Popes

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.

A:

Pope Gregory VII is one of the most interesting popes ever to have lived. He was the first pope in several centuries to attempt to rigorously enforce the Church's ancient policy of celibacy for the Catholic clergy, yet there is strong evidence that as pope, he had a mistress, the Countess Matilda. He claimed supremacy over the secular authorities, with supreme legislative and judicial power, and the right to depose all princes and to have all Christians as his subjects. When he sought to invoke those powers, either with the Normans or the Holy Roman Empire, he found them wanting.

An autocrat who did not understand the limits to his powers or to the patience of the bishops, he died in exile, hated almost universally. He took on the world and lost.

A:

Fact and legend are difficult to disentangle. We are introduced to Peter when he became one of the disciples of Jesus. After the crucifixion of Jesus, Acts of the Apostles says that Peter took command of the Christian Church, although Paul seems to have regarded him as only one of three leaders of the Jerusalem church and perhaps subordinate to James, brother of Jesus.

Acording to Acts of the Apostles, Peter could perform the same miracles as Jesus had done, even raising Tabitha from the dead. Just as Jesus could perform involuntary miracles, such as when the woman with the issue of blood touched his hem and was cured, so also people brought the sick just in the hope that Peter's shadow would pass over them and they would be cured. One view of Acts would be that it is an extreme form of hagiography in the way it portrays the apostles, especially Peter and Paul, as being able to perform miracles at will. New Testament scholars say that Acts of the Apostles is a book of miracles rather than of history. Uta Ranke-Heinemann (Putting Away Childish Things) goes as far as to say that the whole of Acts is a simply a work of propaganda. If Saint Peter did not perform any miracles at all, this brings him back to the ranks of ordinary humans.

A widely accepted tradition is that the apostle Peter also travelled to Rome and led the Christian community there, becoming the first bishop of Rome before being crucified there. One of the grounds on which this tradition is based is the apparent reference to Rome as 'Babylon' in 1 Peter 5:13, but this description only came into use long after the Romans destroyed the second Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE, as an allusion to Babylon's earlier destruction of the first Temple. 1 Peter is not regarded by scholars as a genuine epistle of Peter. Francis A. Sullivan SJ (From Apostles to Bishops) says that Peter was evidently not in Rome when Paul wrote his Letter to the Romans. In any case, there is no tradition of Peter ever performing miracles in Rome, in spite of the ease with which he performed them in Acts of the Apostles.

The tradition says that Peter appointed Linus as his successor in Rome, and that popes were appointed in turn, right up to the present day. However, Francis A. Sullivan SJ (ibid) says that it is the consensus of scholars that the church of Rome was led by a college of presbyters, rather than a single bishop, for at least several decades of the second century. This calls into question whether Peter really appointed Linus as bishop of Rome, and even whether he went to Rome at all.

The one fact that seems to stand out is that the early church developed legends around the apostle Peter.

Catholic Answer

There is no question that St. Peter went to Rome, probably twice, that he established the Church there, and that he was crucified there, and buried. His bones have conclusively been proven by recent archaeological digs to be below the high altar at St. Peter's Basilica (exactly where one would expect to find them). The details of all of this are contained in many sources, I would particularly recommend The Eternal City Rome & the Origins of Catholic Christianity by Dr. Taylor R. Marshall (from his series The Origins of Catholicism, vol III); also OSV's Encyclopedia of Catholic History - Revised, by Matthew Bunson, D.Min., and The Cleaving of Christendom, by Warren H. Carroll, mostly in chapters 17 and 18. The books are at the links below, the fourth link is to the Vatican Necropolis website, which shows St. Peter's tomb.

from OSV's Encyclopedia of Catholic History - Revised, by Matthew Bunson, D.Min, c 1995, 2004 by Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division, Our Sunday Visitor, Inc., Huntington, Indiana Peter's years prior to his martyrdom are obscure. Nevertheless, there is a long and accepted tradition connecting him with Rome. The saint himself makes apparent reference to being in the Eternal City in his first Epistle (5:13) by noting that he writes from Babylon, a common metaphor for Rome. St. Paul makes note of an Apostle in Rome before himself in Romans (15:20). It is known with certainty that Peter died in Rome and that his martyrdom came during the reign of emperor Nero, probably around 64. The testimony of the writers of the early Church is quite extensive, including Origen (who, as told in Eusebius's Ecclesiastical History, reported that Peter was crucified upside down at his own request), Eusebius of Caesarea (who writes of Peter's pontificate as lasting some twenty-five years), St. Clement I of Rome, St. Ignatius, and St. Irenaeus. The latter, in his Adversus haereses (Against Heresies), is clear in stating that Peter founded the Church in Rome and what is Christian belief is that which is accepted by the church in Rome, begun by Peter and Paul.

Extracted from Catholic Bible DictionarybyScott Hahn, General Editor, Nihil Obstat: Msgr. Michael F. Hull, STD; Imprimatur: Most Reverend Dennis J. Sullivan

St. Peter (Simon Peter, from the Greek petros, "rock") was highly regarded by the early Church. In all the lists of the apostles Peter is always named first in all lists of the apostles, he is not just another apostle but the one who is ranked "first" among the Twelve (Matt 10:2); his position is very prominent throughout the Gospels. His privileged position as head of the infant Church was given to him directly by Our Blessed Lord (Matt 16:17-18); and he enjoyed an especially close relationship with Our Blessed Lord (Matt 17:24-27). He was the primary witness chosen by Our Blessed Lord (Mark 5:37, Matt 17:1-8) and acted as spokesman for the apostles (Matt 15:15; Mark 9:4, 10:28; Luke 12:41; John 6:67-69). Not only is he given" the keys of the Kingdom" and the authority of heaven itself to "bind" and "loose"as the chief steward and teacher of Christ's disciples on earth (Matt 16:19), but his role is confirmed after the Resurrection, when Our Blessed Lord commissions him in John 21:15-17). He is thus "to represent and act on behalf of Jesus 'the good shepherd' (John 10:14). No other apostle is singled out by Jesus for such an exalted mission.

His role, and how he was viewed by the early Church is most clearly seen in the early chapters of the book of Acts when describing the founding of the Church in Jerusalem and the initial spread of the Gospel (Acts 1-12). Dr. Hahn lists these as:

1) St. Peter's decision to replace Judas Iscariot with another qualified eyewitness (Acts 1:15-26).

2) On the day of Pentecost, it was St. Peter who took the leading in preaching to the crowds as the Church's head evangelist (Acts 2:14-36, urging them to receive baptism (Acts 2:37-41).

3) The first person in Christian history to be healed in the name of Christ was healed by St. Peter (Acts 3:1-10).

4) Peter was recognized as the acting head of the Church when he was arrested by the Sanhedrin and was pressed to give an account of his evangelism (Acts 4:1-12).

5. Church discipline was first administered by Peter, who caught two members fo the early community (Ananias and Sappira) telling lies (Acts 5:1-11).

6. When the Samaritans first embraced the Gospel, Peter was called upon to approve their becoming members of the Church and to confer the Spirit upon them (Acts 8:14-17).

7. Peter was the first Christian authority to evangelize and baptize the Gentiles after the Lord revealed His will regarding them in a vision (Acts 10:1-48).

8. Peter played the most decisive role in the earliest ecclesiastical council, the council of Jerusalem (Acts 15) acting as chief spokesman for the faith, and ending the lengthy debate about circumcision with a solemn doctrinal pronouncement: "we believe that we shall be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will" (Acts 15:11.

Peter wrote his two epistles, most likely in the mid-sixties A.D. from Rome (under the code name "Babylon" in 1 Peter 5:13). Peter was martyred there, the details provided by Eusebius of Caesarea, a fourth-century historian, and many ancient writers agree that Peter spent the final years of his life in the imperial capital. St. Irenaeus of Lyon, a second-century churchman, makes the claim that Peter and Paul were cofounders of the Church of Rome (Against Heresies 3.3). Peter's martyrdom has been dated in the reign of Emperor Nero around 67 A.D. and his tomb, under the high altar in the basilica which bears his name (St. Peter's) is visited by thousands of pilgrims to this day