Why Christians Need A Pope

The Holy Catholic Church recently witnessed the election of the 267th successor of St. Peter, Pope Leo XIV. This election was a huge deal. For days, it was all that the news outlets could talk about, and the fact that the man chosen, Cardinal Robert Prevost, was an American got even more people talking, some of whom were my Protestant friends. Many of them took the news of the election as an opportunity to ask me the following question: “Why do Catholics believe Christians need a Pope?” Here is my response: 

For starters, Christians need the Pope because Christians are like sheep, and as one of our priests never tires of reminding us, sheep are dumb. When we are young, it's easy to fall into the trap of believing that the more educated we become, the clearer things will become. When I began my seminary studies, I believed that things would become clearer the more I studied. But the more classes I took, the more questions I had. In those days, I was exposed to a wide variety of different views on doctrine and morality. While there were some views that I disagreed with, I never could wrap my head around why there were other people, who were much smarter than I was, who embraced the views I rejected. At first, I thought it was because I was not smart enough to see what they saw. But that did not explain why many of the smartest theologians in history had a tendency to disagree with each other on important matters of theology. The most educated people I knew could not agree, and the more I learned, the more uncertain I became.

One solution to this problem that I have encountered is to just say that doctrine & dogma don't matter. After all, if theology were important, God would have made it easier to understand. This view, while coming from a good place, arrives at a problematic destination. Jesus declares himself to be the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6). The view that doctrine and dogma do not matter puts all of its emphasis on Jesus as the way while neglecting Jesus as the truth. But Jesus in his innermost self is more than just the way; he is also the truth, and to say that truth is not important is to assert that Jesus Christ is not important. One cannot know Jesus Christ as the way unless one also knows Jesus Christ as the truth. The two go hand in hand. 

It is also important to note that a big part of the mission of Jesus Christ is to free us from slavery to sin (Rom 6:22), and it is the truth that he both is and brings that sets us free (John 8:32). Sin weakens both our will and our intellect. Such weakness makes it difficult for us to see what lies ahead of us. I do not think it is by accident that Jesus speaks of a kind of spiritual blindness affecting some of the Pharisees (John 9). This truth brings freedom by bringing with it illumination. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “There is an organic connection between our spiritual life and the dogmas of our faith. Dogmas are lights along the path of faith; they illuminate it and make it secure.”(1) If we eliminate truth, we effectively eliminate clarity from our spiritual life, leaving nothing behind but guesswork. This is why G.K. Chesterton once said, “Heresy is worse than sin, because Heresy begets sin.”(2)

In very few words, we have shown that sound theology matters, but that still does not solve the problem of all the different theological opinions. We are still left with the question, “If theological truth is important, why did God make it so hard for us to know which doctrines are correct?” The answer is that God actually did not make it difficult to figure out what is sound doctrine because he gave us a visible church to teach the faith to God’s people with a visible head (the pope) to serve as pastor and teacher for the benefit of all the faithful. The famous Catholic convert and fiction writer Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson argued that without a Church that can teach its people the truth, the Christian faith, and salvation itself, would be a matter of “shrewdness or scholarship” and it would be more accessible to “the clever and leisured than for the dull and busy.”(3) But Jesus calls us his sheep, and sheep are anything but shrewd and scholarly. Jesus also tells us it is those who become like little children who will inherit the kingdom of God, not those who become like Albert Einstein will inherit the kingdom of God. According to Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Benedict XVI), “To be like a child means to be small, to need help and be receptive to it.”(4) If God desires us to need help, it makes sense that he would provide us with the help we need. The Pope is our help. The Pope teaches the faithful as pastor and shepherd of the universal Church, so that the faithful do not need to worry about whether or not they were shrewd or scholarly enough to crack the code of salvation. 

Another reason we need the Pope is that, without visible leadership, the dumb sheep will divide the church over differences of opinion. There is a brief illusion to this division in the 16th chapter of Matthew’s gospel. In this passage, Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do men say that the Son of man is?” The answer he received was the answer of confusion. The disciples tell him that some men say he is John the Baptist, others say Eli′jah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets. If God were to leave the secret of his divine character to individuals, the responses are bound to be contradictory, contrary, and confusing, with each man denying what the others have said. These are the kinds of disagreements that lead to schism and division in the Church, which is contrary to the will of the Lord Jesus Christ, who prayed for the unity of his followers (John 17). But when Jesus asks Peter, “Who do you say that I am?”, only one answer is given: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” It was the one voice of Peter that solved the problem of division in Matthew 16, just as it is the one voice of Peter that solves the problem of division today. In the words of Saint Jerome, “One is Elected [the Pope] that, by the appointment of a head, all occasion of schism may be removed.”(5) So why do Christians need a pope? Because without a Pope, truth and unity would be forever out of reach. Pope Leo XIV, like every pope before him, holds the Church of Christ together and makes the truth of the gospel accessible to all the faithful who hunger for it.

1. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 89.

2. G.K. Chesterton, The Diabolist in In Defense of Sanity, pg. 45.

3. Robert Hugh Benson, Confessions of a Convert, pg. 101.

4. Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology, pg. 65.

5. St. Jerome, Against Jovinian I.26