By Regis Martin, Crisis Magazine, Jan. 18, 2022

Regis Martin is Professor of Theology and Faculty Associate with the Veritas Center for Ethics in Public Life at the Franciscan University of Steubenville. He earned a licentiate and a doctorate in sacred theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome….

Soon after ascending to the Chair of St. Peter in 2005, Pope Benedict XVI was driven across town in order to take possession of the Basilica of St. John Lateran, the mother of all churches. Indeed, the very first Christian basilica built in Rome and the oldest of all the churches in Christendom, it is the place where, until 1870, all previous popes have been enthroned. And there he delivered a powerful and prophetic address on the limits of the Office he now occupied.

It was a salutary reminder both for himself and for the Church he had been elected to lead, not a few of whose members appear lately to have lost their minds. Benedict’s point was a very simple one, one which can be put in the following way:   …