What is A Pope And Why Do We Have One

Saint Peter With The Keys To The Kingdom

  I hear comments all the time about the  Pope in the Catholic Church. Some people will say you do not need a Pope. They also tend to make fun of the Pope. It is another one of those things where people do not understand the Catholic Church so they make fun of it. Sometimes I feel that all of us never get the message that Jesus taught us. That message is to love one another and he has loved us. That also means to respect each other even if we all have differences of one kind or another. Just because someone may have different beliefs does not mean I can not respect that person. I would advise anyone to learn about the History Of The Papacy. There are plenty of books on the Catholic Papacy available at various resellers on the internet.
  So what exactly is a Pope and why do we have a Pope leading the Catholic Church. The word Pope in Latin is papa, which is what a child would call father. A Pope basically is the leader of the Catholic Church. He represents God our father and is like a good parent guiding the church in all matters. No he is not God and has never claimed to be God. The Pope not only works with everyone within the Catholic Church, but also works with people in over 100 nations. In other words he is mainlining diplomatic relationships between countries. Within the church he performs liturgies, appoints new bishops and travels throughout the world spreading the love of Jesus Christ.
  The question that comes up quite a bit is who started as pope and who appointed the first pope. Well the first Pope was Peter. The person who appointed Peter as Pope was Jesus. Here is an excellent article from Catholic Answers on the origin of the Pope so check out the link and paste it into your address bar http://www.catholic.com/tracts/origins-of-peter-as-pope . Here in scripture we see Jesus making Peter the first Pope. Matthew Chapter 16 Verse 17 through 19 "  


17 Jesus replied, 'Simon son of Jonah, you are a blessed man! Because it was no human agency that revealed this to you but my Father in heaven.

18 So I now say to you: You are Peter and on this rock I will build my community. And the gates of the underworld can never overpower it.

19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of Heaven: whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven; whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.''

  Here is a link to the Catholic Encyclopedia that has an abundance of excellent information. Just copy and paste the link into your web address bar and press enter http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12260a.htm . The fulfillment of the promise of Jesus to Peter did not happen until the resurrection of Jesus. For even some further reading online I would check out this Wikipedia page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope .
  So in conclusion we have a Pope to lead the church in all matters. As you can see the first Pope was instituted by Jesus himself. I would definitely recommend purchasing various books on the early church fathers as well as the Catholic Catechism and the Catholic Encyclopedia. It is better to learn the truth about various matters, so when someone questions something we can answer them properly and correct whatever has been misinterpreted. It is up to all of us to educate everyone in a loving and caring way.
  Thank You For Reading and God Bless on this Mothers Day 2014.