The Chair of St Peter: 22nd February 2022

I am always mystified by those priests who, in the celebration of the Feast of the Chair of St Peter, focus in their homily on how Christians today might react to the question asked of the disciples in the Gospel of today's Mass: "Who do people say the Son of Man is?" It is a nice pious thought for the edification of their congregation. 

But it misses the point that the feast that is being celebrated is determined, not by the question, but by how Jesus reacts to St Peter's answer to the question: "You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church".

The feast day celebrates the office of the successor of St Peter, and it escapes me why clergy seem to be so hesitant to preach on the nature of that office when it is the very subject of the feast day. 

There appear to me to be two aspects of the life of the Church in 2022 that make this feast day particularly relevant. 

Firstly, there is the Synodal Pathway that we have been invited to experience at the local, parish level at this time, and for which the first of three key themes is that of "communion". Ecclesial communion is a hierarchical communion, and particularly a communion with the bishop of the diocese and with the Pope. One measure of the action of the Holy Spirit in the Synodal Pathway is the extent to which it promotes this hierarchical communion rather than undermining it. It should draw us closer to the successor of St Peter, and not separate us from him.

Secondly, there is the excoriation of Pope Francis that can be heard from certain quarters. Whatever else one might say about it, and however "learned" it may appear, this certainly does not represent either an authentically Catholic stance nor a genuinely traditional one. The further away from the successor of St Peter one places oneself, so much further does one distance oneself from the heart of the Church. The celebration of the feast of the Chair of St Peter should give cause for considerable reflection in these quarters.

According to the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

The Pope, bishop of Rome and the successor of St Peter, is the perpetual, visible source and foundation of the unity of the Church. He is the vicar of Christ, the head of the college of bishops and pastor of the universal Church over which he has by divine institution full, supreme, immediate and universal power.

There are a couple of nice observations from Pope Benedict XVI, in the early pages of his book length interview with Peter Seewald published as Light of the World. After observing that the faithful are not the employees or subordinates of the Pope, he writes:

... the Pope is, on the one hand a completely powerless man. On the other hand , he bears a great responsibility.

And commenting on the large number of Catholics in the world, and the suggestion that this makes him the most powerful Pope of all time, Pope Benedict writes:

Among those 1.2 billion Catholics are many who inwardly are not there. Saint Augustine said even in his day: There are many outside who seem to be inside, and there are many inside who seem to be outside. In a matter like faith - like membership in the Catholic Church - inside and outside are mysteriously intertwined with each other.