Which is the true church?

August 27, 2023

We could ask ourselves a question today: To which Church was Jesus referring to, when he told Peter: “And I tell you, you are Peter and on this rock, I will build my Church”? This may seem like a ridiculous question to Catholics who have been brought up to believe that the Catholic Church is the only true Church of Jesus.  

But the Catholic Church itself accepts the validity of many other Churches, including the Oriental Orthodox Churches which even the Catholic Church acknowledges to have been Churches founded by some of the Apostles themselves or their earliest disciples.  And then there are the Churches that emerged from the 16th century onwards, in protest against the corruption, and what they considered doctrinal errors, found in the Roman Catholic Church, which are together known as the Protestant Churches - though even among these Churches there are significant differences. Today, as a result of the ecumenical movement, many of these Protestant churches are considered by the Catholic Church as Churches worthy of respect. Currently, the World Council of Churches has 352 churches as members. Each of these many many Churches claim that they are each following the teachings of Jesus and hence are all truly Churches of Jesus.  So, which is the ‘true’ Church?

Catholics claim to have a ‘trump card’, as it were, in saying that Peter was the first Pope (Bishop of Rome) and the Popes in the Catholic Church are the successors of Peter, and so the Catholic Church is the true Church.  But this belief too is historically questioned.  There are early Church fathers who seem to indicate that while Peter undoubtedly had prime importance in the early Church, yet perhaps the first Bishop of Rome was Linus, not Peter. Furthermore, historically, the Roman bishop got importance only because Rome was the centre of the Roman Empire, which was enhanced by the fact that both Peter and Paul were martyred there. In fact, in the early centuries, the bishops of Alexandria and Antioch, were considered on par with the Bishop of Rome.  Moreover, though Peter had prime importance, the fact is that even in the New Testament we have Paul (who was not one of the 12 Apostles, though he calls himself an Apostle) and others who  openly challenged what they considered to be Peter’s hypocrisy with regard to the matter of circumcision (Galatians 2:11ff)  - and the result was that Peter did give in and that is why today Christians are not forced to be circumcised.  So Peter seemingly was only the first among equals. And that is why the Orthodox Churches too treat the Pope as ‘first among equals’ in the same manner that Peter was treated as the first among equals by the other Apostles.

Moreover, the Catholic Church has had quite a checkered past - the dark ages, the crusades, the Inquisition etc. In fact, it was the rampant corruption in the Catholic church that instigated the Protestant Reformation. Even in recent times, if we are aware of the sexual abuse scandals that have come to light that were even sought to be hidden by religious superiors, or the financial misappropriation that Vatican officials are accused of, we may tend to wonder as to how we should understand Jesus’ promise that the gates of Hades (Hell) will not prevail against  it (referring to his Church which he would build on a rock).

All this causes great disquiet, so that many walk away from the Church, despite all the immense good that the Catholic (and the other Churches) have done over the centuries, because, in an adaptation of that famous quote from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, one could say: “The evil that the Church does, lives forever, the good is oft interred with its bones.”.  

So how do we understand this promise of Jesus?  In the 1960s, Pope John XXIII^rd convened a very important Council of the Church, which we know as Vatican 2, with the avowed intention to “throw open the windows of the church and let the fresh air of the Spirit blow through”.  This eventually turned out to be an epochal Council and it turned the entire Catholic Church upside down as it were, even though there is still a minority of hard-blown traditionalists who believe that that Council ‘destroyed’ the Catholic Church.

And one of the most important teachings of Vatican 2 was that the Church of Christ was first and foremost the “people of God”, or in subsequent decades referred to as the community of “Christ’s faithful”.  Every other part of the Church, including the institution, the clergy, the sacraments, the Bible, everything in short, was meant to help this people of God to move towards God, to practise and spread the Gospel message of Jesus, to bring about the kingdom of God on earth.  

And while we can and must accept the fact that the institution has often failed, that the clergy has often failed, that the Bible is sometimes used (like the Scriptures in other religions too)  to harm or condemn others, that the  sacraments and especially the Mass/Eucharist are sometimes weaponised to bring people to their knees and obey, - all these arise out of the hardness of heart that Jesus spoke so often about.  

Perhaps then we need to apply the words of Jesus found in the Gospel of Mathew 7 (22-23) to our Churches (Catholic or the others): On that day, many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your  name, and do many deeds of power in your name?'' Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.’  And then Jesus goes on to tell us who or what is truly built on rock: “Everyone, then, who hears these words of mine and acts on them, will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.  The rain fell,  the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall,   because it had been founded on rock. (Mathew 7:24-25):

And so the ‘true’ church that Jesus intended to build was not an institution, but the community of his disciples, of those who really understood and practised the way of living that he taught us, who worked relentlessly to bring the kingdom of God to reality - and it is this church of the community of faithful followers of Jesus (whichever denominational Church they belong to - and there will be some in every different Church) against whom the gates of Hades will never prevail. The institutions of the various Churches are perhaps necessary by-products that are intended to keep the memory alive, but institutions, by their very nature, sometimes tend to stifle the spirit.  And so, like Pope John XXIII showed us, there will always be need to repeatedly open the windows and let the Spirit blow the cobwebs away.

So the only question we have to ask ourselves, is not whether we belong to the right denomination, but whether we are truly part of this faithful community of Jesus, which may include an atheist, an agnostic, as well as a devout Christian or Hindu or Muslim or one from any other religious group, for those who do his will may come from anywhere.  And even as we strive to belong to this group, and to overcome the tendency towards that original selfishness that we all share, we continue to work towards building the Church as a community that strives to ensure that the kingdom will come, believing in Jesus’ promise that eventually love, not evil, will prevail.    

First Reading: Isaiah 22: 19-23

I will thrust you from your office, and you will be pulled down from your post. On that day I will call my servant Eliakim son of Hilkiah, and will clothe him with your robe and bind your sash on him. I will commit your authority to his hand, and he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David; he shall open, and no one shall shut; he shall shut, and no one shall open.  I will fasten him like a peg in a secure place, and he will become a throne of honor to his ancestral house.

 

Second Reading: Romans 11: 33-36

O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! “For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?” “Or who has given a gift to him, to receive a gift in return?” For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen.

Gospel: Matthew 16: 13-20

Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah,the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you Simon son of Jonah! For   flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you arePeter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on  earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”   Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.