The Primacy of Peter
Recently was my Feast Day, the celebration of Saint Peter and Saint Paul on June 29th. When I was in Italy they commemorated this more triumphantly than my birthday for I was named after this great Saint. I was gifted with gold crosses and jewelry ending with a special dinner. If only everybody celebrated the lives of the Saints in this manned; every day would be a triumph for the Church! I remember the six years at the Bangor Theological Seminary en route to getting a Masters in Divinity and the protestant inquiry into the Primacy of Saint Peter. Of course they would never refer to him as a saint because in this particular tradition, they consider (and somewhat rightly) all Christians are saints. As true as this may be, and for the brevity of this reflection, I will not get into the saints with the lower case letter and the ones with the capital letter. Suffice to say, the Catholic-Orthodox tradition of venerating Saints is simply a respect for God, the Church, and the individuals that we are certain gave their lives for the Faith. Devaluing this is simply disrespectful and a bit arrogant. So what about Saint Peter? As one protestant student interpreted, “Perhaps Jesus was referring to his head as the Rock as Peter was certainly stubborn at times.” As the student imaginatively went on to hypothesize, Jesus even knocked on Peter’s head to demonstrate the Rock-like substance, He was describing. How foolish! The simple response would have been that the context of renaming Simon does not in any way lend itself to this conclusion. Furthermore the context most certainly suggests the building of a Church; if not THE Church. Regardless, the ordination name of Peter places him above the other apostles as the one Jesus chooses to focus on maintaining His tradition. The protestant denomination that I served in most recently, which became a educational stepping stone back into the Church God has placed me in now (back home to Rome), suggested that the Primacy of Peter in no way reflected the supremacy of the Roman Church, however, was foundational to all churches. Perhaps, this is true in many ways but thankfully the direction in which our Lord led Saint Peter was certainly to proclaim the Gospel to the ends of the earth which focused Peter’s attention on Rome where he was subsequently martyred. Of course in the evangelical world the account of Peter being crucified is ignored as it is not “biblical,” which proves the inadequacy of a movement that centers fully on the evangelical, ignoring the charismatic and the sacramental streams. Peter was indeed crucified in Rome and when he deemed himself unworthy to die as the savior died, the soldiers turned the cross upside down. I suppose an interesting sideline and research paper would be about how Peter’s wife died but I digress. Biblically, however, when Jesus’ inner circle of three is mentioned throughout Scripture, Peter is always mentioned first. This reflection is not meant to be “in your face” as it is to focus in on what we have. Peter is the Rock; Peter is the first amongst equals; and Peter accomplished his goal to center the Church in Rome. This is NOT a critique against other churches or denomination as Jesus Himself claims that if they are not against us then they are on our side. The Christian confession, after all, is Jesus, my Lord and my God. If anything the implication of Peter as Rock and Rome his episcopacy obliges the Roman church to not only acknowledge her primacy, but her humility to be equal. The onus is on Rome. The pontifical call by definition requires her to build bridges amongst all Christians. Simply said, let us not continue the debate over the Primacy of Peter, but let us move forward to establish unity in a Church that needs leadership, but as Saint Peter manifested in his life, a Church that exists to serve.
