay without any clarification of the ambiguous metaphor? It seems unlike Matthew to let such an ambiguous statement go without explanation, who in other places is careful to provide explanations for the fulfillment of prophecies (Matthew 3), difficult parables (Matthew 13), and foreign words (Matthew 27:46). The reason he doesn’t here is because to Matthew, and to his earliest readers, it wasn’t ambiguous.

In fact, the literary structure of Jesus’s proclamation mirrors Peter’s exactly: “You are the Christ”; “You are Peter.” And Jesus’s other pronouncements here are perhaps even more important, more indicative of Peter’s singular authority, than His pronouncement of Peter as “Rock”. Jesus gives three separate blessings directed to Peter and Peter alone that leave no doubt of His intention to invest Peter specifically with authority:

You (Peter) are “Rock,” and on this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
I will give you (Peter) the keys of the kingdom of heaven [mirroring “the gates of hell”].
Whatever you (Peter) bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven [linked implicitly to the “keys”].

Further, there is no evidence, beyond the assertion itself, that the meanings of petros and petra are as distinct as Protestants argue. No scholarly lexicon I have consulted, in particular neither the LSJ for Classical Greek nor the BDAG for Koine, supports the definiton of petros as merely a small rock or piece of rock. The words seem, rather, to be nearly synonymous. If there is a distinction between them at all, it is between petra, a great mass of rock, and petros, stone as a monumental building material — for building, say, a Church.

But most important: there are perfectly good reasons why Matthew used two different words here, Petros and petra: this was the only way to compose the statement so that it would make sense in Greek.

Peter’s name in Greek is Petros, not Petra. Why didn’t they call him Petra in Greek? Because Petra is a feminine noun, and Peter is a male. By the time the Gospels were written, Petros had been his Greek name for decades.
Even supposing the Protestant argument about the different meanings of the words petros and petra were true (all evidence is that this is an anti-Catholic invention) — Jesus wouldn’t have said “on this petros I will build my Church,” to make the statement in Greek seem less ambiguous (to us), because that wasn’t what He meant. He meant “I will build my Church on this bedrock,” this unmovable foundation, not this piece of rock.
Greek is an inflected language, meaning that the endings of words change depending on the grammatical function in which they are used. For example, πέτρος (petros), πέτρον (petron), and πετρῷ (petro[i]) are all the very same word. So variations in the endings of words with the same stem seem quite natural to the Greek mind, and the difference between petros and petra would have seemed much less significant than it does to an English-speaker. In fact, this type of wordplay between similar-sounding words, called paronomasia, was common in ancient Greek.
Jesus wasn’t speaking Greek at all. Scholars are pretty certain that in His day-to-day life and teachings, Jesus spoke Aramaic. The Gospels quote Jesus in Aramaic for special dramatic emphasis: “Talitha cumi” (Mark 5:41), “Abba, Father” (Mark 14:36), “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” (Mark 15.34).
So if Jesus was speaking Aramaic, the words for Peter and Rock — Petros and petra — would have been the same word: Kepha (כיפא‎).
“You are Kepha and on this Kepha I will build my Church,” is what Jesus would have said (pretending that the rest of the sentence is in Aramaic, which I don’t know, and you probably don’t either).
The Aramaic Kepha (כיפא‎) was rendered into Greek as Kephas (Κηφᾶς). Why didn’t Matthew just use that in both cases? Because it would have been as awkward as my sentence above, saying most of the sentence in Greek and a couple of words in Aramaic, and then having to explain it. Matthew’s readers apparently didn’t know Aramaic — or at least, if the book was originally written in Hebrew or Aramaic as some of the Church Fathers suggest, whoever translated it into Greek didn’t expect his readers would know Aramaic, and provided a crib for the Aramaic phrases.

To further confirm the Catholic interpretation — it’s not a Catholic interpretation; at least not an invention or reinterpretation of the modern Catholic Church as anti-Catholics charge. This is the way this Scripture has been interpreted since the very earliest biblical commentators:

“. . . I think it my duty to consult the chair of Peter, and to turn to a Church whose faith has been praised by Paul . . . The fruitful soil of Rome, when it receives the pure seed of the Lord, bears fruit an hundredfold . . . My words are spoken to the successor of the fisherman, to the disciple of the Cross. As I follow no leader save Christ, so I communicate with none but your blessedness, that is with the chair of Peter. For this, I know, is the Rock on which the Church is built! This is the house where alone the Paschal Lamb can be rightly eaten. This is the Ark of Noah, and he who is not found in it shall perish when the flood prevails.”

—St. Jerome, To Pope Damasus, Epistle 15:1-2 (A.D. 375)

“Number the bishops from the See of Peter itself. And in that order of Fathers see who has succeeded whom. That is the rock against which the gates of hell do not prevail.”

—St. Augustine, Psalm against the Party of Donatus, 18 (A.D. 393)

“Wherefore the most holy and blessed Leo, archbishop of the great and elder Rome, through us, and through this present most holy synod together with the thrice blessed and all-glorious Peter the Apostle, who is the rock and foundation of the Catholic Church, and the foundation of the orthodox faith, hath stripped him of the episcopate, and hath alienated from him all hieratic worthiness. Therefore let this most holy and great synod sentence the before mentioned Dioscorus to the canonical penalties.”

—Council of Chalcedon, Session III (A.D. 451)

To me, this makes a rock-solid (that’s petra-solid) case: In this verse, there is no doubt that Jesus is declaring Peter to be the Rock on which He would build his Church. Seeing these words in stone did more to move me to this truth, and toward the Catholic Church, than almost anything else: my banner above is a photograph I took of this same declaration, in Latin, around the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica, over the high altar and St. Peter’s tomb.

Call no man your father?

Posted on June 17, 2012 by Joseph T. Richardson

Happy Father’s Day to our Holy Father.

For Father’s Day, I thought I would tackle a “fatherly” topic. But this one has turned out to be a bear. One of the the oldest and most persistent weapons in the arsenal of anti-Catholicism — one that seems on its surface to be minor, but upon examination, proved an obnoxiously hard fly to swat — is the argument that Catholics are in violation are Jesus’s edict to “call no man your father on earth” (Matthew 23:9) by giving their priests the title “Father.”

There are a large number of sites on the Internet both asserting this argument and refuting it (1, 2, 3, and more) in a lot more detail than I really care to, since they have done a fine and in-depth job. If we consider Jesus’s statement in its full context, the argument almost rejects itself (Matthew 23:1-12):

The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat, so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. . . . For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others. But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers. And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor [καθηγητὴς, guide, teacher, professor], the Christ. The greatest among you shall be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

In this passage, Jesus is preaching against the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. And he is clearly speaking hyperbolically. For certainly we are to call our natural fathers “father”; and the Bible is rife with examples of spiritual mentors being called “father.” If we were to take this passage literally, not only would we not call anyone on earth “father” (including our natural fathers), but we would not call anyone “teacher” or “professor,” either. Jesus is not making a legalistic pronouncement here: he is speaking to the Pharisaic sin of exalting oneself over others, claiming for oneself empty titles and honorifics, rather than serving each other humbly.

As a prime example to refute the use of this passage as an attack on the priesthood, St. Paul writes (1 Corinthians 4:15):

For though you have countless guides [παιδαγωγοὺς, lit. pedagogues] in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel.

Here, if the anti-Catholic argument holds true, Paul is directly contradicting Jesus’s command. He frequently refers to especially Timothy as his spiritual child (Philippians 2:22, 1 Timothy 1.2, 2 Timothy 1:2), and he again calls himself the spiritual father of Onesimus (Philemon 10). St. John, in his epistles, frequently refers to his recipients as “his little children” (1 John 1:2).

So this (and especially those more elaborate refutations above) makes a convincing argument that there’s no problem at all with Jesus’s statement with regard to calling men on earth “father,” either our natural fathers or our spiritual fathers. But still this question bugged me. I wanted patristic support: early examples of priests being addressed as “Father.” I found numerous references that this was the custom “since the beginning” or “since the first century,” but not a single source citation connected with these statements. This instinctively sets off alarms in my historian brain.

I haven’t done any systematic search or study of the Church Fathers, but I’ve been shuffling through them as rapidly as I can for the past few hours. This search is complicated by the fact that a search for “father” turns up numerous references to both God the Father and to the Hebrew patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as fathers. And of course, there are the popes, who are frequently referred to as holy fathers. Eventually, in later patristic writings, there are plenty of references to the Church Fathers themselves. It’s late and I’m tired, but I am determined to post something tonight for Father’s Day, so let me summarize what I’ve found. And I will continue this research, because now I’m fascinated and determined to learn more.

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, the title papa (πάππας in Greek) — which means roughly “daddy” — was once in much wider use, in the East referring to any priest, and in the West referring to any bishop (I found St. Cyprian being frequently addressed as “Father” in his correspondence). It didn’t become exclusive to the bishop of Rome (whom we now know as the pope) until around the fourth century.
This article by Fr. William Saunders gives some brief history which supports the above. He adds that St. Benedict used the term “father” for spiritual confessors, and that the title of the monastic abbot is derived from the familiar Aramaic “Abba.” Mendicant friars came to be addressed as “father” in the Middle Ages. Heads of religious communities and participants in ecumenical councils (i.e. council fathers) have been given the title “father.” He doesn’t describe when it became customary to call all priests “father” in the English-speaking world — but I get the sense that it is a fairly recent development (i.e. since the Reformation).
I stumbled across this piece, “Are ‘Mother’ and ‘Father’ Appropriate Titles for Protestant Clergy?” by someone writing from an Anglican/Episcopal perspective, hence the suggestion of women’s ordination. He gives some compelling history, but it’s also a little troubling — I’m not sure it’s right. He claims that historically, Protestants had no problem using the title “Father” for their leaders, and only picked up the anti-Catholic charge above in the xenophobia toward Irish Catholics of the 19th century. He also makes this claim:

Most significantly, the decline of “Father” in Protestantism coincides with the rise of Irish immigration to the United States in the 1840s. Before that time, Roman Catholic priests in America were usually addressed as “Mister,” for most were secular (nonmonastic) clergy with roots in Europe or England, where Roman Catholic practice restricted “Father” to priests of monastic orders. Secular priests were called “Mister,” “Monsieur,” “Don” or other vernacular equivalents. Irish Roman Catholics, however, addressed all priests — whether secular or monastic — as “Father.” And by the end of the Victorian period, the Irish had influenced English-speaking Roman Catholicism to call every priest “Father.”

Is this true? It’s a fascinating claim that I will have to investigate further. Most of the early counter-examples I can think of — such as the early priests in Maryland, and Padre Las Casas — were associated with religious orders (the Maryland missionaries with the Jesuits and Las Casas with the Dominicans). The “Reverend Father” Martin Luther was an Augustinian. Is it still the case that priests in the non–English-speaking world are called something other than “father”? I think of Padre Pio, but he was a Capuchin. On the other hand, I think of Don Bosco, who was a parish priest. My world traveler friends and seasoned Catholics, help me out here?

UPDATE: “More thoughts on calling priests ‘Father’“

Pope Benedict XVI: A Father of Reconciliation

Posted on June 10, 2012 by Joseph T. Richardson

Pope Benedict XVI, a voice of reconciliation.

I presently have about four posts half-written; so forgive me if I begin another and for a moment indulge my inner fanboy and let loose a cheer for our pope.

As I’ve been writing, there has been a longstanding conflict between Traditionalist Catholics and the Mother Church over the reforms of Vatican II, with the Traditionalist Society of St. Pius X having been out of communion with Rome since 1988. Pope Benedict has been in close, but tense, talks with the SSPX since the beginning of his pontificate. In 2009 he lifted the excommunications of the surviving SSPX bishops. Now, it is rumored and widely believed that reconciliation between the SSPX and the Vatican is at hand.

I think Pope Benedict is brilliant. As much as Pope John Paul II was a voice of reconciliation and healing through love and comfort and welcome — through sheer goodness — Pope Benedict XVI is a voice of reconciliation, healing, and reconstruction through intellect, reasoning, and enlightened leadership. Since the beginning of his papacy, he has sought to return a sharp edge to Catholic doctrine and theology — not the bloody axe many expected from him as the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith — the formal successor to the Inquisition — but the finely honed, elegant sword of precise argument that has made the Catholic Church historically great. He has sought to clarify the points of doctrinal contention stemming from Vatican II, to re-declare the truth of Catholic orthodoxy, and to trumpet the continuity of our tradition rather than the rupture some, like the SSPX, have seen.

David G. Bonagura, Jr. gives a splendid analysis of the SSPX reconciliation in this column: what it means and what it doesn’t mean. As I have been witnessing, Pope Benedict is not rolling back Vatican II, but through everything he does, affirming the continuity of the Council Fathers with Tradition. What the pope is rejecting is the “spirit of Vatican II” through which modernists and liberals have tried to break with the Church’s foundations. Rather than “attacking nuns,” as many in the liberal American media have portrayed the Vatican’s investigation of the LCWR, Benedict is reaching out to both the SSPX, drifting to the right, and the LCWR, drifting to the left, in an aim to restore both to full communion. The restored SSPX, so ardent in promoting the traditions of the Church, will only add to the movement within the Church that is already gaining momentum: the revitalization and reinvigoration of liturgy and tradition and evangelization.

So much in this piece makes me want to cheer, or passionately underline with my blue pen. But this part sums up my joy:

. . . The reconciliation speaks volumes about the nature of Benedict’s pontificate and the character of Benedict the man. . . . Benedict, despite the many contrary voices in the Curia, is personally making reconciliation a reality, at his speed and on his terms.

We have already seen the beginnings of reconciliation with Protestant sects under this pope, and an ever-growing wave in the past quarter-century of individual Protestants returning home to Rome. It is my daily prayer that under Pope Benedict’s leadership, we will see this tide of reconciliation mount higher and higher, toward the reunification of all Christians.

Early Testimonies to St. Peter’s Ministry in Rome

Posted on May 27, 2012 by Joseph T. Richardson

Peter Paul Rubens. St. Peter. c. 1611. Oil on canvas.

So I’m realizing why the “tomb of st. peter” is such a popular search term. It seems the issue of St. Peter’s presence and ministry in Rome is one of the major points of contention between Catholics and many Protestants (especially those of an anti-Catholic bent). This is somewhat surprising to me. Even as a Protestant, there was never any question in my mind that Peter ministered and died in Rome — perhaps because I’m also an historian. The historical evidence for Peter being in Rome is not just solid; it’s unanimous. Every historical record that speaks to Peter’s later life and death attests that he died in Rome a martyr under the emperor Nero, ca. A.D. 67. No record places the end of his life anywhere else.

The fact that so many people are searching on Peter in Rome tells me that people are hearing conflicting statements and wondering, searching for the truth. The fact that so many Protestants deny it so vehemently, and refute it so absurdly, tells me that they, however basically, realize the power in our claim. They recognize and in effect acknowledge what we have maintained for many centuries: that having the chief of Apostles as our foundation gives the Roman Catholic Church legitimacy and primacy.

Why else would it be so important to refute that St. Peter was here? He was but a man who died nearly 2,000 years ago. If, as Protestants charge, the Catholic Church left its apostolic foundations long ago and drifted over the centuries into corruption, why should it be so significant what those foundations were? Why deny a well-attested historical fact unless it carries some continuing authority? Do they not realize that in attacking the Roman Church’s foundations, they are undermining their own — since we are their Mother Church, too?

The primary reason for this opposition, I suspect, is that in a fundamentalist view, all religious truth must come from Scripture, sola scriptura — and it is not self-evident from Scripture that St. Peter was ever in Rome. This is also the reason why few Protestants seem to dispute that St. Paul was in Rome: because he tells us he was, repeatedly, in his scriptural epistles. Most more thoughtful Protestants realize that there is a difference between religious truth and historical truth, however intertwined the two may sometimes be; and historical sources are valid authorities for historical truth. These tend to be, incidentally, the Protestants least inclined toward anti-Catholicism.

First Epistle of St. Peter

But the Bible can be an historical source, too. And there is actually a significant testimony in the Bible to Peter’s presence in Rome. In the valediction of Peter’s first epistle, he wrote (1 Peter 5:13 ESV):

She who is at Babylon, who is likewise chosen, sends you greetings, and so does Mark, my son.

Here the Greek grammar is clear: ἀσπάζεται ὑμᾶς (sends greetings to y’all) ἡ ἐν βαβυλῶνι (she who is in/at Babylon) συνεκλεκτὴ (she elected/chosen together) καὶ Μᾶρκος (and also Mark) ὁ υἱός μου (my son). Peter, writing the letter, and therefore sending the greetings, is obviously with “she who is at Babylon,” and also with Mark, “[his] son.” She elected is the Church, always personified as a woman; and Peter is with the Church. But the Church where? The ancient city of Babylon had been in ruins for centuries. Peter must have been speaking in a cryptic metaphor. The Babylon of the Bible was the capital of a vast, powerful empire, and stood at the height of sin and excess. Where else could that be in Peter’s day but Rome?

You don’t have to take my word for it. From the study notes of the well-respected, evangelical ESV Study Bible (which continues to be my personal Bible of choice):

1 Pet. 5:13 She who is at Babylon, who is … chosen almost certainly refers to the church in Rome, not a literal woman (cf. “elect lady,” 2 John 1, 13). Although the Babylon of the OT was in ruins, the reference resonates with the OT, where “Babylon” represents a center of earthly power opposed to God (cf. Isaiah 13–14; Jeremiah 50–51; see also Revelation 17–18), and in Peter’s day that city would be Rome. The language of “Babylon” and “chosen” forms an inclusio (a literary envelope) with the first verse of the book: the OT background to “Babylon” reminds believers that though they are exiles, they are “elect exiles” (1 Pet. 1:1) who will receive the promised inheritance. Mark is the same John Mark who traveled with Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey (cf. Acts 12:25; 13:5, 13; 15:36–39). Though he left Paul and Barnabas, he was later restored to his former usefulness (Col. 4:10; 2 Tim. 4:11; Philem. 24). Peter would have known Mark from the earliest days, because the church met in his mother’s home (Acts 12:12). In addition, this verse shows a close relationship between Peter and Mark (my son) and is one indication of the validity of the early church tradition that Mark wrote his Gospel at Peter’s direction.

Writing under the emperor Nero, Peter would wisely have used discretion in revealing his whereabouts in writing, lest his letter be intercepted by Roman authorities. The symbolism that is transparent to Christians today would not have been so explicit to those not so steeped in the Old Testament or ancient Mesopotamian history.

St. Clement of Rome

Among the earliest surviving testimony outside the Bible is the first letter of Clement (1 Clement), which is usually dated to around 95 or 96 A.D. Clement of Rome, as evident from the letter, was a high official of the Church in Rome, writing in exhortation to the Church at Corinth to settle a division between the established elders and an upstart faction. The Roman Catholic Church today holds St. Clement to have been the third bishop of Rome (i.e. pope); early patristic writers varied in their listings, placing Clement anywhere from second to fourth. His letter is a clear early example of the bishop of Rome exerting authority over other churches.

Regarding St. Peter, St. Clement did not speak to the specifics of Peter’s fate, but wrote (1 Clement 5–6, trans. Kirsopp Lake, in The Apostolic Fathers, vol. I, Loeb Classical Library, London and New York: William Heinemann, 1919):

But, to cease from the examples of old time, let us come to those who contended in the days nearest to us; let us take the noble examples of our own generation. Through jealousy and envy the greatest and most righteous pillars of the Church were persecuted and contended unto death. Let us set before our eyes the good apostles: Peter, who because of unrighteous jealousy suffered not one or two but many trials, and having thus given his testimony (μαρτυρήσας) went to the glorious place which was his due. Through jealousy and strife Paul showed the way to the prize of endurance; seven times he was in bonds, he was exiled, he was stoned, he was a herald both in the East and in the West, he gained the noble fame of his faith, he taught righteousness to all the world, and when he had reached the limits of the West he gave his testimony (μαρτυρήσας) before the rulers, and thus passed from the world and was taken up into the Holy Place,―the greatest example of endurance. To these men with their holy lives was gathered a great multitude of the chosen, who were the victims of jealousy and offered among us (ἐν ἡμῖν) the fairest example in their endurance under many indignities and tortures.

Clement was the first writer to place Saints Peter and Paul as a pair, as they have always been in the Roman Church. He showed a clear and personal knowledge of the deaths of both Peter and Paul, and he assumed that his recipients also knew the stories. Most Christians accept that Paul was martyred in Rome; it is not a far stretch to assume from Clement’s pairing of the two Apostles that he also believed Peter to have died in Rome. In fact, his grammar is revealing: Peter and Paul offered their example—their martyrdom—“among us” (ἐν ἡμῖν)—that is, among the Romans. Clement was consistent throughout his letter in the use of the pronouns ὑμεῖς (you, i.e. Corinthians) and ἡμεῖς (we, us, i.e. Romans).

St. Ignatius of Antioch

St. Ignatius of Antioch, in his Epistle to the Romans, dated between 98 and 117, written en route to his martyrdom at Rome, referenced the Saints Peter and Paul (Epistle to the Romans IV):

I do not enjoin you in the manner of Peter and Paul. They were Apostles; I am a condemned man. They were free; I, until this moment, am a slave.

Again he placed Peter and Paul as a pair, and implied that the Romans have had personal contact with the Apostles, who enjoined them with authority.

St. Irenaeus of Lugdunum (Lyon)

St. Irenaeus, writing ca. 180, is the earliest extant writer I’ve found that stated directly that Peter ministered in Rome (Against Heresies III.1.1):

For, after our Lord rose from the dead, [the apostles] were invested with power from on high when the Holy Spirit came down [upon them], were filled from all [His gifts], and had perfect knowledge: they departed to the ends of the earth, preaching the glad tidings of the good things [sent] from God to us, and proclaiming the peace of heaven to men, who indeed do all equally and individually possess the Gospel of God. Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome, and laying the foundations of the Church. After their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, did also hand down to us in writing what had been preached by Peter.

And again (Against Heresies, III.3.1-2):

It is within the power of all, therefore, in every Church, who may wish to see the truth, to contemplate clearly the tradition of the apostles manifested throughout the whole world; and we are in a position to reckon up those who were by the apostles instituted bishops in the Churches, and [to demonstrate] the succession of these men to our own times; . . . [We refute the heretics] by indicating that tradition derived from the apostles, of the very great, the very ancient, and universally known Church founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul; as also [by pointing out] the faith preached to men, which comes down to our time by means of the successions of the bishops. For it is a matter of necessity that every Church should agree with this Church, on account of its preeminent authority, that is, the faithful everywhere, inasmuch as the tradition has been preserved continuously by those [faithful men] who exist everywhere.

Here we have, clearly stated, not only the statement that Saints Peter and Paul built the Church at Rome—not that they were the first Christian missionaries there, but that by their apostolic ministry they laid its foundations—but also, Irenaeus affirmed the doctrines of Apostolic succession and Petrine primacy, unequivocally and authoritatively, at a date earlier than many Protestants would like to recognize. What is more, St. Irenaeus was not a partisan of the Church at Rome, but the Greek-born bishop of Lugdunum (today the city of Lyon in France). In the face of the growing threat of Gnosticism, the unity of the Church and the authority of Rome were more important than ever.

Clement of Alexandria

Clement of Alexandria, who wrote between ca. 190 and 215, made several references to Peter’s ministry in Rome, especially as it pertained to the ministry of St. Mark, founder of the Church at Alexandria. Some of these references survive only in fragments. The first, from Clement’s Commentary on the First Epistle of Peter, which survives only in the Latin translation of Cassiodorus:

Mark, the follower of Peter, while Peter publicly preached the Gospel at Rome before some of Caesar’s equites, and adduced many testimonies to Christ, in order that thereby they might be able to commit to memory what was spoken, of what was spoken by Peter, wrote entirely what is called the Gospel according to Mark.

The Church historian Eusebius of Caesarea, writing in the 290s, cited Clement’s lost Hypotyposes, as well as the testimony of Papias of Hierapolis, also otherwise lost, further attesting that Mark wrote his Gospel from the teachings of Peter at Rome (Church History II.15.2).

Tertullian

Tertullian, writing probably ca. 180-200, attested to Peter’s and Paul’s ministry and martyrdom in Rome in a passage from De praescriptionem haereticorum (Prescription against Heretics 36). Like Irenaeus, he appealed to the apostolic foundations of the orthodox churches:

Come now, you who would indulge a better curiosity, if you would apply it to the business of your salvation, run over the Apostolic churches, in which the very thrones of the Apostles are still pre-eminent in their places, in which their own authentic writings are read, uttering the voice and representing the face of each of them severally. . . . Since, moreover, you are close upon Italy, you have Rome, from which there comes even into our own hands the very authority [of Apostles themselves]. How happy is its church, on which Apostles poured forth all their doctrine along with their blood! Where Peter endures a passion like his Lord’s! Where Paul wins his crown in a death like John’s where the Apostle John was first plunged, unhurt, into boiling oil, and thence remitted to his island-exile!

Eusebius of Caesarea

Eusebius, compiling his Church History in the 290s, firmly stated the well-established tradition of Peter’s martyrdom in Rome (Church History II.25.5):

Thus publicly announcing himself as the first among God’s chief enemies, [Nero] was led on to the slaughter of the apostles. It is, therefore, recorded that Paul was beheaded in Rome itself, and that Peter likewise was crucified under Nero. This account of Peter and Paul is substantiated by the fact that their names are preserved in the cemeteries of that place even to the present day.

Eusebius cited as testimony earlier writers, and thus preserved a number of valuable fragments of works no longer extant. Among them is the previously discussed quotation which attests to the presence of Peter’s grave monument on Vatican Hill in ca. 210 (II.25.6–7):

It is confirmed likewise by Gaius, a member of the Church, who arose under Zephyrinus, bishop of Rome. He, in a published disputation with Proclus, the leader of the Phrygian heresy, speaks as follows concerning the places where the sacred corpses of the aforesaid apostles are laid: ‘But I can show the trophies of the Apostles. For if you will go to the Vatican or to the Ostian way, you will find the trophies of those who laid the foundations of this church.’

Finally, Eusebius preserved a document from Dionysius of Corinth, Bishop of Corinth in 171, attesting that both Peter and Paul had ministered in Corinth before going to Rome, and that they had died in Rome at the same time (i.e. under the same persecution) (II.25.8):

And that they both suffered martyrdom at the same time is stated by Dionysius, bishop of Corinth, in his epistle to the Romans, in the following words: ‘You have thus by such an admonition bound together the planting of Peter and of Paul at Rome and Corinth. For both of them planted and likewise taught us in our Corinth. And they taught together in like manner in Italy, and suffered martyrdom at the same time.’ I have quoted these things in order that the truth of the history might be still more confirmed.

This carries the documentary record of the ministry and martyrdom of St. Peter in Rome to the end of the third century. His presence there is suggested even by the Apostle himself in 1 Peter. His martyrdom there is attested to arguably as early as 95 or 96 by St. Clement, within thirty years of Peter’s death. It certainly is strongly attested by St. Irenaeus in ca. 180, after only little more than a century. Voices from all around the Mediterranean world affirm Peter’s residence in Rome, as well as Rome’s primacy.

No other writer or record places the end of Peter’s life anywhere but Rome. The majority of the earliest testimonies to the Early Church attest to it, and for nearly 1500 years, Peter’s apostolic ministry in Rome was universally accepted and unquestioned throughout the Church. As the Catholic Encyclopedia announced confidently, “St. Peter’s residence and death in Rome are established beyond contention as historical facts.”

The Lonely Pilgrim

A Christian's Road Home to Rome and Journey Onward

Tag Archives: papacy

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Clement of Alexandria

Tertullian

Eusebius of Caesarea