According to the Catholic Church was Peter the first pope?

Answer 1

Catholic Answer:
Jesus Christ appointed Peter as the first leader of his Church when He said:

And Jesus answering, said 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. (Matthew Chapt. 16)

Peter is considered the first pope even though the term 'pope' did not come into common usage until much later. Whether Peter was in Jerusalem, Antioch, Rome or elsewhere, he is still considered the first pope. Later, as the Church grew and a hierarchy developed. the Church established its headquarters in Rome as Rome was considered the center of the world at the time. It had good roads reaching out to the vast empire as well as ships that plied the Mediterranean. Missionaries could reach anywhere in the known world from Rome. As the pope was the highest ranking Church authority in Rome, he was automatically consider the Bishop of Rome. From 1309 until 1377 popes reigned from Avignon in France. No matter, the pope was still the pope. Once the situation was resolved, the papacy returned to Rome and the pope again resumed his position as the Bishop of Rome along with his title of Pope. Even today, should Pope Francis make the unlikely decision to move the Church headquarters to, say, Buenos Aires, Argentina, he would still be Pope and the assigned Bishop of Rome would simply be the Bishop of Rome. The Pope would be the Bishop of Buenos Aires as well as pope of the Universal Church. The Church has ample evidence that Peter did rule from Rome at some time. But even if he had never stepped foot in the city, he was still the Pope. Being Bishop of Rome is not a prerequisite for the papacy. By default, if the pope is headquartered in Rome, he is also the bishop of that diocese.

And, yes, Peter did reside, at least for a time, in Rome and died there under orders from Roman Emperor Nero. Francis A. Sullivan SJ in his book From Apostles to Bishops states unequivocally that Peter was in Rome and died there. His statement is based on both scripture as well as the writings of early Church fathers.

Answer 2

Catholic Answer

St. Peter was appointed as the first Pope about the year A.D. 33 by Our Blessed Lord, Himself (read St. Matthew's Gospel 16:17-19).

Although, it is important to note that the Italian "Papa" from which we get "Pope" wasn't used at first, the first bishop of Rome to be contemporaneously referred to as "pope" (pappas, or pappas) is Damasus I (366-84) (Baumgartner, 2003, p. 6). From there we know that our first Holy Father, or Vicar of Christ (his title is based on the chief steward of the Jewish Kingdom (see Isaiah 22:15-25) on which Christ modeled his Vicar by giving him the "keys of the Kingdom" (St. Matthew 16:19).

From There St. Peter went to Rome, we know this from his own testimony in his first letter where he tells us that he is writing from "Babylon" which was the Christian code word for Rome at that time.

Subsequently he and St. Paul were both martyred there and St. Peter was buried on Vatican Hill, his tomb has been excavated beneath the high altar of St. Peter's, you may view the evidence at the link below. In the Liber Pontificalis which is a list of all the Popes from the very beginning, it lists St. Peter as ruling the Church from 32 A.D. until his martyrdom in A.D. 67.

We know that St. Peter was martyred in Rome and buried beneath the high altar of St. Peter's as the graffiti on the wall around the tomb, which indicates St. Peter was buried there, was written by those who were present and gave him their allegiance as Bishop of Rome. Plus their children and grandchildren, carrying on the tradition, right down to the present day.

So, St. Peter was the first pope, and was buried in his tomb, which you can go to see at the present time. His tomb has been venerated all throughout history, even during the terrible persecutions of the first two centuries. People gave their lives to transmit this information on the Pope on which Our Blessed Lord, Jesus Christ, founded His Church, and we must respect those who gave the ultimate sacrifice to give this knowledge to future generations, and on to us. Thus we have, from the Liber Pontificalis the following list of popes, and their dates:

1. St. Peter (32-67)
2. St. Linus (67-76)
3. St. Anacletus (Cletus) (76-88)
4. St. Clement I (88-97)
5. St. Evaristus (97-105)
6. St. Alexander I (105-115)
7. St. Sixtus I (115-125) Also called Xystus I

from The Essential Catholic Survival Guide Answers to Tough Questions About the Faith by the Staff of Catholic Answers; Nihil Obstat: Bernadeane Carr, STL, Censor Librorum, August 10, 2004, Imprimatur: +Robert H. Brom, Bishop of San Diego, August 10, 2004, © 2005 by Catholic Answers, Inc. San Diego, CA
Early Christian Testimony William A. Jurgens, in his three volume set The Faith of the Early Fathers, a masterly compendium that cites at length everything from the Didache to John Damascene, includes thirty references to this question, divided, in the index, about evenly between the statements that "Peter came to Rome and died there" and that "Peter established his See at Rome and made the Bishop of Rome his successor in the primacy."

A few examples must suffice, but they and other early references demonstrate that there can be no question that the universal-and very early-position (one hesitates to use the word tradition, since some people read that as "legend") was that Peter certain did end up in the capital of Rome. Tertullian, in The Demurrer against the Heretics (A.D. 200), noted of Rome, "How happy is that church . . . where Peter endured a passion like that of the Lord, where Paul was crowned in a death like John's [referring to John the Baptist, both he and Paul being beheaded]."

Fundamentalists admit that Paul died in Rome, so the implication from Tertullian is that Peter also must have been there. It was commonly accepted, from the very first, that both Peter and Paul were martyred at Rome, probably in the Neronian persecution of the 60s. In the same book, Tertullian wrote that "this is the way in which the apostolic churches transmit their lists: like the church of the Smyrneans, which records that Polycarp was placed there by John; like the church of the Romans, where Clement was ordained by Peter." This Clement, know as Clement of Rome later would be the fourth pope. Clement wrote his Letter to the Corinthians perhaps before the year 70, just a few years after Peter and Paul were killed, in it he made reference to Peter ending his life where Paul ended his.

In his Letter to the Romans (A.D. 110), Ignatius of Antioch remarked that he could not command the Roman Christians the way Peter and Paul once did, such a comment making sense only if Peter had been a leader, if not the leader, of the church in Rome. Irenaeus, in Against Heresies (A.D. 190) said that Matthew wrote his Gospel, "while Peter and Paul were evangelizing in Rome and laying the foundation of the Church." A few lines later he notes that Linus was named as Peter's successor, that is, the second pope, and that next in line were Anacletus (also know as Cletus), and then Clement of Rome.

Answer 3

The pope is considered the bishop of Rome, and the official position of the Catholic Church is that Peter was the first bishop of Rome. However, we do not know for a fact that Peter ever went to Rome. The Catholic Church goes to extraordinary lengths to attempt to prove this, even claiming to have found the actual remains of Saint Peter under the church named Saint Peter's Basilica. Contrary evidence is at least as abundant as evidence that Peter did go to Rome, including the letter known as 1 Clement.

Writing from Rome just a few decades after Peter was supposedly the first pope, the author speaks in general terms about the suffering and death of Peter, but seems unaware that he was ever in Rome: "There was Peter who by reason of unrighteous jealousy endured not one not one but many labours, and thus having borne his testimony went to his appointed place of glory." On the most objective evidence we have, Peter probably never led the church of Rome, which is a prerequisite for the papacy.

Within the wider Catholic community, Francis A. Sullivan SJ (From Apostles to Bishops) says that there is a general agreement among scholars, including Catholic scholars, that the church of Rome was led by a council of presbyters until well into the second century, with no evidence of a ruling bishop. This suggests that the first bishop of Rome lived later in the second century. Pope Anicetus was the first known bishop of Rome.

For more information on St Peter, please visit:

http://christianity.answers.com/church-leadership/what-do-we-really-know-about-the-apostle-peter

For more information on the early popes, please visit:

http://christianity.answers.com/catholicism/a-brief-history-of-the-early-popes