HOMILY FOR MASS OF THE APOSTLES PETER AND PAUL – YOUTH PILGRIMAGE FOR JUBILEE OF HOPE 2025
ALTAR OF THE CHAIR, ST PETER’S BASILICA, ROME, 28 JULY 2025
You’ll have noticed the granite obelisk, reaching 41 metres up to the skies, in the middle of St Peter’s Square. It was already a thousand years old when Moses saw it in Heliopolis. Caesar Augustus transplanted it to Alexandria around the time of Christ’s birth. The Emperor Caligula then moved it to Rome, around the time of the Church’s birth. There it presided over his circus, with its gladiatorial games and Christian executions. Pope Sixtus V moved it to its current site in the 16th century, reflecting the Christian instinct to co-opt and baptise what’s best in every culture rather than erase it. Thus, a symbol of ancient paganism, that oversaw the martyrdom of so many Christians, became a symbol of Christian respect for the aspiration of all peoples towards heaven.
Wrapped around that obelisk and square is a renaissance creation, Bernini’s exquisite colonnade, which makes the piazza key-hole-shaped, in honour of Peter to whom were given “the keys to the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 16:13-19). Peter was the first papa or pope of the Church. Here in Rome, he gave his ultimate testimony to Christ, being crucified upside-down. The statues of Peter in this basilica and the square, his tomb in the crypt below us and his chair above, the statues and tomb of Paul in his own Basilica which we will see later this week, and so much the devotional art and sacred architecture, speak of Peter and Paul as the new Romulus and Remus, the Christian re-founders of Rome.
St Peter’s is the greatest of all Renaissance buildings and, at 2.3 hectares in area, the largest church on earth. It is more than a monument to past glories: it is a place of pilgrimage for millions, of papal ceremonies and audiences, with the adjoining living and working spaces of the popes and their assistants, the museum, library and more. Though it only has the budget and staff of a medium-sized Australian company, the Vatican oversees a Church of 1.4 billion members. So we come to Peter’s chair to pray for his 267th successor, Leo XIV, his collaborators and all the Church.
We should be grateful for the papacy—a creation of Christ’s genius. No one can speak for Jews or Muslims or Buddhists or Protestants the way the Pope can speak for Catholics, nor can anyone speak to them as he can to us. No one rivals the pope as spiritual leader of the planet. Earlier this year the whole world looked on, curious, hopeful, reverent, as the papacy passed from Francis to Leo. We should not underestimate how important it is for the human race to have a pope.
Yet we should not exaggerate the papacy either. Popes are not Christ, even if they occasionally deputise for him. Popes are not inerrant, even if under very special conditions they are infallible. We will see the tombs of great saint-popes like Peter, Clement, Gregory the Great, Pius V, John XXIII and John Paul II. But there have been some mediocre popes also, even some bad ones. Even with such great gifts and authority, popes are limited for their purpose is to not to invent or remake the Church, but to ensure it remains Christ’s Church—one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic.
There is only One Church of Christ. As Pope Francis taught, the Church “is one and the same everywhere. As we receive one Body in the Eucharist to unite us as one Spirit in Christ, so the greatest gift we can give back to God is our unity in peace and fraternal concord as one family with God and the saints.”[1] Division amongst Christians is a terrible counter-witness to the Gospel. Peter is there as a shepherd to keep us sheep from scattering.
We also profess that the Church is Holy. Considering the sins and crimes of some Christians, hearing this might make us spill our cappuccino! Yet we are only scandalised by the Church’s failures because we know it is capable of so much better. Pope Leo says the Church “is holy in her original core, in the fabric from which she is woven.”[2] We see this in the lives of the saints, the conversion of sinners, the masterpieces of beauty, the glories of worship, the acts of justice, the works of mercy—all sanctified in Christ—that constitute you as young Christians.
The Church is also Catholic. Bernini’s all-embracing colonnade expresses the generosity of Christ and the Church: the square is not for one chosen people but for all peoples, every race, every generation. We will even take the faith to Mars if we ever discover little green men! In your witness as young people of faith, preaching the Gospel in word and deed, and calling others to discipleship, you announce that the Catholic Church is for all.
Finally, the Church is Apostolic. The job of the pope and bishops is not to make up things to control loyal Catholics and mystify everyone else. No, our pastors must share with us the faith of the apostles, and all of it, not just the fashionable bits. An apostolic Church is a Petrine Church, based on the bedrock faith that gave Peter his nickname. But it is also a Pauline Church, made up of all those who are apostled—sent—by Christ through baptism. So, the Church for you young adults must be one of missionary discipleship, not accidental or genetic or comatose membership…
Popes, pastors and young Catholics like yourselves are tasked with ensuring that ours is a united, sanctified, universal, apostolic Church—joined under Peter, missioned with Paul. Peter and Paul brought very different temperaments and gifts to Church leadership and service, like all of you. But they were alike in their faith, hope and love, and in the witness they gave to Christ here in Rome, even unto death. Peter represents rock-solid certainty in a world of confusion and change; Paul represents conversion and innovation amidst stale certainty and resistance to change. We need both, we need you to be both, for our Church and world.
Sometimes that requires a ‘Damascus Road’ experience, a transformation of thought and action as Paul experienced when he met the Risen Lord asking why he was persecuting Him. Sometimes it requires an ‘Appian Way’ experience, a rededication to what we already knew and do, as when Peter was fleeing Rome and encountered Christ. “Quo Vadis? Where are you going?” He asked the Lord. Disappointed by Peter’s inconstancy, Jesus responded “I’m going to Rome to be crucified again.” At which point Peter turned around and completed his mission in this city.
Conversion stories are uplifting. They remind us that no one is a write-off, people can change, our story is not yet complete. God will try to make more and better of us right up till our death—and even for a bit afterwards, in purgatory. Young adult life is often marked by transformations: of identity, relationships, course, as you navigate independence, responsibility and vocation. It’s the most fertile time for emerging from a sometimes or lukewarm Catholicism to a full-cream missionary discipleship!
Peter and Paul challenge each one of us: Am I a force for unity and holiness? Do I treasure what has been handed down from the apostles and share it with others? Do I lead and serve in communion with the Church? Am I steadfast in the face of hardships and doubts?
You answer: yes, but… but I don’t feel adequate to the task… Of course not. None of us is! But like Peter and Paul, if we “let go and let God”, He will give us all we need to be true disciples. For as Peter put it: “you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of the One who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light (1Pet 2:9). And as Paul echoed: “I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me!” (Phil 4:13)
[1] Pope Francis, General Audience 25.09.13 citing Eph ch 4; St Cyprian of Carthage, On the Lord’s Prayer 23; St Thomas Aquinas, ST III, 63, 2; Vatican Council II, LG 4.
[2] Pope Leo XIV, Homily for Jubilee of the Holy See, 9 June 2025.