Article: Rethinking a key biblical text and Catholic church governance.(Essay)

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 ...

Related newspaper, magazine, and journal articles:

 
 
Newsweek Harper's Magazine The Washington Post Chicago Tribune Crain's Chicago Business PRNewswire Pediatric News The Nation Advertising Age The Economist (US) A FREE trial gives you access to over 80 million articles! Access over 6,500 publications with a FREE trial!