4. He can only maintain unity by stopping fights.
This is simply obvious. Infighting, especially over theological issues, is what destroys Church unity. Different leaders have different opinions on a “hot button” issue, and before you know it, you’ve got two different denominations.
The weakness of Protestantism is that it lacks any way to resolve different plausible interpretations of Scripture.
If Jesus really intended the Church to remain together — which he did, according to John 17 — then he must have left us with the means to do it. Obviously, good intentions and the Holy Spirit are not those means, because Protestants have both of those and do not maintain unity. Christians have testified since the earliest fathers that one of the most important means to unity is the bishop of Rome, the successor of Peter, who is the touchstone of unity.7 Those who reject this testimony of the early Fathers have the responsibility to propose some other workable means of unity that Jesus left us.
As we saw above, the Scriptures themselves portray Peter in this role of settling theological fights. In Acts 15, his speech to the council of Jerusalem (vv. 7–12) settles the issue. When James, the leader of the “losing party,” rises to concede the argument, he cites the judgment of Peter (15:14) even before he cites the witness of Scripture (15:15–16). I don’t wish to argue from that fact that Peter’s testimony outweighs Scripture. But Acts 15:7–12 does show the authority Peter exercised within the early Church: an authority to settle divisive issues.
5. He can’t stop fights unless his word is final.
If his word isn’t final, other leaders will just argue with him, and continue arguing with each other, thereby destroying the unity of the Church.
6. His word isn’t final unless he is infallible.
Here’s where we finally come to the rub. Even Protestants who respect the role of the successor of Peter and see the need for a universal pastor still balk at the idea that his formal decision is backed by the Holy Spirit and cannot be wrong. But let us clearly understand: unless the Pope is backed up by infallibility, even when he would attempt to put an end to a fight people would just say he himself was wrong. The fight would just continue and the Church break apart.
Infallibility is really what is implied when Jesus gives to Peter personally an authority that he bestows on the rest of the apostles only corporately (as a group), namely, “what you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, what you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” (Matt 16:19; cf. Matt 18:18). This, as Jewish scholars attest, is the promise of the backing of the divine court for the decisions that Peter makes concerning the interpretation of divine law. It entails that Peter’s decision is infallible, which means “unable to err.”8
Let us clarify that the Catholic Church has never held that the successor of Peter (or Peter himself!) was personally sinless, or that he never makes a wrong decision. Only a formal decision on doctrine is protected from error — in Jewish terms, a halakhic judgment. What constitutes a formal decision? The Church has standards for how that needs to be expressed.9 The technical term is that the Pope speaks ex cathedra, “from the throne,” which is not so much that he must physically sit on the throne of the bishop of Rome in St. John Lateran,10 but that he self-consciously and clearly intends to pass judgment on a disputed question on behalf of the whole Church.
So, we’ve explained the argument to the end. Let’s just run through it one more time to make sure we have grasped it: The job of the “senior pastor” of the universal Church is to keep unity, which he cannot do unless he can stop fights, and he can’t stop fights unless his decision is final, which implies he is infallible or “unable to err.” That’s it. That’s what I saw during my conversion to Catholicism, and I still see it today.
The Catholic Church remains one body, in part because of the gift of the papacy, the successor of Peter. Protestants have left the Catholic Church. Orthodox are separated from Peter. Like all who become separated from the Catholic Church, they have both been unable to maintain unity within their own ranks. Nonetheless, the Catholic Church remains a single body. It is not characteristic of Catholics to enter into schism. Great moral and spiritual reformers within Catholicism, unlike those within Protestantism, do not start new churches and break bonds of communion. No one ever says of Catholics that they are “the split C’s” the way they say of Presbyterians, the “split P’s.” There really is a very different lived experience in being Catholic versus being something else.
Summing Up the Scriptural Stunners
I first opened up to the papacy because I saw the practical need for it. In time, however, I came to realize how strong the evidence for the papacy was within the Scriptures. To sum it up:
1. Matthew 16:18–19 establishes Peter as the “royal steward” of Jesus’ kingdom-Church, and promises him the infallible backing of heaven for his decisions about the interpretation of divine law. A succession in office is implied by the fact that the royal steward of the Davidic kingdom was an office-holder with successors.
2. John 21:15–19 gives Peter an unparalleled and incomparable triple commissioning as the unique shepherd or “pastor” of all Christ’s sheep.
3. Acts 1:15–26 establishes the principle that the apostles occupied an “office” (episkopen) that could be filled by another after their death, thus establishing the principle of “succession.”
4. Acts 5:1–11, the account of Ananias and Sapphira, demonstrates that lying to and “testing” Peter is tantamount to lying to and testing the Holy Spirit.
5. Acts 15:1–31 shows Peter exercising his role as chief shepherd or “senior pastor” by putting an end to debate that threatened to break apart the unity of the early Church by rendering an authoritative judgment about the issue under question.
Does the Bible lay out a whole theory of the papacy? No, because that wasn’t why it was written. Does the Bible reflect the fact that Peter was the divinely-authorized leader of the Church? Yes. Does early Church tradition reflect the fact that this role fell to his successor upon his death? Absolutely. Let’s close with the testimony of Saint Jerome, the first great Bible translator of Christianity, from a letter addressed to Pope Damasus I (c. A.D. 376):
I think it is my duty to consult the chair of Peter, and to turn to a church whose faith has been praised by Paul (Rom 1:8). I appeal for spiritual food to the church whence I have received the garb of Christ…. Away with all that is overweening; let the state of Roman majesty withdraw. My words are spoken to the successor of the fisherman, to the disciple of the cross. As I follow no leader save Christ, so I communicate with none but your blessedness, that is, with the chair of Peter. For this, I know, is the rock on which the church is built!11
May we, like Jerome, combine dedication to the study of Scripture with loyalty to the Bishop of Rome, the successor of Peter.
1 D. Stephen Long, “In Need of a Pope? Protestants and the Papacy,” The Christian Century, May 17, 2005, https://www.christiancentury.org/article/2005-05/need-pope.
2 Not his real name.
3 All the other Hilkiahs known in Scripture were priests.
4 See William Cooke Taylor, ed., The Bible Cyclopaedia: Or, Illustrations of the Civil and Natural History of the Sacred Writings (London: J.W. Parker, 1843), vol. 2, p. 718, where it is noted that the practice of wearing the key on the shoulder was still current among the Moors in the nineteenth century.
5 See Kaufmann Kohler, “Binding and Loosing,” The Jewish Encyclopedia (New York: Ktav, 1906), http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/3307-binding-and-loosing.