Both Mormons and Catholics believe that Jesus Christ established a visible Church and tasked Peter to lead her. Both also believe that Peter’s successor still has authority over that Church. Catholics, however, believe that Peter’s line has continued unbroken from Peter until today. Mormons believe in a Great Apostasy: an 1,800-year gap when Peter’s authority, and the very institution of Christ’s Church, was removed from the earth and didn’t return until it was restored by their first prophet, Joseph Smith.
For the prophet, rather than the pope, to be the authentic leader of Christ’s Church, Mormons must show that both Scripture and history indicate the Great Apostasy and necessitate a restoration. They cannot do this. Indeed, both Scripture and history point to an unbroken line of apostolic succession from St. Peter to Pope Leo XIV.
Scripture
The New Testament constantly indicates that Christ established the fullness of truth in his Church and that the Church will endure until the end of time.
- “And behold, I am with you always, to the close of the age” ( 28:20).
- “I will not leave you desolate; I will come to you. Yet a little while, and the world will see me no more, but you will see me; because I live, you will live also” (John 14:16-17).
- “To him be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, for ever and ever, Amen” ( 3:21).
These verses support Catholicism’s claim that Christ’s presence endures both in the Church’s authority (the Magisterium) and in the Eucharist (the authority to consecrate).
Mormons don’t disagree that the Church endures; they simply place an 1,800-year apostasy break before ultimate endurance. They also use scriptures to indicate their claim:
- “I know that after my [Paul’s] departure fierce wolves will come in among you” (Acts 20:29-30).
- “Let no one deceive you in any way” (2 Thess. 2:3).
Mormons correctly identify these verses with apostasy. The Ephesians (the people Paul was talking to in Acts) were led astray by false preachers soon after he left (Rev. 2:4). The wolves Paul speaks of in Thessalonians are necessary before the Second Coming; many of the faithful will fall.
However, small apostasies do not necessarily entail a large one. The question isn’t whether Christians sometimes fall away, but whether Christ allowed his Church and its authority to be completely taken from the earth.
The broader scriptural context of Christ promising endurance means small apostasies are more plausible than a large one. Historical evidence adds more support to this idea.
History
If there were a Great Apostasy, you would expect to see an early, radical shift from what the apostles taught to what the Church teaches now. This would plausibly be accompanied by a visible structural collapse and evidence that doctrine was lost. Yet history shows the opposite.
There’s lots of evidence showing that the Catholic Church, along with the pope’s primacy, began with Christ and has persevered for 2,000 years. The early Church Father St. Irenaeus of Lyons gives a list of bishops descending directly from the apostles to fight Gnosticism in the second century (Against Heresies, III.3). St. Clement, in his first epistle, discusses apostolic succession at length in the first century (Clement I). The evidence shows the visible Church growing, not shrinking or apostatizing, quickly following Christ’s resurrection.
Additionally, history shows that theological ideas like the Trinity and the Real Presence were widespread as early as the first century A.D. St. Ignatius of Antioch (110), for example, strongly affirms that Jesus is both human and divine—a teaching that wouldn’t be formalized until Nicaea I in 324 (Eph. inscr, 15:3, etc.). Other of Ignatius’s writings, along with the Didache (late first, early second century) treat the Eucharist as Christ’s literal flesh and blood.
Doctrinal Development
Since then, the Church has developed her understanding of these and other ideas but never changed them. The entire deposit of faith was revealed by Christ and his apostles. All doctrine can be traced in an organic development from principles present in the Apostolic Age. (St. John Henry Newman’s Development of Christian Doctrine shows this well.)
Mormons do not reject the evidence of early Christian beliefs in the Trinity and the Eucharist. Instead, they believe that the Trinity is a result of prideful men infusing Greek philosophy into the pure gospel and tarnishing God’s identity beyond recognition. The Eucharist is merely symbolic—just as Christ intended. The early prevalence of these ideas only proves the rapidity of the Great Apostasy; early Christians fell so deeply into apostasy that Peter’s authority was taken from the earth and didn’t return until Joseph Smith in 1830 restored Christ’s original teachings and received the authority to lead the church.
In other words, Mormons tacitly accept doctrinal development’s positive historical evidence, and they place the burden of proof on their theology. On this, they have even less evidence: the philosophical probability of the Trinity is much higher than Mormonism’s theology of an embodied, material god.
Need for a Prophet
Although there are some scriptures that indicate a Great Apostasy, and historical evidence that shows certain Christian areas falling away, the culmination of all evidence points away from Mormonism and to Catholicism—particularly if you include theology. Yet Mormons reject the evidence.
Instead, they appeal to the Holy Spirit assuring them that the prophet is correct, and so believe whatever their prophet says and whatever the church teaches. Although the Holy Spirit does reveal truth through feelings, private spiritual experiences cannot overturn public historical evidence, apostolic continuity, or prior revelation. Catholicism affirms that faith transcends reason but never contradicts it; as St. Thomas Aquinas taught, since God is the author of both reason and revelation, a genuine contradiction between faith and reason is impossible.
For a Mormon to reasonably believe in a prophet, they must reject all evidence in favor of feelings. But that is not how God directs us to find him.
The good news for Mormons is that they’re right that Christ established his Church on Peter. The evidence shows that their prophet does not have Peter’s authority, but they can become part of the Church whose papal office has possessed it in continuous succession since Christ gave it to his chief apostle.