A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Matthew. When Jesus came to the neighborhood of Caesarea, Philippi, he asked his disciples this question, who do people say that the son of man is? They replied, well, some say John the baptizer, others Elijah, and still others say Jeremiah or one of the prophets. And you, Jesus said to them, who do you say that I am? And, of course, you know who answered.
Simon Peter answered, you are the Messiah, the son of the living God. Jesus replied, blessed are you, Simon, son of John. No mere man has revealed this to you, but my heavenly father. I, for my part, declare to you, you are rock, patra patriots. And on this rock, I will build my church, Ecclesia, and the jaws of death shall not prevail against it.
I will entrust to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you declare bound on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you declare loosed on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Then Jesus strictly ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah. That's very mysterious. From then on, Jesus, the Messiah, started to indicate to his disciples that he must go up to Jerusalem to suffer greatly at the hands of the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and finally, to be put to death, and then raised up on the third day.
At this, Peter took Jesus aside and began to remonstrate with him. May you be spared, master. God forbid that any such thing ever happened to you. Then Jesus turned to Peter and said, get out of my sight, you devil, you Satan. You are trying to make me trip and fall.
You are not judging by god's standard but by man's. And this is the gospel of the lord. In the name of the father, of the son, and of the holy spirit. Amen. Right off, let me assure you, there is no question.
There is no argument about the authenticity of this text. Now there's a great deal of difference of how you interpret it. Because you can easily understand anyone who rejects the papacy, who rejects the sovereign position of the pope, is going to have difficulty with this text. Now, the difficulties are just the same in Greek. You you don't it's not here, it's not a matter of translation.
Whether you say patra or patruist or Peter, you still are talking about, in English, rock. So you you can't get out of it on a basis of linguistic manipulations. That's out. This is a very disconcerting text, and a very difficult text, and raises enormous problems for a person like Luther or anyone. And of course, they are numerous today, multitudinous today, and many of them right in our own fold, who have difficulty accepting the holy father as Peter's successor and Peter as the rock of Christ's church.
What does any you know, Lewis, CS Lewis said that the one thing you have to fear in reading the bible are scripture scholars. Now Lewis said that, and Lewis was no man's fool. C. S. Lewis didn't make his reputation and didn't become a professor at Oxford and Cambridge at both those universities because he didn't know anything about languages.
No one can accuse Lewis of not being an honest to God profound scholar in linguistics. That was his field, medieval English. And yet it was Lewis, C. S. Lewis who said, when you read the bible, the one thing to be to be careful about and to be to be very scary about are scripture scholars.
Now a great deal, if not entirely, the great confusion today about the bible goes back to a German named Father Brown is mostly just what we consider so new, in many instances, just reinterpreting Voltmann in English. Now, anyone who's got who can read and I say you if the Greek is all if you want to read the Greek, fine. If you want to read the Latin, alright. If you want to read English, alright. If you want to read German or French, go to any one of them.
You're gonna find this text substantially the same. Now what do you make of it? What does any common sense person make of this? When Christ says, on this rock, I will build my church. He wasn't talking to all the disciples.
He was talking to one of them. This ignorant fisherman called Peter. This impetuous, this, irresolute, this spontaneous man called Peter, who always spoke up, who was always the leader. He was the man who said, if it's you, Lord, let me tell me to come to you. He starts starts walking on the water.
It's Peter who always is in the forefront, always in the forefront. Anyway, the thing is, who is Christ talking to? He's not talking to the whole county. He said, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church. And what you bind will be bound, and what you loose will be loosed.
Christ said that not to all the apostles, not to all the but to Peter. And let me tell you, the more you read of his I say history, not novels. The more you read of history, the more you will be impressed by two things. Well, I should say I am. That is the fragility.
The delicate character of the papacy. How it has been terribly misused. How in the hands of human beings, and the pope is always human. How it has been degraded in many instances, of course. And the more you read, the more you get of that kind of stuff.
But at the same time, what also do you get? When Alexander the sixth was down there, and of course, think there's a great deal of nonsense imputed to him, I don't think it was nearly as bad as, mostly romantic historians would have you believe. But anyway, supposing you take him at his worst, supposing you take the Renaissance popes at their worst. Remember, when they were at their worst, in plenty parts of the world, the church was at its most vigorous best. The sixteenth century, that's the century of great missionary activities, and that's the century of Fort Reformation.
This text is tremendous. Now I'm not saying whether I'm not saying whether I like it or I dislike it, whether I accept it or reject it, but there is the text. There is what our Lord says. There is no question of its authenticity. There's no difficulty about the the integrity of the text.
There's no difficulty in translating it. The difficulties are in the interpretation you give it. And as I say, anyone who can read and who reads it just as it's given there is going to come to one is going to say, well, if Christ meant what he said, it's very clear what he meant. Because the words are very clear. Very clear.
Now there today, there is a great confusion. It isn't a confusion. Really, it's not. It's a rejection of our holy father, the pope, as the as the as the vicar of Christ on earth. And I'm talking about people within the so called Catholic church.
Not not separated brethren. Many of them have more respect for the pope than a lot of Catholics. Let me tell you that, all you have to do is read read the New Oxford Review. Well, the editor became a Catholic, but that started out as being a non Catholic journal. So this text and as I say, it history confirms it.
You take well, but even if you take you start any place. Take Saint Jerome, take Saint Augustine, take all these heresies, take take the business of yesterday, Saint Dominic and the Albigensians, and the Waldensians, and the Cathery. What stands up preeminently clear for the truth? Dominic went to Rome, and that's where the pope was. Where did Augustine go?
Where where where was where did Jerome go? What kept Jerome on the bright path, even though he wandered away once in a while? Rome. And Rome was, believe me, long, a long way from away from Beth Bethlehem and Jerusalem where Jerome spent a lot part of his later life, where he translated the Bible to the vulgar. Now, we are we were born into the Catholic church.
But let me tell you, that doesn't make us good Catholics. Why when and speaking of England and The United States, why is it that so many of our prominent, vigorous champions of the faith were converts? Right away, men like Chesterton come to your mind in England, Bronson in The United States, right away. Why? Because we who are born into the faith, we take it for granted.
And we and in many instances we don't know much about it. Almost within hours, I met a good practicing Catholic who said, look, if someone asked me anything about my faith, I don't think I could give them a reasonable answer. But they're very good practicing Catholics. Now I'm not under I'm not downgrading that, but I'm saying that's not enough. You've got to have intellectual conviction.
You've got to have faith based upon the motives of credibility. Unless you say yourself that you just throw yourself on the mass media and you go along with the crowd in which you were born. You're a Democrat because your father was a Democrat. This is true. This has been proved time and again.
People generally follow the politics of their parents, they follow the religion of their parents. Why should they do that? Doesn't come with their mother's milk. So let us today reaffirm our faith. Anyone who who rejects the papacy's gotta fight this text.
And I just said, just let anyone with a fair mind read it. That's all they have to do. Let and read also those who reject the papacy and see how they handle this text. And then ask yourself, Which one seems more plausible? More sensible?
More common sense? There's a magazine being published now from Notre Dame called The Church in Crises. Well, the church has always been in crises for the simple reason that its founder, Jesus Christ, was always in crisis. In the name of the father and of the son, holy spirit. Amen.