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

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 …

Early Testimonies to St. Peter’s Ministry in Rome

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 …

The Bones of St. Peter

This should be the conclusion of my three-parter on the Tomb of St. Peter at St. Peter’s Basilica on the Vatican, in which I hope to discuss the discovery of St. Peter’s relics and the issue of their authenticity. Also, a bibliography! Previously, “The Tomb of St. Peter,” “The Grave of St. Peter.“ The bones …

The Grave of St. Peter

Last time, I gave a brief history of the tomb of St. Peter on the Vatican, and of the excavations in the 1940s that uncovered the ancient pagan necropolis beneath St. Peter’s Basilica. I left the matter of the excavation of the tomb itself for this post — which is bound to be a little …

The Tomb of St. Peter

Nearly every day, consistently, the top-ranking search term for my blog is “tomb of st. peter” or some variant. Every day, this post, about my pilgrimage to the tomb of St. Paul, attracts at least several hits in search of St. Peter, despite only mentioning him in passing (to a relic of St. Peter, his …

Bishops and Priests

Some years ago, for an English history course as an undergrad, I wrote a paper on the Protestant Reformer and early translator of the Bible into English, William Tyndale. Now, I’ve always had a tendency to become absorbed with the subjects of my papers, and to find in them great heroes. Tyndale was no exception. …

The Historical Church

Tonight was the second week of RCIA. There are about thirty inquirers, I would say — I first started trying to jot down their names, then at least count them, and finally stopped at “a lot.” We went around the room and introduced ourselves. The lesson tonight was on “Religion vs. Spirituality,” the difference between the …