The Temple of the Lord

Dedication of the Lateran Basilica. Ez 47:1-2,8-9,12; Ps 46:2-3,5-6,8-9; 1 Cor 3:9c-11,16-17; Jn 2:13-22

St John Lateran, the great cathedral basilica of Rome, is the official ecclesiastical seat of the Pope, and mother church of the whole world. Although extensively rebuilt over the centuries, St John Lateran was dedicated in 324 AD, so it is nearly seventeen centuries old. Despite its primacy and antiquity, this church is, nevertheless, still a building. Most feast days of the Catholic Church are dedicated to saints, rather than to buildings. Why, then, do we celebrate the dedication of this particular church and what can this feast teach us?

Well this feast does at least remind us of the great antiquity and continuity of the Catholic Church. This church of St. John Lateran was dedicated during the reign of the Emperor Constantine, when the Roman Empire stretched across nearly the whole known world. Today, the Roman Empire has long since vanished, along with many other kingdoms, nations and empires from that time until the present day. Through all these changes of history, however, the church of St John Lateran in Rome has continued to be the official seat of the Pope. This basilica is, therefore, a symbol of the organic continuity of the Catholic Church as a whole. Each generation of Catholics is like a layer of living stones; we are added to the generations before us, and we in turn provide a base for the generations yet to come.

This image of the Catholic Church being like a great living building, founded on Jesus Christ, and built up by the Holy Spirit across the centuries, should give us a calm confidence in the Faith. The Catholic Church has been tested, as no other institution has been tested, yet its building has continued. Through all the upheavals of history, the Faith has shown an internal coherence which is almost entirely lacking from other associations of Christians. When Martin Luther tried to create a new kind of church nearly five centuries ago, founded on a modified version of the Bible and his own notions of salvation, he began fighting his fellow Protestants within a decade. This fragmentation of Protestantism has continued to the present day, at which time there are 8,000 - 30,000 different Protestant congregations, each one founded on a slightly different vision of Christianity. Protestantism is not one building, but more like a heap of jumbled stones. The fate of these communities that have departed from the living tradition stands as a warning. As St. Paul says in today's Second Reading, “No one can lay a foundation other than the one that is there, namely Jesus Christ.” We, too, must be careful to build only upon what has gone before; we are custodians, not creators of the living Catholic tradition.

The dedication of St. John Lateran should also give us confidence in another way, not just in the coherence of the Faith but also in its ability to endure persecution. For the first three centuries of its existence, Christianity was an illegal religion in the eyes of the Roman Empire and Christians were intermittently persecuted, suspected as enemies of society. Christians were often subject to confiscation of property, arrest, condemnation, and even death at a moment's notice. Indeed, the first time the words 'Catholic Church' appear in history is in letter written by a bishop traveling to his death in the Coliseum. In this letter, written around 107 AD, the bishop, St. Ignatius of Antioch, declared, “Wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church” (Letter to the Smyrnaeans, VIII). These persecutions became more intense, rather than less, over the course of time. Just twenty years before the dedication of the Lateran Basilica, in 304 AD, the Emperor Diocletian ordered Christian churches and Scriptures to be burned. Christians were to be deprived of public office and civil rights, and all were ordered to sacrifice to the pagan gods upon pain of death. Since these events took place so long ago, it is easy to forget that, for the Christians living at that time, it would have seemed like the time of the anti-Christ and the apocalypse. No-one would have believed that, just ten years later, another Roman emperor would give the land to build St. John Lateran, the new mother church of the Christian world.

So the dedication of St. John Lateran teaches us at least two lessons. First, the importance of remaining in communion with this unique tradition, this Catholic Church that goes back to the apostles, and the importance of passing this tradition onto others by teaching and example. Second, the dedication of this great basilica, coming as it did after such a violent persecution, should be reminder not to be intimidated by evil. Evil often projects an image of terrifying strength, backed by the coercive force of the state, the media and the pressure of public opinion. Yet nothing can defeat Jesus Christ, who has already won the victory over evil. After the night, the new day dawns and evil disperses, like smoke blown away by the wind, vanishing like the phantoms of the night.

Father Andrew Pinsent, St Ambrose Church, St Louis, 9th November 2008