Stop it already with “But Paul corrected Peter”!

ut Paul cor­rect­ed Peter!” is a stan­dard objec­tion raised in one of two con­texts. Either it is raised by Protes­tants in order to deny papal infal­li­bil­i­ty and papal pri­ma­cy; or it is raised by Catholics in order to defend their rebel­lion against Pope Fran­cis, or the notion that peo­ple like Car­di­nal Burke should issue a “for­mal cor­rec­tion” of the Holy Father.

The prob­lem is that this bib­li­cal exam­ple does not at all prove what those who use it think it does.

The back­ground to Paul’s cor­rec­tion of Peter was the claim of some first-cen­tu­ry Jew­ish Chris­tians that Gen­tile con­verts need­ed to observe the entire Mosa­ic law, specif­i­cal­ly with respect to cir­cum­ci­sion.

But at the Coun­cil of Jerusalem (Acts 15) Peter decid­ed against the Judaiz­ers.

Now there­fore why do you make tri­al of God by putting a yoke upon the neck of the dis­ci­ples which nei­ther our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we shall be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will. … There­fore my judg­ment is that we should not trou­ble those of the Gen­tiles who turn to God.

Peter, as pope, made a judg­ment bind­ing on the whole Church. His judg­ment was cor­rect. And Paul—note this—did not resist that judg­ment. In fact, he taught it him­self, and with some vehe­mence.

But what hap­pened is that Peter was some­thing of a hyp­ocrite and a cow­ard. Paul describes the inci­dent at Anti­och in Gala­tians 2:11–13. It used to be, says Paul, that Peter ate open­ly with the uncir­cum­cised Gen­tiles. But when the Judaiz­ers began to crit­i­cize him for this, Peter became afraid and would no longer sit down with the Gen­tiles. Peter, says Paul, was “self-con­demned” by this action. And so he “opposed him open­ly.”

Now, at issue here was not Peter’s teach­ing but Peter’s actions. Peter was “self-con­demned” because his behav­ior was con­trary to what he taught as pope. Peter was sin­ning, and Paul was call­ing him out on his sin. The inci­dent at Anti­och has no larg­er mean­ing than that.

Peter’s teach­ing was author­i­ta­tive and not in doubt. But no one denies that popes are capa­ble of cow­ard­ly, hyp­o­crit­i­cal, and sin­ful behav­ior. And it is a spir­i­tu­al work of mer­cy to cor­rect a sin­ner, even if he is the pope. That has noth­ing, how­ev­er, to do with cor­rect­ing the pope in his for­mal teach­ing.

So let’s retire this “Paul cor­rect­ed Peter” non­sense. If Pope Fran­cis were dump­ing the Vat­i­can trash into the Tiber Riv­er, and Car­di­nal Burke were to say, “Holy Father, this is not con­sis­tent with Lauda­to Si,” then you would have a par­al­lel to St. Paul.