Rethinking a key biblical text and Catholic church governance

Abstract

For years Matthew 16:i 7-19 has been used in the Roman Church to legitimize a certain approach to its institutional form of governance that virtually excludes all the baptized but the hierarchy. Using the historical-critical method accepted by the Pontifical Biblical Commission (PBC), this article shows that this "Petrine" text is absent in its parallels in Mark and Luke. Furthermore, in official church teaching, which stresses Peter's "binding and loosing" as a key justifier for this form of governance, no discussion is made of the parallel text of "binding and loosing" in Matthew 18:17-20, which articulates how this power is to be used in and by the community. Using the PBC's document on the appropriate Interpretation of the Bible in the Church, this article argues that such a selective approach to Matthew 16:17-19 reveals an example of the PBC's warning against texts being used in fundamentalistic ways which support ideological positions.

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In March 2003 Yale University's Catholic Center sponsored a conference: "Governance, Accountability and the Future of the Church" (Oakley). In his keynote address, Donald Wuerl, then Bishop of Pittsburgh, stressed the need to distinguish between divine "givens" and human contingencies. In his response, New York Times religion columnist Peter Steinfels agreed. However, he added, the received tradition about some purported divine "givens" regarding church governance may be open to criticism if, given their development in the tradition, they evidence an origin more human than divine.

For centuries Catholic tradition has viewed Matthew 16:17-19 as a "divine given." In this text about "the church," Jesus gives Peter the keys of the kingdom of heaven along with the power to bind and loose. While the text about the giving of the keys and the power to bind and loose does not specifically equate the keys with the power of binding and loosing, as Catholic tradition evolved, these three lines came to justify a certain form of governance in the church (ekklesia) with little or no mention of the other time "ekklesia" is used: Matthew 18:17-20. Here the Greek shows that the same power of binding and loosing given Peter has a parallel in the local community itself; furthermore, both texts reveal that the divine authority of the "heavenly father" stands behind both the Petrine and the communal expressions of power (Matt 16:17; 18:19).

In this article, using the Pontifical Biblical Commission's (PBC) 1994 document, "The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church" (IBC), I will argue that the popular Matthean text about Peter's reception of the keys and the power to bind and loose is not, properly speaking, a "dominical saying" or attributable to Jesus. I will also point out that, because of the way Catholic tradition has divorced this text from its context and selectively used it (to the exclusion of Matt 18:17-20), the consequent interpretation promotes a de facto divinely ordained form of governance in the church without any parallel accountability to the communal power given the wider church itself as found in that text of Matthew 18:17-20. Finally, I will argue that this selective use of the former text at the expense of the latter not only reflects a certain "pre-understanding" of church governance and accountability; it also reveals a fundamentalist approach to the Bible's interpretation in the Catholic Church--the very kind of fundamentalism rejected by the PBC's own document on the IBC. Why this continues can be understood only if it is seen as serving some kind of ideological purpose.

The Appropriate Use of the Bible in the Church

    Mark 8:27-30            Luke 9:18-21          Matthew 16:13-20

Jesus went on with      Once when Jesus was     Now when Jesus came
his disciples to the    praying alone, with     into the district of
villages of Caesarea    only the disciples      Caesarea Philippi, he
Philippi; and on the    near him, he asked      asked his disciples,
way he asked his        them, "Who do the       "Who do people say
disciples, "Who do      crowds say that I       that the son of Man
people say that I       am?" They answered,     is?" And they said,
am?" And they           "John the Baptist,"     "Some say John the
answered him, "John     but others, "Elijah,"   Baptist, but others
the Baptist"; and       and still others that   Elijah, and still
others, "Elijah"; and   "one of the ancient     others Jeremiah or
still others, "one of   prophets has arisen.    one of the prophets."
the prophets." He       He said to them, "But   He said to them, "But
asked them, "But who    who do you say that I   who do you say that
do you say that I       am?" Peter answered,    I am?" Simon Peter
am?" Peter answered     "The Messiah of God."   answered, "You are
him, "You are the                               the Messiah, the Son
Messiah."                                       of the living God."
                                                And Jesus answered
                                                him, "Blessed are
                                                you, Simon son of
                                                Jonah! For flesh
                                                and blood has not
                                                revealed this to you,
                                                but my Father in
                                                heaven. And I tell
                                                you, you are Peter,
                                                and on this rock I
                                                will build my church,
                                                and the gates of
                                                Hades will not
                                                prevail against it.
                                                I will give you the
                                                keys of the kingdom
                                                of heaven, and
                                                whatever you bind on
                                                earth will be bound
                                                in heaven, and
                                                whatever you loose on
                                                earth will be loosed
                                                in heaven."

And he sternly          He sternly ordered      Then he sternly
ordered them not to     and commanded them      ordered the disciples
tell anyone about       not to tell anyone.     not to tell anyone
him.                                            that he was the
                                                Messiah.