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B o o k R e v i e w s
Peter Defended
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This Rock
Volume 11, Number 2
 February 2000 
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The issue of the papacy lies at the heart of the discussion of authority with non-Catholic Christians, whether Protestant or Eastern Orthodox. In Upon This Rock, Steve Ray has served up a vigorous presentation of the evidence supporting the Catholic doctrine of the papacy.
The work is divided roughly into three sections. The first deals with Peter himself. In the first chapter, as well as in an appendix entitled "An Old Testament Basis for the Primacy and Succession of Peter," Ray shows the numerous parallels between the monarchies of the ancient Middle East and the papacy as constituted by Christ. This facet of the papacy highlights a distinct linearity of revelation, an unbroken trajectory if you will between the Old Testament and the New. There is great apologetic value in showing non-Catholic Christians—Evangelicals and Fundamentalists especially—the continuity between Old and New Covenants and the extent to which one may view the papacy even as a prophetic fulfillment of Old Testament foreshadowing.
The New Testament too brings forth numerous examples of the primacy of Peter and the special prerogatives given to him by Jesus Christ. Ray brings to bear numerous insights on the biblical text, gleaned from Scripture scholars, archeological evidence, and Jewish background information. Also in the section on Peter is a lengthy treatment on the evidence for his presence in Rome. One hopes—perhaps against hope—that the historical evidence presented in Upon This Rock will finally put to rest the contention in some non-Catholic circles that Peter never even made it to Rome. Ray traces the history of this rather desperate position and shows that it is purely a product of anti-Catholic sentiment rather than sober reflection on the available evidence. He then presents a wide sampling of that evidence from a variety of sources: literary, inscriptional, and archeological.
The second section of the book treats the evidence illuminating the primacy of the successors of Peter in the earliest testimony of the Church. Although this ambitious project ostensibly covers the first five centuries of Church history, the greatest strength of this book lies in its exploration of the earliest sources that illuminate the papacy. So much material has been lost from the first, second, and early third centuries of the Church that there is just not as much as we would like to have on any subject. This makes all the more impressive the extent to which the Petrine and Roman primacy was in evidence even in the earliest centuries. As he forges into the third, fourth, and fifth centuries of the Church, Ray has to be considerably more selective; frankly, there’s just so much evidence there for the Catholic view of the papacy that it’s impossible to pack it all between two covers.
In the final section of the book Ray lays out current Church teaching on the papacy. He shows both the development of the doctrine over the centuries and the great harmony that exists between the teaching of the Catholic Church in the twentieth century and the witnesses to the primacy of the successors of Peter in the first centuries of the Church age.
The multifaceted approach—biblical, historical, and contemporary—to the understanding of the papacy is a valuable aspect of the work. It is neither reasonable nor consistent to insist, as too many non-Catholics do, that the Catholic must either demonstrate the fully formed papacy directly from the Bible and earliest antiquity or the doctrine is untenable. Rather, as Ray argues, doctrine and belief in the Church shows an organic growth throughout the centuries. This growth is inevitable and expected; all living organisms (and that’s what the Church is) grow in this way. Having demonstrated this, Ray points out that non-Catholic Christians impose a double standard on the Catholic: They allow that their doctrine developed over centuries (as must be admitted in the case of the canon of Scripture and the definition of the Blessed Trinity) but hoot down Catholic appeals to development as special pleading.
If I have any criticism of the work at all it is primarily functional. There are copious footnotes, set in small type. The combination of the need to move between text and footnotes while following the diminutive text may be a bit difficult for the optically challenged. And the book makes for challenging reading in places. The reader is expected to do some work, examining the evidence cited and following argument and counter-argument.
Too many modern Catholics have fallen victim to a kind of collective amnesia and political correctness such that solid argumentation in support of our faith is considered gauche . So thanks be to God for volumes like Upon This Rock which bring back to our eyes and minds the wonderful, affirming support that the Catholic doctrine of the papacy finds written large throughout Scripture, sacred Tradition, and the history of the early Church.
Any Catholic interested in learning more about this important aspect of our faith, or seeking to explain it to others, will find this volume a veritable one-stop-shop for the best supporting evidence.
-- David Palm
Upon This Rock
By Steven Ray
Ignatius Press (297 pages) $16.95
Available from Catholic Answers (toll-FREE: 1-888-291-8000)
Shop Item: B0352
Straw Woman
James R. White’s Mary—Another Redeemer? betrays an "either-or" mindset too clumsy to articulate not only the subtleties but even many broad features of the title "co-redeemer." White frames his complaints about various Catholic teachings—not just the doctrine of co-redemption—in an either-or box, forcing a dichotomy. For example, according to White, applying "co-redeemer" to the Virgin Mary equates Mary with Jesus or makes her an alternate to him. White faintly acknowledges that "co-" in "co-redeemer" means "with" rather than "equal" or "alternative." He dismisses this difference, however, asserting that Catholics fail to maintain such distinctions.
White includes "Another" in the book’s title precisely to indicate that, in assigning "co-redeemer" to Mary, the Catholic Church sets Mary as an equal or alternative to Jesus. What rot. Then White sets fire to the straw woman of his own making—the false charges that he attributes to orthodox Catholic teaching or actual Catholic practice.
The book fails biblically, traditionally and logically:
White writes, "Mary as Coredemptrix or Mediatrix [is] completely absent from the Bible and from the early Church" (75). Oh? A splendid passage of St. Irenaeus proves otherwise: "Thus, the knot of Eve’s disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary. What the virgin Eve had bound in unbelief, the Virgin Mary loosed through faith" (Against Heresies 180–199). Many other disproofs exist, including Paul’s, "We do share in God’s work" (1 Corinthians 3:9).
White identifies Thomas Aquinas among many theologians who disbelieved in the Immaculate Conception (40–42). He neglects to point out that Aquinas believed that original sin touched Mary only an instant and that Aquinas believed in her personal sinlessness. Aquinas accepted Mary as the Ark of the New Covenant, based on the close parallelism between the Visitation (Luke 1:39–56) and the transportation of the Ark (2 Samuel 6:1–14), and on the convergence of the Ark (Revelation 11:19) with the woman of Revelation 12. White omits that Aquinas believed in Mary’s Assumption, a belief that is particularly striking because it is commonly seen as a consequence of belief in the Immaculate Conception.
"There is nothing in the Bible that even remotely suggests the idea that Mary was bodily assumed into heaven," White maintains (52). But Aquinas preached on the Assumption of Mary, citing Psalm 132:8 (131:8 in some Bibles): "Arise, O Lord, into thy rest: Thou and the ark which thou didst sanctify" (Commentary on the Hail Mary).
White decries "Mediatrix," another title Catholics and Orthodox give Mary. His protests cite Christ’s unique mediation (1 Timothy 2:5) and properly appeal to the nonexistence of parallel mediation. But those complaints either ignore, or acknowledge and strain to dismiss, the existence of subordinate mediation. White fails to recognize that angels are described as mediators (Job 33:23). He fails to recognize that angels guard us (Psalm 91:11–13), are constantly before the Lord (Matthew 18:10), and offer the prayers of all the saints (Revelation 8:3–5). He fails to disprove that when we pray for each other (as exhorted in 1 Timothy 2:1–4) we are mediators for one another in Jesus, not instead of Jesus. He fails to recognize the role of the woman (John 2:4), Mary, the New Eve, at the wedding at Cana (John 2:1–12), as a mediator subordinate to Jesus, the New Adam, the blessed fruit of her womb, as Jesus gives the first of his signs.
The reader seeking the extensive biblical roots of Catholic teaching about Mary would do wondrously better with Fr. Rene Laurentin’s meticulous A Short Treatise on the Virgin Mary. If reading 391 pages daunts you, consider reading just the first 49 pages. There, Fr. Laurentin discusses Mary merely in the period of the revelation committed to Sacred Scripture. Those "are the fundamental data to which nothing substantially new will be added," Fr. Laurentin begins. Later he traces the development of the Church’s understanding of those data. I recommend two other works that marvelously unearth the Biblical roots and trace the development of the Church’s understanding of them. One is Fr. Luigi Gambero’s Mary and the Fathers of the Church: The Blessed Virgin Mary in Patristic Thought. The other is Dr. William A. Jurgens’ The Faith of the Early Fathers, a magnificent three-volume set with an immensely valuable doctrinal index to locate texts pertinent to particular doctrinal points.
I urge reading, with a Bible handy, any of the three works recommended above as a ripost to White’s straw. White should stick his pitchfork in another haystack.
-- William Possidento
Mary—Another Redeemer?
By James R. White
Bethany House (158 pages) $7.99
ISBN: 0764221027
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