The word “Pope” comes from the Greek word “Pappas,” meaning father. Knowing that Pope means father, we have an idea of the role the Pope will play in our lives. What is the Job of a good father? To create, provide, protect, instruct, lead, and bestow manhood or womanhood on their children. A good father is someone you call when you get yourself in a bad situation and who comes to rescue you. We look to our dads for love and to be loved by. These are just a few jobs for fathers.
We are constantly told we are living in a fatherless crisis. In America, one in four children grows up without a biological, step, or adoptive father in their home. (National Fatherhood Initiative) We also know one of the greatest predictors of the success of a child, if not the best, is whether they have a father.
We see the drastic importance of fatherhood, and we also know that God identifies as Father. The first person of the Holy Trinity is God the Father. God is the Father we all long for. Since God created us in His Image and likeness and has claimed us as adopted sons and daughters through our baptism, we call Him Father. We all know we are limited and need a Father to save us and set us on the right path. Oddly enough, God doesn’t monopolize fatherhood but instead shares it with men. He shares the ability to create, and when a man has a child, he can truly say he is a father. As God shares his Fatherhood, we don’t have less of God as our Father, but strangely, we know his Fatherhood more so.
The Catholic Church understands the human person better than anyone and thus knows of the dire need for fatherhood. The Church prescribes that children be raised by biological parents in an indissoluble union known as marriage. The Church then instructs that all people be a part of a parish in which they have a relationship with spiritual fathers known as priests, whom we call Father. They are also part of a diocese in which they have an overarching figure known as their Bishop, who is the father and shepherd of the area of Churches. Lastly, on earth, we are members of the Church, and God has given the keys of the Church to our Holy Father, our Pappas, our Pope.
Much of our understanding of the Pope in scripture comes from Matthew 16 verses 13-20. In which St. Peter, our first Pope, declares Jesus as “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter and on this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
Jesus gives a man St. Peter the keys to the Kingdom of God. What do keys represent, and what do they do? On a functional level, keys open and close doors. One who has keys has authority and power over the door for which their key opens. Keys only exist because there are doors, and doors exist because there is something behind the door. A key then gives one the freedom and authority to open the door and go behind into the kingdom, then have control over who enters and who is barred out. Often, if we have a key to something, it signifies ownership or dominion over the home or whatever is behind the door. We know St. Peter does not own the Kingdom of God. Then how is it that he is permitted the keys of the Kingdom? It is because the rightful King Christ Jesus gives him the keys on His behalf. St. Peter’s authority comes directly from God. Apart from God, St. Peter and the Popes following him have no authority, but God has shared this authority without losing any of His authority with the Pope. The Pope then becomes the steward of the Kingdom of God, not the king.
For one familiar with scripture and who knows that St. Matthew’s Gospel is written for the Jews, these verses would ring back to the Davidic Kingdom. The Jews’ understanding of the Messiah would be someone who defeats the enemies of Israel and restores the kingdom as the king. There are multiple positions in the kingdom, one is the king, who is Jesus. Another position is the al’habbayit, “one over the house” or the steward. “And I will clothe him with your robe, and bind your sash on him, and will commit your authority to his hand. And he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. And I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David. He shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open.”( Isaiah 22:21-22) The words used to describe the steward of the Kingdom of Israel are almost identical to those Jesus uses to describe St. Peter. What was the job of the Steward? To be the king while the king is away. The full authority of the king to govern and the keys to the kingdom. Lastly, he is called the father of the nation.
Since St. Peter and his predecessors, the Popes, are the stewards of the Kingdom of God, what is their role? In the same way, the keys were given to the old stewards, so have they been given to the new. The stakes have been greatly raised; instead of having the keys to the Kingdom of Israel, the Pope has the keys to the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God on earth is the Church. First, we would need to ask the question, What is the mission of the Church? Simply to be faithful to Jesus Christ and continue His work of the salvation of the world and to share the message of it to all ends of the Earth. Throughout the years, many have used the imagery of an ark as the Church, the Barque of St. Peter. The ocean is the world. It is the Pope’s job to be faithful to the Church and steer her through the tides of the world on its journey to heaven and to be a father to all.
The Pope listens to the Holy Spirit and guides the Church through the storms she finds herself in each generation. In a profoundly mysterious and incarnational way, God resides physically in the Church and gives man the keys. Oddly enough, God continues to make Himself reliant on humanity to achieve His mission of redemption. Through all the trials and evil in the world for the last 2000 years, there is one boat floating through and carving the way for all humanity to know the truth and to know God. Gk Chesterton once said, “The Church is always the only thing defending whatever is at the moment stupidly despised.” Since the Church is in time and full of humans, it is constantly battling with the false ideas and evils of the day. In response to the ideas of the time, the Church is always coming up with the antidote and medicine humanity needs to stay en route to the Kingdom of God. The Pope is at the helm of this ship, not apart from God, but precisely as a human instrument God is using and has entrusted the keys to.
The Pope is a Father to all. Just as the Steward of the Kingdom of David is a father to the inhabitants of Judah, so is the Pope a father to the Church and the whole world. We often think of the Pope as just the Father to Baptized Christians, but he is also a Father to all in the world. Since the mission of the Church is to make Christ known to all people, all humans in a mysterious way are entrusted to the paternal care of the Pope.
Just as human fathers protect, provide, and lead, so does our Holy Father, the Pope. We are not orphans but have an earthly father in the Pope, who is leading the Barque of Saint Peter to God. Our job is to stay aboard the ship and wait for the harbor of Heaven. As we pray for the repose of the soul of our past Holy Father, Pope Francis, take joy in the gift of a father, the gift of the Pope. Whatever your relationship has been with your father, you have a perfect Father in heaven who loves you and never stops thinking of you and your salvation. You also have a father in the Pope, an imperfect man, but in an office guided by the Holy Spirit, fighting each day for you and the Church. Let us pray for our next Pope for a holy and faithful man to guide us through the storms of this generation. Let us pray for our Pappas, our Holy Father, our Pope.
“Father Absence Statistics.” Father Absence Statistics, www.fatherhood.org/father-absence-statistic. Accessed 24 Apr. 2025.
