Ordinary Time 21 - Divine Institution of the Church

 

Homily for Ordinary Time 21

August 22, 2026

The Divine Institution of the Church

 

            In 1939, Pope Pius XI was growing older. Knowing that he would soon pass away and he wanted his tomb to be in the crypt of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, workmen began digging out a new niche in the crypt when a pickaxe struck something unexpected – air. The space behind the crypt of the world-famous Basilica was empty! Upon Pius XI’s passing, the next pope Pius XII authorized a secret excavation of the area beneath St. Peter’s.

            Archeologists found second-century houses, tombs, and streets, and then something unexpected: a small marble monument over a marble box. The inscription on the monument read, in Greek: “Peter is within”!

            They began to excavate fervently, and found the box to contain human skeletons – one of which was wrapped in purple and gold cloth, containing the remains of a large man who died in his 60s or 70s. The results were sent to several non-Catholic scholars, who all verified that these were indeed the remains of Simon Peter – found about two stories beneath the high altar in his Basilica. Indeed, the Church has been built upon the Rock of St. Peter – even his bones!

            But it was not Peter or the other Apostles who themselves built the Catholic Church. It was Christ alone who built the Church, which He makes clear in two ways in the Scriptures. When Peter makes his famous profession that Jesus is “the Christ, the Son of God”, Jesus tells him that it is not flesh and blood that revealed it to him, but the Heavenly Father. He’s saying that what Peter is articulating – and all the teachings His Church will teach throughout the ages – are ultimately not from man, but from God.

            Jesus then says, “I will build My Church.” Not, “Peter, you have to gather a bunch of like-minded individuals to come and follow me” or “Ya know, it’d be a lot easier to be a disciple if you all just incorporated yourselves into a 501-c3 and planned weekly get-togethers.” No – this is Christ’s Church, not Peter’s Church or Pope Leo’s Church or Fr. Joseph’s church. That means the Church must be faithful to Christ, not the whims of this passing world.

            It’s odd, the mailing lists that Catholic priests sometimes end up on. Every now and then I’ll get a spam email or a mailing about “Church planting”. Church planting is a Protestant idea about going into a certain area and starting a church – usually starting out as a bible study in someone’s house, planning some sort of worship service, then renting a theater or storefront to hold that service, and finally building a worship center. I’m sure that some of our Catholic parishes started in a similar manner, but we’d never call it “planting a church” – because our church isn’t started by a man, but by God Himself!

            But not only do we have a divine institution of the Catholic Church, we will see the divine culmination, too. Jesus says to Simon, “You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church (petros in Greek means “rock”).” But Simon is quite anything but a solid rock at this point in his life – the very next scene in the Gospel, which we will read next weekend, is Peter telling Jesus, “No! Don’t go to the Cross!” And we know the story – he denies Christ three times in that most critical moment during His Passion.

            But we also know the end of the story – with the infusion of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, Peter becomes that rock – the first Pope, the bold evangelist, the proud leader of this misfit band. Likewise, when Christ sets up this Church, He makes a promise that He will make it His glorious and perfect Bride – but we don’t see that yet. We see the Church full of imperfect people, sinful priests, scandals and lousy homilies. Fine – but don’t forget what the Church will become, because Christ promised that He would never abandon It, but that He would cleanse Her by His Precious Blood and present Her without spot or wrinkle at the end of time.

            So – I am Catholic because this is the Church that Christ founded. But you may ask – how do we know which Church is the true one? We know because we remain connected to the Rock of Simon Peter – the Papacy.

            I have a dear friend who is a devout Baptist. About two weeks before my ordination to the priesthood, he invited me to go hiking. I can’t turn down a hiking trip – ever – so I agreed, and we got up to beautiful view and sat down for a snack, when he pulled out his bible and said to me, “I think you’re making a terrible mistake by becoming a priest.” I thought to myself, “Oh geez, here it goes…” and I briefly entertained the thought of pushing him off the cliff (just kidding). He tried to explain, “The Baptist Church is the true church because it traces its lineage back to John the Baptist, and we just went underground for fifteen centuries before we resurfaced.” Factually that’s not true – the Baptists were an offshoot of the Anglicans – but it brings up core issue: we can’t trace the True Church back to Christ unless we go through the line of Peter. We believe in one, holy, catholic, and Apostolic Church – the visible sign of oneness of the Church is whether or not you’re visibly united to the Pope.

            We’ve recently been seeing the problems of churches separated from the divine institution of the papacy. For example, in the last month, the Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church just published a document calling Russia’s war against Ukraine to be a “holy war” and saying that Russians have an obligation to fight. Well, when you don’t have the guarantee that Heaven will protect your Church from teaching error, you get all kinds of mistaken notions about Christianity. Kirill may be the most egregious example, but just look at any Protestant Youtube channel and you’ll see every teaching under the sun. Tens of thousands of different Protestant denominations, all claiming the same Bible but with different interpretations – how can this be the will of God? Error and division are from Satan, but Christ promised that Satan would not prevail against His Church.

            Hence, He has safeguarded His Church by giving us the Pope, and providing the Holy Spirit to protect the Pope from leading us astray. This Church was founded by Christ, and will be brought to fulfillment by Christ in beauty and majesty in Heaven. At the end of the day, the Church built on the Rock of Peter is Christ’s Church – the one I want to belong to until my last breath.