Read this in The Manila Times digital edition.
BEFORE one enters St. Peter’s Basilica, one will not miss the two larger-than-life statues of the twin pillars of the apostolic Church — St. Peter and St. Paul. Today, the Church celebrates and venerates through a solemnity — the highest form of liturgical celebration there is in the calendar of the Catholic Church — these two martyrs and leading preachers of the faith.
“Petros” — the Greek form of Peter — is not a name. It is a title. “You are Peter and on this rock I will build my church.” The genders do not quite work in Greek and in Latin, but in Aramaic — the language must probably used by Jesus — “cephas” works perfectly and that is why, occasionally, in the New Testament, as in the letter to the Galatians, “Cephas” makes its appearance.
Simon Bar-Jona — Simon, son of John — was his name. Cephas, the rock, was his title and it was clear why.
In the Gospel of Matthew, it is to Peter that the bestowal of the keys of the kingdom of heaven was made, with the authority “to bind and to lose” — which, in Jewish culture and tradition, meant the power to teach authoritatively and in normative fashion. It is he who is asked “to strengthen your brothers” in the Gospel of Luke, after Jesus’ prediction that Simon’s own faith would be severely put to the test. And the poignant scene in the Gospel of John has the Risen Jesus asking Peter to profess his faith three times, and then entrusting him with the mission: “Feed my lambs, tend my sheep.” The early Church understood this clearly, and from the earliest of times, the Petrine Ministry, since the first century, in fact, served the Church.
The papacy’s history is not at all placid. There have been stormy incidents. One can think of the times that pope and anti-pope excommunicated each other, the Avignon Exile and the shameful pontificate of Alexander VI — who was not at all a failure as a leader, and Filipinos will remember him for “Inter Caetera,” the papal bull that divided the world into Spanish and Portuguese mission fields — and the sad rift that led to 1054 that saw the separation of the Eastern Church — later to become the Orthodox Communion — from the Bishop of Rome. But through it all, what held the Church together as “the principle of unity” — a characterization from Vatican I’s document “Pastor Aeternus” — was the papacy.
I am sure that it grieves Leo XIV’s heart that unless the planned episcopal ordinations of the Society of St. Pius X (the Lefebvre Group) are put off, he will have to allow canon law to take its course and the ecclesiastical sanctions to be applied. I am sure that the Pope would have no trouble granting the apostolic mandate — the document recognizing the episcopal ordinations as authorized by the Holy See — were it not for the group’s ambivalence toward the Second Vatican Council. On that, there can be no compromise. When a group of Catholics is allowed to choose which councils to abide by and which to set aside, we will have indeed a divided Church — one accepting Vatican II or some other council, and the other, rejecting it. Fidelity to tradition is certainly not the same thing as keeping the Tridentine form of the Eucharistic liturgy. Anyone who has read any book on the history of the Mass — such as Jugmann’s masterful “The Mass of the Roman Rite” — will not fail to observe that the Eucharistic celebration described by Justin Martyr in the 2nd century did not remain unchanged down the centuries. Tradition is living the core of the Gospel amidst changing times and thought patterns. It is a bankrupt kind of epistemology that insists that conceptualizing, thematizing and understanding remain fixed and unchanging.
But when one sees with what enthusiasm Leo XIV is welcomed on his apostolic journeys, the excitement and eagerness of the people at being close to the Pope and the crowds that throng the Piazza of St. Peter’s for the Pope’s weekly audiences, one is assured that “ubi Petrus, ibi ecclesia”... where Peter is, there too is the Church!
Recently in Luzon alone we have had two episcopal ordinations, at which the apostolic mandate calling the candidates to the office of bishop, were solemnly read. That is true of all episcopal ordinations in the Philippines and throughout most of the world. One has only to watch video clips of these on YouTube and other platforms to be assured that communion with the See of Rome that is guaranteed by the “mandatum” signed by the Pope and bearing his seal are crucially important. “Credo in unam, sanctam, catholicam et apostolicam ecclesiam.”... I believe in one, holy, Catholic and apostolic Church!
My choir, the Coro de San Jacinto, will today stage a concert to mark “Aggao na Catedral — the Day of the Cathedral,” which is also “Aggao na Cagayan — Cagayan Day.” I take this opportunity to acknowledge friends who have supported my choir, including first lady Liza Marcos, and allowed it to flourish. Because of them, we joined in the newly concluded Jubilee Year in Rome and sang at the Basilica di Santa Pudenziana for a Mass of the Filipino community.