In Service to the Church:
The Chair of Peter and the Mission to Tend Christ’s Flock

by Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted

When Jesus said to Simon Son of John, “You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it,” He was calling Peter to play a key role in shaping human history far more profoundly than politics or economics can. Through Peter, He would build a culture of life.

Christ underlined the primacy of love in His last conversation with Peter before ascending into heaven. While you and I may have expected concrete advice from the Lord on a whole array of matters, Jesus three times focused on the one thing that really matters: “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” And when Peter affirmed his love for the Lord, Jesus said, “Feed my lambs. . . . Tend my sheep. . . . Feed my sheep” (Jn. 21:15–17).

The mission of Peter is to love Christ with all his mind and heart and strength, and to manifest that love by tending Christ’s flock. In his first homily as the newly elected successor of Peter, Pope Benedict XVI made it clear that he intended to do precisely that. Listen to his words: “Like Peter, I too renew to [Christ] my unconditional promise of faithfulness. He alone I intend to serve as I dedicate myself totally to the service of His Church.”

What can we expect of Pope Benedict XVI?

We can expect him to continue to be the humble, faithful, and highly intelligent servant of the Church that he has been throughout his life. Even before the Second Vatican Council came to a close, the young Fr. Joseph Ratzinger was recognized as the brightest of the bright among the periti, the theological experts who accompanied bishops to Rome for the Council.

We can also expect Pope Benedict eagerly to fulfill the mission that Jesus entrusted to Peter: that is, to foster unity among all the baptized and to work for reconciliation in the larger world. His intention to do this was candidly expressed in his first homily as pope. Here are his words: “In full awareness and at the beginning of his ministry in the Church of Rome that Peter bathed with his blood, the current Successor assumes as his primary commitment that of working tirelessly towards the reconstitution of the full and visible unity of all Christ’s followers. This is his ambition, this is his compelling duty. He is aware that to do so, expressions of good feelings are not enough. Concrete gestures are required to penetrate souls and move consciences, encouraging everyone to that interior conversion which is the basis of all progress on the road of ecumenism.”

We can also expect Benedict XVI to continue to engage Islam and the larger world in dialogue aimed at reconciliation. Again, our Holy Father says, “From God I invoke unity and peace for the human family and declare the willingness of all Catholics to cooperate for true social development, one that respects the dignity of all human beings. I will make every effort and dedicate myself to pursuing the promising dialogue that my predecessors began with various civilizations, because it is mutual understanding that gives rise to conditions for a better future for everyone.”

We can expect this former Cardinal Prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith also to defend the truth of the Gospel vigorously and to hand it on with persuasion. For this is part and parcel of the mission of Peter.
Precisely through his teaching mission, our Holy Father—not unlike the popes before him—will manifest his love for Christ and for us. He will proclaim the Good News of Christ and defend the teachings of the Church, especially those that are least understood and even rejected outright.

Dissent to the truths of the faith, sadly, is not something new. It is not peculiar to the Church at the start of the twenty-first century. St. Paul makes that clear when he tells the presbyters of the Church at Miletus, “I know that after my departure savage wolves will come among you, and they will not spare the flock. . . . From your own group, men will come forward perverting the truth to draw the disciples away after them” (Acts 20:29–30).

As we know, some voices have been doing precisely what St. Paul predicted, calling for core teachings of the Church to be changed—for example, teaching on the wrongness of contraception, the nature of marriage between a man and a woman, the evil of abortion and euthanasia, the affirmation of a male-only ministerial priesthood, and so forth. These voices, however sincere, fail to understand the nature of truth and the mission of Peter and the magisterium.

John Paul II did not make up these truths; neither did Paul VI, John XXIII or others before them. What the Successor of Peter does in the Church is to defend, to explain, and to hand on faithfully the teachings that have been held from one generation to the next. Whoever expects the defined teachings of the Church to change fails to understand both the nature of truth and the mission of the papacy.

We can expect a man of such amazing intellectual capacity as Benedict XVI to look for new ways to make the Church’s teaching more understandable to the men and women of our age. And we can expect him to exhort us to hold fast to the Catholic faith that has come to us as a precious gift, a gift to be treasured and to be shared. Above all, we can expect him to help us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus—not on politics, not on economics, but on the Lord of history. Pope Benedict has already promised to do this. Here are his own words: “In undertaking his ministry, the new Pope knows that his task is to bring the light of Christ to shine before the men and women of today; not his own light but that of Christ.”

Most Rev. Thomas J. Olmsted is Bishop of the Diocese of Phoenix, AZ, and a member of CUF’s episcopal advisory board. This article is adapted with permission from a homily given in April 2005.

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