The Pope And The Papacy

Why do Catholics believe in a pope, when the word "pope" isn’t in the Bible?

How can the pope be infallible? Do Catholics actually believe that the pope never makes a mistake?

In declaring dogmas like the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption, haven’t popes added to the gospel of Jesus?

What about the bad popes? Haven’t some popes led evil lives? Why would the Holy Spirit choose an evil man to lead the Church of Jesus Christ?

Could a pope go to hell?

If these questions intrigue you, don’t touch that dial. They will all be addressed at some point during the next half hour. I’m Father Ray Suriani, assistant pastor of St. Pius X Church in Westerly, and I welcome you to another Keep the Faith Program. I’m sure it’s crystal clear to you already: today’s subject is the papacy. The questions I just listed for you are ones that I’m asked very often in my priestly ministry--by Catholics and non-Catholics alike! That tells me something: it tells me that many people today do not understand basic Catholic teaching concerning the Holy Father. There’s a great deal of confusion out there concerning the pope and his role in the Body of Christ; which is precisely why I’ve made the decision to address the issue with you on this particular show.

Let me begin by reading to you a passage from Matthew’s Gospel. This is a key text for understanding what the Church believes and teaches about the papacy. Yes, it’s true: the word pope is not found anywhere in the Bible; but the papacy is firmly rooted in the Sacred Scriptures. In this respect, the word pope is like the word Trinity: The word Trinity also does not appear anywhere in the Bible. And yet, no true Christian (Catholic or Protestant) would deny the truth of this dogma: the truth that God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And no true Christian would deny that this dogma is firmly rooted in the Sacred Scriptures, even though the word itself isn’t there! A true Christian would say that the word Trinity is the name we give to what the Bible teaches us about the inner life of God. Similarly, the word pope is the name we give to that office that Jesus Christ set up within his Church, beginning with this event recorded for us in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 16. If you have your Bible handy, I invite you to read along with me, starting in verse 13:

When Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" They replied, "Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter said in reply, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God." 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."

We’ll look at this passage a little more closely in a minute. But at the present time suffice it to say that this is the gospel event which grounds the papacy; although there are many other New Testament texts that illustrate the basic truth that we find in Matthew 16. The Book of Acts especially, which chronicles the history of the early Church, gives a powerful witness to the primacy of Peter among the Twelve. In Acts 1, for example, Peter stands up and proclaims the need to find a replacement for Judas; in Acts 2, it’s Peter who first publicly proclaims the faith of the Church to the people of Jerusalem on Pentecost Sunday; in Acts 3 Peter is involved in the first miracle worked through the apostles; Peter disciplines Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5; Peter is the one who receives the first Gentiles into the Church in Acts 10; at the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15, the debate about the Gentiles ends when Peter stands up and speaks. I think it’s also significant that when Peter and the Beloved Disciple ran to the empty tomb on Easter Sunday, it was Peter who entered the tomb first--even though the Beloved Disciple got there before Peter did! The Beloved Disciple (probably John) defers to Peter.

So here we have a number of examples from the Bible which show that, in the early Church, Peter had a primacy among the Twelve Apostles. This position of primacy was also held by the bishops of Rome who were the successors of Peter. This fact is confirmed for us by the early Fathers of the Church: those great men of God who lived in the years just following the Apostolic Age. Ignatius of Antioch, for example, who died in the year 107, said that the Church of Rome "presides over the whole assembly united in charity." In the middle of second century St. Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyon wrote, "On account of its supremacy it is necessary that every Church in which is the tradition of the Apostles should be in harmony or unity with this Church" [i.e. the Church of Rome.]

Peter’s authority is rooted in Jesus’ declaration in Matthew 16 that he is the rock upon which the Lord’s Church was to be built. Now I know what some of you are saying: "But Fr. Ray, Peter can’t be the rock, because in the original Greek of Matthew’s Gospel, there are two different words that are used. Jesus says to Peter, ‘You are petros [which means a little pebble], and on this petra [which means huge stone] I will build my Church.’ So Jesus is really saying, ‘Peter, you’re just a weak human being [a little pebble], and on this huge rock [your confession of faith in me as the Messiah], on that rock of faith I will build my Church. So Peter is not the rock."

This interpretation, my dear friends, is wrong for two reasons: First of all, most scholars (both Protestant and Catholic) will tell you that Jesus probably didn’t speak to his disciples in Greek. He spoke to them in Aramaic; and in Aramaic there is no distinction between "big rock" and "little pebble." In Aramaic, there is only one word for rock--kepha. Which means that Jesus actually said, "You are kepha, and on this kepha [meaning Peter himself] I will build my Church." So why did Matthew use petros in his gospel? Simple: petra is the female form of the Greek word for rock. You do not use the female form a word to name a man; you use the masculine form of the word, which in this case is [you guessed it] petros! And by the way, most honest Protestant Scripture scholars will now admit that this is true: that Peter is in fact the rock.

But what about this idea of succession? Some might say, "Okay, Fr. Ray, so Peter was the rock who had a certain primacy among the apostles. Fine. But when Peter died, so did his authority. Where does the Catholic Church get the idea that Peter’s authority was passed on to others?"

Well, first of all, we get the idea from Scripture itself. Remember that scene in Acts 1 where Matthias is chosen to replace Judas? Peter, on that occasion, stood up and quoted psalm 109, verse 8: "May another take his office." Peter understood that when Judas died, an office was vacant, and that office needed to be filled by someone else. That’s what the Catholic Church calls "Apostolic Succession." And then we have the witness of the early Fathers of the Church, like Clement of Rome, who wrote this at the end of the first century: [Speaking of the apostles, he said,] "Equipped as they were with perfect foreknowledge, they appointed the men mentioned before [i.e. the bishops], and afterwards laid down a rule once for all to this effect: when these men die, other approved men shall succeed to their sacred ministry." The Catholic Church has obeyed that mandate faithfully for two thousand years.

And with regard to the pope: when Jesus says to Peter, "I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven," he is telling Peter that he is to have an authority within the Church which is to be passed on to others. Protestant and Catholic scholars agree that Jesus is alluding here to the Book of Isaiah, chapter 22. If you have your Bibles with you, please turn to that text. Because of time constraints I won’t go through the entire passage, but I’ll summarize the main ideas in this way: Shebna held a special office at the time in the kingdom of Judah--he was what we would call the "Prime Minister." However, he displeased God, so he was thrown out of office, and Eliakim was put in his place. (Here again we see the idea of succession.) And the Lord says, concerning Eliakim: "I will place the key of the House of David on his shoulder; when he opens, no one shall shut, when he shuts, no one shall open." The key there symbolizes dynastic authority, which is the same type of authority that Jesus gives to Peter in Matthew 16 with respect to the Church. That’s why when a pope dies, another one is chosen as soon as possible.

And one final point: God says, in Isaiah 22, that Eliakim will be "a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem." Isn’t it interesting--the word pope comes from the Latin word meaning "father." Once again, the word may not be in the Bible, but the papacy is firmly rooted in the truth of the Sacred Scriptures--the truth contained in both in the New and Old Testaments.

At this point, we’ll take a short break. Please stay tuned, we’ll be back in a minute.

Welcome back to our program. I realize the first section of today’s show was longer than usual, but I think I needed to take the time to lay a solid foundation for answering those questions I threw out when we first began. I’ve already dealt with the issue of the word "pope" not being in the Bible.

The second question I mentioned earlier was this one: How can the pope be infallible? Do Catholics actually believe that the pope never makes mistakes? Here’s an issue that many people misunderstand--even many Catholics. Karl Keating addresses it well in his book, What Catholics Really Believe. There he comments on this statement that you sometimes hear people make: "Infallibility means that everything the pope says is true." Keating writes,

Don’t bet on it. If the pope tells you which team will win the next World Series, keep your money in your pocket. He has no more insight into the outcome of sporting events than you or I do. And if he gives you a list of the best novels of all time, thank him profusely, but feel free to develop your own literary Top Forty.

The pope is infallible, but he isn’t a know-it-all. His charism of infallibility, which he enjoys as the successor to Peter, is strictly limited. Vatican I taught and Vatican II reaffirmed that the pope teaches infallibly when "he proclaims by a definitive act some doctrine of faith or morals." So states Vatican II’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church. Note the limitation: Papal infallibility extends only to matters of faith or morals--not to Church customs, not to sports, not to literature, not to most things of everyday life. And infallibility comes into play only when the pope "proclaims by a definitive act." This means a formal public statement. An offhand comment over lunch doesn’t count.

Let me add a few things now to what Keating says there:

Infallibility is ultimately rooted in the words of Jesus to Peter, when our Lord told him that the "gates of the netherworld" would not prevail against the Church.

Infallibility does not mean impeccability--every pope has been a sinner, just like you and me.

Infallibility also does not prevent popes from personally believing things that are wrong. A pope might hold the wrong opinions in his own head. But infallibility does mean that, by a special charism of the Holy Spirit, a pope will never teach those erroneous opinions as if they were the truth of Jesus Christ. And no pope ever has! This is one of the ways that Jesus has chosen to protect his Church. Because you see, if Jesus did not stand guard over the Church in this fashion, then the "gates of the netherworld" would prevail--and the gospel message would be corrupted.

I’ll say one more thing about infallibility: every good, devout Protestant (as well as every good Catholic) believes that fallible human beings can transmit infallible truth by the grace of God. We know that every writer of Scripture--Isaiah, Jeremiah, Matthew, Luke, Paul--every one of these men was a fallible sinner. And yet through these fallible men, the Holy Spirit has infallibly transmitted infallible truth. The Bible is the infallible Word of God, is it not? Well, if God could transmit infallible truth through fallible men in Biblical times, why can’t he guard that same infallible truth today through another fallible man, the Holy Father?

Now what about the bad popes? Haven’t some popes led evil lives? Why would the Holy Spirit choose an evil man to lead the Church of Jesus Christ? Well, in response to that last question I would say, "Why did Jesus choose Judas to be an apostle? Jesus is God, but did he make a mistake here?" No, he didn’t make a mistake in choosing Judas, nor did he make a mistake in choosing the so-called "bad popes." These men were all chosen because the Lord saw their potential for good, not for evil. The perfect plan of God was for Judas to become St. Judas; his plan for the bad popes was for them to become saints and examples of virtue for the Church. However, they each made the choice to misuse their free will and sin. But here’s the interesting fact about the bad popes (and by the way, there have only been a few of them in history)--but here’s the interesting fact about these men: Even though they engaged in immoral activity, they never, ever changed Church doctrine. As Dr. Scott Hahn puts it, "They were too busy sinning to worry about teaching anything." But the point is that the gospel truth was preserved in spite of the evil behavior of these men--the gates of the netherworld did not prevail against the Church.

And so, can a pope go to hell? Yes, of course he can. He stands under the same gospel mandate that we all stand under. I pray that no pope has gone to hell; I pray that even the evil ones repented before they died. But there is one thing we can be absolutely sure of: God’s judgment of every human person (including every pope) will be the right one! There’s no need for a "court of appeals" in the afterlife.

Finally we come to the question of whether or not popes have added things to the gospel of Christ. I mentioned the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption at the beginning of today’s program. These are two dogmas which have been infallibly verified by popes in the last two centuries. But they are not explicitly found in Scripture; therefore some say that they are additions to the gospel.

Well, first of all let me say that no pope has the power to add anything whatsoever to the Apostolic faith; he doesn’t have the power to change the Apostolic faith in any way. The Catholic Church believes that Public Revelation ended with the death of the last apostle. However it is possible for us to gain deeper insights into the one truth of Christ as time goes on. As Jesus promised his apostles at the Last Supper: "The Holy Spirit . . . will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you." So when a pope verifies a teaching like the Immaculate Conception or the Assumption, he is not declaring something new; he is publicly and definitively verifying something that was always part and parcel of the Apostolic faith. By the way, this is why it’s so helpful to read the writings of the Fathers of the Church, especially early Church Fathers like Ignatius of Antioch and Polycarp, who lived in the first century. When you read the writings of the Church Fathers, you see that everything the Church now teaches was present (at least in seminal form) at the very beginning.

I hope that today’s program has helped to answer some of your pressing questions and concerns about the papacy. I’d like to close now by offering a prayer: a prayer for the Holy Father, and for you, the members of our listening audience:

Lord Jesus, we thank you for your saving death and resurrection. We thank you for establishing your Church and guiding it through the centuries. We thank you for calling us to be members of your Mystical Body and your instruments in the world. We thank you in a special way for making Peter the rock, and for establishing the papacy. Help us to appreciate this great gift that you gave to your Church, so that the gates of the netherworld shall never prevail against it. Strengthen our present Holy Father in body, soul and spirit. Make him a faithful shepherd of your flock here on earth. Help us to support him always with our prayers and sacrifices. And help us to live the gospel truth: the truth which he guards, defends and teaches with the authority of Peter. We ask all this through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.