Latest / Regina UNSCRIPTED / The Fisherman Who Became Pope | PopeCast EP1

Transcript

The Fisherman Who Became Pope | PopeCast EP1 · Regina UNSCRIPTED

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to what is officially episode one of our Popecast.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: We hope you caught episode zero last week, which laid the foundations for this journey through the papacy from Saint Peter the Apostle today, right the way through to our very own Pope Leo XIV, now in 2026.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Please ask any questions below, make your comments, and share with us anything that you particularly want to know, want to find out, and think we should cover.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome back to our Pope cast.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: Great to be back with you, Mark, for our journey through the lives of the popes, beginning with a fisherman who probably had rather different plans for his retirement, I'd imagine.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, although if you spend your working life trying to keep a boat afloat, there's a certain preparation involved, I would imagine.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: Quite so.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Before we put him in charge of anything, I suppose let's answer a question that people may have brought away from episode one.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: When we call Peter the first pope, Mark, are we saying that Jesus himself established the papacy?
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Or did Christians decide a couple of centuries later that Peter ought to have been the first pope?
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: That's a brilliant question, isn't it?
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: The Catholic claim is that Christ himself gave Peter a distinctive office.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: The idea being that it was to strengthen his fellow apostles and shepherd his church.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: And this responsibility continues in his successors.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: Peter didn't become the first pope because somebody kind of awarded him the distinction posthumously.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: The title came later, but the responsibility begins with Christ.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, but we shouldn't imagine Peter coming out of the Sea of Galilee, for example, into a conclave with a Swiss guard perhaps holding his towel.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm fairly sure the towel arrangements were less elaborate at the time.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: We're looking at the beginning of the office, its ceremonies, administrative structures, and some of its terminology, which developed over centuries.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: But that doesn't mean that the authority itself was invented centuries later.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: We've got to distinguish the commission Christ gave Peter from the later ways his successors exercised it.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: And where are we on the calendar?
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so we begin during Jesus' public ministry around AD 30.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and from there we follow Peter through the first decades of the church to his death under the Emperor Nero in the in about 60 AD.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: Some of these dates are uncertain, and when we're uncertain, we'll point that out, we'll say that that's the case.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: Then we're going to look briefly at the later Christian writers who preserve evidence about Peter and Rome.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: And those later witnesses are telling us about an earlier life.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: They aren't the people who actually appointed him, obviously.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so last time we took quite a journey, didn't we, through the Old Testament to understand why any of this matters.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: We followed God's promises to Israel, the division and scattering of his people, and the prophet's promise that he would gather them together under one shepherd.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and if you missed it, you really do need to go back and watch that episode where we saw that Christ's church belongs completely within that fulfillment.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: And when Jesus gives Peter the keys of the kingdom, the language echoes Isaiah's description of Eliakim, the royal steward entrusted with the key of the house of David.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: Christ is the king.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: Peter receives a responsibility under him.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: We read in Matthew 16, alongside Isaiah 22, and Revelation's description of Christ's holding the key of David.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: Which does leave rather an interesting question about the king's choice of steward, no?
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: Why choose a man who would deny even knowing him?
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's one of those really interesting insights into what was actually going on in that original story.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: And it takes us really to the heart of Peter's story, to something we need to understand before we meet any of his successors.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: And that is what Christ promises to do through this office and what he does and what he doesn't promise about the personal perfection of the man who holds it.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: I think, especially today, that's particularly important.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: Right, let's meet him then.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: Before he has the keys, who was Simon?
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: So Simon is a Jewish fisherman from Bethsider on the Sea of Galilee.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: I've been there and seen those actual places, which is pretty cool.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: His brother Andrew was also a fisherman and became an apostle.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: By the time we encounter Simon's household in the Gospels, he's associated with Capernaum.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: I always struggle over that word because my my parish priest always says Caffaneum.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, really?
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: I've never heard Caffeineum.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: Capernaum, yes, but it would be an unusual pronouncement.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: So uh Capernaum or Caffanaum is where Jesus heals his mother-in-law.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: We know he was married, although the gospels give us very little information about his his actual wife.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: So Simon would have had a job, he'd have worked, he'd have had family responsibilities, he had a mother-in-law.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: There's quite a bit of ordinary life behind the statue, isn't there?
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: Fishing obviously involved skill and hard labor, boats and nets and working with other people.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but we shouldn't confuse the absence of a university degree with the absence of intelligence.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we see that demonstrated all the time in life.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: We often talk about that ourselves, don't we?
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um so Simon wasn't a decorative figure who was kind of waiting for a halo.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: He had to actually earn a living.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: And Andrew's important at the beginning as well, isn't he?
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: We owe him some credit before his brother takes over the whole programme, don't we?
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely right.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: In John's account, Andrew brings Simon to Jesus.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus tells Simon that he will be called Caphas, an Aramaic name which means rock, as we covered in the last episode.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um and that obviously is rendered in Greek as Peter, Petrus.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: So we discussed last time a new name in scripture can signal a brand new vocation.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: Usually in the Bible, when someone's name's changed it, it means that God is giving them a new mission.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, obviously, we see it with Abraham and Israel.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: Something special is being entrusted to this man, Peter.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: Rock's quite an interesting choice for someone who we see ends up being quite unsteady.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, which ought to make us ask where the steadiness will actually come from.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: Peter's eventual role can't rest simply on his personal temperament.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: If Christ was conducting a conventional recruitment exercise, there are moments when you suspect that the references would have raised some serious questions.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: Enthusiastic, willing to travel, occasionally contradicts the Messiah kind of thing.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, he keeps responding to Christ, you know, he keeps coming back.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the key point, I think.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: Luke 5 gives us a wonderful insight into this, where Jesus is teaching beside the lake, and the crowd is all pressing in, and he gets into Simon's boat.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: After teaching, he tells Simon to go into deeper water and let down the nets.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: Must have been slightly trying for a professional fisherman who had already worked all night and caught nothing.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and Peter says as much, but irrespective of that, he still does what Jesus says, he still obeys, and the catch is so great that they need their partner's help.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: His response is quite striking, I think.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: He he falls before Jesus and acknowledges his sinfulness.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus tells him not to be afraid.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: His life will now be spent gathering people, he'll be a fisher of men.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: We spoke quite a bit last episode, didn't we, about patterns.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: We talked about the pattern running through the Old Testament.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: There's quite a number of patterns, too much to delve into, but there's already a pattern emerging here, isn't there?
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: Christ calls, Peter discovers his own inadequacy, and yet the call remains.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and Christians have have long found meaning in Jesus' teaching from Peter's boat.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: The image behind that expression, the bark of Peter, it's a beautiful image of Christ teaching through his church.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: Christ speaks and Peter places his boat at his service.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a really good starting point for understanding what authority in the church is actually for.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's Peter walking on water.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: He's certainly willing to go further than the others, although the floating arrangements don't last very long, do they?
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: In Matthew 14, that is, I think, um, Peter steps out towards Jesus and immediately becomes frightened, as you would, and then he starts to sink.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, there's all kinds of messages in there, and and Jesus saves him, obviously.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: It shows us both his willingness, but also how small, how little his faith was.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: And above all, his beautifully, I think, his dependence on Christ.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a dependence which remains central to his later ministry as well.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: He can answer the call because Christ sustains him.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: And when he falters, he needs Christ to rescue him.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: There's also the extraordinary incident of the coin in the fish's mouth.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: That's in Matthew 17, when the collectors of the temple tax approach Peter.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus sends him fishing and tells him he will find a coin sufficient to pay for them both.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: A memorable approach to settling a bill, although I wouldn't recommend building the parish budget around it.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Jesus associates Peter with himself in a striking way.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: We can see those associations throughout the gospel as well.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: But the clearest foundation for Peter's office comes when Christ explicitly tells him what he has to do.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: And that brings us to Caesarea Philippi and Jesus asking who the disciples say he is.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and Peter obviously is the one that answers that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus declares that this insight has come from his father, and he calls Peter the rock on which he will build his church and promises him the keys of the kingdom and the authority to bind and loose.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: And that is the passage that we explored at the end of our last episode, episode one.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: And Peter also consistently comes first in the New Testament list of the twelve, doesn't he?
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: He does.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: And Matthew even introduces him as first, which fits his prominence throughout the Gospels and Acts.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: He speaks for the group and with James and John is present at events like the raising of Jairus' daughter, for example, the transfiguration, and the agony at Gethsemane.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: Those details form a cumulative picture.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: Peter's prominence runs throughout the whole of the narrative.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: It isn't just confined to that one verse, Matthew 16.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: But then almost before we've absorbed the blessing, Jesus rebukes him very severely.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: How do these two things fit together?
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and that I suppose Matthew places them really close together for a specific reason.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: Peter has truly confessed who Jesus is, but when Jesus explains that he must suffer, die, and rise again, Peter immediately objects.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: He wants the Messiah without the passion.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus rebukes him because he's thinking in human terms rather than accepting God's purpose.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: I always feel so much for Peter here because we can completely understand the emotional response.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: If someone you love tells you he's going to suffer and be killed, you're not going to instinctively say, that sounds great, are you?
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: But I suppose Peter goes beyond being just distressed and upset.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: He the the problem here is that he presumes to tell Christ how his mission should unfold.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think that's probably why it really resonates so much because it's, you know, we can all identify with Peter's emotional response here, but that just shows us how real his affection is.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: But of course, affection doesn't give him the authority to completely rewrite the mission.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: The man who has received the keys still needs correction.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: His office doesn't make all his instincts sound or his judgments wise.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: That seems quite an important point to establish before we embark on 2,000 years of popes.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think, well, it's indispensable, really, isn't it?
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, we it's important that we say that Catholics believe Christ protects his church and gives a particular assistance to Peter and his successors.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: That doesn't mean that every Pope is personally holy, that every administrative decision he makes is particularly wise, or every sentence he utters is completely infallible.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yet Catholics and non-Catholics alike will have heard the term the Pope is infallible.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: So what do we mean by infallibility?
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: So it means a protection against error when and specifically when the Pope is acting as the supreme pastor and teacher of all the faithful.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: So when he definitively proclaims a doctrine of faith or morals to be held by the whole church.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: There's also other ways in which the church teaches infallibly, but that's the specific papal claim.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like a general ability to be right about everything, which is what a lot of people seem to assume it means.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and must be a disappointment to anyone hoping it extends to football predictions, for example.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, or my opinions over breakfast.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: And the Pope's ordinary teaching matters too.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: So it isn't a choice between an infallible definition and something we can simply disregard, but we have to make proper distinctions.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: The office exists to guard and hand on the apostolic faith.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: It gives its holder no license to manufacture a completely different gospel.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: And that makes Peter's own story particularly useful.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: We can see genuine authority and genuine human weakness in the same person without pretending that one cancels the other out.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: Luke 22 brings those two things together with an amazingly forceful story.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: At the Last Supper, the the apostles are arguing about greatness, and Jesus teaches them that authority among his followers means service.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: At the Last Supper, an argument about who is the greatest, they really do give us very little opportunity to romanticize the early church, don't they, Mark?
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, one of the things that makes it so real, I think.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: And what happens then is that Jesus addresses Simon personally.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: Satan has demanded to sift them like wheat, but Jesus has prayed for Peter that his faith may not fail, and tells him that when he is turned back, he must strengthen his brothers.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a distinction in the wording that English can hide here, isn't there?
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's the first, the first you in that sentence is plural.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: The threat concerns all of them.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: Then Jesus speaks to Peter in the singular about his prayer and his responsibility to strengthen the others.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: So Catholics see a particular clear expression of Peter's task within the apostolic body.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: His responsibility to his brothers is firmly rooted in Christ's prayer for him.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yet Jesus already anticipates that he will need to turn back.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: The commission includes the knowledge of his coming failure, just as we saw in episode one, Christ knew that the um his chosen people would um break the covenant promise.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: And that was kind of that merciful response was built into the covenant.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: And here again we see the Christ uh recognising that that future failure.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and Peter responds by insisting that he's ready for prison and death.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think he means it as well.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: His courage at this point is the courage he imagines, I would imagine he imagines that you know it's is how he's gonna feel when the when the test actually arrives.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: Something many of us have experienced, Mark, although usually with lower stakes and a more comfortable chair.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: Then um the next thing that happens is Jesus is arrested, and like all those grand assurances that Peter made collapse immediately.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: Peter follows, but in the courtyard he denies knowing Jesus three times.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: Luke tells us that the Lord turns and looks at Peter.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: Peter remembers what Jesus says, and then he goes out and weeps bitterly.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: I find that look almost unbearable.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: Peter can no longer hide behind what he intended to do.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: He has to face what he actually did, doesn't he?
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: I suppose we'll all face that at some point, don't we?
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think his love was real, you know, and his his failure was real as well.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: And the beautiful thing about the way that this is written in scripture is that it allows us to see both.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we do Peter no service, I don't think, by making the denial that he makes any smaller, and we don't do Christ any service by making his mercy smaller.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: No, indeed.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: People often compare Peter and Judas here because both betrayed Jesus, although in different ways.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: How should we approach that comparison?
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think we have to be really careful when we do that, um, because both stories confront us with the gravity of betraying Christ.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: Judas's death is tragic, but it doesn't give us license to pronounce on the eternal fate of everyone who dies by suicide.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: In Peter's story, we can follow a sinner who weeps, returns, and receives mercy.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: The lesson for someone crushed by their own failure is that they can still turn towards Christ.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: His mercy isn't exhausted by the seriousness of our sin.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: I often think with Judas and Peter, it we focus a lot on do we love God?
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: But there's also a very crucial question is do we let God love us?
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I suppose we shouldn't describe that return Peter made as him managing it entirely by his own resources.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus, we know, has already prayed for him, hasn't he?
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: And God's grace is at work before we begin congratulating ourselves on responding to it.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: He calls and enables us to turn towards him while taking our freedom seriously.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: Peter's restoration is a work of grace that he freely receives.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: After the resurrection, John tells us that Peter enters the empty tomb before the other disciple, although the other disciple arrives first.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: We also know that the risen Christ appeared personally to Peter.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, Luke records the disciples saying that the Lord has appeared to Simon, and Paul includes the appearance to Caphas.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: In 1 Corinthians 15, John also gives us the beautiful encounter with Mary Magdalene.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: So Peter wasn't the first person to see the risen Lord.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: Then in John 21, we have the lakeside meeting, which brings so much of Peter's story together.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: Back at the boats after another night without a catch.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's it's a brilliant bit.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's often left out as well.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: You've got Jesus standing on the shore, and he directs them again where to cast the net, and there's an abundant catch.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: The beloved disciple immediately recognises the Lord, and Peter makes for the shore.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: John tells us that Jesus had prepared a charcoal fire with fish and bread.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: The charcoal fire matters, doesn't it?
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: Because there was one in the courtyard when Peter denied him.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: There was, and John gives us that detail in both scenes.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: It creates a remarkable echo.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: Peter once warmed himself beside a fire while denying his Lord.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: Now he stands beside another fire in the presence of that same Lord who is risen from the dead.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: We can hear the connection without having to invent what Peter was actually thinking.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: And here Jesus feeds them before he questions them.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: There's something very tender about the setting, isn't there?
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: This is the Lord that Peter had betrayed preparing breakfast.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_01: After the meal, Jesus asks Peter three times whether he loves him.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: Peter answers three times, and Christ entrusts him with the care of his flock.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: That threefold profession of love answers the threefold denial.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: Peter is grieved by the repeated question, but he appeals to the Lord who knows him completely.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's fascinating that those details are included in the account.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's brilliant.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: And here he's lost the need to explain that he is more dependable than everyone else.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: Christ knows the love and he knows the failure.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and forgiveness leads directly to.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Directly into responsibility.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: Christ restores him and commissions him to feed and tend his sheep.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: The Catholic Church reads this as the risen Lord entrusting Peter with the pastoral care of the whole flock.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: We spoke last time about how the prophets promise a one shepherd, and in John 10, Jesus calls himself the good shepherd.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: How do we avoid making Peter sound like a replacement for Christ?
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: By attending to whose sheep they remain.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: The sheep still belong to Christ.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: Peter's care is entrusted and accountable.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: His authority comes from the Lord, whose flock he serves.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: So Christ remains the Good Shepherd.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: The Pope never becomes a second redeemer or the owner of the church in any sort of way.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: There's also that remarkable catch.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: 153 large fish and the net doesn't break.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: The abundance and the gathering together seem to belong with everything we've been discussing.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Christian reflection has long seen an image of the church's universal mission in the size of that catch and also the unity in the unbroken net.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_01: Peter's task is to gather and care for those Christ draws to himself, however far the mission takes him.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: Then the scene turns towards Peter's future, and Jesus tells him that a time will come when others will lead him where he does not wish to go.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: And John explains that this points to the to the death by which Peter will glorify God.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: The commission to shepherd the flock leads towards the giving of his own life.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: So we should keep that in mind when we reach Rome.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: The man who could not admit knowing Jesus in a courtyard will eventually follow him into death.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's a there's a brilliant bit, there's a brilliant story, isn't there?
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like an extra-biblical story, like the Quovardi story, where Peter um is running away from Rome and he meets Jesus on the Appian Way.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know that story?
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, he says, he sees Jesus and he says, uh Quo Vardi.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, where are you going?
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, where are you going, Lord?
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus says to him, I'm going to be crucified.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: And it like brings back all that that all that emotion again.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, it's one of the most moving sort of stories.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so between the lakeside and Rome, like in between those two acts, if you like, we've got acts, which shows Peter exercising the responsibility that he's he's actually received from Christ.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: So after the ascension, Peter takes the lead in addressing the vacancy left by Judas, for example.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: He explains the relevant scriptures to the gathered believers, and the community proceeds to the choice of Matthias.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: And the Twelve matter, because of the 12 tribes, as we discussed in episode one, they are part of the shape of the restored people of God.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: And after the Holy Spirit comes at Pentecost, Peter stands with the eleven and addresses the crowd.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: The man who feared being identified as a disciple now publicly proclaims the crucified and risen Christ.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: We shouldn't make that sound like a particularly successful confidence course.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: Axe attributes the change to the Holy Spirit.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: All that is fascinating as well, isn't it?
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: Like that the apostles receive power for a mission that they couldn't possibly accomplish on their own.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: Peter preaches, calls people to repentance and baptism, and he becomes prominent in the life of the growing church.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: With John, he heals the lame man at the temple, he bears witness under interrogation, he confronts the deception of Ananae and Sapphira, and later Herod Agrippa.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_01: He's imprisoned, and then you've got that miraculous release, haven't you?
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: And the church prays for him while he is in prison.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: He has responsibility for the others, but he also depends on their prayer.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's a really important part of the picture as well.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: The primacy doesn't make him like this solitary Christian who's outgrown everyone else in the church.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: The apostles share a mission, and Peter has a particular responsibility within that communion.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: Which brings us to the creed.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: One, holy, catholic, and apostolic.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: We say those words every mass, don't we?
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: But the word apostolic means a great deal more than being interested in the apostles as historical personalities.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, it means that the church is founded on their witness, it preserves their teaching, and it continues to be taught, sanctified, and governed through their successors, the bishops, in communion with Peter's successor.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: The bishops don't become fresh eyewitnesses of the resurrection, and they don't receive a new revelation to replace the apostle, the apostles' gospel, the deposit of faith.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: They inherit a ministry of handing on what was been entrusted to the church.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now, one of the most consequential things Peter does in Acts is enter the house of Cornelius.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: Why is that such a turning point, Mark?
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Cornelius is a Roman centurion and a Gentile who worships God.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: Peter receives a vision involving animals regarded as unclean, hears a heavenly command, and is directed by the Spirit to accompany the men Cornelius has sent.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: He comes to understand that he must not regard people as unclean.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: When he preaches to the household, the Holy Spirit descends on them, and Peter orders their baptism without first requiring circumcision.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: Which takes us back to Abraham.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: Circumcision had been the covenant sign for centuries.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: So this was a profound question about belonging to God's people, wasn't it?
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: The prophet's promises included both Israel's restoration and the nations coming to the Lord.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: In Christ, the Gentiles are admitted to the covenant blessings through faith and baptism.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: That fulfillment doesn't depend on our being able to trace everyone's ancestry back to a scattered tribe.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_01: The promise to bless all nations through Abraham already gives the mission its universal horizon.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so the argument is bigger than finding the descendants of people who had become lost to history.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: God gathers a people from all nations in Christ.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: Ezekiel's promise of cleansing water and a new heart belongs within the Christian background that we recognize in baptism.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: Peter is serving a work God has promised and initiated.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_01: He's not deciding that the church needs a more ambitious recruitment policy.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: And he also has to explain himself when he returns to Jerusalem.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: Even the first Pope found out that people had questions after a journey.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Acts 11 is worth remembering.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: Peter gives an account of what God has done, and his hearers recognize that God has granted repentance and life to the Gentiles.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_01: Authority and an explanation of its exercise belong together there.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: But the question of circumcision doesn't disappear straight away, does it?
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: Around um AD 50, the apostles and the elders gather in Jerusalem to address it again.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, some believers insist that Gentile converts must be circumcised and observe the Mosaic law.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: After a considerable debate, Peter recalls what God did through his ministry among the Gentiles.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: His central point really is that Jews and Gentiles alike are saved through the grace of Jesus Christ.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: So the assembly falls silent, but the discussion continues.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: Paul and Barnabas describe their mission, then James speaks.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, James connects the Gentile mission with the prophecy and proposes how they will proceed.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_01: The apostles and elders with the whole church send a decision to the communities concerned.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: Peter's intervention is absolutely pivotal and it belongs within an apostolic judgment reached together under the Holy Spirit.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's starting to look a lot like the church now, isn't it?
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: His primacy doesn't make the other apostles redundant, and that's really important.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it is rather important if we're going to spend a series explaining how the church actually works.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: Indeed, yeah.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: The whole scene really does matter a lot.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: Peter's distinctive intervention, James's contribution, the testimony of the missionaries, and the council's decision.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: You can see authority serving the unity of the church as she remains faithful to what God has revealed.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: There's an even more uncomfortable scene in Paul's letter to the Galatians.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: He says he opposed Peter to his face.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: How can that happen then, Mark, if if Peter has this special responsibility?
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_01: I think because special responsibility doesn't remove the possibility of behaving badly.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: And at Antioch, Peter had been eating with Gentile Christians.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_01: Then, under pressure and through fear of a particular group, he withdraws from that fellowship.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, others see what he's doing and they follow his example, including Barnabas.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_01: So Paul saw that his conduct there contradicted the truth of the gospel and he challenged it publicly.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: So Peter knew that the Gentiles belonged, but his behaviour suggested they were somehow second-class Christians.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: His influence made the failure more serious because others copied him.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly, yeah.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: Paul's rebuke addresses a real failure with real consequences.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: Peter's office did not require Paul to pretend that the conduct was harmless.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_01: Equally, Peter's conduct didn't abolish the commission that Christ had given him.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_01: This is a failure to live consistently within the gospel rather than a definitive teaching binding the church to some false doctrine.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: I think that distinction helps us to avoid two temptations, Mark.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: The first is defending anything a pope does because he is Pope.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: But the other is deciding his office must be meaningless because he has done something wrong.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, very important.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_01: And we owe the truth more than either of those two responses allows.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_01: Peter's authority and Peter's accountability both belong in the story.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: Paul's correction calls him to be faithful to the gospel that they share.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: Presumably that also means we shouldn't imagine Paul as Peter's timid assistant.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: He was an apostle in his own right and not noticeably short of things to say.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_01: I suspect a quiet dinner with Paul might have required some planning.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_01: He insists that he received his gospel through the revelation of Jesus Christ.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: But he also tells us that he went to Jerusalem to visit Caphas and spent 15 days with him.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: His divine calling did not make communion with the other apostles irrelevant.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: So to keep the mission straight, Paul describes his particular responsibility as being to the Gentiles and Peter's as being to the circumcised.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a distinction of particular mission, not an absolute prohibition on either apostle addressing anyone else.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_01: Peter's encounter with Cornelius already makes that clear.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: Paul, meanwhile, also preaches to Jews.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_01: They serve the same Lord and proclaim the same saving gospel.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: We followed Peter through the Gospels and the earliest decades of the church.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: How do we get him to Rome, Mark?
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: Acts doesn't finish with Peter standing in St.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: Peter's Square.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_01: Right, and there wasn't a square for standing at the time.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_01: So um Acts eventually.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so if we if we look at Acts, it eventually starts concentrating increasingly on St.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_01: Paul, and it doesn't give us any sort of continuous account of Peter's later movements.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_01: Peter's associated with Antioch in Galatians.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so later, Christian tradition also connects his ministry with some other places, but we've, you know, we're not really in the business of filling in every gap in his itinerary with with absolute certainty.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: What about Rome itself, though?
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: What's the evidence for that?
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so we've we've got several early witnesses, and it really helps if we keep their dates and their claims completely distinct.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: First, Clement, the letter traditionally attributed to Clement of Rome and usually dated to the end of the first century, which recalls Peter's sufferings and martyrdom alongside St.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: Paul's.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's an early Roman testimony to both apostles, although the passage doesn't explicitly name the location of Peter's death.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: So an important early witness, but we shouldn't make it say more than it says.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_01: Then we've got Ignatius of Antioch, who was writing to the Roman Christians in the early second century, and he distinguishes his own position from Peter and Paul's apostolic authority.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: And then around 180 AD, Irenaeus, remember Irenaeus from the last episode?
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_01: He explicitly describes the church at Rome was founded and organized by Peter and Paul, and gives it successions of bishops, beginning with Linus after the apostles.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: Which answers our opening question about whether someone decided in AD 200 to make Peter I Pope.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_00: Irenaeus is already describing an inherited succession.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he's appealing to the publicly transmitted apostolic faith against those claiming secret teachings.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_01: The point of the succession is that the church preserves what the apostles handed on.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_01: Around AD 200, a Roman Christian called Gaius points to the memorials of Peter and Paul at the Vatican on the Ostian Way.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_01: Eusabius preserves that testimony in his church history.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: By the Vatican, we mean the hill, don't we, rather than the modern state with its own post office?
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, of course, the Vatican Hill.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_01: The Christian memory of Peter's burial there goes way before the Basilica that we know.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_01: And we've got a convergence of testimony about the apostles' Roman connection, their martyrdom, and the places associated with their burial.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_01: Peter's ministry and death in Rome are supported by really strong early evidence, even though we can't reconstruct his final years day by day.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's obvious really, we didn't have tape recorders and video, did we?
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_00: I love the way you reach for tape recorders and videos, like that's a modern thing.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we call him the first bishop of Rome, then, while recognizing that an apostle's ministry is wider than running a later diocese in precisely its developed form.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: Precisely, yeah.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_01: Peter has a unique place as an apostle, personally commissioned by Christ.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_01: His successors don't repeat his whole biography or even acquire every privilege of an apostolic eyewitness.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_01: They succeed to his continuing pastoral office.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_01: And in a Catholic understanding, that succession is attached to the Roman See.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_01: Irenaeus' account of Linus leads us directly into our next episode.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_00: Right, Mark, before we let Peter go, what can we say about his death?
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_01: So the ancient Christian tradition places his martyrdom in Rome under Nero in the AD 60s.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_01: The exact year we don't know.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_01: Totilian attests to his crucifixion, and these are extra-biblical sources, by the way, in case you don't know.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so historians who lived about the time.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_01: And another one is Eusabius, and he also records it.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so in John 21, we've already got John pointing towards Peter's death in the language about stretching out his hands and being led where he didn't want to go.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: We often hear that he was crucified upside down because he didn't consider himself worthy to die as Christ had died.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_00: Should we include that?
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_01: So we can mention it as a traditional account, but we've got to distinguish it from the earlier evidence for his crucifixion.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_01: Eusabius preserves Origen's report that Peter was crucified head downwards at his own request.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_01: The familiar explanation about his unworthiness belongs to the wider tradition of the story.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_01: We don't need to treat every detail as equally secure to recognise the witness at his heart.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_00: Which brings us back to the courtyard.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_00: Once Peter feared the consequences of admitting that he knew Jesus, but now he gives his life rather than abandon him.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_01: John's lakeside scene helps us to understand that journey as well.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_01: Christ restores Peter, entrusts the flock to him, and calls him to follow even towards death.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_01: The man who had spoken so confidently about his own courage learns to depend on a strength that he cannot manufacture himself.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like there's hope in that for anyone who has made promises to God and then been painfully disappointed by their own performance.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_00: I certainly know I have, and I'm sure many watching will feel the same.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_00: But though Peter's failure was terrible, the grace still had work to do in him, and that's something to remember about all our lives, I suppose.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely, yeah.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_01: I think his life shows us why the church needs Christ's promises and why those entrusted with authority need repentance, prayer, and fidelity.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_01: The keys never become permission to leave the master behind.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_01: Peter's task and the task of his successors is to serve the flock that belongs to Christ.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so we began by asking what Catholics mean when they call Peter the first Pope.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_00: We've seen the commission Christ gives him, the responsibility he exercises, the correction he needs, and the witness he finally bears in Rome.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we've reached the question that turns one man's story into a series.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_01: What happens to that responsibility once Peter dies?
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_00: Well, next time, Linus, a man whose name many Catholics hear in the Roman canon mark, and then quietly hope that nobody ever asks them to explain.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_01: I think we should try and put that right.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_00: And indeed we will next time.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining us on this episode of the Pocast, and we hope to see you again next time.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_00: But for now, God bless.