Okonkwo Samuel
By Valentine Obienyem
Though the founder of the Catholic Church is so clear to Christian today as in antiquity, but some hypocrites persist in pretending that they do not know that Christ founded the Church. I say this at any given opportunity without apologies.
The apostles of “Sola scriptura”, should just read today’s reading and see where it was affirmed in black and white. “… on this rock I will build my Church ( Matt. 16:18).
All early Church fathers, those with direct contact with the apostles or with those who had direct contact with them affirm Petrine primacy and they all recorded their views.
A clear example were the words of Tertullian:
“The Lord said to Peter, ‘On this rock I will build my Church, I have given you the keys of the kingdom of heaven [and] whatever you shall have bound or loosed on earth will be bound or loosed in heaven’ [Matt. 16:18–19]. . . . What kind of man are you, subverting and changing what was the manifest intent of the Lord when he conferred this personally upon Peter? Upon you, he says, I will build my Church; and I will give to you the keys” (Modesty 21:9–10 [A.D. 220]).
