The Building of a Church by Bolder Landry The legend of the divine foundation of the papacy and the Papal system is a most bold and romantic story. No divine force, but a pitifully human series of forgeries and coercions, of piety and ambitions, perpetrated in an age of deep ignorance, built up the Papal power, hierarchy and creed. In sketching a brief history of the Popes, I have gratefully used the most authentic historians available by Catholic and Protestant authors: Dr. L. Pastor, Dr. H.K. Mann, Dr. Creighton, Fr. H. Grisar, including a few older authorities. The average reader would be repelled by such an array of tomes needed to have an overall view of the Papacy. In sum, the history of the Papacy is very largely the history of Europe. All that is necessary is a historical view of the Popes and what they did. The present Pope, John Paul II, is the 270th in a long line of Popes. In its near-2000-year history, it has survived and surmounted many revolutions. It survived moral degradation: the Renaissance, wars, massacres, the Inquisition, etc. These are historical facts which do not indicate any sort of divine pattern. Papal primacy is the history of the most successful imposture of the whole period of civilization. I do not conceal my disdain when I relate that the Papacy pretends to have enkindled in the hearts of the race new sentiments of tenderness, brotherly love, and humility, yet imposed itself on a reluctant world by violence, and in the maintenance of its power it has been the cause of the deaths of more men and women than all other religions of the civilized era put together. It has despoiled the poor; attained power by a series of forgeries; kept much of the world illiterate; impeded the progress of education, truth, science and culture. Above all it professes to have been founded by Jesus, who scorned the ritual religion of his time. So please, do not ask me to write with compassion of the Vicars of Christ. The Petrine Problem In ancient days Rome lay entirely on the east of the Tiber. Just south along the river, outside the walls, was the densely crowded region of low esteem. There, working Jews mingled with other poor workers and criminals. It was in this dark suburban fringe of the city that the Roman Church was born. The "Liber Pontificalis," the first historical narrative or series of papal biographies, often omitted long periods, and was finally abandoned in the 15th century. About Peter it says: "Peter entered the city of Rome when Nero was Caesar." The persecutions of Nero took place in 64 A.D. The question whether Peter was in Rome and lost his life in the persecution is important. This and the alleged supremacy of his Church are important to anyone who studies the real origin of the claim to power of the Roman Church. We turn to the New Testament in which Christ is represented as saying to Peter: "Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." (Matthew 16:18). Few will take up the study of this obscure text. It is easier to see a divine power, the fulfillment of a divine promise in these words. With its vast wealth the Church created a political organization that rewards the loyal, intimidates the disloyal, and it created a literature of its own. With this power it can dictate to non-Catholic writers of history. The claim that Christ constituted St. Peter the head of His Church is founded on the two famous Petrine texts, Matthew, 16:17, and John 21:15-19. The text in John is about "Feed my Lambs." This is a forgery. We must pay attention to the words: "I will build my church" (Matthew 16:18). The Catholic Encyclopedia says that the word church "denotes the society founded by Our Lord, Jesus Christ." The statement is dishonest. Matthew is the only gospel- writer who uses the word "church." The word "church" (ecclesia) was not known at this time. To denote a house of worship, Jesus would have said "synagogue," as he did twice in the sixth chapter of Matthew. And He hated synagogues. The "Rock and Keys" was a forgery by the later developing Church when it assumed this preposterous prerogative of domination. In Mark (7:27-32) and Luke (9:18-22), there is not a word of the primacy of Peter, a detail which Mark, the disciple of Peter, could hardly have omitted if he had known of it. So it is, that the interpolated text "Thou art Rock (Peter) and upon this Rock I will build my church" reflects the clumsy work of a pious trickster, not a most solemn announcement of a divine plan. There is not in the whole New Testament (apart from this one sentence) or anywhere in Christian literature before the third century any statement about a peculiar relation of the entire Christian body to Peter. It is in the old Roman Church that the claim first appears, and all of the other churches rejected it.