"The Apostle Peter plays a very significant role in the New Testament, and in the life of the Church." "In this documentary we follow his footprints throughout Israel and all the way to Rome, where the chair of St. Peter still resides today." "I'm Steve Ray." "Join me on this adventure, as we go behind the scenes in the making of this documentary," ""Peter:" "Keeper of the Keys."" "Peter:" "Keeper of the Keys." "Of our ten-part video series, "The Footprints of God,"" "the very first video that we produced was" ""Peter:" "Keeper of the Keys."" "And it wouldn't have been possible without the help of my partner and my lovely wife, Janet." "I'll never forget the night you came up with this idea - woke me up in the middle of the night, shook me awake, scared me half to death, made me think that the house was on fire, and you said, "Janet, Janet!" "We have to do a ten-part video series on the history of salvation! "" "And I thought you were absolutely crazy and just told you to go back to sleep." "I went back to sleep." "And I wasn't sure if I was crazy or not." "But it was one of those epiphanies, in a sense." "I just knew - whether it was a vision or a dream or it was just in my head - when I woke up it was just instant." "I was wide awake and I knew exactly what I had to do." "And I had to wake you up and tell you that, but I didn't go back to sleep that night." "I remember getting up." "It was about 2 in the morning, and the rest of the night I was up on the computer, typing out the outline for this ten-part series." "And even came up with the idea that it had to be about God's footprints, God walking among his people, bringing salvation to his people - the story of salvation." "And I knew that it had to be all the way from the beginning, Abraham, and go all the way past even the New Testament and into the early Church with the Fathers and the Doctors." "And I remember I was so excited I typed up the outline, and I got together even a quick proposal of how we would lay it out and the countries we would visit." "We had never done anything with videos before, so to me it was just out of our league, out of my field of vision." "And yet, we called a friend of ours, Rick Sarkisian." "He had done some videos before and he helped us out." "We called Ignatius Press." "We couldn't have begun this project without the help of" "Rick Sarkisian getting us started with it." "And when we called Ignatius Press I remember I talked to Father Fessio, and he said," ""Come on out and tell us the story."" "And within a week we're flying out to San Francisco, and we weren't sure whether we were crazy or not." "What in the world were they going to say when we presented this idea to them?" "But I remember sitting around the table, and they all listened to us." "And we told them that it had never been done before, that we didn't know of anything in the Catholic world or the Protestant world, where something this expansive had been done before - a fun, documentary series," "on location, to bring out all the Catholic teaching and the scripture passages, and so on." "Well, you remember what Father Fessio said, which surprised both of us." ""How soon can you get started?"" "And within a matter of six weeks we were on our way." "But first, during that six weeks, after our visit to Ignatius Press, we were on the fax machine, e-mail, web sites, telephones, making arrangements with helicopter companies, with agents, getting permits, getting everything together." "Six weeks from that point we were flying in helicopters over Israel, and Egypt, and Turkey, and Greece, and Rome - getting all this gorgeous, beautiful aerial footage that would then be used throughout the whole video series." "(Janet) Having been there before, we knew exactly what we wanted on film." "(Steve ) And I remember getting all the cameras hooked on, and flying over such a wonderful thing." "And then we came back from that, and it was only a matter of another four months, and we were on our way to go film this documentary of St. Peter." "And the reason that I did this video first, that we decided on this one, is earlier we had converted to the Catholic Church from being Evangelical Protestants." "And for us, I remember how crucial the issue of authority was." "If the early Church had the concept that Peter was the head of the Church, and that the early Church felt the need to obey and listen to him" "And to the bishops." "Especially the Bishop of Rome, then it was very important for us." "So I started reading, not only the Bible very carefully on that topic, but also the early Church - studying the Fathers of the Church and the very first Christian writings." "And what we discovered together there, was that the early" "Christians thoroughly believed in the primacy of Rome, in the Papacy in its beginning form." "And so we began to collect those quotes, and it became a book," ""Upon This Rock." And so the reason we started with Peter was it was a very familiar topic to us." "We just had the book published, we knew the locations, we knew the scripture passages, we knew exactly what we wanted to say." "And we said, let's start with this one." "And so four months later we were on our way." "If you think of the Sea of Galilee as a clock," "Bethsaida is at 1 1 o'clock, and Capernaum is at 1 -- l did it wrong again." "Can I do it the right way?" "I mean, it's screwy for me - it's a mental block." "Let me see." "This morning we're standing in the c-- ancient city of Bethsaida." "That was the very first time you were ever on camera." "And even though you were an experienced public speaker and teacher, and used to getting up in front of large audiences, speaking in front of a camera is a very different thing." "It really was." "When I'm speaking to a large group I'm always nervous, even when I do that." "I've never gone up and not been very nervous even teaching in front of a large group." "But being in front of the camera is very different." "When I'm speaking to a group I feed off the audience, in a way." "I respond to their emotions and their reactions." "You can see them smiling or nodding their head." "And I know how I'm doing." "If I'm doing well l can see it in their face, or I can judge myself and gauge." "But when I'm talking to the camera it just sat there." "It didn't smile back at me." "It didn't give me any clues to how I was doing." "So you started out these first days always looking away, always looking at the crew for some sort of response." "And the person behind the camera kept on saying," ""Don't look away." "Don't look away! "" "It was affirmation." "I was looking for affirmation that I was doing it right because the camera was giving me no idea how I was doing." "And I remember the big joke:" "Do not look away from the camera until I say cut." "And then he kept forgetting to say cut." "So I'd stand there staring at the camera and they'd say," ""What are you doing?"" "I'd say, "l'm waiting for you to say cut."" "You didn't say cut." "(Janet) Another odd thing that you did is you frequently stuck your tongue out when you were through with your lines." "It looked so funny." "And I'm not sure why I did it, but I do remember it was very dry there, and I didn't realize on our first trip how much water one needs to drink." "I didn't drink enough." "My lips would get dry." "My tongue would get dry." "And as soon as I'd get done I'd look at the camera and I'd go like this." "It looked so funny." "I think I was trying to lick my lips, but it was also maybe a nervous reaction the first few days." "Also, notice in that scene that I didn't have my hat on." "This has kind of become a trademark, this hat." "At first I didn't have it on." "It was a problem because the sun would be there and it would cause a shadow on my face." "So I didn't wear the hat, but then at times I was squinting like this because the sun was so bright." "But I learned a valuable lesson that first day." "You sure did." "You remember?" "You woke up the next morning with your head bright red, and very painful." "I looked like a red beet." "And I couldn't even move my eyebrows because my head was so sunburned and so painful that I learned that this hat was very crucial." "It's like a cheap toupee, in a way, for me." "But it was very crucial because with this hairstyle that I have it could become a crispy critter real fast." "And this became a very essential part of our travel gear." "One of the things that was important for us, especially in these first days - l remember getting up at three or four every morning." "Again, because I was not tired." "I was wide awake and so geeked for this project, so excited about it." "But I wanted to immerse myself in the topic for that day." "Wherever we were going to be " "Capernaum, or Banias, or Jerusalem - l remember getting all my books out, and my laptop, and all the notes I had." "And I would study and just immerse myself so that when I was on location in front of that camera, that all of that excitement and information would just kind of flow out of me." "Just bubble out of you." "Yeah, so it would bubble out of me." "And one of the important sites that we went to in those first days - actually after Bethsaida on the first day, we went up to Banias on the second day." "Banias is known as Caesarea Philippi, in Matthew 1 6." "And that is an important site for us." "One of our favorite locations." "One of our favorite, where we always take people there." "Even though it's way north on the Lebanese border - you can often hear gunfire and things going off - it's right on the border." "But we go there because that's the place where Jesus said to Peter, "You are rock, and on this rock I will build my church."" "And Jesus always loved to use these backdrops." "And out of all the books that we have at home, very few ever mention the importance of the geography, the location, in regards to what Jesus is saying to Peter." "And we didn't invent this correlation." "But it's not being emphasized and very few people know about it, and we thought that was important." "Even the rock." "It's an amazing backdrop to what Jesus was trying to say and to emphasize in Matthew 1 6." "Tell them about the cave." "(Janet) The huge cave, known as the gates of hell." "It was a bottomless pit." "And the ancients - the people in ancient times - would throw their sacrifices down into this pit, hoping that they would be accepted." "And this was right there at the place where Jesus said," ""You are rock, and on this rock I will build my church ;" "and the gates of hell would not prevail against it."" "It's important to understand what that cave is." "And it's important to understand that huge rock, and the importance of Jesus' words to Peter at that place." "That's why that was one of my most exciting, and what I felt was one of the more important parts of this documentary, as we wanted to give everybody a good idea of what Jesus meant, and how important Peter's role was in the Church." "Six weeks after our meeting with Ignatius Press in San Francisco we were at the Herzliyya Airport in Israel ready to go on our first helicopter flight." "We'd had a Tyler nose mount shipped from California to Tel Aviv, then it was brought up to the Herzliyya Airport." "And that was that device that attaches on to the bottom of the bottom of the helicopter which holds our video camera." "We got it all set up, took a couple hours to get it ready, and then we were on our way." "(Janet) And my first experience on that helicopter, flying backwards, was very unpleasant." "I got sick to my stomach and I swore I would never get in another helicopter again." "So my advice is never fly backwards in a helicopter." "(Steve ) Be the first one to get in so you get the seat facing forward." "It's like going on a roller coaster backwards." "It was also kind of a jarring ride at times, even though our pilot was an artist with that helicopter." "He knew exactly how to fly to get the footage that we wanted." "And we directed him to the scenes and the sites that we wanted to." "One of the problems with having the video camera underneath is that the big lens is just like a windshield." "And as you're flying through the air we kept getting what we call, bug splats." "It would go, splat, splat, all over." "And we'd have to land every ten minutes." "So here you are sitting backwards in the seat going up and down - going down to get the bug splats off, then all of a sudden, woooop, back up again." "And we spent the whole day doing that all through northern Israel, over Nazareth, and the Sea of Galilee, and Caesarea Philippi." "It was a marvelous time." "But also that camera being under the helicopter had other effects, didn't it?" "It sometimes took my breath away, because I would watch the monitor and that camera would get so close to the cross on a roof that it would just-- it would cause me to gasp." "(Steve ) We thought we were going to crash." "I thought we would knock something right off the top of the roof." "We would always go, "Go up," because we were sure that it was going to knock the steeple right off the church." "I remember, too, the pilot being a little silly." "There was some unrest in Israel at that time." "And I remember him saying if you ever see a missile go by, or a red flash go past your window, duck." "And we thought, well, that's going to do a lot of good." "If they're shooting missiles, what good is it going to do to duck?" "Unfortunately, and but for the grace of God, that helicopter, we learned about six months later with another film crew, crashed." "Not due to any gunfire or anything, but just an unfortunate engine problem." "It actually did crash with a video crew." "Because of the expertise of our pilot, he was able to land it safely." "Nobody was killed but they were all pretty badly injured." "Do you remember our pilot in Greece - speaking of injuries - do you remember our pilot in Greece?" "I remember our pilot in Greece had a curious bandage on his fingers." "So we asked him - what happened to you?" "And he told us, when we were flying in the air, he told us he had gotten out of the helicopter a week or two earlier, another helicopter he was flying." "I think an Augusta helicopter." "And he wasn't familiar with this type, and he reached up to wave to somebody and the rotors just took his two fingers right off." "They went flying." "And he had this bandage on." "And as soon as we heard that I remember our first reaction was - are we sure we want to fly with this guy?" "But that was really a marvelous flight over Athens, and over Corinth." "And I'll never forget the day that we flew over the island of Patmos, through the Greek Islands - just zooming right at water level through the islands and coming to the island of Patmos." "We didn't have enough fuel to get back so we had to carry five, five-gallon containers of fuel oil." "We landed on the island, on the beach, and we had to fill it up with these cans before we could head back after our footage." "But even that trip wasn't our most exciting or most memorable." "That trip was in Egypt!" "(Steve ) The most exciting was Egypt." "Where we had to fly in a military helicopter because there are no private helicopter companies." "We searched high and low for a private helicopter company in Egypt to fly us on this trip." "And we found out very quickly that you can't do that." "The only way you can get in a helicopter there is through the military." "So we had to contact the Egyptian Air Force, and we signed a contract to use one of their helicopters." "It was a British Commando." "And even though we were very strictly warned not to take any pictures, this is a secret military site." "I remember I had my digital camera and I did get a few pictures of this helicopter as we were walking out to it because I had to have this as a memory." "This is a once-in-a-lifetime situation." "And I remember signing" "They wanted cash." "And I remember it took me one hour to sign all the travelers checks to get him the amount of cash that they needed up front before we could fly." "And the helicopter that we needed to use, the only one that had the fuel capacity to take us out to Mt." "Sinai and back to Cairo, was this huge helicopter that held 25 people." "It was so loud, so nois y." "We had never experienced noise like that before." "And they didn't provide earphones for us, any ear protection at all." "So I had to chew gum and get spit and some Kleenex and make these little plugs for our ears." "Even though it didn't do much good, that was the least we could do." "They were supposed to have earphones for us, with the microphones so we could communicate with the them." "Even though we didn't speak Arabic and they didn't speak English, it wouldn't have done a lot of good." "I remember those earplugs that you made." "But even with those, when we landed, I couldn't hear for 2 4 hours." "Remember even just back in the motel you had to yell at me, and I even said, "What?"" "Everything was tinny, and was almost 95% deaf for 2 4 hours before my hearing came back." "That helicopter was a huge helicopter." "And I remember the sound - l described it as having two freight trains on either side of your head." "We couldn't even communicate." "We had to do it all by notes and by hand gestures." "And I remember that when we were flying-- lt was a six-hour trip, there and back, and it took six of the military guys to fly us - one navigator and one security agent." "And I'll never forget that they were heading back, and I said, "We didn't get Sinai yet."" "We have to go around the tip of Mt." "Sinai and we hadn't done that yet." "So I went up to the navigator, and I was, very desperate, pointing, "Sinai!" "Sinai! "" "and pointing to his charts." "And he says," ""Already been there." "Done" And I said, "No, no, no! "" "He didn't even know where Mt." "Sinai was." "So I showed him on the map where it was, and they turned that big helicopter around." "And finally, I showed him where it was, and we were able to make one pass around Mt." "Sinai and over the monastery there." "St. Catherine's Monastery." "And then they said that the red light was blinking, that they were out of fuel and they had to head back." "And we had to land in the desert and get more fuel." "But I remember that day was one of the- was so exciting and so frustrating, but we got the footage." "But you remember what happened as we were crossing the Red Sea?" "Yes." "That was one of the most unnerving moments in this whole trip, especially in this flight." "Right when we were going across the Red Sea - we wanted to get that footage so that we could describe for the Moses video - and the security agent shut the door because it must have been some military site below" "that we couldn't film." "And one of the crew members was so frustrated." "All of us were frustrated, but he vented his frustration by banging on the door, banging on the window, which was about 4 feet by 3 feet." "And before you knew it that window popped out of the helicopter and it went, flop, flop, flop, down into the Red Sea." "Shemi, tell about the nets when we went out that night fishing." "Explain how we put the nets in the water and scared the fish and things." "(with Hebrew accent) Well, before we put the net, we have two lights, red lights in the night because we put the net." "When we're coming back we know where the net be." "And after we put the net... in a round" "A big circle." "Big circle." "My net, it be one kilometer." "It's over a half a mile long." "You put it in a circle in the water." "Maybe one circle big, or if you want two or three small circles." "And you, after that, wait five minutes..." "Make a noise." "And after that we make a noise." "And Steve tell you how noise we are doing, in English." "We had to make the noise." "And my job was to pound on the side of the boat to scare the fish." "And Shemi's job - what Shemi's job?" "Was a plunger - kapoosh!" "kapoosh!" " in the water, and it chased the fish into the nets." "And Udi's work, tell us what to do." "Udi was the man who was on the motor, and he's the one who drove the boat." "He was the boss." "He told us what to do." "He not the boss." "I am the boss." "Oh, he's the boss." "Udi work with me." "And then after that we went around that big circle and pulled the net in." "The fish were all stuck by their gills in the net, and then we would throw them into the bottom of the boat." "(Janet) One of the people that we met was Shemi Cohen, a fisherman, who actually fishes on the Sea of Galilee, makes his living there." "And it was very special to our family during our" "Jubilee Pilgrimage to go out on his fishing boat with him." "I remember that." "I got up at 5 o'clock in the morning." "I wanted to re-live the Gospel, in a sense, and I went out onto the shore of Galilee near" "Capernaum, where Peter lived." "And I was reading the Gospel of John, about Jesus seeing them coming in in the morning." "And I was standing there looking through the mist as they were coming in from a night of fishing." "And I introduced myself to Shemi, got talking with him, and we became friends." "And he asked if our family would like to go out on a boat that evening, and he could teach us about fishing on the Sea of Galilee." "It was a wonderful time." "But then it really played an important part in this video, "Peter:" "Keeper of the Keys,"" "because then he became one of our scenes, of a real Jewish fisherman, so that we could show our viewer a real fisherman out on the Sea of Galilee." "And we've become good friends." "(Janet) And he wasn't the only one that we met." "Everyone that we've come in contact with has been so warm and welcoming, and friendly." "We just love talking to everyone, whether they're Palestinian police, or Jewish soldiers, or people off the street, shopkeepers." "(Steve ) You can learn a lot just by talking to them and sharing a meal with them." "Like you said, I remember many times that we've discussed politics and religion with Palestinian police, and then the next thing you know we're sitting there chatting with Jewish soldiers." "We'd maybe have lunch with a Palestinian Christian family, then have dinner with a Jewish Israeli family." "And then not even to mention all the priests, and the religious, and just the average people on the street." "I think it really helps to bring the story alive." "I'm ready for another adventure." "How about you?" "Lord willing" "( cameraman ) What's with the tongue?" "( cameraman ) There goes another cow." "So that the shape, the sheep, the shep" "Ah, doggone it, the sheep, the shep-- l wanted to say-- l wanted to not-- ppppp!" "!" "I can start back from before he died, right?" "Maybe right here in the--- Ahhh!" "!" "It is so packed with information, this text that Jesus uses is so packed that we're going to try to unpack it" " Ahhh!" "That's too many pack, pack, pack, pack." "That Peter was going to be the true church that built-- pppppppppppp." "I got some of that good, didn't I?" "Peter arrived and began to-- Woop!" "p-p-p-p-p." "It's my great honor to have this interview for our D VD," ""Peter:" "Keeper of the Keys," with a prince of the Church," "Christoph Cardinal Schonborn from Vienna, Austria, who was also very involved with the writing of the Catechism, in 1 994 - wrote large portions of it and was the secretary of the whole project." "Welcome." "Thank you for being here." "And I just am so glad that we have the chance to do this interview, Cardinal." "Thank you, Steve." "Peter had his name changed." "It was changed from Simon, to Peter the Rock." "What was the significance of that name change?" "Jesus is said to be the rock, because God is the rock." "So I think that when Jesus changed the name of Peter, it was already the promise that he carries the task of being, so to say, place keeper for God, place keeper for Christ." "He's the Vicar of Christ." "He's the rock for the rock." "He's not the rock from his own." "It's not he who is the rock." "It's Christ who is the rock, and who has entrusted him to be his vicar." "How does Peter and the other apostles work together?" "Or, in today's Church, how is it that the Pope and the bishops work together?" "How is each of their authorities different or the same?" "And how do they work together?" "Peter is an apostle." "In all the lists the Gospels give us, he is always the first." "And St. John is very s ymbolic when they both ran to the tomb." "Peter was slower because he was the elder one." "John arrived first, but then he stopped and waited for Peter, and Peter entered first." "So Peter is always the first." "That doesn't mean, necessarily, that personally he's the most holy." "Probably John had a deeper sanctity, holiness." "But he's the first." "Jesus has called him to be the first, made him the first." "Nevertheless, he is one of the twelve." "As the Pope is the Bishop, he's the Bishop of Rome." "And he is, as such, the Pope." "The Pope couldn't be a general president of the bishops." "He is the Bishop of Rome." "And because the Church of Rome is the church of Peter and Paul, he is the first among the bishops." "(Steve ) When we say that the Pope is infallible, many people object to that and say, how can a sinful or imperfect man be infallible." "How can the Church teach that?" "How is that possible?" "He is not infallible in appointing bishops - l am an example." "He is not infallible in giving judgments on political issues." "You know, the debate about the war and peace question." "He is not infallible in his daily practical judgments." "But when he teaches faith, when he speaks about - in his official task as the supreme shepherd, as the successor of Peter and a Vicar of Christ - when he speaks about faith and morals he has the assistance of the Holy Spirit to stay in" "the truth and not to lead the Church into error." "And this is a tremendous promise." "And it stands only on the promise of Jesus, never it would stand on human grounds." "You're in the apostolic succession." "You're a prince of the Church, in the chair of the apostles as a bishop." "How do you think about that?" "It's got to be a tremendous responsibility, and a fearsome thing." "Yes." "And at the same time you must take it in a very realistic way." "Yes, we the bishops - unworthy as we are, unworthy servants, as we say during Mass - we are the successors of the apostles." "That's true." "And that's a mystery, as all the sacraments are a mystery." "Can you see that you are baptized?" "Can you see that I am baptized?" "We believe that we belong to Christ through baptism." "We are really members of his body." "In such a way we really can say the bishop is a successor of the apostles." "And, of course, that's a tremendous responsibility." "At the same time, it's even more a grace." "Despite all our weaknesses, Christ is working through the apostles and through their successors." "And our current Pope is such a marvelous gift to the Church, to sit in the chair of Peter." "And he's done so much to teach the world, and to challenge the world about sin, to try and stop human injustice and abortion, and these kinds of things." "And he's done so much to bring about the dialogue and help the Church come back together." "I think if you want to understand what Peter is, what the call Jesus gave to Peter means for the world today, just look on John Paul ll." "We can see." "Two thousand years later, here is Peter again, still sitting on the chair." "And when you follow the steps the Pope has gone in these 25 years of his pontificate, it's tremendous how he really follows the steps of Peter." "This is one of the largest, and arguably the most important and beautiful churches in the whole world." "This is St. Peter's Basilica in Rome." "This magnificent church is named after Simon Peter, that rugged and impulsive fisherman from a small village over a thousand miles away, over 2000 years ago." "How did such a rustic and uneducated fisherman come to deserve such an enduring honor and living authority here in the city of Rome on the banks of the Tiber River?" "Are you ready for an adventure?" "Let's go back to another place and another time and discover the friend of Jesus, the fisher of men, the shepherd of sheep, and the keeper of the keys." "Time has not erased it." "Wars have not destroyed it." "This is the land where God walk ed." "And His footsteps lead us back to the very history of salvation itself." "Join us as we discover the places and the people at the heart of the salvation story." "And follow the footprints of God." "You know, when Peter was a little boy, the Sea of Galilee was not two miles walk away as it is today." "In fact, it probably came up right here at the base of this hill." "And these rocks are the foundation of an ancient city, the city of Bethsaida, and this is the city where Peter grew up." "Let's get oriented." "Israel is on the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea." "It's a small country, only about the size of the state of New Jersey." "About 35 miles inland is the city of Jerusalem." "Following the Jordan River north about 60 miles, we find the Sea of Galilee." "Bethsaida is located just east of the northern shore." "When Peter was a boy, he lived in a house made of rocks." "In fact, in Northern Galilee here, the houses are made out of basalt, a volcanic rock." "You can see here as it cooled that it trapped the air bubbles." "You can still see the remains." "Where I'm sitting here is the foundation of what's called the fisherman's house." "They call it that because in this house they found ancient fish hooks and weights - lead weights and stone weights - for nets." "They found needles for fixing the nets." "They kept their animals in the courtyard, and around the courtyard were the living quarters, maybe the kitchen and storage areas, sometimes two stories high." "They would sit up on top on a nice day and they would eat or they would pray." "Their animals would join them in the evening to be safe from the wolves and the wild animals." "Their lives back then were different from ours today, and this is the kind of rough-hewn stone house that Peter lived in as a boy." "Who was Peter?" "What do we know about him?" "And why did Jesus choose Peter to be his disciple instead of one of the trained scribes or Pharisees in the city of Jerusalem to the south?" "That's why I'm standing here right now, in the ancient city of Bethsaida, to discover the answer to those questions." "Bethsaida is literally translated," ""the house of the fisherman." So it should come as no surprise that here in this one location, more ancient artifacts of the fishing trade have been found than anywhere else on the coast of the Sea of Galilee." "We have these handcrafted stones with holes drilled through them." "They were used as weights for the long fishing nets." "On the top of the nets were cork floats, and at the bottom the ropes would run through these stone weights and they would sink the net into to the sea, so that when the fishermen would pull the nets in," "it would bring the fish with them." "We also found here the fishing hooks - bronze fishing hooks - of all sizes from large to small, from the first century, found here in Bethsaida." "These were the tools of the trade of those who lived in this village." "And not far from here, a significant artifact was uncovered in the mid-1 980s, when the Sea of Galilee had receded during a drought." "It's an actual fishing boat from the first century - probably the kind that Peter and Andrew would have used." "The boat underwent a painstaking 1 0-year process to preserve it, and you can see it today in the Beth Yigal Allon Museum in Ginosar." "And seeing this boat today takes us right back to the time of Jesus and Peter." "Peter and Andrew learned to fish here." "They weren't trained in the law in Jerusalem, they were not doctors of the law." "In fact, we're told in the Book of Acts that they were considered to be ignorant and uneducated men." "In the law, that is." "But why did Jesus pick these men?" "Why did Jesus come here to find these rustic fishermen who smelled of fish, not of books?" "Peter brought Jesus to this very town of Bethsaida because Peter cared for his family and friends and those who were sick and diseased." "And on top of that, thousands came from all over Israel here to this very village to be healed by Jesus." "But they did not have the same reaction to the hand of God that Peter had had." "They did not believe." "And even though they saw the mighty works, they turned their back on belief in the Messiah." "And Jesus' reaction to that unbelief was to say..." "And he cursed this town." "I just love these ancient ruins." "They bring history to life." "We're going to leave Bethsaida now, and go to Capernaum." "It's only about a three-mile walk across the Jordan River into another province." "In the time of Peter, to go into that other province he would have had to pay a toll, possibly with a Roman coin, like one of these." "What was it like to be a fisherman in the time of Peter?" "Or today?" "What was it like to sit at the feet of Jesus in the s ynagogue and hear the gospel preached, and be called to be one of his disciples?" "Let's go to Capernaum and find out." "Peter was a Jew, and this is a s ynagogue in the center of the city of Capernaum, the village of Jesus." "This was a thriving" "Jewish community, even though most of Northern Galilee was Gentile and under Roman rule." "Peter and his family and friends would gather here on the Sabbath to listen to the readings of the scriptures." "They were waiting for the Messiah." "Capernaum is only about 3 miles west of Bethsaida, right on the shore of the Sea of Galilee." "Even though he would have had to cross the Jordan River, this would have been a short, eas y walk for a rugged man like Peter." "This Jewish s ynagogue was not built by a Jew." "Rather, it was built by a Roman centurion." "He loved the Jewish people, and out of the love of God and the Jewish people he built this s ynagogue for them here in Capernaum." "The remains we see here today are actually from the magnificent 4th-century white s ynagogue, which was built on the site of the 1 st-century s ynagogue where Jesus taught." "The city of Capernaum is situated on the Via Maris, the Way by the Sea, a main thoroughfare along the Sea of Galilee." "Travelers in the area would have seen the Jewish s ynagogue in the center of town, and stopped here to rest, or to take part in the services." "Jesus had recently left his childhood hometown of Nazareth - actually he barely escaped with his life - and as he was walking along the Via Maris, he would have seen this Jewish community with its s ynagogue." "He stopped in, joined them on the Sabbath and was invited to teach." "Peter and his fellow villagers were amazed by Jesus and his teaching, and his authority." "He stood here and quoted from Isaiah, that this was Galilee, the land of the Gentiles, and that there would come, Isaiah said, a great light to this land." "Jesus proclaimed himself that great light, right here in this s ynagogue." "Imagine Peter sitting here, the rough, rugged fisherman, bulging muscles, smelling of fish again, and here walks in this Jewish rabbi, who very softly I would assume, begins to read from the book of Isaiah and teach the scriptures." "And Peter had a soft heart - a rugged body but a soft heart." "And that soft heart responded to the words of the gospel, they responded to the words of the prophet, and as Jesus expounded and opened the Old Testament," "Peter's heart melted within him and he believed in this Messiah." "And it changed Peter's life;" "it changed the world." "A tender and responsive heart inside a rugged body." "What a perfect image of Peter." "He would have needed strength and ruggedness to earn a living as a fisherman here on the Sea of Galilee." "It was hard and dangerous work." "And as any modern-day fisherman here will tell you, it still is." "This is my friend, Shemi Cohen." "He's a real fisherman here on the sea, and last summer he took me out for the night fishing in his boat." "It's a small sea, but it's very, very dangerous." "How high do the waves get?" "In the winter it get to be up to two meters, two and a half meters." "That's about eight or nine feet high at times." "Peter certainly had a lot to contend with in his line of work." "But what about his life?" "How did Peter live?" "Let's pull into shore and find out." "Ever since my first adventure in Israel, this city of Capernaum has always been one of my very favorite sites in the whole country." "This is the house of Peter." "He lived here with his family." "Not only is it the house of Peter, but it's also correct to say that it's the house of Jesus." "During most of the three years of his ministry," "Jesus lived right here in this rock house." "Today above it is a modern structure, an octagonal, eight-sided church." "That's to replicate a church that was built here in the fifth century." "Peter's house is only about a hundred feet from the s ynagogue - the s ynagogue where Jesus taught, and where the people of Capernaum gathered on a regular basis for meetings, for teaching, and for worship." "This house was where people came from all over Israel to be healed." "In fact, in the Gospels we have stories of thousands of people lined up and pressed against the door of this house to get access to Jesus, so that Jesus could heal them." "We have the story of the paralytic man, and the crowds here being so dense that his friends had to crawl up on top of the stone house, remove part of the roof, and lower him on a stretcher" "into the room below, where Jesus forgave him his sins and healed him." "That happened right here, on this very location." "I just can't believe it when I'm here, and I think of those stories from the scriptures, and I just have to share it with people because it is so exciting." "This is where Jesus walked." "The very footprints of God were here in this location for three years in the first century." "Why would Jesus pick a rugged, muscular fisherman instead of one of the scholars down in Jerusalem?" "Shemi reminds me a little bit of Peter." "He's got a good heart and he's gentle." "I think Jesus saw in Peter something he had seen earlier in his mother." "She was very quick to say yes." "Mary gave her life to God." "Peter did the same." "He loved Jesus, and was quick to drop even his career to follow him, and as we'll see later, even to lay his life down." "We're on our way north to Caesarea Philippi." "We're going to go there to learn about how Jesus called and commissioned Peter to lead his church." "Peter was ready for the job." "Sailing in this boat takes me back to the time of Peter." "A small sailing ship is often called a barque." "That's where we get the term, "the Barque of Peter,"" "which is one of the titles of the Church." "What a powerful image - the Church as a ship, voyaging through life's waves and storms, carrying its passengers to the safe harbor of Heaven!" "Remember that Jesus taught from Peter's boat long ago, and still teaches us today from the Barque of Peter." "Even though fishing is much the same today as it was during the time of Peter, a lot of things have changed." "The wood boats have been replaced with fiberglass." "The cotton nets are replaced with nylon, and the oars have been replaced with motors." "Very soon, Peter is going to replace his fishing boat with the church." "This water is cold." "It flows right out of the base of the mountain." "For thousands of years this water has sustained the people of God in the land of Israel, making it lush and green and full of life." "It flows about 30 miles to the south and empties into the Sea of Galilee." "This is one of the headwaters of the Jordan River." "Those headwaters originate in Caesarea Philippi, which is known today as Banias." "This is a dramatic and beautiful country, filled with rocks and streams and wildflowers." "But don't let the scenery fool you." "This is a rugged and mountainous region." "And traveling here from Galilee would probably have been anything but eas y." "This is such an amazing spot." "I can see forever." "I almost can see to the Sea of Galilee 30 miles beyond." "I'm on the rock here in Caesarea Philippi, and this is the place where Jesus came on a 2-day journey with his disciples." "He brought them to this very rock to teach them." "It's probably 500 feet long and over a hundred feet high, and Jesus brought his disciples all the way up here to use this as a backdrop for an important teaching he had to give them." "Jesus usually liked to have something in his hand, or to point to something on the ground or have something behind him to make his point when he taught." "And probably there's no greater backdrop for his teachings than this massive rock." "Consider Matthew 1 6, one of the most important passages in the Bible." "We read that it was here in Caesarea Philippi where Jesus asked his disciples the question, "Who do men say that I am?"" "Simon answered, not from his own mind, not from flesh and blood, but by a revelation from God he spoke for them all and said..." "Peter defined Jesus." "And it's a definition we still use today, 2,000 years later." "When Jesus heard Peter's words, he turned to Peter and he defined Peter, and he said, "You are rock." "And on this rock I will build my church."" "Peter's name had only been Simon, but now he's given a new name." "We lose some of the meaning in English when we say..." "But those original listeners would have heard Jesus say..." "Peter is the rock, he is the foundation, it's Jesus who is the builder." "This name change was no small matter." "In Semitic culture, and in the Bible itself, a change of name is a very significant event, redefining a person's purpose and identity." "Take Abraham, for example." "He was called "Abram," which in Hebrew means "father."" "But when he was given the covenant, God changed his name to Abraham, the "father of nations."" "So when Jesus gave Simon the new name Peter, - or "foundation rock" - it meant a world of difference to the disciples who heard it." "It defined who Peter was, and determined his place in the church." "Take a look around." "Look behind me." "What do you see?" "Now, use your imagination." "At the time of Christ, this was the side wall of a huge temple." "In fact, you can still see the niches and the indentations in the wall where they enshrined their idols." "This was a beautiful temple, gleaming white in the sun, seen for miles away." "In fact, we have an image of that temple on this coin, minted right here in Caesarea Philippi in the first century." "You can see the roof and you can see the pillars." "This was a unique site, not only in the Near East, but probably in the whole Roman empire." "Pagan worship was taking place right here." "People came from thousands of miles to worship at this place." "At the back of the temple was this cave, and the cave was full of water." "In fact, Josephus tells us it was a "horrible precipice" down into the water, bottomless, no one could find the bottom." "It was here that the pagans came to offer their sacrifices." "They would walk through the temple and they would throw their living sacrifice into the water." "It may have even been viewed as the gates of hell, the entrance into the netherworld." "This, for the pagans in this site, was their holy of holies." "Josephus tells us in the first century that this temple was built by Herod in honor of Caesar Augustus." "People came here to offer sacrifice and to proclaim" "Caesar as the Lord." "That was a problem for the early" "Christians, because we say even today in our creed that..." "To deny that Caesar was a Lord was an offense punishable by death." "It was here that Jesus proclaimed that Peter would become the rock, the foundation of the church, and the contrast is clear." "We have here a false temple built on a false rock to a false Lord." "But Jesus said that the true church would be built on the true rock of Peter, and he, Jesus the builder, would be the true Lord." "Not only do we learn something of Peter being the foundation of the church, but at this site we also learn something of his being the shepherd." "At this site the god Pan was worshipped." "To this day, you can still see the niches that were carefully carved into the rock face here - niches that once held the statues of Pan, one of the pagan gods of Greece." "We even have a coin that was made right here in Caesarea Philippi, with an image of the god Pan." "In fact, before this city was named Caesarea Philippi, it was called Panias, after the god Pan." "Do you know what the god Pan was the god of?" "The god Pan is the god of sheep and shepherds." "The irony of this location wasn't lost on Jesus or the disciples." "Of all the places He could have come, Jesus brings his disciples here to choose and appoint the shepherd who is going to lead His flock." "Here to the pagan city of Panias, home of the false god of shepherds." "In contrast, Jesus shows Himself as the true God." "And he chooses Peter as the true shepherd and leader of His flock." "This location really holds a special place in my heart." "It was here that Jesus said to Peter, "You are rock, and on this rock I will build my church."" "But he also made a second promise here." "He said, "l will give you the keys of the kingdom of Heaven."" "This is the language of kings and kingdoms, monarchies and hierarchies." "In the western world we've rejected such things." "And we've even lost the language that goes along with them." "But to the people of Jesus' day, who lived under the rule of kings and emperors, and to the Jews who understood the scriptures, the image of the keys was powerful, and it would have been well-understood." "In the Roman times they had small keys, such as this one that was worn on a finger." "But in the times of the ancient" "Jews, during the kings, the keys were long and worn over the shoulders." "So, this site offers us a key to understanding the teachings of the Catholic Church." "Did the apostles understand the full implications of this magnificent site and the prophetic words of Jesus?" "How did this play out in the early church?" "How has the Catholic Church embodied these teachings for the last 2,000 years?" "Just wait to see what we discover next in Galilee, and then Jerusalem, and all the way to Rome." "Peter likely returned to his hometown of Capernaum." "But on at least two occasions that we know of, Jesus required" "Peter to make the journey to Mount Tabor, about 20 miles to the southwest." "This was probably a 1 or 2-day trip." "And I can tell you, the climb up the mountain was not eas y." "Jesus told his disciples to meet him up here." "Those must have been some tough guys." "We're standing at the top of Mt." "Tabor, about 1 ,600 feet above the valley below." "This is where the transfiguration took place, where Peter and James and John witnessed Jesus transfigured before them, with Moses and Elijah, who came to speak with Jesus about things that soon were to take place in Jerusalem." "Then after the Crucifixion and Resurrection, which took place not even a hundred miles to the south in Jerusalem," "Jesus commanded his disciples to come back to this mountain." "The Bible doesn't tell us this for sure, but I'm convinced that" "Jesus, when he taught, like in Caesarea Philippi, liked to have a backdrop, he liked to have an example of the teaching." "And he brought them here because of this magnificent vista." "You can see across the land of Israel and you can imagine as far as Jerusalem." "Peter and the apostles had a job to do, and Jesus brought them here to give them an idea of the extent of their mission." "The apostles were to go out into all the world..." "And Jesus promised to be with the apostles until the end of the age." "Like the rest of the apostles," "Peter had a tough job to do." "And scripture and history tell us that he did it well." "We have one more meeting with the resurrected Christ before we take the long trek back to Jerusalem for the Ascension and the beginning of the Church." "But right now let's scramble back down this mountain and head northeast back to the Sea of Galilee." "A very important clue awaits us there." "Jesus wasn't finished with the apostles yet." "And He certainly wasn't through with Peter, who traveled more than 20 miles back to the Sea of Galilee." "As he prepared to obey Christ's great commission, he returned to the only livelihood he had known : fishing." "Nothing like a good warm fire first thing in the morning before the sun comes up." "We're sitting here on the Sea of Galilee." "The sun will probably rise in about a half hour to an hour." "Even now there are fishermen out on the sea, starting to come in, bringing their catch of fish in for the morning." "We're sitting here cooking some fish, by the way." "These are Amnun fish." "These are the most common fish in the Sea of Galilee." "They're commonly referred to as St. Peter's fish." "With the fish cooking and the boats bobbing up and down just offshore, I think of Peter and the Gospel of St. John, chapter 21 ." "Just as day was breaking, Jesus stood on the beach." "Yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus." "Jesus said to them, "Children, have you caught any fish?"" "And they answered and said,"No." He said to them," ""Cast your net on the other side of the boat and you'll find some."" "They obeyed Jesus and miraculously caught a great number of fish - so many, they couldn't haul the net back into the boat." "Recognizing the Lord," "Peter jumped into the water and swam ashore." "Jesus said to them, "Bring some of the fish that you have just caught..." "Why is John so specific about that number, 1 53?" "St. Jerome believed that was the number of nations and languages in the known world, and saw Peter dragging in the net, representing the church, filled with 1 53 fish representing all the people of the world." "And isn't it interesting that John says the net was not torn." "The Greek word for tear is "schizo," from which we get the word "schism." So Peter is commissioned to bring in the net filled with peoples from all nations and languages, and present it to the Lord at the end of time" "without tear or schism." "Jesus then cooked the apostles some fish for breakfast, just as I'm doing, right here on the shore of the Sea of Galilee." "Jesus asked Peter, "Do you love me?"" "When Peter answered yes, Jesus said, "Feed my lambs."" "Jesus asked him a second time, and when Peter answered yes, he said, "Tend my sheep." He then asked him a third time, and when Peter assured him of his love, Jesus said," ""Feed my sheep." Why did Jesus give Peter three opportunities to affirm his love?" "Because just a short time earlier, when Jesus was on trial, Peter had denied him three times." "Jesus, in His mercy, was allowing Peter to make up for those denials." "But there's more." "When Jesus said, "Feed and tend my sheep," he was charging Peter with the teaching, governing, and spiritual care of His people - the Church." "So Peter is now not only the fisher of men, but he's given a new office: shepherd of sheep." "And if a shepherd is responsible for tending the sheep, then the sheep must respond by following that shepherd - obeying him, submitting to him, and learning from him." "I've enjoyed the warmth of the fire here this morning." "I enjoy the warmth of the scriptures, too, as we read it here on the Sea of Galilee." "But now we're going to the exact spot where Jesus said these words." "It's the Church of the Primacy of St. Peter, built over a rock called the Mensa Christi - the Table of Christ." "And it was here that tradition tells us Jesus and the disciples actually ate the fish and the bread." "Feed my sheep and tend my lambs." "This is the very spot where Jesus spoke those words." "We're in the Church of the Primacy of St. Peter." "And this is the Mensa Christi, the table of the Lord, where Jesus fed Peter and the apostles." "It was in this very place at this rock that Jesus appointed Peter to be the shepherd of his Universal Church." "This is a beautiful little lamb." "Her name is Prospere." "She's still nursing from her mother." "She would have made a perfect sacrifice down in Jerusalem." "But Peter is not going to Jerusalem to sacrifice the lamb, he's going to Jerusalem to assume his new role as the pastor of the Lord's flock - to feed and to tend and to lovingly govern such as these, and such as these." "Let's go." "This is one of the most beautiful panoramic views of Jerusalem, the city of David." "I could live here." "I just love it here." "Jerusalem." "The sparkling capital city in the heart of Israel, and in the hearts of its people for thousands of years." "Jerusalem lies about 80 miles south of the Sea of Galilee - for Peter, probably a 3 to 5-day trek, depending on the route he took." "It's a trip he had made many times with the Lord." "While most of the journey would have been relatively flat and eas y, Jerusalem itself rises over 3,000 feet above the valley floor." "No wonder the phrase" ""up to Jerusalem" appears over 20 times in the scriptures." "Actually, David lived just south of these walls on that southern slope." "God had promised David a throne that would endure forever." "And up there on the top of Mt." "Zion is the traditional site of the tomb of David, venerated for centuries by the Jews." "This was the place of kings and kingdoms." "The kings of these eastern domains like David had royal officials, much as the president in the" "United States has a vice president and a cabinet." "The highest ranking official here was the royal steward, and he was the keeper of the keys." "The royal steward was invested with the full authority of the king." "And in the king's absence, he ruled the kingdom." "What happened to that throne, that eternal throne of David that he was promised?" "Let me tell you about that." "About 2,000 years ago, an angel named Gabriel came to a young Jewish girl named Mary and he told her she was going to bear a son, and the son would be named Jesus, and he would sit" "upon that very throne of his father, David." "King Jesus is now on that throne." "And he has chosen his royal steward to rule in his place while he is preparing a place for us." "And that steward is Peter - the rock and the keeper of the keys." "One of the promises that Jesus made to Peter at Caesarea Philippi - remember the big rock?" " was that he would give him the authority to bind and to loose." "These are some of the most common phrases used among the rabbis in the time of Jesus." "In other words, whatever Peter decided upon or taught or judged here on earth, would be ratified by God in Heaven." "Isaiah 22 provides the scriptural and Jewish backdrop for this promise." "Shebna is succeeded by Eliakim, who then takes up on his shoulder the keys." "And Isaiah tells us that whatever Eliakim opens, no man would shut; and what he shut, no man would open." "This is the backdrop for Matthew 1 6." "With these keys, Peter and his successors are granted exclusive dominion to rule in the kingdom of God." "And as Jesus said, "Those who hear you, hear me."" "The footprints of God." "They lead right here." "This is Jerusalem, the city where God dwelled with his people in the temple, in the holy of holies." "And this is the Cenacle, the traditional site of the Upper Room." "This is a most holy and sacred site for Christians." "During the Mass we say Christ has died," "Christ has risen, Christ will come again." "In this very room, before the crucifixion," "Jesus instituted the sacrament of the Eucharist and the priesthood." "And he also taught Peter how to be a humble servant when he washed the feet of the disciples." "After the resurrection, in this room, Jesus instituted the sacrament of reconciliation - confession - when he breathed on them and said," ""Receive the Holy Spirit." "Those whose sins you forgive will be forgiven, and those whose sins you retain will be retained."" "After the ascension, 1 20 people including Peter and Mary were gathered together in the Upper Room in prayer, waiting for the promise." "And it came." "The Holy Spirit of God rushed into this room and they were filled with the Holy Spirit and tongues of fire fell upon their heads." "They went out and Peter spoke to the Jews that had gathered, and he told them to repent and be baptized for the remission of their sins." "Peter opened the doors of salvation and the waters of baptism to the Jews." "But there's still the problem of the Gentiles." "Malachi prophesied in the Old Testament that there would come a time when the nations, from east to west, would offer a pure offering to God, and this was referring to uncircumcised Gentiles." "How was God going to use Peter to help bring the Jew and the Gentile into one body of Christ?" "We'll discover that next, as we go to Joppa and Caesarea, and see where the Holy Spirit of God was released... into the world." "Peter's first stop on this mission was Joppa, now a carefully preserved district in the large, modern city of Tel Aviv." "The 35-mile journey would have only taken Peter 1 or 2 days on foot - just a short trip." "But as we'll see, it took Peter a world away from the exclusively Jewish church, and the life he had known until then." "Peter couldn't have eaten this lobster." "This is a crustacean, forbidden eating to the Jews." "The mosaic law imposed strict dietary rules." "There were clean foods and unclean foods." "There were also clean and unclean people." "The Gentiles were unclean, uncircumcised." "They were outside the covenant without God, and without hope in the world." "But that was about to change." "We're at the house of Simon the Tanner, here in Joppa." "At noon Peter went up on the roof to pray, and while he was praying, God gave him a vision of a sheet coming down full of unclean animals." "The voice from Heaven said," ""Peter, arise, kill and eat." And Peter said, "No, I can't eat an unclean animal." "I have never eaten one in my life." The voice said," ""What God has cleansed, do not consider unholy."" "This vision was to prepare Peter for one of the most significant events in the saga of salvation." "God had big plans for Peter - and I have big plans for this lobster." "It's a beautiful day, very warm here." "But the breeze off the Mediterranean feels real good." "Peter came about 35 miles up this coast from Joppa." "Maybe on a day just like today." "When he saw this beautiful city off in the distance, it was probably a sight for sore eyes, and for sore feet." "This is beautiful." "I just love this." "Look here - these are pieces of ancient marble slabs, part of this great complex, the biggest port city in the" "Mediterranean at its time." "This is Caesarea by the sea." "The Roman capital of the province of Judea." "Located some 35 miles north of Joppa, Caesarea was once the crown jewel of the Mediterranean." "Herod had built the city in the grand Roman style, with a surrounding wall, a large theater, temples, aqueducts and more." "Roman troops were garrisoned here." "Caesarea's huge shipping port made the city famous throughout the empire." "Impressive?" "It sure was." "But Peter was brought here by a more powerful force to accomplish a more impressive mission." "Cornelius was a Roman centurion." "The title centurion means that he was a commander of at least a hundred men." "And Cornelius was also a Gentile." "Not even five or ten years earlier, this same Roman army had been involved in the crucifixion of Jesus in Jerusalem." "But even though he was a" "Gentile, Cornelius was a God-fearing man, and in Acts chapter 1 0 we learn that he prayed constantly and gave alms to the poor." "An angel from God appeared to" "Cornelius and told him that his prayers and alms had ascended before God as a memorial." "He was to send to Joppa for a man named Peter." "When Peter arrived and began to speak to them of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit fell upon the whole household, and they were immediately baptized." "Even though Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles, it was important that Peter, as head of the Church, be the first to open salvation and the waters of baptism to the Gentiles." "Theaters are for the telling of stories." "This is the theater built by King Herod here in Caesarea, and there's no doubt that thousands of stories have been told here over the centuries." "Luke tells the story of" "Cornelius three times in the Acts of the Apostles." "Luke, the author of Acts, is a Gentile himself." "So would it surprise us that he would emphasize this watershed event in salvation history?" "Let's follow Peter as he takes this crucial revelation back to Jerusalem, and watch the Gentiles take center stage." "Peter's journey back up to Jerusalem took him away from Caesarea's mild coastal climate and natural beauty, and sent him walking more than 50 miles back up to Jerusalem." "What only takes 30 minutes or so in this helicopter would have probably taken Peter 3 or 4 days." "But Peter had great news to relay." "While praying here with the Jews, it would be eas y to get lost in this massive structure of rock walls." "But not lost in God's eyes." "I'm wearing a yarmulke right now." "It's required dress here at this site." "It's a sign of respect and humility before God." "During the time of Christ, in the second temple period, the glorious and beautiful temple of God was just above and beyond this wall." "Almost adjacent to the wall on the other side was the holy of holies." "The temple was destroyed by the Romans in 7 0 A.D." "But because the holy of holies was so close to this wall, this is for the Jews the most holy site in the whole world." "In the first years of the early church, Christians didn't worship in church buildings - they worshipped in the temple." "In fact, we learned that they worshipped in Solomon's court," "Solomon's portico, his porch." "It was here that Jesus had taught the people, and that Peter now taught in his name." "Here at the temple and in Jerusalem, Peter raised the dead, and healed people." "Yet there were still signs around the temple prohibiting Gentiles from coming anywhere near - on penalty of death." "Peter and the apostles could enter the temple, but Gentiles remained outside." "So Peter was now faced with the reality of the wall of separation, between Jew and Gentile being spiritually torn down." "Just how were the Gentiles going to be assimilated into the formerly Jewish Church?" "With great boldness Peter stood up at the Council in Jerusalem about 49 A.D. - the prototype of future church councils." "And he confounded those who said the Gentiles could not be saved unless they were all circumcised first and obeyed the Law of Moses - all 61 3 of the commands." "Circumcision was a real problem from a practical standpoint, because to tell the Gentiles they all had to be circumcised, I think it would be a real hindrance to evangelism." "But Peter took his stand among the apostles and among the presbyters - the priests - and he said," ""Brothers, by my hand and by my voice, God brought the first Gentile in." And he made a ruling at that point that the Gentiles would not need to be circumcised and obey all of the laws of Moses, but they could be" "brought into the church, incorporated into the church and saved by faith." "This was a radical thing." "It seemed to contradict the Old Covenant." "And yet, it says that the whole crowd fell silent." "Peter had assumed his role as the head of the apostles and the head of the Church." "Yet we learn in Paragraphs 880 and 881 of the Catechism that Peter and the apostles worked together in a collegial way." "They made decisions as a council, with Peter at its head." "Decisions that were binding upon the church." "In the letter sent to announce Peter's historic decree about the Gentiles, it says that "it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us." This was a prototype of the papal authority, which continued blossoming" "in the following centuries, and of the church councils that were to take place - the most recent of which was Vatican ll." "How do we know that the chair of Peter and those keys are to be handed down to other men?" "is there such a thing as papal succession?" "And what about papal primacy and infallibility?" "These are tough questions, and the answers await us on the other side of the Mediterranean in the eternal city of Rome." "These ancient cobblestones were laid by the Romans in 31 2 B.C." "This is the Via Appia, the queen of the Roman roads." "In fact, you can still see the grooves worn in the rocks by the Roman chariots." "No doubt Peter himself walked down this very road on his way into Rome." "Today the streets are lined with beautiful trees." "But a hundred years before the time of Peter, this street was lined with crosses, as 6,000 of Spartacus' troops were crucified as a warning to anyone who would defy Roman power." "Peter was no doubt terrified, for in the Gospel of John it's recorded that Jesus had already predicted that Peter himself would be crucified." "Let's follow the Via Appia all the way into Rome." "Peter's journey from Israel to Rome covered a distance of roughly 2,000 miles over land and sea." "Depending on the wind and weather, his journey could have lasted as long as a month." "And despite the expression" ""all roads lead to Rome," it's likely that Peter entered the Eternal City on the Via Appia " "Rome's main link with its expanding empire in the East." "The Via Appia led all the way into the center of ancient Rome." "But we have come a bit farther, across the Tiber River." "St. Peter certainly crossed this Tiber River many times." "In around the year 200, Tertullian compares the baptisms of Peter here in the Tiber with the baptisms of" "John the Baptist in the Jordan River." "In 1 994, my family and I crossed the Tiber River, which s ymbolically means that we converted to the Catholic Church." "Our destination is straight ahead - St. Peter's Basilica." "We have finally reached our destination." "Behind me is the Basilica of St. Peter, and we're standing here in the middle of St. Peter's Square." "We've just come up Conciliation Boulevard - reconciliation with God - and the colonnade, the great arms of the church, reach out to embrace us as we come into the square." "We have the fountains here, which are like the laver in the temple, used for cleansing and to remind us of the need for baptism." "And the obelisk, which is a witness to all of salvation history." "In fact, Peter himself was crucified in its very shadow." "The evidences are all around us." "Ahead of us a bit more are St. Peter and St. Paul - huge statues." "St. Peter with the keys to welcome us as we come into the church." "And at the top of the facade of the church is Jesus, and John the Baptist and the apostles." "They're here to greet us as we come to the monument to the death of St. Peter, and as we enter into the house of the Lord." "Here we are inside the Basilica of St. Peter's in Rome." "This is one of two beautiful holy water fonts with the angels." "Let's take a look around the church." "This is the bronze statue of St. Peter made as early as the sixth century." "Millions and millions of pilgrims come here to touch his feet and pray at the entrance of the nave of the church - so much so that you can see his toes are worn down." "Notice also he's holding the keys, and he's giving the pilgrims a sign of peace as they come and go in their travels." "Part of the Basilica of St. Peter's was built over the Circus of Nero, and this happens to be the exact geographical location where Peter was crucified with his head down." "Of course, Michelangelo's breathtaking dome is the famous external focal point of the church." "And it certainly draws the eyes heavenward." "But it also draws the heart toward Peter." "If you dropped a plumb line straight down from the top of the dome, do you realize that the end would point right to the place where the bones of St. Peter were laid to rest, right beneath the main altar?" "In the 4th century," "Emperor Constantine knew where Peter was buried and literally moved a mountain - Vatican Hill - so that he could build the first large church over Peter's grave." "Yet despite all the evidence, there are still those who refuse to believe that Peter was ever in Rome." "But the historical evidence for Peter's presence in Rome is so overwhelming, the skeptics simply have no case at all." "As we've seen, this basilica is more than just a church - it's a monument to St. Peter, a living memorial to the man who was hand-picked by Jesus to be the shepherd of his flock." "Peter was in Rome." "He was the first Bishop of Rome." "And the chair of St. Peter and his successors is still in Rome today." "Many people mistakenly think that St. Peter's is the cathedral of Rome, but that's not the case." "The word cathedral means the church with the chair - the cathedra." "Every diocese has a bishop, and the bishop has a chair." "The cathedra in the cathedral." "This is the cathedral of the Bishop of Rome, the Pope." "This is the church of St. John Lateran, and as the signs on either side of the entrance remind us, this is not only the mother church of the city, but of the world." "The Pope's chair is right inside." "Let's go see it." "In many ways, Christianity is Jewish." "The Catholic Church grows right out of the Jewish root." "The New Testament blossoms from the Old." "This is the Pope's chair here in St. John Lateran - the sign of the Pope's unique authority when he exercises the charism of infallibility." "He teaches with infallible authority and interpretation." "This charism is clearly explained in the Catechism of the Catholic Church in paragraph 891 ." "The authority of this chair is rooted deep in Jewish history, an authority that is passed on to whoever rightfully occupies this chair." "When Jesus chose Peter and appointed him as his royal steward, he created an office, and there is always a man sitting on the chair of St. Peter." "When Peter died, he was succeeded by Linus, and Linus by Cletus, and Cletus by Clement and so on." "In the first century, Clement wrote a letter to the Corinthians." "In it, he wrote that the apostles in their foreknowledge had said that when these bishops died, other men were to succeed them in their sacred office." "What is the evidence for the authority of the chair, and the Jewish roots of Catholicism?" "It's right here." "We're back in Galilee, and this is the chair of Moses." "The original chair was excavated right here in the ancient s ynagogue in Chorazin, and it's now in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem." "And boy, does this chair have a story to tell." "In Exodus 1 8 we learn that Moses took his seat, that he sat among the people." "From morning until night the people came to this divinely inspired teacher to learn what God wanted them to do." "Before Moses died, he was told by God to take Joshua before the high priest, and to lay his hand on Joshua, and that the authority and dignity in Moses would go into Joshua, and that Joshua would lead the people," "so that God's sheep would not be without a shepherd." "In the Mishna, we read in the Father's" " Abot - that the Torah was given to Moses, and then passed on to Joshua, and from Joshua to the Judges, and the Judges to the Prophets, and the Prophets to the Great Assembly." "In Matthew 23 Jesus acknowledges the authority of the chair." "He says that the scribes and Pharisees, they sit in the chair of Moses." "In the original Greek, the word is 'cathedra' - they sit in the cathedra, or the chair of Moses." "Remember the word cathedra?" "And Jesus said, therefore do whatever they tell you, don't always do what they do, because they're often hypocrites, but as they sit with authority in the chair, you should do what they tell you to do." "So Jesus recognizes the authority of the chair, and when he establishes the new Israel - the Church - he appoints Peter to assume that chair." "A newly established Israel, and a newly established chair." "St. Macarius of Egypt, in the fourth century, wrote that Peter inherited the chair and thus the authority of Moses." "So in a very real way, the Pope in Rome today sits not only in the seat of Peter, but also in the seat of Moses, so that for 3,500 years the people of God have been able to hear and trust the words," ""Thus saith the Lord."" "So here we are, back in Rome at St. John Lateran Church." "In the very presence of the Pope's chair." "Pope John Paul ll has faithfully filled the chair of Peter as the 264th successor." "From Rome, a single faith shines brilliantly throughout the world." "By the grace of God the water of pure doctrine and truth continues to flow from the Rock of St. Peter's office and the Church built upon him." "The Popes have faithfully filled the chair as Peter's successors." "Within the conditions of infallability, no Pope has ever taught error." "The Catholic Church covers the whole world ; we Catholics are over a billion strong." "The Papacy is the oldest existing institutional office in the world." "Kingdoms and Empires have come and gone, but the gates of hell have never - will never - prevail against the Church." "The Catholic Church and her" "Shepherds will stand by God's grace until the end of time when Jesus comes again!" "And so our journey comes to an end." "But what an amazing journey it's been!" "We first met Peter in Galilee, where he was made a fisher of men." "We followed him to Jerusalem, where he stood among the flock as the shepherd of sheep." "And we leave him in Rome, where he is forever memorialized as the keeper of the keys." "Join me again as we go on another adventure to faraway times and faraway places and where we follow the footprints of God." "This presentation is just one episode of the ten-part series," "The Footprints of God, the most original and dynamic video project of its kind." "With The Footprints of God you'll travel to the holiest places on earth." "You'll see the saga of salvation through the eyes of the church, and through the discoveries made by popular author and speaker," "Steve Ray." "Subscribe to the entire series, or select only the episodes that are of the most interest to you." "Get ready for the adventure of a lifetime - follow The Footprints of God." "Available from Ignatius Press." "For a comprehensive in-depth study of the primacy of Peter and papal authority, read Steve Ray's best-selling book, Upon This Rock, published by Ignatius Press." "Hailed by critics as a tour de force of compelling evidence and objective opinion, Upon This Rock tackles the tough issues and is a must-read for anyone desiring a deeper understanding of Peter and the primacy of the papal office." "Order your copy by phone, or online from Ignatius Press today." "To order your copy of The Pope Chart, dial... or visit our web site." "You didn't say cut!"