The biggest threat to the church is worldliness, Pope Francis said in his daily morning Mass homily. A worldly church becomes weak, and while people of faith can look after the church, only God "can look evil in the eye and overpower it," he said April 30. The pope celebrated the Mass with members of the Vatican's investment agency in the chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae, where he lives. The day's reading from the Gospel of St. John recounts Jesus telling his disciples, "I will no longer speak much with you, for the ruler of the world is coming;" but Satan "has no power over me." The pope said, "If we don't want the prince of this world to take the church in his hands, we have to entrust her to the only one who can defeat the prince of this world. Entrusting the church to the Lord is a prayer that makes the church grow" and is an act of faith because "we can do nothing. All of us are poor servants of the church," he said.
The twelve apostles chosen by Jesus formed the bedrock of the early Church , and their Catholic identity is deeply rooted in their direct relationship with Christ and the mission He entrusted to them. The Catechism of the Catholic Church highlights this foundational role, stating that Jesus "instituted the Twelve as 'the seeds of the new Israel and the beginning of the sacred hierarchy'" ( CCC 860 ). These men were not simply followers; they were handpicked by Jesus, lived intimately with Him, witnessed His miracles and teachings firsthand, and were specifically commissioned to preach the Gospel to all nations ( Matthew 28:19-20 ). Their unique position as eyewitnesses to the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, and their reception of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, established them as the authoritative leaders of the nascent Church, a reality echoed in the writings of early Church Fathers like Ignatius of Antioch, who emphasized the apostles' authority as repre...