Pope Francis closed the
Year of Faith by calling on people to keep Christ at the center of their
lives, especially in times of trouble. "When Jesus is at the center,
light shines even the darkest moments of our lives; he gives us hope,"
he said in his homily November 24, the feast of Christ the King. The closing
Mass in St. Peter's Square also saw, for the first time, the exposition
for public veneration of bones believed to be those of St. Peter. The
apostle is believed to have been martyred on a hill overlooking St.
Peter's Square and buried a tomb now located two levels below the main
altar of St. Peter's Basilica. Eight bone fragments, each two to three
centimeters long, were nestled in an open bronze reliquary displayed to
the side of the altar. During the ceremony, the pope -- the 265th
successor of Peter -- held the closed reliquary for several minutes in
silent prayer while choirs sang the Nicene Creed in Latin. The bones,
which were discovered during excavations of the necropolis under St.
Peter's Basilica in the 1940s, are kept in the pope's private chapel but
had never been displayed in public. While no pope has ever declared the
bones to be authentic, Pope Paul VI said in 1968 that the "relics" of
St. Peter had been "identified in a way which we can hold to be
convincing." How can you not love Pope Francis? His honesty and decision to make the papacy as transparent as possible recalls the ministry of Jesus Christ while He was on earth. I am thankful that God has decided to allow Pope Francis to lead His church.
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...