Thou Art Peter
Rev. Fr. David Sherry, District Superior, May 2025
Here now it is required among the dispensers, that a man be found faithful. (I Cor 4:2)
On Easter Monday, Pope Francis went the way of all flesh and departed this world. He then appeared, as we all must do, before the judgement seat of God. During his pontificate, we were too often obliged to judge his actions as not being in conformity with the Catholic Faith and Tradition. However, it belongs to God alone to judge the soul of a man. As we prayed for him to make a happy death, that is, a death in the state of grace, so we must now pray for the repose of his soul. Requiescat in pace.
In a few days, the Princes of the Church will meet to elect a new Pope. The fervent prayer of every Catholic must be that the next Vicar of Christ have the one essential quality of the visible head of the Church: fidelity to the invisible head of the Church Who is Jesus Christ. Any qualities which he has over and above this one essential quality will be a boon for the Church; but if he lack this one quality, all the rest will be as nothing.
The first Pope, Simon Peter did not seem an ideal candidate. He was quick to anger and even to deny his Lord. And yet, Jesus looking upon him, said: Thou art Simon the son of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas, which is interpreted Peter. (Jn 1:42) The immediate occasion of Simon becoming Cephas or Peter (which both mean ‘Rock’), was his confession of the divinity of Christ. When Our Lord and the apostles came into the neighbourhood of Caesarea Philippi (located in the north of Israel in the area known today as the Golan Heights, where Herod had dedicated a temple to Caesar), He asked them, Whom do men say that I am? The apostles replied with the results of the latest opinion polls: 34% of people said that he was John the Baptist, 25% thought that he was Elias, a similar number that he was one of the prophets and the rest were undecided. Christ then turned to the apostles whom he had chosen to be the shepherds of His Church and the preachers of the Faith and said, But whom do you say that I am? Simon, the fisherman, called to be a fisher of men, did not say ‘all these views are legitimate, all of these are from God’; he put aside the opinions of the world, and the noise of the media and made a profession of supernatural Faith: Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
Our Lord Jesus Christ replied to him:
Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona: because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven. And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven. (Mt 16:17–19)
On another occasion, when He gave a hard saying, he asked Peter and the others if they would leave Him because of it. Peter replied, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. (Jn 6:69)
The essential quality which our Lord Jesus Christ willed in Simon was for him to be the Rock, with the promise of infallibility, to never doubt the Word of Christ and to transmit it faithfully.
This prerogative was explained by the Fathers of the First Vatican Council.
‘For the Holy Ghost was promised to the successors of Peter not so that they might, by his revelation, make known some new doctrine, but that, by his assistance, they might religiously guard and faithfully expound the revelation or deposit of faith transmitted by the apostles.
‘This gift of truth and never-failing faith was therefore divinely conferred on Peter and his successors so that they might discharge their exalted office for the salvation of all, and so that the whole flock of Christ might be kept away by them from the poisonous food of error and be nourished with the sustenance of heavenly doctrine.’
Note carefully that the Council says that the Pope is not to ‘make known some new doctrine’ but to guard and expound the deposit of Faith. The Rock, in other words, must not move with the winds of change but to remain immovable in his fidelity to the Teaching of Christ.
It is for this reason that Our Blessed Lord also used the symbol of a key.
‘A key is above all things a thing with a shape. It is a thing that depends entirely upon keeping i1ts shape. A man told that his solitary latchkey had been melted down with a million others into a Buddhistic unity would be annoyed. But a man told that his key was gradually growing and sprouting in his pocket, and branching into new wards or complications, would not be more gratified. … There was undoubtedly much about the key that seemed complex, indeed there was only one thing about it that was simple. It opened the door.’2
Over the last twenty centuries, there have been more than 250 Peters. Some of them were saints and a few were villains. Given the confusion caused by the failure of the last Popes to be Rocks, our prayer to Almighty God for the next Pope is simple. Lord, have mercy on Thy Church and grant us a shepherd according to Thine own heart. May he guard religiously and expound faithfully the deposit of faith. May he be a Rock!
God bless you,
Fr. David Sherry
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