Did Jesus found the Catholic Church?

Added: 2026-05-13

[00:00:00]Did Jesus establish the church? The English word church comes from the Greek kyriakon, which means belonging to the Lord. And it is our Catholic faith that the origin of the church is the plan of the most Holy Trinity to reunite all things to Christ. The church is part of God's plan for salvation, worked out in steps and stages of history, beginning with Adam and continuing to Jesus Christ, the new Adam, who gathers his people into a body joined to himself.

[00:00:29]So, with that in mind, we can positively affirm that the Catholic Church, grounded in the heart of the Trinity, was founded by Jesus Christ, our savior and Lord.

[00:00:38]>> [music] >> As Saint Clement of Alexandria says, "Just as God's will is creation and is called the world, [music] so his intention is the salvation of men, and it is called the church." So, speaking of stages of salvation, >> [music] >> we can also say that Jesus Christ founded the church in stages.

[00:00:55]He inaugurated the church with the choice of the 12 apostles, and he continued to build it through his public ministry. Jesus completed his public ministry with his death upon the cross.

[00:01:07]Just as Eve was born from the side of Adam, >> [music] >> so too the church was born from the side of Christ as he slept the sleep of death, and blood and water poured out from his wounded heart. He manifested and promulgated the church through the visible mission of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples on the day of Pentecost.

[00:01:26]To help us understand the mystery of how and why Jesus founded the church, I like to imagine a king who is reclaiming a rebellious land. He does not merely send a book of laws and say, "Figure it out."

[00:01:40]Instead, he personally [music] enters the land, appoints trusted ministers, gives them real authority, establishes an embassy that represents his kingdom even after he [music] leaves.

[00:01:54]That embassy then speaks in the king's name, guards the king's laws, trains new citizens, resolves disputes, remains until the king returns. And this is a picture of how Catholics understand what Jesus did when he [music] established the church. So let's look at the gospel and see what actually unfolds. Where we hear the plans from all eternity begin to take shape >> [music] >> in time. In Matthew's gospel, Jesus says, "You are Peter and on this rock I will build my church.

[00:02:28]I give you the keys of the kingdom." The keys, an office. The building, an institution. The church, that visible body. Jesus also says, "Whoever hears you, hears me."

[00:02:42]And this is not poetry.

[00:02:44]This is delegated authority. And after the resurrection, "As the Father sent me, so I send you."

[00:02:53]This is succession logic. And I know that many Christians who might suggest a more horizontal ecclesiology, that the church is simply the gathering of Jesus' followers.

[00:03:04]What Jesus wanted was to inspire people.

[00:03:07]But if this were true, if Jesus only meant to inspire individuals, he wouldn't have appointed leaders.

[00:03:14]He wouldn't have established authority.

[00:03:17]He wouldn't have promised protection from error.

[00:03:19]He wouldn't have commanded obedience to the church. Yet in actual fact, Jesus says, "Whatever you bind on earth is bound in heaven."

[00:03:30]And again, >> [music] >> "I am with you always." Those are institutional promises, not promises to individuals, but to those who will build his body, [music] the church, as it leads souls to salvation. And it's why the church fathers and the early Christians so firmly believed that the Catholic Church and Jesus Christ were united. As we hear from St. Ignatius of Antioch, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic [music] Church. But, why were the fathers and the early Christians so definitive on this teaching? Because they understood what Jesus meant when he said to Peter, "On this rock, I will build [music] my church."

[00:04:10]This is underlined by St. Cyprian of Carthage, who said, "There is one God, and Christ is one, and there is one church, and one chair founded upon the rock by the word of the Lord."

[00:04:22]The question of whether Jesus founded the church brings into sharp focus what we believe about salvation.

[00:04:29]If we think that the church is a group of believers, then it's quite secondary.

[00:04:34]But, if as Catholics we believe that we see Christ as founding the church, then we cannot do without her.

[00:04:42]Nor would we want to do without her.

[00:04:45]It's what John Paul II famously said, "You cannot be a Christian if you reject the church founded on Jesus Christ."

[00:04:52]That marvelous scene from Caesarea Philippi is also worth revisiting. I love the words of G.K. Chesterton with regards to this. He says, "When Christ at a symbolic moment was establishing his great society, he chose for its cornerstone neither the brilliant Paul nor the mystic John, but a shuffler, a snob, a coward, >> [music] >> in a word, a man. And upon this rock, he has built his church, and the gates of hell have not prevailed against it.

[00:05:17][music] All the empires and kingdoms have failed because of this inherent and continual weakness that they were founded [music] by strong men and upon strong men. But, this one thing, the historic Christian Church was founded on a [music] weak man, and for that reason, it is indestructible.

[00:05:35]For no chain is stronger than its weakest [music] link. Because the church is a mystical body, and not just a gathering of people, we can see that [music] she teaches, governs, sanctifies, and offers sacrifice as Christ did.

[00:05:49]This is what the church continues to do in the name of Jesus Christ as his mystical body with his authority.

[00:05:56]It's an extension of his presence.

[00:05:58]And in the world, the Lumen Gentium, the light [music] of the nations.

[00:06:03]Jesus founded the church so it could continue his mission of leading people to knowledge of him and his saving gospel. Pope Benedict the 16th explains this beautifully when he writes that in the act of the last supper, when Jesus creates the church, he entrusts the [music] church to the disciples so she can live the mission entrusted to her so that the world may believe in the son and in the Father who sent him.

[00:06:27]Therefore, the church becomes the place in which the mission of Christ himself continues to lead the world out of man's alienation from God and out of himself, out of sin, so that it may return to be in the world of God.