[Editor’s note: Pope St. Paul VI entered into his eternal reward 47 years ago today, on August 6, 1978. A devoted servant of the Church, this courageous pope brought the Second Vatican Council to its completion and led its implementation, including the massive undertaking of the reform of the liturgy. Pope Paul VI’s papacy stands as arguably the most consequential in modern history. His decision to continue with the Second Vatican Council after the death of Pope St. John XXIII and then to implement its reforms with a steady and determined hand in a time of cultural upheaval in a divided Church helped shape the Church of today.

Disliked by progressives for his encyclical Humanae Vitae — which reaffirmed the Church’s teaching against contraception — and reviled by traditionalists for his liturgical reforms, Paul VI was nevertheless raised to the altars in 2018, when Pope Francis canonized him a saint. Beyond the hot-button issues that influence his public image, St. Paul VI’s writings reflect a careful, nuanced engagement with modernity, marked by a deep love of God and the Church. Since I first discovered and read his magisterial documents, I have been struck by their intellectual richness and the deep spiritual wisdom of his teaching. For this reason, St Paul VI is my favorite of the 20th century popes.

On this anniversary, Where Peter Is is pleased to publish Petrum et Paulum, Paul VI’s apostolic exhortation on Saints Peter and Paul, a reflection on the foundations of the Roman (and universal) Church and the enduring mission of unity entrusted to the successors of the apostles. As far as we are aware, this text is not available in English anywhere else online. As a service to the Church and to assist in dialogue aimed at rebuilding ecclesial unity, Where Peter Is offers a transcription of the exhortation as it appears in Volume 12 of The Pope Speaks (TPS), pp. 136-143 (Spring 1967, Issue 2). Following the exhortation is an excerpt from Pope Paul VI’s General Audience Address from January 11, 1967. —ML]

Peter and Paul: Champions Of Christian Faith

The Apostolic Exhortation “Petrum et Paulum” of Paul VI, by Divine Providence Pope, to All the Bishops of the Catholic World:

ON THE 19TH CENTENARY OF THE MARTYRDOM
OF SS. PETER AND PAUL AT ROME

Reported in L’Osservatore Romano, February 23, 1967. Latin text. Translation prepared for The Pope Speaks by Gareth Edwards.

In this document, Pope Paul proclaims a “year of faith” commemorating the 19th centenary of the martyrdom of SS. Peter and Paul. The observance—to begin June 29, 1967, the feast of the two Apostles—is to be marked by special religious celebrations, particularly solemn acts of faith. It is the Holy Father’s hope that “Christians will be inspired by what takes place to deepen their spiritual lives, investigate their beliefs anew, proclaim them lovingly and bear witness to them by their good actions.”

RESPECTED BROTHERS,
HEALTH AND APOSTOLIC BENEDICTION

CHRIST’S TRUE followers rightly regard the apostles Peter and Paul as the first foundations of this holy bishopric at Rome and of the living God’s own Church, which is to be found throughout the world. Our duty as their successor impels Us to discuss their importance now. At the same time We would request you, respected brothers, knowing that you share Our thoughts in this matter, to keep with due solemnity in your dioceses the 19th centenary of the martyrdom which these two saints underwent courageously at Rome. Peter was given by Christ, our Master, to His Church as its foundation stone and to this dear city as its bishop. Paul was the teacher of those outside the Jewish race[1] and the guide and friend of the first Christian community founded here.

The historical evidence that survives does not allow us to say with certainty in what year this glorious martyrdom took place. Nevertheless, we feel certain that Peter and Paul met their deaths during Nero’s persecution of the Christians, which raged from 64 to 68 A.D. Writing to the Corinthians, St. Clement, who followed Peter as ruler of the Roman church, refers to the martyrdom and praises the “selfless example” of these two “runners in the race of life.” “The fierce hatred,” he says, “which these two strong and noble champions of the Church attracted to themselves brought them persecution and death, which they endured unflinchingly.”[2]

The glory won by these two apostles shone the more brightly when they were joined by a “great crowd”[3] of Christians, the first of a long line of martyrs for the Roman church. Clement writes of them too: “These men, who had laid the foundations of the Christian way of life, were soon joined by a great crowd of God’s chosen followers. Hatred inflicted on them torture and much other suffering: they taught us, by their example, how nobly the Christian life can be lived.”[4]

For Our part, We will leave the exact year of these two apostles’ martyrdom to be settled by scholars and choose the year now in progress for the commemoration which We invite you to share. We are following here the example of Our predecessor, whose memory we still reverence, Pius IX, who chose 1867 as the year for a solemn commemoration of St. Peter’s martyrdom.

The first Christian community at Rome celebrated the deaths of both Peter and Paul together and, later on, the Church fixed June 29th as their common feast. We order, therefore, that in the centenary celebrations about to take place the martyrdoms of both leaders of the apostles be remembered together.

Commemorations popular and instructive

We are particularly justified in wishing a special commemoration for this centenary, since we live in an age when remembrance of men and events that have shaped the past is very popular. Study of the historical setting of these men and events and study of the records they left behind brings them almost before our eyes and reminds us forcibly that the price paid for human progress has not been in vain. We are perhaps in a better position to draw this moral than their contemporaries, for whom their worth, though it occasionally became apparent, was for the most part obscured. We today, endowed with historical awareness, find it easier to situate ourselves in the past, with the result that devotion to the Church’s holy traditions, which have so much to do with a truly religious Catholic attitude, quickens our appreciation of earlier epochs and gives us fresh enthusiasm and new ideas. A religious feast can then become an occasion of joy and real devotion, inspiring us to investigate further the great men who have preceded us and their achievements and to take a comprehensive view of past and future; for past and future are united by a process working at the deepest level. Religious festivals remind us of it and indicate its fulfillment, which is none other than the everlasting fellowship of the saints.

In Our opinion, those who commemorate the apostles Peter and Paul this year will certainly acquire the perception of personal values of which We speak. Those two men shed their blood and gave their lives for Christ; in so doing they left to men a kind of enduring sacrament of Christ’s immortality till the end of time: the Church. They earned for themselves “an inheritance that is incorruptible, inviolable, unfading, stored up for them in heaven.”[5]

We join with you, respected brothers and dear sons, all the more willingly in keeping this centenary since the blessed apostles Peter and Paul belong to you as well as Us. They are, after all, the glory of the whole Church. To them we can apply the words in the second letter to the Corinthians: “The envoys of the churches are the glory of Christ.”[6] They, in their turn, ask the whole Church, “Are we not your chief pride, as you are our chief pride?”[7]

Peter and Paul and the Roman church

It was on the soil of Rome, where so many noble and holy deaths have taken place, that their blood fell; Rome, which has preserved their tombs as precious monuments and which was given the inestimable privilege of being the field of their ministry during their lives and the place where it was continued after them. We must remember, however, that their work and its continuation was concerned not only with a local church but with the Church throughout the world; this is because the church at Rome plays the central part in the whole Church and has the task of extending the boundaries of the latter, which are both visible and spiritual, to the furthest limits of the universe. The unity and—to use the common expression—catholicity which have come to have their focal point at Rome because of the holy apostles Peter and Paul (from an historical and geographical point of view), are not merely qualities particularly characteristic of that great body which can truly be called Christ’s Family; they are also gifts shared by the whole of God’s People and loyally guarded by a living Roman tradition which retains and enriches them for the benefit of all.

Addressing all Christians

In this exhortation, therefore, We are not writing only to Our well-loved diocese of Rome, which has these blessed apostles as its heavenly patrons; We are addressing you, the bishops, the successors of the apostles and the shepherds of the worldwide Church. We and you together form that Episcopal College of which the recent Ecumenical Council, with its outpouring of doctrine and its promise of a rich future for the Church, was such a striking manifestation.

Our exhortation is also addressed to you, laypeople and ordained ministers of the Church. We should be happy, too, to think that Our words will reach those brothers of ours who, without sharing a perfect communion in belief with Us, nevertheless bear the honorable name of Christian; We know how devotedly they keep alive the memory and the spirit of those two apostles.

We remember with pleasure at this point how the noble Eastern churches provide in their liturgies for solemn commemoration of the two “Leaders of the Apostles” and how, in those churches, a vigorous popular devotion to the two apostles lives on. In addition We are particularly happy to note the importance attached to the concept of apostolicity in the separated churches of the West; may this centenary lead to further development and application of this idea among them, an idea St. Paul expressed in those well-known words: “Apostles are the foundation on which you are built.”[8]

Acts of faith requested

What is Our purpose in inviting you to keep this centenary? What form shall our common celebration take? It has been the custom of this apostolic see, when it has wanted some important feast to be kept with special solemnity throughout the whole Church, to bestow some special blessing. We have no intention of abandoning this custom. But, first, We have a request to make—a small matter, it might seem, but important enough. Peter and Paul, the holy apostles, gave proof by their words and their deaths of their belief in Christ. We want you, brothers and dear sons, to keep their memory fresh by professing the same faith that the Church they established and enlightened has received from them with devotion and expounded authoritatively. So, with the apostles looking down on us, let us profess our faith to God individually and publicly, in perfect freedom and with deliberation, internally and outwardly too, and finally with willing humility. There must be a wholehearted profession of faith on the part of every man and woman so that the whole Church resounds with a single loving affirmation.

What way of showing Peter and Paul that we remember and honor them and share their ideals will please them most? Surely a declaration of the beliefs which were the inheritance they left us.

Faith and St. Peter

You are well aware that our heavenly Father Himself revealed to Peter that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God, the Teacher and Redeemer; from Him grace, truth,[9] saving power and the impulse to belief flow into us. You know that on Peter’s faith the holy Church was built.[10] You know that, when Jesus had given His discourse in Capharnaum and many had left Him, Peter, speaking for all the apostles, declared his faith in Christ, God’s Son.[11] You know that Christ guaranteed by His prayer that Peter’s faith would never fail and gave him the office, despite Peter’s frailties, of strengthening the faith of his brothers.[12] You know, finally, that it was from the declaration of faith that Peter made on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came down on the apostles, that the living Church took its origin.[13] We can hardly ask Peter for a greater blessing than faith, the source of our spiritual life, or do him greater honor than by carrying out his command to show ourselves “grounded in the faith.”[14]

Faith and St. Paul

No need to remind you how bold a champion of the Christian faith St. Paul was. To him the Church owes that fundamental principle of Catholic doctrine that calls faith the source of our justification, that is to say of our salvation and our supernatural union with God. St. Paul opened the way to a deeper theological understanding of what a Christian mystery is. He gave the first explanation of the act of faith. He first stated the indissoluble relationship that exists between unanimous and well-grounded belief and the unshakable Church, which is a visible community with a hierarchical structure.

St. Paul still teaches us to believe; let us call on his aid, asking for the blessing we all long for, the rediscovery by all Christians of the same faith, the same hope and the same love, all within Christ’s Mystical Body.[15] Let us pledge ourselves, as we stand beside the tomb of this apostle and martyr, to imitate his courage and missionary zeal and to proclaim that same faith which he taught to the Church and the world, and handed on to them by the written and spoken word, by his example and by the generous sacrifice of his life.

An age of weakening convictions

We have grounds, therefore, for confident hope that this centenary of the martyrdom of Peter and Paul, the holy apostles, will inspire the whole Church to renew emphatically its Christian belief. God’s providence, indeed, seems to have specially planned this happy occasion as a means of giving God’s People the opportunity to reflect upon what faith really is and to give this virtue new and vigorous expression. It is only too evident that the times we live in are in dire need of faith. It will not have escaped your attention, respected brothers and dear sons, that although the human race makes one astonishing conquest after another over nature and congratulates itself enthusiastically on its increasing self-knowledge, it is nevertheless bent on a course which leads by easy stages to neglect and denial of God. Erroneous ideas, depraved ways of life and social disorder are inevitable consequences of a weakening in religious conviction. Men become fatalists, arguing that it is useless to struggle against wrong desires or the pressure of neuroses.

For where God is absent, the coordinating principle of existence is absent too, the human intellect is starved of light and society is deprived of those sound rules of conduct that are indispensable to its wellbeing.[16]

Catholic belief also under stress

Among our contemporaries, the religious sense which provides faith with a kind of natural foundation is growing weaker. But Catholic belief, too, is being contaminated. Ideas are appearing in the fields of exegesis and theology which have their origin in certain bold but misleading philosophical theories and which cast doubt upon or narrow down the full meaning of the truths which the Church has taught with her rightful authority. There is a pretense that religion must be adapted to the contemporary mind; the directive wisdom of the Church’s teaching authority is scorned; theological inquiry is remodeled to suit the principles of “historicism”; the divine inspiration and historical truth of Sacred Scripture are boldly denied: in short, God’s People are being encouraged to adopt a new, so-called “post-conciliar” attitude of mind. What we are in fact being asked to do is to reject the consistency of the Ecumenical Council and its rich doctrinal and legal achievement, with the Church’s holy inheritance of teaching and discipline. We are to abandon our well-tested loyalty to the Church in exchange for the empty promise of a revised Christianity—a foolish promise in any case, which cannot be kept. What would become of the truths we believe in or of the divine faith by which we assent to them if a program of this kind, with its contempt for ecclesiastical authority, were to succeed?

Right time, right means

We can say that the passage of time has brought us this centenary just when we needed it. It will strengthen our faith and direct it accurately, encourage us to examine the teaching of the Ecumenical Council and give fresh impulse to the efforts of those Catholics who seek to give new expression to the truths of faith without changing in the least the meaning of the doctrines entrusted to the Church or the understanding people have of them.[17] All the Church’s sons and daughters have the chance to say to Jesus Christ, God’s Son, those words of simple greatness: “I believe.” To Him, who brought us our faith and will one day give us its fulfillment, to His divine personality as the expression of His Father’s being and to the message of salvation He proclaimed, Catholics can once again give their full, reasoned and willing assent.[18] They have also the opportunity to honor Peter and Paul, those supreme witnesses to Christ, as they deserve and to summon fresh determination to the Christian task of putting a sincerely held belief into practice—a belief that was Peter’s and Paul’s too. And finally, so that a single belief may once again reign among all Christians, Catholics can pray and work for the cause of Christian unity.

Special sermons and services

We do not intend to declare a new Jubilee, since the extraordinary Jubilee which marked the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council has only just ended. Nevertheless, Our fatherly concern makes Us urge you, respected brothers and bishops like Ourself, to see that special sermons are given on the Creed and special religious services held with the Creed as their theme. Above all, say the Creed often, in solemn form, with your priests and laypeople, using any form of it customary in the Catholic Church.

It will be a joy to Us to learn that in each cathedral church the Creed has been recited in honor of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul, with the bishop present, his priests, seminarians, lay Catholics working for the spread of Christ’s kingdom, men and women in the religious life, and a large number of laypeople. Let the same thing be done in each and every parish and community and religious house. We would like the Creed said, too, on an appointed day, in every Christian household, in the meeting places of Catholic societies, in schools, hospitals and all places of worship—in short, in all buildings and among all groups of people where Catholic belief can be proclaimed. Those who say the Creed will find themselves strengthened in their resolve to live the kind of Christian life to which we are all called.

Work for scholars and teachers

We specially request scriptural commentators and theologians to assist the Church’s teaching authority. There is work for them to do in preserving the true faith from error, penetrating further into its unexplored depths, defining its concepts and developing techniques of enquiry and popularization. We make the same request to preachers, teachers of religion and catechists.

Year of faith to begin in June

We wish this centenary of SS. Peter and Paul to be regarded, therefore, as a year of faith. So that the celebrations may as far as possible be simultaneous We will inaugurate them next June 29th, which is the two apostles’ feast, and arrange for special commemorative events to take place during the ensuing year. Our hope is that Christians will be inspired by what takes place to deepen their spiritual lives, investigate their beliefs anew, proclaim them lovingly and bear witness to them by their good actions. Without faith “it is impossible to please God”[19]; faith is our pledge that we shall attain the reward promised to us.[20]

This message, respected brothers and dear sons, expresses Our hope of spiritual benefits to come; We know that Our plans have your warm support. This church at Rome stands, full of vigorous life, beside the tombs of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul. From them she received a double inheritance of unity and catholicity which nourishes her and over which she keeps watch; she was given it for her very own and yet for the benefit of others. As one who has succeeded these two apostles, represents them and exercises their authority, We send you Our heartfelt greeting and Our blessing.

Given at St. Peter’s, Rome, on February 22nd, the feast of St. Peter’s Chair, in the year 1967, the fourth of Our pontificate.

POPE PAUL VI

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Divine Message, Human Voice

… The faithful Catholic knows that the Lord gave the Apostles a mandate and the authority to teach what He Himself had taught; He entrusted them with the task of being transmitters of His word. The faithful Catholic knows that this word is bound up with the plan of salvation, for acceptance of it, which means of the faith, is the basic condition for being admitted to the good fortune of the kingdom of God. He also knows that this transmission takes place through a mysterious and efficacious aid of the Holy Spirit, the One who teaches the Apostles and the Church “all truth” (Jn 16, 13) about our supernatural relationships with God; he knows that this transmission is accomplished with that rigorous fidelity called tradition, which guarantees that the divine message will have one unshakeable meaning. This means that he knows he is face to face with a mysterious and wonderful institution of God’s goodness, which willed to have Revelation accepted, preserved and spread among mankind through this human and hierarchical arrangement. We are always confronted by the general idea of God’s plan, which is that His gratuitous and supernatural communication with men should have men as collaborators, instruments, and signs of His charity.

People who have gone through all sorts of spiritual trials to reach the objective certainty of faith find that an encounter with the magisterium of the Church gives them a real sense of gratitude to God, to Christ, for having entrusted His message of salvation to an unequivocal and living organism, to a well-qualified service, that is, to an authorized voice which in reality does not reveal new truths and is not above Sacred Scripture…

—Paul VI. From an address to a General Audience. January 11, 1967.

Footnotes

[1] 1 Tm 2, 7.

[2] 1 Epistula Clementis ad Corinthios, V, 1-2: ed. Funk I, p. 105.

[3] Cf. Tacitus, Annales, XV, 44.

[4] 1 Ep. Clementis, VI, 1, p. 107.

[5] Cf. 1 Pt 1, 4.

[6] 2 Cor 8, 23.

[7] Cf. 2 Cor 1, 14.

[8] Eph 2, 20.

[9] Cf. Jn 1, 14.

[10] Cf. Mt 16, 16–19.

[11] Cf. Jn 6, 68–69.

[12] Cf. Lk 22, 32.

[13] Cf. Acts 2, 32–40.

[14] 1 Pt 5, 9.

[15] Cf. Eph 4, 4–16.

[16] Cf. St. Augustine, The City of God, 8, 4: PL 41, 228–229; Contra Faustum, 20, 7: PL 42, 372.

[17] Cf. Vincent of Lérins, Commonitorium, 1, 23: PL 50, 668; DS 3020.

[18] Cf. Heb 12, 2; First Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith, 3: DS 3008, 3020; Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, 5: AAS 57 (1965), 7 [cf. TPS X, 361]; Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, 5, 8: AAS 58 (1966), 819, 821 [cf. TPS XI, 74, 76].

[19] Heb 11, 6.

[20] Cf. Mk 16, 16; Eph 2, 8; etc.

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Image: Vatican Media.