Black Panther and the Errors of Russia

T'Challa: You want to see us become just like the people you hate so much! Divide and conquer the land as they did!
Killmonger: Nah, I learned from my enemies. Beat them at they own game.
T'Challa: You have become them! You will destroy the world, Wakanda included! (Black Panther, 2018

Here is the secret that should no longer be a secret.

Here is the truth about the state of the world today.

We are ruled, many of us, in our hearts and in our minds, by the "errors of Russia"--by the errors that Russia unleashed on the world, beginning in 1917. We know this because Our Lady of Fatima told us so. Those errors are many, and have spread across the world, causing the destruction of many nations. They continue to poison our world to this day, and are perhaps the dominant cause of conflict right now.

You can see them on full display in Marvel's Black Panther--that is, you can see those errors detected, exposed, and left out for all to see.

What are those errors?

We can detect them and their slimy trail by examining Russia's history shortly before 1917 through 1929 and by looking at the errors' first great historical effect: causing World War II.

Briefly, here are some of the errors:

• "Anything in the name of." That is, being willing to do anything, no matter how evil, in the name of a cause or entity. Even the Jesuits, famous for their absolute obedience to their superiors and to the Holy Father, have always had a caveat to that obedience: They are not bound to commit mortal sin under obedience to a superior. Nothing and no one is worth losing our souls, not even God. God calls us to give everything to Him, not be willing to do anything without limits in His service. He is a God of order, a God who gives rules and binds Himself with covenants. He is not the unfettered, lawless, willfull bully in the sky. The heart and core of the errors of Russia is this: "anything in the name of." We see this in Black Panther in Killmonger's willingness to kill indiscriminately in the name of justice, to do anything in the name of liberation, even take away liberty; to do anything in the name of justice, even to commit injustice; to do whatever it takes to set the African diaspora free, even by subjugating the rest of the world and whatever Africans might be loyal to T'Challah.
• Communism. This is one of the clearest errors of Russia, and one of the deadliest. But Communism is not one single idea. It is a complex web of ideas, consisting of a number of errors intertwined with some truths. The best way to discern its errors and sort out what is true is to go deeply into the life and writings of Pope St. John Paul II, a man of long experience in living under the terror of Soviet Communist rule, as well as an intellectual man of faith who could pick out the truths that swayed people to become fellow travelers with the Communist system. The errors contained within Communism include:
• Atheism. As has been clearly pointed out in works such as de Lubac's The Drama of Atheist Humanism, atheism destroys human dignity in the name of human dignity, stripping away the religious understanding of the meaning of humanity and history, and replacing it with a howling void. Catholicism's answer comes in Gaudium et Spes, 22.
• An idolatrous approach to history, and ironically, an ahistorical one. Marx replaced the "day of the Lord" with the Revolution in his system, expecting historical processes to somehow produce a day of perfect justice without an eternal, omniscient just judge. He expected, really, everything to sort itself out in the end. History would right every wrong.
• The two most important realities in human history are political power and economics, or money. These are the prime movers of all of history, and necessary and sufficient explanations for every motive, every action, every aspect of human history. You can see this error on full display in every political party's campaign strategies and in every news network's broadcasts. What truly matters? What truly rests behind every shift of culture, every human act? Power and money get "serious" coverage. Everything else is practical (the weather; traffic), entertainment (sports, movies, TV shows, morning shows, etc.), or human interest puff pieces. Hence, the media both is certain that entertainment is just entertainment, never to blame for a change in morality or any serious consequences. At the same time, advertising is a multibillion dollar business. And of course, the press just doesn't GetReligion

There are more, and there is much more to discuss in Black Panther, and indeed, in all the Marvel movies, some of the greatest proclamations of the Gospel of Life out there. But let me just close by saying once again: We have all the clarity we need on the solution to the problems of today, problems caused or exacerbated by the errors of Russia.

We are to turn to the Immaculate Heart.

We are make the First Saturdays devotion--at least the five, but really, I think that those of us who know of this devotion and its importance should make a committment to try to be faithful to it as best we can to the end of our lives. If we hope to lead others to it, we must be setting an example of taking it seriously and in finding it doable and rewarding.

We should be praying the Rosary daily for peace in the world, as Our Lady of the Rosary requested at Fatima. Getting a blessed image of the Immaculate Heart (or even better, of the Alliance of the Two Hearts) up in your home is a good move. Lighting a blessed candle in her honor, etc.--all very good.

And do the works of mercy. Pick one. Stick with it. Perform them faithfully. (And, speaking as someone who's bad at it, be nice to yourself when you don't stick with it. Pick yourself back up, get to Confession, and start again.)

We are to become immaculate through the grace of God, given in the Sacraments, given in Christ. We are to become like Mary, and thereby overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil. We are to become what we love, not what we hate. We are to become good in order to fight evil, not become evil in order to overmaster the former Dark Lord. Victory looks like Gandalf, Frodo, and Aragorn, not Saruman, Denethor, and Gollum; like Aslan, not the White Witch.

Under Pope Francis, What's a Trad to Do?

I appreciate traditionalist Catholics.

They have a good instinct in appreciating the past, and refusing to abandon ways that have worked before, ways that have led to sanctity, to true communion with God. Often, once the fashions of the age have swung around a few times on their axis, we come to appreciate the folkways preserved by those whom fashion had derided, had called out of date or passed by on the way to today.

The great G. K. Chesterton was perfectly right, after all, when he said:

“My attitude toward progress has passed from antagonism to boredom. I have long ceased to argue with people who prefer Thursday to Wednesday because it is Thursday.” – New York Times Magazine, Feb. 11, 1923

I have a great gratitude for the traditionalist/conservative/whatever label promotion and preservation of the Rosary especially, but a whole host of traditional devotions, in spite of a faddish disdain for them in the wake of Vatican II. I share some of the same instincts, in fact, as a number of conservatives and traditionalists. I tend to like primary sources, for instance. Want to know how to be holy? Let's look to the saints. Why would their witness ever be out of date? True, they practiced the faith in a whole different context, but humanity hasn't changed that radically in 2,000 years such that there's no such thing as perennial wisdom. Why not listen to the great masters and mistresses of prayer, of mercy?

And so when I see a lot of traditionalists and conservatives having a real problem with Pope Francis, I'm inclined to be sympathetic--up to a point.

I understand that Jesuits can be disconcerting. Heck, from the time of St. Ignatius of Loyola, their founder, up to the present day, the Society of Jesus has been reliably followed by a certain cloud of consistent criticism, fear, and misunderstanding, largely occasioned by St. Ignatius' remarkable spiritual genius in spawning an order of incredibly effective, incredibly brilliant, incredibly potent men. Further, those men have all been formed according to the first principle and foundation, which at its best leads them to do all ad majorem Dei gloriam--all for the greater glory of God. That has meant several centuries of men willing to go anywhere, take up any style of life, preach to anyone, practice the works of mercy for anyone under any circumstances, and, chameleon-like, accommodate themselves to any environment in order to bring Jesus to people.

At their best, they've been anchored by their obedience to their legitimate superiors, and in a special way, their obedience to the Holy Father. Rooted by that tether, they've been able to go to the ends of the world, to the furthest reaches of the lands of unbelief, in order to draw people from the furthest periphery into the center, which is Jesus Christ. They've been modeled on the Good Shepherd, who leaves the 99 to find the one lost sheep; the Good Shepherd who lays down His life for His sheep, who leaves Heaven to come to earth and even harrows the depths of hell in order to draw up to eternal life all those saints who lived and died before the Incarnation.

The Jesuits are, then, the ones who go farther than anyone else; who have historically provoked protests and outrage from the other religious communities in mission lands; who have run afoul of the Inquisition; who were shut down by the Holy See for a time, and later restored; who, if they go wrong, go almost farther wrong than any other, and who, when they're good, are better than any others.

The Jesuits, at their best, embody dreaming the impossible dream.

And for the first time in the history of the Catholic Church, a Jesuit is the pope.

This was not ever really envisioned by the Society of Jesus. The Jesuits are bound to report any of their brethren whom they hear "ambitioning" to be made a bishop, or who seek any sort of ecclesiastical preferment. They are meant to be priests, and that's it. They've given the Church a number of outstanding bishops and cardinals over the years, rather against the will of their founder. And Francis is the first Jesuit pope.

So of course, in some ways, it should be expected that he might provoke a certain amount of fear and trepidation. Compound that with his habit of giving impromptu press conferences on the papal plane or interviews to secular journalists who don't take notes and reconstruct what they thought the pope said from memory. Yes, that can certainly be a recipe for disconcerting headlines, for strange claims about Church teaching, and for confusing news stories, clarified by Vatican releases that the average person never sees.

That's as far as I go in my sympathy with the traditionalist and conservative concerns about Pope Francis.

After that--well. We've been here before.

We should have learned, after long experience across a number of pontificates (for me personally, it's been the pontificates of St. John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI, and now Pope Francis), that if you want to know what the pope has said on any given subject, you really must search out the primary source text or the transcript of the words spoken. The media coverage invariably ranges from the well-informed to the utterly uncomprehending. GetReligion does a great job of chronicling that range of coverage.

Under St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, that coverage usually made it sound like the popes were always and forever hidebound, reactionary conservatives, against everything modern, progressive, and new. Oh, sure, there were occasional stories about papal concern for immigrants, the environment, and other topics that in the Anglosphere fall on the liberal side of things, but somehow that didn't penetrate to the average reader or media consumer. No--what came through confirmed American conservatives in both the media hostility to religion, conservatism, and them personally, as well as that the media didn't hear or understand what was coming from the Vatican.

Under Pope Francis, that same media reports everything the pope says or does that supports a narrative of him as a major liberal reformer--and those same American conservatives who should know better, given the decades of bad coverage of previous popes, tend to follow that line, as well.

"Oh, but Amoris Laetitia!"

The whole controversy--or at least 99.99999999% of the controversy--over Amoris Laetitia is a controversy over a few footnotes.

Footnotes.

I object to the level of controversy erupting over the contents of several footnotes. Whether or not there's dubious expressions in those footnotes, this sort of scandal being taken by Catholics is grossly disproportionate to the import of a footnote. If the Holy Father had attempted some sort of doctrinal definition of error, excommunication of holders of the perennial teaching of the Church for so holding that perennial teaching, or had anathematized irreplaceable elements of the teaching, then I get the reaction.

But for a footnote? Even a few footnotes? No. Grossly inappropriate, remarkably overblown, and a greater contribution to confusion in the Church than Amoris Laetitia itself.

Poor liturgical choices? Those have happened before, under a variety of popes, and they'll happen again.

Poor personnel decisions? Same.

Poor prudential decisions? Yup.

Has Francis made those sorts of decisions? I dunno. I distrust snap judgments about popes and other world leaders. Maybe; maybe not. But no matter what, I can guarantee you this: We've been through far worse than Pope Francis.

My position on Pope Francis, quite simply, is that the first, foremost, and underlying fact about him is that he is Peter. He is the Holy Father, the bishop of Rome, and so to be in communion with Christ's Church, I must be in communion with him.

Now, given the guarantees given to Peter and his successors, on the one hand, the Holy Father is infallible teaching ex cathedra on matters and faith and morals. On the other hand, he may be wrong on matters of discipline, policy, prudential judgment, and much else. As Scripture shows us quite clearly, Peter screwed up a number of times, both in word and in deed. But Jesus did not deprive him of his office.

And certainly there was no provision for the other Apostles to deprive Peter of his office.

... the college or body of bishops has no authority unless it is understood together with the Roman Pontiff, the successor of Peter as its head. The pope's power of primacy over all, both pastors and faithful, remains whole and intact. In virtue of his office, that is as Vicar of Christ and pastor of the whole Church, the Roman Pontiff has full, supreme and universal power over the Church. And he is always free to exercise this power. The order of bishops, which succeeds to the college of apostles and gives this apostolic body continued existence, is also the subject of supreme and full power over the universal Church, provided we understand this body together with its head the Roman Pontiff and never without this head.(27*) This power can be exercised only with the consent of the Roman Pontiff. For our Lord placed Simon alone as the rock and the bearer of the keys of the Church,(156) and made him shepherd of the whole flock;(157) ... The Roman Pontiff, as the successor of Peter, is the perpetual and visible principle and foundation of unity of both the bishops and of the faithful.(30*)

He's not formally teaching error. All the most dubious stuff has been in interviews, often interviews with no notes taken, or coming from the mouths of those surrounding him. He evinces clear supernatural faith on a regular basis, speaking of spiritual combat, the reality of the devil, the importance of devotions such as the Rosary, praying to the saints, the Divine Mercy message and devotion, and more. His track record in Argentina on orthodoxy was pretty largely unobjectionable.

On everything he's pushed as pope, there may be/have been questions of prudence or whether they're the best policies, but he's never gone near to doing anything a successor could not undo or walk back. He's behaving like a Jesuit from the oldest days of that order--go out to the furthest corners of the world in order to spread the Gospel to those furthest from the Church--and the Good Shepherd--leave the 99 in order to go after the 1 fallen away.

If ever there were a time to put into practice patient, prayerful love of a spiritual father who freaks one out, it's with this guy. And honestly, most Catholics ought easily to be able to just completely ignore most all news from Rome, if they need to, and plug away at their local parish in the Sacraments, prayer, works of mercy, and the new evangelization/growing the culture of life running off Scripture, the Catechism, the Compendium of Social Teaching, and the writings of whichever Doctor or saint most speaks to them. If Francis freaks people out, then just abide in the fullness of the faith and don't look over there. God's got it all well in hand.

So pray for Pope Francis, certainly. Study the teachings of the Church from past ages earnestly, sure--Scripture, Tradition, liturgy, creeds, catechisms, papal magisteria, saints, Doctors, and approved mystics. And no matter the controversies that may erupt or the questions that arise in the course of the Church's pilgrimage here below--the sins or betrayals of the clergy or our fellow Catholics, or even our own sins and preferences--don't ever leave the barque of Peter.

On Why to Stay Catholic and Fatima as the Answer

Hopefully convincingly; hopefully well. Let me reiterate my closing point briefly:

The remedy Heaven has given us for the present age is in the message of Fatima: devotion to the Immaculate Heart, especially through the First Saturdays devotion and the daily Rosary for peace in the world.

Our Lady explained those Five First Saturdays to Sr. Lucia dos Santos, one of the Fatima visionaries, on Dec. 10, 1925, in the following way:

See, my daughter, my Heart encircled by thorns with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude. Do you, at least, strive to console me. Tell them that I promise to assist at the hour of death with the graces necessary for salvation all those who, in order to make reparation to me, on the First Saturday of five successive months, go to Confession, receive Holy Communion, say five decades of the Rosary, and keep me company for a quarter of an hour, meditating on the … mysteries of the Rosary. ...

If you immediately dismissed the above, I pray you, think again. If you nodded, went, "Yeah, yeah," and are eagerly anticipating me changing the subject--guys, diagnose that.

Pay attention to how hard it is to pay attention to the First Saturdays and the daily Rosary for peace.

Notice your resistance to thinking about these things seriously. Notice how easily your attention slips away.

Where we meet the greatest resistance, there the enemy fights hardest to protect himself.

Our Lady has given us the remedy to the present day--five smooth stones to take down the Goliaths of the modern age. Our Lady has given us everything we need to heal the world of the errors of Russia, beginning by healing ourselves with the Sacraments, prayer, and meditation on the mysteries of the Incarnation. Our Lady has given us the path to peace.

Use these means. Follow this path. And commit to it.

In order to lead the rest of the people of God along Our Lady's way, we who know the message of Fatima have a special obligation to live her requests. We need to simply commit to make the First Saturdays as best we can continuously till the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart or till the end of our lives, whichever comes first.

We who know the remedy need to take it ourselves, and invite our neighbors to join us on that road. We must do this for the sake of the victims of the errors of Russia, past, present, and future. We must do this for the sake of the Church, and especially for the sake of the Sacred and Immaculate Hearts, which feel so keenly every loss of a soul, every act of sin, every time someone falls.

We know what we need to do. We have everything we need in order to do it. Let's go.

On Public Sinners and Apparent Saints

There's a lot of people whose preferred method of evangelization looks like this:

Son of man, I have appointed you a sentinel for the house of Israel. When you hear a word from my mouth, you shall warn them for me.

If I say to the wicked, You shall surely die—and you do not warn them or speak out to dissuade the wicked from their evil conduct in order to save their lives—then they shall die for their sin, but I will hold you responsible for their blood. If, however, you warn the wicked and they still do not turn from their wickedness and evil conduct, they shall die for their sin, but you shall save your life.

But if the just turn away from their right conduct and do evil when I place a stumbling block before them, then they shall die. Since you did not warn them about their sin, they shall still die, and the just deeds that they performed will not be remembered on their behalf. I will, however, hold you responsible for their blood. If, on the other hand, you warn the just to avoid sin, and they do not sin, they will surely live because of the warning, and you in turn shall save your own life. (Ezekiel 3:17-21)

And of course, given the Scriptural warrant, there's something real and important to this. There's a time and a place for a stark prophetic witness, for a determined denunciation of real evil, of real wickedness. We look for it in the dark days of the Third Reich, and are encouraged to discover Dietrich von Hildebrand, the papal encyclicals Mit Brennender Sorge and Summi Pontificatus, the writings and public addresses of Cardinal von Galen, the heroic work of Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty in rescuing thousands from the Nazis, and more. Public witness against evil and for the good matters. It matters in the time of a great evil, and it matters to those who come after, who look back and see how to do it when they confront the evils of their own times.

But what happens when the evils become smaller, become more everyday, become fashionable sins and vices, become faults and falls of ourselves, our immediate neighbors, our friends and family, our own? What then?

Caritas in veritate. Truth in charity. Both, inextricably intertwined. And that demands discernment. That demands a recognition that we are to be rock solid in the truth, yes; we are to study it, adhere to it, assent to the teachings of the Church on faith and morals, and work assiduously to understand and accept those that we find most challenging. We must hold and defend all that the Catholic Church holds and defends.

But when it comes to proclaiming it to the people, we have to take a lesson from the divine pedagogy of the Scriptures. God came to the people of a given time period and spoke to them in ways they understood, in language that they understood. He is a perfectly just and merciful judge. His justice takes into account our weakness, ignorance, and concupiscence. His mercy provides remedies for them, and offers a way home even after the umpteenth fall. And more: When Jesus comes, He has a very particular method. He is gentle with the weak and the broken.

"A bruised reed he will not break,
a smoldering wick he will not quench,
until he brings justice to victory.
And in his name the Gentiles will hope.” (Matthew 12:20-21)

He is firm, even stentorian, with the strong, the purportedly righteous, with all those who should know better. He calls out in the strongest terms those who hold themselves to be faithful adherents to the Law, and eats with tax collectors and prostitutes.

So apply all this to the present day.

Most people have a very clear idea of what they're doing wrong by Catholic standards. They're relieved to be loved by people who believe they're doing wrong, relieved not to have that sin be the first or only thing we Catholics see when we look at them, relieved that religious people can engage them as people rather than some part of their life that our faith tells us isn't right.

Also, the Church is in such a deep mess these days that Catholics leading with making clear what we don't condone doesn't often make sense to many people inside or outside the Church. Far better we lead with a smile (as Mother Teresa said), friendly conversation, sincere interest in the other person and their loves and lives, and a rueful acknowledgment that these days, we all done screwed up.

There's certainly a time and a place for public witness against evil--stand against abortion; stand against human trafficking; stand against racism; and so forth. But usually when we're one on one with people, what's called for is simple love and gratitude for the other person. They almost always know where we believe they're going wrong. We don't have to say it. Simply not giving assent to things that are wrong can speak louder than a thousand homilies--see Thomas More for more.

Yeah, it's a mess of a discernment process. I think, though, that Jesus' example tended toward the "eat with the public sinners; chew out the publicly righteous" model of evangelization. The outcasts and disreputable in a society are reminded of their sin by the society itself, by their daily existence; the self-righteous, respectable folks have their vices cloaked by an approving society, overlooked by their peers, and their pride upheld.

The pendulum is certainly swinging in our society as to what's approved and what's disapproved, and what is respectable and what's not. But I think most people are abundantly clear on Catholic teaching on the crucial things; they're not nearly so clear on their intrinsic dignity, God's unfailing love for them even though they sin, and that any religious person could find them worthy of love, let alone time, attention, and friendliness.

And then one last subtlety--we're meant to be witnesses at all times and places by our love, not necessarily by an obvious proclamation of the Gospel. We are called to live lives in this world, we lay people, called to sometimes merely be doing a task, merely to be a customer, merely to be a patient. As Simcha Fisher once pointed out (if memory serves), we are meant to be salt and light in the world, which means not so much salt that people gag on the Good News and not so much light that people are blinded, sunburned, scarred. We are to lend savor to life and be a leading kindly light, instead.

We are to be innocent as doves and wise as serpents; to be servants of the truth, but also of Logos, of reason, and of the Hagia Sophia, of holy wisdom, as well. We are called to be fishers of men. That means there will be times to be silent as well as to speak, times to bait the hook and leave it in the water while we hold very still, waiting patiently on the Holy Spirit. He makes converts, not us.

In other words--when in doubt, just love. When in doubt, live well. When in doubt, hold on to the fullness of the faith, and share only as much truth as a person can hear without tuning out, giving up, or despairing.

Stand with Peter

Recently, a number of folks have put their signatures to a letter calling Pope Francis a heretic. Catholic Answers senior apologist Jimmy Akin gives an analysis and response here (minute 29:37):

Akin expanded on his response in a piece for the National Catholic Register. Excerpts:

Many of the Open Letter’s charges deal with the issue of divorce and civil remarriage, as discussed in the apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia, but as Cardinal Gerhard Müller has shown, the relevant statements in this document can be understood in harmony with Church teaching.

Akin replies to the reply from one of the signatories. Excerpt:

... By stating that the definitions I have offered for dogma and heresy are “ridiculous,” Kwasniewski reveals either (1) that he does not know how the Magisterium uses these terms or (2) that he considers the Magisterium’s use to be “ridiculous,” in which case his problem is with the Magisterium, not with me.

The use of these definitions in no way renders “many of the condemnations made by the Church Fathers” pointless. They retain their full force.

Kwasniewski complains about parsing out “canonical niceties,” but this is precisely the area that he and his co-signatories have ventured into by writing—in their words (in the Open Letter)—“to accuse Pope Francis of the canonical delict of heresy.”

You can’t accuse people of canonical delicts and then complain if you are being held to a canonical standard of proof. That is moving the goal post.

As I said before, it’s one thing to ask for clarifications, voice concerns, or express disagreement, but it’s another to start making charges of the canonical crime of heresy. When you do that, you’d better be able to prove your case, but Kwasniewski’s responses indicate that he can’t.

The whole of Jimmy's responses are well worth reading. I think my own reaction may be summed up briefly: When it comes to a theological faceoff between the successor to St. Peter and a handful of academics, no matter how well regarded, my first instinct will be to sit back, examine the arguments, and wait for clarity while continuing to try to live a full Catholic life.

No matter the disputes between bishops; no matter the uncertainty amongst the leadership of the Church; no matter how clearly or not we understand and feel comfortable with what's happening in the broader Church, we know what we are to do. We must live a life of Sacraments and Scripture, of works of mercy and regular prayer, of reading the writings of the saints, councils, doctors, and popes, past and present. We know where we are to stand. We have the creeds. We know what we are to proclaim. We have the Scriptures and the Catechisms. We know where to look for wisdom. Follow the canons of Scripture and of the saints.

We have everything we need. Let time heal all confusion. We have our bedrock with the faith handed on from the apostles. While doctrine develops, while synods sit, while popes legislate, reform, and deal with the crises of the present age, we across the world can simply attend to the perennial things, waiting on the Holy Spirit.

And then ... well, my other main thought is simply that we've been given the successor to St. Peter as our spiritual father of fathers, not academics. We are told that the Holy Father is the bedrock, the one who confirms the brethren in their faith (Lk 22:32; Gal 2:9). Compared to every other authority in the Church, the successor to St. Peter has a unique primacy, a unique standing. There may well be times when people feel in good conscience they must oppose Peter to his face (Gal 2:11), but I would hope that would be done with a certain trepidation, a certain sense of personal danger, and a careful process of discernment. For all of us average Catholics out there, then, I think a safe general rule is: When in doubt, stand with Peter. When everything is clear, stand with Peter. When the world seems to be crashing down around your ears, stand with Peter. Prefer Peter over other authorities on matters of faith and morals. Regard Peter's rulings as superior to the rulings of other authorities within the Church. Trust the gift given to Peter by Christ, and stand.

Matthew 16:13-20 New American Bible (Revised Edition) (NABRE)
When Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” They replied, “Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter said in reply, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Jesus said to him in reply, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Then he strictly ordered his disciples to tell no one that he was the Messiah