The Primacy of Peter: A Study of the Protestant and the Catholic Perspectives

Christ made a promise to the Apostle St. Peter: “And I tell thee this in my turn, that thou art Peter, and it is upon this rock that I will build my Church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” In 1952, the Lutheran theologian Oscan Cullman published his Peter: Disciple, Apostle, Martyr, arguing that Christ granted to St. Peter a personal and temporary position as foundation and deputy-shepherd, and this divine favor entailed no scheme of succession. In 1954, Charles Journet’s response to this first appeared in English. The Primacy of Peter argues that Christ appointed Peter the vicar of His Church on earth, the supreme head with respect to jurisdiction, and this privilege extends perpetually to all his successors.

The papacy is an obvious and serious issue separating Protestants and Catholics. In these pages, Journet offers the opportunity to decide between two ways of understanding this mystery; he conducts a dialogue, not in the interest of “listening,” but in the interest of truth. For, “if it is true that God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, if the Word was made flesh, if he watches each day until the end of time over the revelation he once made to the world, if the Gospel is more than an historical document and is a living and perpetual mystery of faith and love, the point of view which reveals its fullest, most mysterious and most divine meaning is the one which is the only true meaning.”