“Once You Leave ‘Peter,’ You Become ‘Peter’”

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:00][music] Hello everybody. This is Gregory with FiveMinute Catholic Apologetics and Living where five minutes every time it gets you to the divine. Today we're going to talk about when you leave Peter, you become Peter and exactly what does that mean? Now before I begin, let's start with a prayer.

[00:00:19]Amen.

[00:00:26]Secular. Amen.

[00:00:32]So what does it mean when you leave Peter, you become Peter?

[00:00:39]I think there is an inherent drive, an inherent part of us that is just naturally disobedient. We got this from the fall of Adam and Eve. And this can apply to a lot of parts of our life.

[00:00:52]And I think that when it comes to pride, which is the the king of the seven deadly sins, you can certainly see it manifested in our religion. When you leave Peter, you become Peter. Who is Peter in this regard? The Catholic Church. We know the Catholic Church was founded on Peter. Peter is the rock. You can see it even though we are not so scriptor. You can see it in Matthew 16.

[00:01:14]But if you want to look at early Christian writings, you can even go to Aronyaeus of Leon who was second generation from John John the disciple who said if you want to know the truth of orthodox teaching he use the word orthodox go to the the bishop of Rome.

[00:01:30]So the bishop of Rome of course is the pope. Why do we call him the pope?

[00:01:33]Because it's just an affectionate term for papa or or father, right? He's the leader of the Catholic church.

[00:01:41]And we have 264 something popes, successive popes that have gone from Peter all the way through the last 2,000 years to Pope Leo. And under that we have apostolic succession and with it we have the guarantee that on faith and morals there's no error that is being taught. This is the principle of infallibility, papal infallibility. Now throughout history though we have seen people who want to leave Peter and when they leave Peter meaning the church they want to become their own pope. And you see this played out with every Protestant religion because every Protestant religion faith denomination was founded by a man. It was founded by a man. The Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church were founded by God Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. And we have all seven sacraments. We have the full complement of books in the Bible.

[00:02:36]And we have apostolic succession, meaning that our communion is truly the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ. When you look at Protestant churches, whether they be established churches that have been around for several hundred years like Luther and Calvin, Presbyterianism, even Methodism, Anglicanism, but certainly the First Baptist Church down the street, the Second Baptist Church of of of Main Street, the Third Baptist Church of Main Street, these people are essentially the pastors are are are their own pope. And what do I mean? Because see the thing is when when you leave the Catholic church many times it's because you think now you're never going to say it's based on your just hubris right like or a power trip or mega mania like I want to create my own church. I want to have my own power trappings. No, it's normally like I found something different in the Bible.

[00:03:25]I'm going to exede the Bible in a different way. Now they're not going to use the word exedite. It's more of a Catholic term. But they'll read the Bible and say, "See, I found this gold nugget that no one else in Christian history for 1500 years found." Look at Luther was solo solo gratia, solo fed, solo scriptor. Like no one in any corner of Christian Christristendom, Christianity, which is all Catholic at the time, aside from orthodoxy, ever executed out the Bible a certain way.

[00:03:51]But through his own scrupulosity, through his own, you could say kind of neurosis, he came up, he fabricated the these these principles that I just mentioned. And so then you start pick and choosing uh what you want from the Bible to kind of reinforce what your new theology is and why you're you're teaching that new theology. And of course, you're going to say, "God, the church was wrong. We have God on our side and and they're all, you know, working for the Antichrist and all this nonsense. And so you see this played out. I mean look look at look at with Anglicanism, right? So Henry VIII leaves because he wants to be his own pope.

[00:04:29]Truly he he wants to be the head of his church which the monarchy Richard Charles what Charles III Charles IVth Charles I f is the head of of the the the Anglican church. He is the church.

[00:04:42]So you look you look at Henry Henry is like yeah yeah I can't divorce Kathine Aragon. I'm just going to create my own church. Create my own rules. And then from there you see the branches that have come off of Anglicanism, Methodism, the Quakers, Puritanism. And so they just break off and break off and break off. And then like how many breakoffs have you gotten from from the reformed faith from from Calvin and the Presbyterianism? You break off, break off, break off, break off from the Baptists, break off, break off. You know, it's just this breakoffs from everywhere because it's chaos. Once you leave the bosom of Holy Mother Church and it's guaranteed that in faith and morals, it cannot teach error. You're just going to get a series of I know better. I'm executing reading the Bible a certain way. This church is wrong. I know better. And this is why you have in every tongue the First Baptist Church of Houston than the Second Baptist Church of Houston, right? Because somebody from the First Baptist Church of Houston thinks, "No, you know, something's not being run right. They're not being true to the Bible, true to whatever. I know better. I know better. I'm creating a second church. I know better. And so, every every church, every mega church, every evangelical church is run by the pastor. And in sure, the pastor is his own pope, right? Because he is he's executing the Bible the way he wants.

[00:05:58]And what he teaches is gold, is gospel at that particular church. And normally the mega churches of course are very light on systematic theology for a reason because it's all about money buildings people in the pews. But in general they are their own pope. And if you don't like what they're saying well then you can create and break off and create another church and then you're going to follow that pope. So every every pastor big or small of any church is essentially their own pope. And this is what happens with Protestantism. It's the chaos that that comes when you leave Holy Mother Church. When you leave the true vicor of Christ, who is the pope?

[00:06:38]You're just going to follow another pope. And that pope has no authority.

[00:06:42]God bless the good works that might come out of the mega church down the street.

[00:06:47]But from who from whose authority? From what authority are they true? You can get a 100 people that read the first chapter of John and 90 people executed out a different one because it's very esoteric, right? The first chapter of John is very hard to understand. Who's right? If they if who's right? The Holy Spirit doesn't contradict itself. Who is right? Right? So it's just chaos. So they have no authority. The only authority comes from Christ's established visible church and Peter and his successors. That is the only place that you get true authority. Guys, post in the comments if you agree or disagree. Until next time, take care and God bless.