Do we worship the pope?

by Michael Shackleton · Published September 13, 2009 · Updated November 28, 2017

Please comment on this question asked by a Grade 10 child in my confirmation class: Why do we Catholics worship the pope? In the discussion that followed, I had to disabuse the class of their ill-informed beliefs and the conspiracies they glean from Dan Brown and others.

The British people were said to worship Princess Diana, and the fans to worship the recently deceased Michael Jackson. Worship is used loosely, as we know from this and common expressions such as he worships the ground she walks on.

The Thrill of Celebrity

Perhaps a better word would be adulation, that is, excessive admiration. In the case of the pope, it might seem to an outsider that the excitement of a crowd anticipating the arrival of the Holy Father and then seeing him, outweighs his being a mere human being. But the same might be said of the thrill of seeing or meeting the president of the United States, Queen Elizabeth or our own Nelson Mandela.

These are unique or rare individuals, and human nature has a powerful tendency to treat the unique and the rare as extra-special and, perhaps, even to go to excess in showing it.

The Bishop of Rome

The pope is neither more nor less a bishop than any other bishop anywhere. What gives him a privileged status is that he is the bishop of Rome.

Christ entrusted his twelve apostles with his authority to teach all nations (Mt 28:18-20). He also picked Peter among them as the rock on which his Church was to be built (Mt 16:18). Peter was martyred in Rome and ever since then, the bishop of Rome – Peter’s successor – has been acknowledged in the Church as its centre of unity, not only to preserve the common teaching and mission that Christ entrusted to all the apostles, but also as an assurance that where Peter is, the Church has a secure rock holding it steady in changing times (Lk 22:32).

We Are Not Permitted to Worship Anybody Except God

No human being, not even Our Lady and the saints, can be worshipped in the same way as we worship our Maker. So we do not worship the pope. Those who react with emotional outbursts when they see or touch any celebrity, are being just as human as that celebrity is even if they take their behaviour to extremes at times.