Our appreciation for the authority of the Church, everything that we have, has to have some kind of a leadership, some kind of authority. Yet when it comes to the Church people often feel that they should be able to think and act for ourselves, to do as we please. One of the big problems that we have with our non-Catholic brothers and sisters is that they do not believe in the succession of the pope, of Peter and the Popes down through the ages. This is something that brings a big split between many non-Catholics and us. Often we find that the people believe that Scripture alone is what we need. Their thoughts are that we don't need the Church and that the Scripture is enough for us. Along those same lines, we don't need anybody to dictate to us on how we are supposed to interpret the Scriptures, that we should be free to do this on our own. The Scriptures come from the Church. The Church was living the Gospels long before they were written. We find that St. Paul in his letter to Timothy mentions that, "The Church of God is the bulwark of the truth." The Church has the truth. The Church protects the truth. The Church proclaims the truth. Therefore, we have to abide by the truth. The idea that everybody should be able to interpret the Scriptures by the way they feel…we can see the effects of this on our society, with over 30,000 different churches and almost everyone believing something different from the other. They all claim to be the true church and if that were true then we must have over 30,000 different christs. This is important for us.

In the Gospel, Jesus tells us that He is building a Church not churches. "You are Peter and on this rock I will build My Church." He is building the Church and it is not for just for a little while. Many people say that the Catholic Church, or the Church that Christ established, only lasted as long as the Apostles were living or maybe a few years beyond that. After that, that very Church died out and it wasn't until maybe the 17th, 18th century when the Church was revived. You know if the church was revived, where did they get it from?

The Church was to prevail. He promised that nothing would destroy it. ". . . the gates of hell would not prevail against it." The Church is to be around for a while. Christ is returning to His heavenly Father. He came to show us the way. "I am the Way. I am the Truth. I am the Light of the world." He can no longer be with us physically so He will be with us spiritually through the Church. The Church will stand as long as God wills it, until the second coming of Christ and maybe even beyond that. Whatever God wills.

The Church will be built on rock. Not the rock that you see around here in the canyons and these areas. It will be built on rock of living faith, on the faith of Peter. Christ says, "Peter, what you have just said, that I am the living God, My Father has revealed this to you." Because of this faith, He says you are going to the be living faith for the Church, you are going to be Apostles for the future. Peter will become very strong, steady, and reliable person that Jesus can depend on. We see the difference with the Apostles. The Apostles never really understood everything that Christ was telling them. They were there but that was it. You find a few days later on, the Feast of Pentecost. We see the tremendous change in the Apostles. They are no longer the people who didn't understand. Now they stand up for Christ. Now they give their lives for Christ. They do as he has done. Christ was a good model for them and so they're going to follow him. They are going to be His ambassadors. The world has never seen a rock like the person of Christ. Jesus taught with authority. This was the difference between Jesus and all the others who claimed to be important. Everybody saw this, even the Pharisees. This man speaks with authority. He knows what He's saying. Jesus must have someone who is strong to uphold His word, as He upheld His Father's word; someone who will be the center and unity of the Church.

The Church has always been challenged to give way to the world, to water down the teachings of Christ. How many times have we priests heard people say, "You know, if the Church would just give into maybe adultery and other things of this nature, to let people do what they want to do, the Church would be packed." It probably would. But are we following Christ? It's Christ that we are following. If I proclaim something to you, a bunch of garbage and a bunch of lies, and you like it and you follow me then your reward is not going to be Christ's reward. It will be what I receive and I'm afraid that's going to be bad. If we belong to Christ's Church, then we follow Him, not somebody else. This is very, very important to us. Pope John Paul stood very firm in Denver when he told the youth to stand up, stand firm, and to follow the teachings of the Church, saying that you are the future, you are the Church. Follow the Church. Be faithful to the Church. Pope Benedict, when he came this year and he talked to the different non-Catholic groups, one thing that he mentioned to them, he said, "You have to remain faithful to the Gospel. You can't pick and choose what you like in the Gospel." I don't know if they liked it or not. But this is what many people do. All of Scripture is the Word of God. There are a lot of things that we like in Scripture and a lot of things that we don't like. Right? But we follow what Christ taught. He teaches us these things. St. Paul also speaks out very, very strongly against the teachings that are contrary to Christ. From the very beginning, the Church was persecuted. This isn't something that happened just lately. The early Church, people were coming in and they wanted the Apostles to change things, change things to suit what we think should be right. We hear in Galatians, Paul says in Chapter 1, verse 8 he says, "Even if an angel from heaven should come to you preaching something other than what we have preached, let them be an anathema". In other words, let them be damned. Either we are with Christ or we are against Him. It is not always easy to follow Christ. However, He is the Way, He is the Truth, He is the light. Christ says, "You are not going to go to My heavenly Father except through me. It's My way. It's the only way."

The symbol of the keys is very, very important. We heard that in the first reading. In the time of Christ and before that, the one who was in charge of the keys of any place was second in command. The keeper of the keys was in charge of king's household. It was very important. As it mentions in Scripture what they opened, nobody could close. What they close, nobody could open. Christ is telling Peter, "You have the power and the authority now to do what is necessary for the good of the Church". There are things that pertained to faith and morals. Look at the situation we are in today. There has to be something to take care of our needs. Our world is different today than it was 2,000 years ago. People 2,000 years ago wouldn't know what's going on today. Somebody has to speak up with what's going on at the time, the sense of morality, the changes that we have. Someone has to know the difference between right and wrong and have the authority to speak on these things. Well the Church has this power, has this authority. They didn't have to deal with abortion, same-sex marriages, euthanasia, cloning, all these situations we have today. Who can speak out on this? As the Holy Father mentioned, we have to be careful of relativism. The attitude that so many people have today is, "I believe the way that I believe and that's fine. And if you believe different that is fine too." There is no objective truth in it. Truth is what I make it. This is what our society wants today. I want to do what I please and make it right. The Church should OK this. Therefore, they won't have the qualms of conscience, of losing my soul. It's either right or it's wrong. Either you are with me or you are against me.

Peter's successors are in charge of the household of God on earth, the Church. Jesus came to establish the Kingdom of God, not an earthly kingdom as the people were looking for. They want somebody like a David or Solomon to take over, get those Romans out of here. Restore us to the power that we used to be. That's not why Christ came. He came to establish a kingdom, a spiritual kingdom to teach us, to guide us. He tells us about the Good Shepherd. He says, "We need a shepherd to guide us." We are like sheep. If you kill the shepherd the sheep are dispersed. This is what is happening in our society today. The authority of the Pope is in the name of Christ, not in his own name. We've had good popes, we've had bad popes. Some popes were real rotten. They were scandalous. They were no good. There was a Protestant minister and he thought the way that he would attack the Catholic Church would be to go back and check the Papacy and see how many popes were unfaithful to the doctrines of the Church, unfaithful to the teachings of Christ. He went back and went through everything from Peter all the way through, all the records of their lives and everything else to see where these popes taught different than the doctrines of the Church, taught different than Christ. You know, he couldn't find any one pope who taught contrary to the Church. Even as bad as they were living with women, getting married, abusing the Papacy but yet when it came to the teachings of Christ, they were all faithful. Not one of them strayed from the teachings of Christ. And that was enough to bring him into the Church.

The Lord has not left His Church without guidance. We need guidance. We need direction. This is very, very important for us. His Holy Spirit always guides the Church, to proclaim the truth. The succession of Peter is the principal guides to help us. The pope is more than just a brilliant churchman. He is the successor of Peter. He is blessed with the gifts that God gave to Peter and the Apostles to be handed on. The Church needs us. It's an old barge. The Church is an old leaky bucket. We are always bailing it out. Every time it's attacked. We're always fighting to keep it afloat. Nevertheless, that leaky bucket is going to take us across the ocean of the trials and problems that we have. It is going to take us to the shore of paradise. It is going to take us there because Christ is always in that boat. If the boat sinks, Christ is going to sink. We know that this won't happen. We need to be proud and rejoice and be faithful to the Church. We need to be proud that we are Catholic. God bless you.