By who's authority anyway?!

Pop quiz: 

Who was given the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven?

Peter! 

Now here's a harder question:

What does that mean?....well? Here's what it means--->

In the readings of this Sunday's gospel, Jesus establishes his church. There are SO MANY CHURCHES that claim to be the "real church". But the question is----

"By who's authority?" Who established those other churches out there? 

Our church, the Catholic Church, alone was established by Jesus himself. It has a lineage of hundreds of years of priests, bishops, and holy people that all stem back to this moment when Peter was given the "authority" ...the "keys to the kingdom of heaven" in this very gospel reading. 

So the next time you get into a debate about which church is Jesus' church, tell them the Catholic Church. Why? Our first pope was Peter, who was given the AUTHORITY over The Catholic church in this gospel reading. And he handed that authority down to pope after pope after him, leading to Pope Francis of today.