Honest Look at Catholicism - No.3 Was Peter the First Pope?

By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should be careful how he builds, for no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. Let us pray.

Father, we come to you this very warm evening and ask for special grace as we look into your word and review a subject which is on the minds of most thinking people at this particular time. We come and ask for mental clarity. We come and ask for the strengthening of convictions.

We come and ask, O Lord, that your Son, even Jesus Christ, shall be preeminent in the proclamation of the gospel through this somewhat unusual approach tonight. For his sake. Amen.

You might care to have your Bibles open at Matthew and chapter 16. I'll be referring to the passage of scripture John Hansen, one of our elders, read a little while ago, and also turning to other particular relevant scriptures. That was Matthew and chapter 16.

If you'd like your Bible open at a launching point, I think that might be helpful. I wonder if you have ever thought, when people go to heaven, do they have any knowledge of what goes on here upon earth? I'm rather of the opinion that they have memory of what happened in their lifetimes, but they, and I speculate, do not necessarily have any awareness at all of what happens on earth after their death and being taken into the presence of God. If I am wrong, and those in heaven have an understanding of what transpires here on earth while they are with the Lord, then I would suggest to you that the saddest people in the whole of heaven, if heaven can contain sorrow, must be Peter, the apostle, and Mary, the mother of our Lord Jesus.

If any individuals have ever suffered by the way that historians and theologians and preachers have used them and manipulated them since their death, Peter and Mary were those two. And it's to the subject of Peter that I particularly address your attention this evening under the heading, in the form of a question, was Peter the first pope? Now it's pretty obvious the reason why I'm dealing with this. We have all had occasion to see, to read, to hear something of the ministry of the present pope, John Paul II, as he is now well into his first and the first historic visit of any pope to these island homes of ours.

And it might well be that, confronted with the sight of thousands of people obviously clinging onto his word, that you're asking yourself, well, has Protestantism got it all wrong? Or even if you don't know what Protestantism is about and yet you come along to the tabernacle, maybe you're querying, have we got it wrong? We never make any reference to the pope, and there are many things that perhaps you have heard of recently, such as the mass and so forth, that are terms that are rarely if ever used here, and if used, always in a somewhat academic and critical fashion. Well, as I say, it's the fact of the pope's arrival in England, moving up to Scotland and going on to Wales, that compels me this evening to address myself to this subject. And I do so with no endeavour, no wish at all, to engage in character assassination of the present pope, as far as I can gather from my own reading and listening to what he has to say.

He seems basically a very good man, inasmuch as he has suffered a great deal, and obviously sincerely holds the tenets of faith that he preaches. But having said all that, it seems to me that because we are confronted these days with one of the most popular and perhaps one of the greatest popes of all time, that we must analyse what he stands for. After all, this is a man who is holding spellbound many millions of people around the world.

He's a globetrotting pope. We have pictures of him on our television screens, going from one country to another, getting off his plane and immediately kissing the ground and identifying himself with the countries that he visits. I had to smile at some quip that was made when the pope flew in on Aer Lingus to Dublin airport, and he was shown as kissing the ground afterwards, and someone said, well, if you flew in on Aer Lingus, then you would kiss the ground too, if you got out safely.

But jesting aside, this man identifies with the people that he endeavours to minister to around the globe. And he is, of course, extremely well known, and increasingly so. He seems to be a very nice man, in the classic sense of the word, a charismatic man.

And it's his very niceness that sometimes alarms me, because niceness tends to blind people in their estimate of an individual. I'll give you an example of what I mean. I remember some years ago when I was a student, there was a national election, and obviously the main contenders were the Tory party and the Labour party.

And I recall overhearing a conversation on board a London bus of two ladies, and the one was saying to the other that she was going to vote for Mr Heath, because he looked such a nice man compared with Mr Wilson. There was no concern, obviously, for the political philosophy of either two. It was the point that one appeared to be more attractive, rightly or wrongly, than the other.

Well, the same can be said of this present Pope. It was a brilliant move, however you understand it, on the part of Vatican to propel this man into office, because he combines such a remarkable background with some rather amazing qualities of personality. Now, wherever he goes, he is referred to as the Pope.

Let's just take that title for a moment, for my concern this evening is not to delve into the lifestyle and the origins of the present pontiff, but rather, as I say, to ask the question, looking back from the 20th century, knowing all that we do about the leadership of the Catholic Church, could Peter in any way be identified with the present Pope or any other of the so-called Popes? The word Pope comes from the word Papa, which is Italian and also has some Latin derivative for father, and wherever this man and those who have held the office before him, before them go, they are referred to as the Father, notwithstanding that the Lord Jesus Christ, when he was teaching about the use of the word Father, says that it is not to be applied in a religious context at all. He says to his disciples in Matthew 23 in verse 8, You are not to be called Rabbi, for you have only one master, and you are all brothers, and do not call anyone on earth father, for you have one father, and he is in heaven. So, immediately, we've got a problem.

The Pope, Father, the problem is compounded when you discover that the adjective holy is more often than not twinned with the noun Pope. He is the Holy Father, and one thinks of that marvelous prayer of our blessed Lord when he intercedes before his Heavenly Father, and he says, Holy Father, I come to you. So, again, we've got some difficulties, and we're only just starting our subject this evening, but not only is the Pope referred to as the title that I've just been using, he's also sometimes called the pontiff, and you probably are aware of the word pontificate, which, strictly speaking, means to speak pompously, to speak authoritatively, and if you don't mind my continuing, I'm delighting in this, it's taking me back to my earlier profession as a teacher of the English language.

If you don't mind further study in words and how they were derived, it goes back to pontifex, and pontifex maximus is a term that the emperors of Rome used to use to describe themselves. You see, the emperors of Rome were not only considered to be the leading monarchs in their day, but they had priestly ability. They were the bridge between this world and the next world.

Caesar was known by the Romans to be God, and therefore he took the title pontifex maximus. Ultimately, the Roman Empire was to lose its power and authority. That probably arose for many reasons that we'll not go into this evening, but one of the things that happened in the 6th century was this.

The title pontiff was taken over by the leading Roman Catholic, by the Bishop of Rome, and he was known as the pontiff, the bridge builder, the one who can link up between earth and heaven. So you see where these terms come from. The Pope, Father, Papa, the Papacy, the Vatican, and all its power and prestige, and pontiff, the idea of supremacy, of authority, of speaking authoritatively on earth, and having power also that spills over into this next world.

Now, some people have asked me, well, how did the Roman Catholic Church come about after all? Were there always Popes? According, of course, to Catholic historians, the first Pope was Peter, the second Pope was Linus, and so on, and so forth, and there's supposed to be an unbroken succession right down to the office of Pope John Paul II. Well, it's very interesting that even if you consult the Catholic encyclopedia and try to discover something of the history and lifestyle of the first ten Popes, you get very little information, because they know very little about them. In fact, in one sense, it's anybody's guess as to who these men were and what they did.

But when did the pontiff gain all the trappings of office, all the paraphernalia that you see today, and have seen down the years of Catholic history? Well, that came about, really, in the papacy of a man known as Gregory, Gregory the Great, and in one sense, he was a very great man indeed. He was a very astute politician. Let me give you a little bit of history to add to my English grammar lesson this evening.

In the year that I quote, at the end of the 590s, the Roman Empire was in trouble. The Lombards and many of the pagan tribes at the north of Italy were poised to come down into Italy itself and sack the empire and the emperor, and it was Gregory, with his brilliance, with his political skill, that was able at least to hold back the enemies of Rome for a long time, and as a result, the very authority of the emperor spilled over to him, and by this time, one of the emperors who lived before Gregory by the name of Constantine has turned to Christianity. Christianity, which used to be an illegal religion, has now become a very respectable thing, and the bishops, the elders, the leading preachers of those days, instead of being despised, instead of suffering difficulty, now they are exalted and they're under the esteem of men and women, and as a result of this, gradually, from about 600 AD, the papacy that we know today emerged.

There was a vying of power from the bishop of Rome over against the bishop of Constantinople. There was a difficulty between the western church and the eastern church. All these things I have to skim over, but in the melee of history, coming up dominant with the authority of the bishop of Rome, and ere long, he was arrogating to himself remarkable powers.

He was bringing out bulls and encyclicals and sending letters to others in the church which were binding upon them. For example, the successors of Gregory later on, 200 years or so, or 300 years later, were to decree that every priest ought to be celibate. The idea of indulgences came about, whereby you could buy some time of purgatory, purgatory being a doctrine that Gregory I was responsible for itemizing and bringing into the doctrinal beliefs of the Catholic church.

Ere long, you had such things as transubstantiation coming in in the 13th century, the idea that the wafer turns into the body of Christ, and the wine turns into the blood of Christ. Later on, you would have the papal throne itself decreeing that Catholic people were not to have the scriptures in their possession, for the Bible for some time, for many centuries, became a forbidden book to the Catholics. And so you go on and on.

You get doctrines like the immaculate conception of Mary and her bodily assumption. You get doctrines like the infallibility of the Pope brought out in 1870. And as all these teachings down the course of history, as all these promulgations are being made, so the office becomes greater and grander.

So in terms of what developed from Gregory I and the papacy that we now know of in the 20th century, I put my question, was Peter the first Pope? To what extent does Peter identify with the claims of infallibility? To what extent do people prostrate themselves before Peter as the cardinals do before the pontiff when they are ordained into their office? To what extent does Peter allow people to kiss his feet and to look upon him as being the vicar of Christ? To what extent does Peter go along with the whole idea of penances and indulgences and the doctrine of purgatory? This is the question you see. If somewhere in the theology, the theological belief of Peter, there is the germ of all these things, then I need to re-examine my Protestant position. But if, as I shall try to demonstrate, Peter has no cognizance, no knowledge of these things at all, if it's something that's been added on, if these are like barnacles that grow on a ship after it's left port, then we have every right as evangelical Christians to say, no, your tradition contradicts, manipulates, twists Scripture, and we will have nothing to do with it all.

For us, sola scriptura, the Bible alone, we challenge the pontiff, we challenge the cardinals, we challenge the magisterium, the teaching authority of the Catholic Church, demonstrate what we as evangelical Bible-believing Christians accept is wrong from the Word of God. And we'll apologize, and with gratitude we'll come home to Mother Church. We'll go back, as some would describe it, to Rome itself.

Well, I'm being quite serious. I'm not saying that dramatically at all. I'm being quite serious.

Those are my opinions. Those are my convictions. So let's test this whole idea of Peter and whether or not he was the first pope from the Word of God.

And this is why I want to bring you to Matthew's Gospel and chapter 16, because here is the classic text of Roman Catholicism. So much swings on our Lord's words to Peter as they engage in conversation in these few verses of Scripture. You remember how our Lord, in the 17th verse, is depicted as replying to a grand declaration that the fisherman has made, and he does so in these words, blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man but by my Father in heaven.

And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

Now you will discover from the Pope, the present Pope's commentary on Vatican II, which I've gone through in great detail in many of the chapters, that he too would accept that this is the touchstone of Catholicism, the way our Lord Jesus here addresses Peter. Is it true, as the Roman Catholics will sing in one of their glorious anthems, Tu et Petra, you are Peter, and on you, Peter, I will build my church? Or is there another more obvious interpretation that Catholic theologians and teachers have ignored down the centuries? Well, what is our Lord saying to his disciple? And you can't really understand it unless again I take you into the Greek language. I tell you that you are Peter, and that word Peter is Petros, and it means a rock.

It's the Greek equivalent of the Aramaic Cephas, which also means a rock. Or more accurately, a stone. Here is Jesus playing with Peter's name and its translation.

I tell you that you are Peter, you are the rock. And then he goes on, and on this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. Now is he referring to Peter, or is he referring to something else that Peter said? What did Peter say a few verses before, or one verse before? Well, in response to our Lord Jesus's question, who do you say I am, and the options that some of the disciples gathered together that they picked up in the bazaars around Palestine? Peter then becomes the spokesman for the apostolic group, and he says, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God.

And Jesus says, blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven, and I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church. What is the rock? What is it that is so stable in this conversation, in a revelation that Jesus can build his church upon it? Protestants from Martin Luther onwards, and I would argue the early church, and perhaps some of those anonymous ten first popes, have always considered that our Lord here is referring to that grand declaration of Peter as to who Christ is. You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.

This is something that's concrete. This is something that is foundational. This is something on which I can build the creedal confession that I am the Christ shall be the basis of the kingdom that I shall build.

And the apostle Paul, you remember, goes on to say in 1 Corinthians, the verse that I read to you a few moments ago at the beginning of my address this evening, 1 Corinthians 3.11, that there is no other foundation that can be laid than that which is laid, Jesus Christ being the first cornerstone. Our Lord Jesus is declaring Peter's revelation of himself as being the foundation on which the church will be built. Now, it's very interesting that when you read the Catholic Fathers, and by that I am referring to the early church theologians in the first, shall we say, the first five centuries, if you read through what they say about this verse of Scripture, the vast majority come down with the notion that Jesus here is referring to the faith of Peter in himself as being the structure on which the church is to be built.

And this whole business of taking this verse as being some sort of scriptural justification for the papacy is very questionable to say the least, and very late indeed. When you follow through the preaching of the apostles, you discover that throughout the acts of the apostles, and as I shall show you and on into the epistles, when they tell of the gospel of Jesus, and when they tell of the church of Jesus Christ, they never refer to Peter. They refer back to the profession of faith.

How can I be saved, Paul, if thou shalt confess with thy mouth and believe in thine heart that God hath raised Jesus from the dead? Thou shalt be saved. Check the preaching of Peter. Check the preaching of Paul.

See how they understood it. They should have known after all, far more accurately than we folk who live 2,000 years or nearly so after the event. Thou art Peter? Yes, he is Peter.

A rock, a very small rock, a rock that will soon be crushed and smashed as he denies the Lord, as he becomes victim to the attempts of Satan. Can you build a church on Peter? Jesus says, I will build my church, not Peter's church, my church, and it will be built on that declaration as to who I am and what I have done. Now you say, but this is just sort of Protestant argumentation.

You could take it one way, you could take it the other. It just depends where you balance the words and where you put the emphasis. And if you've got a knowledge of Greek and if you have, how you fare with the theological divide on this, uh, on this verse of scripture.

All right, just hold that for a moment. Let's continue and let the context work this out for us. Although just for one second, let me shove in two other pieces of information.

In the early part of the Bible, the Old Testament, very often, at least on several occasions, you come across the concept of God in terms of the rock. And when you move into Paul's teaching in Corinthians, he refers on one occasion to the Israelites moving their way through Sinai and to the fact that on one specific occasion, in a remarkable sense, Moses struck a rock. And from that rock, some of you who know the Bible will be aware of the incident, water gushed forth.

And Paul, in a very interesting reference, says that rock was Christ. Very often in scripture, the idea of a rock with its stability is used to illustrate the power of the living God. But that just by way of extra information.

Let's continue. Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter.

And on this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. Now this is very interesting, think it through. Let's accept that the Catholics are right, just for a moment.

The church is built on Peter. He is the foundation stone. He is here made the premier pontiff.

Here is Peter entering into the Pope's office. The gates of hell shall not prevail against this foundation. What happens later on in this chapter? Jesus, you remember, starts to reveal something of what is in store for him.

He is going to go to the cross. This is necessary for his achievement of his father's purposes. He goes on to tell the disciples all that lies in store for him in Jerusalem.

You can read in the 21st verse. But Peter, he takes Jesus aside, and he begins to rebuke him. Never, Lord, he says.

This shall not happen to you. And for a moment, Peter becomes the very mouthpiece of Satan himself. To the extent that Jesus turns, and just after a moment of having congratulated Peter, he now denounces him.

And look at the measure of the denunciation. Out of my sight, Satan, verse 23, you are a stumbling block to me. You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of man.

Now listen. If the germinal seed of the papacy is somehow encapsuled in Peter, then this is the most tragic start to any papal office that there could ever have been. Within seconds, this man, who according to the Roman Catholic bull issued in 1870 is infallible when he speaks on faith and morals, this man who has just been ordained to the papal office within a minute, is denying that Jesus should go to the cross, and he's becoming the very spokesman of hell itself.

But Jesus said, the gates of hell shall not prevail against my church. You see, the impossibility of that particular Greek construction that I explained to you a few moments ago, it makes nonsense. It is just incompatible with the passage.

The only way that you can understand our Lord's comment to Peter is that he will build his church on himself and on the declaration that Jesus Christ is none other than the Son of the living God. Well, let's move on a little. I could have taken you into Peter's epistles and given you more information on Peter's understanding of this, but time is pressing.

Let's move further into my text for this evening. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the 19th verse, I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

Now again, the papacy is built on this 17th, on the 18th verse, and also on this 19th verse. Who has the keys to the kingdom? Well, the Pope has the keys. This is why it is absolutely necessary for people to recognize who the Pope is.

There is no salvation outside mother church. Well, what does Jesus have to say in other related scriptures about keys and entry into the kingdom? Jot down, those of you who are taking notes, the 18th chapter of Matthew's gospel and the first verse, where you recognize that Jesus is speaking to the disciples. And then when you drop down to the 18th verse, he's going to talk to them again about keys, and about people being in heaven or not in heaven as a result of their ministry.

Now it's no longer Peter, the rest of the apostolic band are being addressed. That's why I took you to the first verse, to give you the context, before I take you to the 18th verse. I tell you the truth, Jesus says, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

So Jesus is now no longer speaking to Peter, he's speaking to all the apostles, and it would appear therefore that each one of them is involved in this very powerful ministry of holding the keys to heaven. But let's see what that means in a moment or two. Let me take you on now, still with this subject in mind, to Matthew 23.

If you concentrate, there's not even an 11 year old in the congregation this evening who can't follow this piece of argument. Matthew chapter 23, and now we're down to the 13th verse. Jesus is addressing the Pharisees.

These were religious teachers in his day. He had nothing but contempt for them, because of the way that they were fooling, misleading the people. And as a result of them not proclaiming the truths of the Old Testament, the word of God, Jesus denounces them, because people are not entering into heaven, because of their inconsistency.

Matthew 23 and verse 13. Woe to you teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.

Here were people at the time of Jesus, who apparently could interfere with, at least on the human level, with men and women's salvation, by not remaining true to their particular calling as preachers. Stay with this in mind, but let me bring you to the gospel of Luke, and to the 11th chapter. Here Jesus is referring to similar folk as we have just discovered in Matthew's gospel.

I'll wait for you to catch up with me. In fact, I'm not quite there myself at the moment, to be honest. Luke chapter 11, and down to verse 52.

Our Lord Jesus speaking, and he talks about these people who are not declaring God's word faithfully. Luke 11, 52. Important, I keep repeating the reference, I want you to have it very much in your mind.

Woe to you experts in the law, because you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, he's now talking about the kingdom of heaven, and you have hindered those who were entering. What is Jesus saying? It's so obvious, I'm almost going to insult your intelligence by spelling it out again.

These men, who were ordained to proclaim God's law as they understood it in the Old Testament, were perverting in their ministry what God had said, and Jesus says the very keys that you have, that could open the door of heaven, so to speak, for you. Not only don't you use them on your behalf, but because of your ignorance, you prevent others from entering heaven itself. Now that's the way that our Lord is talking to Peter, and to the disciples.

I will give you the keys, the keys of the kingdom. What are those keys? The proclamation of the everlasting gospel. When men and women respond to Jesus as a result of the preaching ministry, the kingdom of heaven is open to them.

Again you say, I'm engaging in a little bit of Protestant theologizing here. I'm bending this to suit myself. All right, who is the man who should fully understand what Jesus was saying? If it's not Peter, well obviously it's him.

So what does he do? When you find him in the book of the Acts of the Apostles, you discover that he becomes a remarkable preacher. He's the first man who ever preaches the Christian gospel. Turn to Acts chapter 2, will you? On the day of Pentecost, that this Sunday actually commemorates, Peter, with the rest of the Apostles and early followers of Jesus, has received the baptism in the Spirit.

A great crowd of people gather because of the noise of their praise and their fervor. And as Peter starts to speak to these people, what does he tell them about Jesus and salvation? Well he quotes from the Old Testament. Look at Acts 221.

Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. He continues to preach. He sets the theme as a preacher who continues to go on and on even when you think that maybe he might have finished.

He goes on to the 36th verse and he preaches still about Jesus. God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ. Now conviction falls on the people and so they cry out to Peter.

When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other Apostles, brothers what shall we do? Now if Rome's got it right, Peter should have said, I've got the key. I can give you some papal dispensation whereby you can enter into the kingdom of heaven. I've got the keys.

But he doesn't say that. He says what he's going to say later on in Acts chapter 10 and what Paul will say in Romans and what Peter will say in the epistles that he writes. Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Acknowledge who Jesus is. Confess that he's Lord, the only son of the Father and on the basis of his cross work at Calvary you will be saved. You move on to Acts chapter 10.

Here's Peter preaching again, the man who's got the keys. How does he use them? Well he's not very happy about going to Caesarea and to the household of Cornelius but God weighs in heavily on him and Peter changes his mind and he discovers there a group of Gentiles who are very sensitive to spiritual things and Peter preaches the gospel and as he preaches the gospel he gets a response and he brings his ministry to the conclusion as in the 43rd verse of Acts 10, Peter the man with the keys preaching says all the prophets testify about Jesus that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name. Isn't that marvelous? Salvation comes how? By confessing Jesus.

Peter doesn't turn them to himself. If there was ever an occasion when Peter could have appealed to his papal authority it's here in Caesarea but he doesn't do that at all. He turns them to Christ and throughout the whole of the Acts of the Apostles when men are preaching they turn potential converts to Jesus because there's no other salvation and there's no other foundation stone whereby men can build for eternity.

You see the keys are the gospel, the gospel message. I've got the keys myself in the sense that I can preach the gospel. I can't demand a response at least I can demand it but I can't guarantee it.

I don't have the keys to that extent. I can direct people to the key and to the lock and say if you do this, this and this then in the name of God I tell you your sins can be forgiven. That's how the keys are to be used but Rome gets it wrong.

Now if you think I'm being harsh for a moment I'm being honest and straight and courtesy does not demand softness though it does demand love. There has never been a more diabolical misrepresentation of scripture than taking the keys and Jesus's reference to them as giving mother church so-called Rome the power over the salvation of men and women. 1302 was a remarkable year.

There was a pope by the name of Boniface VIII and he produced a papal bull. That means a law which is mandatory upon the Roman Catholic world and that bull was called unum sanctum and in the Latin tongue that all these bulls are written in it says extra ecclesiam nulla salus and that means outside of the church there is no salvation. Why? Because the church and the pontiff has the keys.

Do you know why there was an inquisition? Because they would use physical force concerned that men and women may respond to who the pope is what he represents because only the church has the keys. This is the great dilemma you see that confronts a person like myself when watching the television yesterday and seeing this present pope at Canterbury. In the 1890s there was another pope by the name of Leo XIII.

He issued an encyclical and you know what that said? That all the orders of the Anglican church were null and void. In other words there is no salvation at all within the Anglican church and the very office that the Anglican clergy hold is not recognized by Rome at all. And I just wondered what was going through the archbishop of Canterbury's mind yesterday when he was embracing the pope.

I'm not criticizing him as an individual but but I'm just confused. I wish somebody could help me. I mean here we have the the bishop of Rome with the archbishop of Canterbury and Rome doesn't recognize Canterbury.

He can't because there's an encyclical against it and in any case if you say the encyclical isn't very strong there's a papal bull against it. You see this is a problem. They've used the keys as though that seemed to indicate to them that the whole power of salvation is deposited within the Vatican.

Not a bit.