On St. John Lateran, the cathedral church of Rome

Editor’s note: The following homily given on the feast of the Dedication of the Basilica of St. John Lateran at the Church of the Holy Innocents, New York City.

The Church celebrates liturgical commemorations of dedications of the four papal basilicas in Rome: St. Peter’s; St. Paul-Outside-the-Walls; St. Mary Major; and, today, St. John Lateran.

A bit of a history lesson and then some applications.

The Emperor Constantine issued his Edict of Milan, “legalizing” Christianity, in 313 A.D. A mere eleven years later on this date, in 324, Pope Sylvester dedicated the cathedral church of Rome on property belonging to the Laterani Family – hence, “Lateran” in the name of the basilica. Most people are surprised to hear that this church is the cathedral of Rome, thinking rather that that honor belongs to St. Peter’s, but that is not the case. The Lateran Basilica’s place in church history is inscribed on its façade: Mater et caput omnium ecclesiarum (mother and head of all churches); further, it is called an “archbasilica,” to make the point. This site was the home of the popes from the fourth century until the Avignon captivity of the papacy in the fourteenth century; here also were held five ecumenical councils.

In the modern era, popes offer Holy Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica for the formal institution of their Petrine ministry. However, within a few days, they travel to St. John Lateran, their cathedral, to occupy its cathedra, thereby taking possession of their cathedral church, thus completing their inaugural rites.

The church was originally dedicated to Christ the Savior, and later co-dedicated to St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist. A legend holds that Constantine was baptized in its baptistery. We know for certain, though, that the Lateran’s baptistery was the only one in Rome for generations. About which, more in a moment.

For a long time, a theological and liturgical principle held sway: On the Lord’s Day, there could be only one offering of the Eucharistic Sacrifice under the headship of the bishop. With the passage of time and as Christianity grew and prospered, the numbers of believers could not be accommodated in one liturgical celebration, giving rise to priests celebrating the Eucharist in different locations. However, the unity of the Eucharist was maintained and highlighted by an interesting innovation to the papal liturgy: At the fractio, a particle of the Pope’s consecrated Host was borne by deacons to the celebrations being presided over by priests around the City. With the ongoing march of time, as dioceses were created elsewhere, a particle of the papal Host was sent to those places – as well as water from the Lateran Basilica’s baptismal font.

The Church has always had a great reverence for houses of worship, not because God needs them – but because we need them. How so? First of all, because as an incarnational religion, the Church takes the physical world very seriously; secondly, because a church building is the meeting place for the Church, which is the mystical Body of Christ; even more so, it is the meeting place between Heaven and earth. If you have ever participated in the ceremony to dedicate a church, you will recall that, yes, it is very long, but more importantly, it parallels the baptismal liturgy with its symbolic washings and anointings.

At the level of sign and symbol, we see how highly the Early Church valued ecclesial unity. That unity is of two degrees: diachronic and synchronic. Diachronic unity refers to the oneness in faith down the ages; synchronic unity refers to that unity across the vast expanses of the Church Universal at any given moment. At the close of World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro in 2013, Pope Francis urged the participants, some thought jokingly, Hagan lío! (Make a mess!). Regrettably, we have seen a massive mess over the past nine years: Bishops in Argentina being told that they can admit the divorced/remarried to Holy Communion; bishops in Germany and Belgium advocating the blessing of same-sex unions; the German “Synodal Way” calling for every kind of theological and moral aberration imaginable; the “Synod on Synodality” devolving into a forum for malcontents and dissidents, rather than serving as a listening post for the Holy Spirit.

The current “mess” would shock early believers to the core as an affront to both diachronic unity and synchronic unity as positions are espoused never before conceived, with those same positions causing disunity between and among local churches (dioceses and countries). Loyal sons and daughters of the Church sorrow over these assaults on Catholic unity – as they should.

However, we must not despair. In a very long paean to what in theological terms we call the Church’s “indefectibility,” Lord Babbington Macaulay, no friend of Catholicism, in the nineteenth century, nonetheless could assert: “There is not, and there never was on this earth, a work of human policy so well deserving of examination as the Roman Catholic Church.” Speaking from the perspective of faith, in 2019, Pope Benedict XVI sought to calm our fears with these words: “In the end, the awareness that the Church is and must remain united has always prevailed. Its unity has always been stronger than internal struggles and wars.”

All of this is grounded in Our Lord’s High Priestly Prayer, offered on the night before He died: “Let not your hearts be troubled; believe in God, believe also in me” (Jn 14:1). In other words, this is Christ’s Church; He is faithful, even when we are unfaithful. And most importantly and consoling of all, He will never abandon the Spouse for whom He died.

In that spirit, let us have recourse to the Collect prayed for the feast of the Chair of St. Peter:

Grant, we pray, almighty God, that no tempests may disturb us, for you have set us fast on the rock of the Apostle Peter’s confession of faith. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.