Donuts and Dogma; St. Michael Catholic Church

Transcription

1 The Papacy By: Dr. Joel Stroot, DDS Donuts and Dogma; St. Michael Catholic Church Prayer. Recap Confession to a priest The Priesthood The Holy Eucharist What does all this come down to? Familial AUTHORITY! By what authority!? That is re-emphasizing the theme that we are seeing time and time again inn this apologetics series. How? Think back to the very beginning. We spoke of the problem with relativism which says that there is no Absolute Truth and that you really are your own authority. It ends with you, the subject. Recall the words of Descartes Cogito ergo sum I think therefore I am. We saw that this notion is truly ridiculous and that there is Absolute Truth and it comes in the form of a Person, the person of Jesus Christ,

2 who says I am the way, the Truth, and the life. So HE has AUTHORITY. All of this is set in the context of FAMILY, the family of God. So it is a loving Father who sacrifices for His family. A mother in Mary who understands our joys and sorrows. The saints as brothers and sisters showing us what it means to be children of God. We children joyfully give obedience as we know that Jesus, and hence His Church, want what is best for us and knows what will truly make us happy. So there is real trust, real and deep relationship. We do not want to offend Him who is all good and deserving of all our love. If we fall in sin, our penance is to spend time at the feet of our Father and just be loved by Him, to just mend the relationship. This is exactly what we should want to do anyway! What a joy to be Catholic!!!! It is not a tyrannical authority or a slave and a mean master. It stems from love, from Family!! We saw how he gave this authority to His one Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. We saw that historically He gave this to THE Catholic Church. Historically, objectively, no Protestant can claim that this Authority was handed from Jesus to their Church. They can only trace their Church back a mere 500 years or so That is historical, that is objective fact, and we saw that in a different donuts and dogma class. Be secure in this fact, and help this firm your faith in being unapologetically Catholic.

3 With these few corner foundations already laid down and clearly understood, let us today firm up this bulwark, this foundation, by speaking on that rock of Peter the Papacy. Again, this all centers around familial authority, the authority of Jesus Christ. The Papacy: What is it? When used in the context of the Catholic Church, the papacy refers to the office of pope, the successor of St. Peter, and the authority that the pope exercises in that office. (Online: ) Where did it come from? While other religions may claim that this was made up by the Catholic Church, we will see that the one to blame for the papacy is Jesus Christ. He is at it again! What are the big objections? We will just sample four of them for today. 1. Peter was not the first pope and was not appointed by Jesus as such. It was made up by the Catholic Church as she gained more political power.

4 2. Peter may have been the appointed by Jesus then, but it ended with him. There was no apostolic succession. 3. Peter had no primacy, and neither did Rome. That was made up by the Church in the 8 th or 9 th century. 4. He was a bad sinner denying Christ, but Paul would have made a better first pope. How do we answer them? 1. Peter not being the first pope. This goes back to that age old argument of the Petra and Petros debate of Matthew As you know I do not want to muddy the waters too much here by going into deep theology, but I must do this at least a little bit so that you can see the strong foundation of Catholic position. Let s look at the verses here from Matthew 13 to 19 Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesare'a Philip'pi, he asked his disciples, "Who do men say that the Son of man is?" 14 And they said, "Some say John the Baptist, others say Eli'jah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." 15 He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" 16 Simon Peter replied, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."

5 17 And Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. 18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it. 19 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." A. For this I am going to borrow a discussion between Karl Keating and a Protestant missionary that illustrates this age old argument. I have had this similar discussion multiple times and no doubt that you may have had it already with Protestants or non-believers. ( PROTESTANT: The Protestant argument goes like this. In Greek it says And I tell you, you are Petros, and on this Petra I will build my church In Greek, the word for rock is petra, which means a large, massive stone. The word used for Simon s new name is different; it s Petros, which means a little stone, a pebble. "You Catholics," the Protestant continues "because you don t know Greek, imagine that Jesus was equating Simon and the rock. It was just the opposite. He was contrasting them. On the one side, the rock on

6 which the Church would be built, Jesus himself; on the other, this mere pebble. Jesus was really saying that he himself would be the foundation, and he was emphasizing that Simon wasn t remotely qualified to be it." CATHOLIC: BUT in actuality, Greek scholars even non- Catholic ones admit, the words petros and petra were synonyms in first century Greek. Yes, now centuries before Jesus the was a distinction between these words in what is called Attic Greek (petros was small stone and petra was large stone), but that distinction had disappeared from the language by the time Matthew s Gospel was rendered in Greek. The difference in meaning can only be found in Attic Greek, but the New Testament was written in Koine Greek an entirely different dialect. In Koine Greek, both petros and petra simply meant "rock." If Jesus had wanted to call Simon a small stone, the Greek lithos would have been used. ((((("No," I answered. "Many, if not most of them, knew Greek, of course, because Greek was the lingua franca of the Mediterranean world. It was the language of culture and commerce; and most of the books of the New Testament were written in it, because they were written not just for Christians in Palestine but also for Christians in places such as Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch, places where Aramaic wasn t the spoken language.

7 "I say most of the New Testament was written in Greek, but not all. Many hold that Matthew was written in Aramaic we know this from records kept by Eusebius of Caesarea but it was translated into Greek early on, perhaps by Matthew himself. In any case the Aramaic original is lost (as are all the originals of the New Testament books), so all we have today is the Greek.")))))) CATHOLIC: What was the actual language that Jesus spoke? ARAMAIC!!!!!!! Peter s name given him was actually Cephas, Kephas!!! (((((("We know that Jesus spoke Aramaic because some of his words are preserved for us in the Gospels. Look at Matthew 27:46, where he says from the cross, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? That isn t Greek; it s Aramaic, and it means, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? In Paul s epistles four times in Galatians and four times in 1 Corinthians we have the Aramaic form of Simon s new name preserved for us. In our English Bibles it comes out as Cephas. That isn t Greek. That s a transliteration of the Aramaic word Kepha (rendered as Kephas in its Hellenistic form).)))))))) CATHOLIC: "And what does Kepha mean? It means a rock, the same as petra. It doesn t mean a little stone or a pebble. What Jesus said to Simon in Matthew 16:18 was this: You are Kepha, and on this kepha I will build my Church. "When you understand what the Aramaic says, you see that Jesus was equating Simon and the rock; he wasn t contrasting them. We see this vividly in some modern English translations, which render the verse

8 this way: You are Rock, and upon this rock I will build my church. In French one word, pierre, has always been used both for Simon s new name and for the rock." PROTESTANT: "Wait a minute he may object. "If kepha means the same as petra, why don t we read in the Greek, You are Petra, and on this petra I will build my Church? Why, for Simon s new name, does Matthew use a Greek word, Petros, which means something quite different from petra?" CATHOLIC: Why? "Because he had no choice." "Greek and Aramaic have different grammatical structures. In Aramaic you can use kepha in both places in Matthew 16:18. In Greek you encounter a problem arising from the fact that nouns take differing gender endings. The Greek word petra is feminine. You can use it in the second half of Matthew 16:18 without any trouble. But you can t use it as Simon s new name, because you can t give a man a feminine name. You have to change the ending of the noun to make it masculine. When you do that, you get Petros, which was an already-existing word meaning rock. To SUM: Jesus really would have spoken Aramaic saying you are Kephas, and on this Kephas I will build my church. Then translate it to Greek. You have the word Petra for rock, but you cannot call Peter Petrina like a girl so you put on the masculine form ending and call him Petros. Hense, we get the seeming Petros/Petras argument, but they are really one and the same.

9 B. NOW look at it from the bigger picture Would it make sense to say you, you, you!!! And then say I am going to build my church on this confession or on just me? Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. 18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it. 19 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." C. Or how about using the Protestant notion of Peter being just a small pebble? Let s insert it and see how it sounds Jesus does not say, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are an insignificant pebble and on this rock I will build my Church.... I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven." That does not make contextual sense either. D. Another point to consider is the context of where they were at Cesearea Philipi What was there as Jesus was speaking this? A huge rock wall 100 feet high and 500 feet wide with a bottomless pit of water. It was even called Gahena I believe as its depth was so great. There were temples built there by King Herod to pagan gods of Pan and Cesar. Cesar actually thought he was a god. Out of this

10 pagan temple flows the head waters flowing into the Dead Sea. So this pagan worship flows out and becomes dead, as stagnate as the sea it feeds. There is little life in the Dead Sea, hence the name Dead Sea. So imagine!!! Jesus standing there and proclaiming Peter as the rock He will build His Church on. This is to contrast this pagan temple and the lifelessness that comes from pagan worship. So Peter is becoming an even bigger rock than this rock by virtue of Jesus s decree. It is this rock-ness of Jesus Christ, that His Church that is built to honor the One True God, not these silly pagan gods! From this Church will come the saving waters of Baptism giving life to a thirsting world! Can you imagine! What a sight! It is not much different than what happened in pagan Rome after Christianity became legal. Where the pagan obelisks and such were capped for Christ. Like the one you ve seen in St Peter s square. Christ overcomes them all. He takes what is true and good in any religion and caps it for Christ (after all, anything true and good really has as its source Jesus Christ). Though I digress, this really helps paint a fuller picture of what was actually going on at the time. So yes, we can answer that Christ indeed did found his church on Peter. And of course, this does not take away from Christ being the foundation or from Christ s authority.

11 THE TAKE HOME: Goes back to that deck of cards analogy we have used before. Protestants have a few cards of the deck and they use them over and over. Catholics have the whole deck!!!!! SO GO DEEPER! When you first hear them speaking Greek with Petros and Petra you may be intimidated that they have really done their homework. Then if you study, if YOU go deeper into the onion layers, you actually discover that they have not studied enough, that they are only scratching the surface of topic, and that the Catholic answer is just so full of history, beauty, and reason! (Ex Don t stop with the Greek, look further back to the Aramaic of Kephas) 2. The objection that the authority ended after Peter died. So yes, many will admit, it looks very clear that Jesus handed the keys to Peter. They just cannot refute that obvious fact from Scripture. So now they have to think of another way of getting away from the Catholic authority How about saying that it ended with Peter? Jesus just gave the keys to Peter. In other words, there is No apostolic succession! How do we answer this common objection? A. We may ask Was Jesus ignorant of scripture? No. He knew the old Testament well. He said what He said for a reason. So again let s go deeper and look. Did it all end with Peter? Or is there apostolic succession?

12 Jesus quotes well from Isiah 21 and 22 here in speaking of the keys of the kingdom. If we go back and look at those keys, if we really study the typological connection to the Old Testament, we find some exciting revelation! Those keys had reference to the Davidic line, or king David. Now we know those keys were for sure passed down. That is where we get that idea of the line of David. Again from Karl Keating Jesus is installing Peter as a form of chief steward or prime minister under the King of Kings by giving him the keys to the kingdom. As can be seen in Isaiah 22:22, kings in the Old Testament appointed a chief steward to serve under them in a position of great authority to rule over the inhabitants of the kingdom. Jesus quotes almost verbatim from this passage in Isaiah, and so it is clear what he has in mind. He is raising Peter up as a father figure to the household of faith (Is. 22:21), to lead them and guide the flock (John 21:15-17). This authority of the prime minister under the king was passed on from one man to another down through the ages by the giving of the keys. Likewise, the authority of Peter has been passed down for 2000 years by means of the papacy. And what do keys mean? AUTHORITY Think of keys to a car When you give someone the keys, you expect them to use them. To take the car for a drive. When you give someone keys, you give them authority to what the key is for. Peter is given the keys of the kingdom. That is kind of a big deal!

13 B. Was there apostolic succession in the Bible? YES! In Acts 1:15 it states In those days Peter stood up among the brethren and said, "Brethren, the scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand by the mouth of David, concerning Judas. `Let his habitation become desolate, and let there be no one to live in it'; and `His office let another take.' The other word for office here is Bishopric. Why would this be if there is no apostolic succession? We see here apostolic succession from the very beginning! Even St. Peter had a successor while John was still alive! Surely John would have said something if this were not allowed. 3. The objection that Peter or Rome really had no primacy over the whole Church and this was just an invention of the Catholic Church. ANSWER: We see that Peter also has a primacy before the other apostles as his name is mentioned far more often (195 times compared to the next runner up of John at 29 times), and he seems to always be the one to speak up on behalf of the other apostles. We even see in the early Church there being disputes between churches while St John was still alive, and yet the final decision was not settled

14 by John, but by Peter s successor. Why would this be if Peter s position did not hold a kind of primacy? We also see that early on the bishop of Rome had authority over the Church. There are hundreds of examples to show this from history, but for time here are a couple Pope Victor I (reigned ) worked to settle a dispute among the bishops of the East and West over when to celebrate Easter What he said went, and if other bishops did not comply, he threatened with excommunication. The fact that no bishop in the world -- not a single one -- disputed his authority as bishop of Rome to carry out such an excommunication is a powerful piece of evidence that the early Church recognized the unique authority of the bishop of Rome. Pope Callistus in 220 wrote, "Callistus, archbishop of the Church Catholic in the city of Rome, to Benedictus, our brother and bishop, greetings in the Lord. By the love of the brotherhood we are bound, and by our apostolic rule we are constrained, to give answer to the inquiries of the brethren, according to what the Lord has given us, and to furnish them with the authority of the seal of the apostles" (First Epistle 1). Clearly he was well aware of his special role and authority in settling problems in the Church, even in other dioceses. There is so much more, but suffice to say the evidence of the early Church is overwhelming, if we have but eyes to see. Archbishop Fulton Sheen once said, "It is easy to find truth; it is hard to face it, and harder still to follow it." This is certainly true for many people when it comes to

15 facing the historical evidence for the papacy in the early Church. So many anti-catholics simply are unwilling to face the Truth, as this would mean a real change in their comfortable lives, and that would be simply too hard. (online EWTN) 4. Ok Lastly the objection that Peter was a bad sinner, and would not have made a good first pope. (Online On the contrary of disproving the papacy, this Protestant objection actually strengthens the Catholic position. Think about it. Peter, our first pope, DENIED Christ three times! Jesus even said to him, Get behind me Satan! What does all this point to? It shows that Popes are not guaranteed impeccability, though under very specific circumstances are given the gift of infallibility in the area of faith and morals. Infallibility does not equal impeccability! If we see that the first pope had such human fallacies, it should not surprise us when we see other popes sinning. It actually strengthens the Catholic position to see that it is not by the power of man that the Church has remained one under the vicar of Christ for 2000 years, but by the power of God! If it were up to us, we would have sunk this ship long ago! But Jesus through the Holy Spirit upholds it. Maybe you have heard the story of the business man going to Rome and wanting to become Catholic after he returned.. His pastor advised

16 him to become Catholic BEFORE he left, fearing he would not want to be Catholic after seeing the corrupt politics of Rome. Yet the man insitsted, went to Rome first, and on his return asked to become Catholic! The priest was surprised and asked why after seeing the corruption? The man replied Any human institution that corrupt have crashed long ago! So this Catholic Church MUST be of God for her to have lasted thousands of years! I want to be Catholic. To the Catholic defense, these corrupt popes have been very far and few between. And statistically speaking to only have a few bad popes out of hundreds is miraculous. AND there have been many saintly popes, far more than bad popes! Again attesting to Her Holiness. The few bad ones were too busy sinning to declare anything ex cathedra anyway, so there was still no break in the unity of doctrine! All of this points to the workings of the Holy Spirit being in charge the entire time. SUMMARY: We have covered a lot of material, and are still just scratching the surface on this topic. The take home is to always rest assured that the Catholic Church has the answer to every objection, and the answer is very reasonable! We just have to look it up! Know that with the full deck of cards at your disposal, you will always be able to go deeper than any Protest objection to get at the heart of the answer. When one separates themselves from the chair of Peter, by

17 what authority are they left? They may say the Bible, but deep down both they and you know that cannot be true. Just look at the fruit of this mentality division! Give a book to ten different people and they come up with ten different interpretations! It just does not work in real life even being guided by the Holy Spirit! For the Holy Spirit does not intend for there to be over 30,000 denominations! Christ prays that we may be one as He and the Father are one! So by what authority? If not from Christ s authority acting through the Church, then YOU become the authority and that is scary my friends! Let me end with a story! I was going to a Baptist Bible study down in Eastern NC and afterwards I got to talking to the pastor about authority! He said that he could not tell his parishioners this, but it was downright scary to be in his position! People would come asking what a verse meant, and he had to give the RIGHT answer guided by the Holy Spirit! He was scared, as he said, how do I know that I am getting it right? At least with you Catholics you have the pope and the magisterium to go to when you are confused. I just have other people s opinions guided by the Holy Spirit, but who says they are right? Indeed, it is scary! So please, do not try to be your own pope. Stay with the family. Stay with the family of God. And invite others to take this burden off their shoulders, to come home to the Catholic Church!

18 So why am I Catholic? Why are you Catholic? Because of Jesus giving us the pope and the Church with His authority on earth! Thank God for our Catholic Church! God bless! END WITH PRAYER Protestants may bring up St. Peter's calling himself a "fellow presbyter", meaning to them that he had no primacy. Yet Peter goes on to quote Jesus on the importance of humility, so he is trying to show us humility here. St. Peter's calling himself a "fellow presbyter" doesn't disprove his primacy any more than St. Paul's habit of calling himself a "deacon" proves he had no authority greater than a deacon's. At Caesarea Philippi there is a massive wall of rock that is well over 100 feet straight up and about 500 feet wide. The city of Caesarea Philippi was built on top of this enormous rock. It was enlarged and rededicated by King Philip to honor the Caesar in Rome. Caesar considered himself a god and King Philip was eager to please him. The Greek and Roman cultures had many gods. Another god that was especially honored here in Caesarea Philippi was the Pagan god of Pan. More details on the theological significance Pan will be discussed in Part IV - Pagan god Pan Vs Jesus So, Caesarea Philippi was built on top of this wall of rock to give honor to these false gods, Caesar and Pan. And this rock is an extremely impressive sight. It towers over 100 feet straight up. However, in contrast Jesus makes Simon the Rock by changing his name to Rock, Kephas in the Aramaic language that Jesus Spoke, Peter in English, and Petros in Greek. See Who is the Rock? While the rock that Caesarea Philippi was built on is an impressive sight, Peter, by Christ s decree becomes even a greater Rock because the ROCK-ness of Jesus Christ works through him making him a Rock. And upon him Jesus builds His Church to honor the One True God. Matthew 5:14 You are the light of the world. A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden.

19 Works Cited Keating, Karl. Online: The Temple Cesar Agustus; Temple-of-Caesar-Augustus-at-Caesarea-Philippi.aspx More on the Temple; Anti-Catholic Website; The Early Church Authority;