Evidence for Papacy from Ezekiel 34

In St. John's gospel, Christ declares that "I am the good shepherd." This proclamation hearkens back to Ezekiel 34, where similar claims are made by God himself: "I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep" (34:15). There are a number of other parallels between the passages as well which seem to indicate that Christ is ascribing to himself the mantle of Divine Shepherd. 

But here's a further interesting observation: in Ezekiel 34, though God has said that he himself is the shepherd of Israel, he also goes on to say that "I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be their shepherd" (34:23). Notice the structure: God is shepherd, but God also appoints another shepherd, a human shepherd, over his flock. What's intriguing is that we see the exact same structure in St. John's gospel. In chapter 10, Christ declares that he himself is the good shepherd. But towards the end of the gospel, we get the famous scene between Christ and St. Peter, where the former invests the latter with shepherding authority: "Feed my lambs . . . Tend my sheep . . . Feed my sheep" (21:15-17). So Christ is the good shepherd, but he sets up Peter as a human shepherd of his own flock. The parallel structure, then: God (ultimate shepherd) and David (human "steward" shepherd); Christ (ultimate shepherd) and Peter (human "steward" shepherd). The parallel is strengthened by the fact that, in Ezekiel, God explicitly refers to the Davidic shepherd "feeding" the sheep, which is the exact language Christ uses with Peter. 

Aquinas on the Fittingness of the Catholic Church being "Roman"

 In honor of the Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica (a repost from my other blog):

In ST III.35.7, St. Thomas considers why Our Lord was born in Bethlehem. Obj 3 argues that Christ should have been born in Rome, which at the time ruled the world, since from there he could have more easily made known to the whole world the true faith:

The Lord was born in the world for this, that he might announce the faith of truth . . . but this would have been able to have come about more easily if he had been born in the Roman city, which then was having dominion of the globe . . . therefore it seems that he ought not to have been born in Bethlehem.

In response, the Angelic Doctor quotes a sermon from the Council of Ephesus, which argues that, if Christ had chosen as his birthplace the great city of Rome, the change of the world which the Christian Faith accomplished would have been ascribed to the power and influence of Rome. Similarly, if he had chosen to be born the son of an emperor, his benefit to the world would have been ascribed to the power and influence of the emperor. But “so that divinity would be known to have transformed the globe, he chose a poor mother and a poorer birthplace.”

Then, however, Saint Thomas points to 1 Corinthians 1:27, which reads: “But the weak things of the world God hath chosen, that He may confound the strong.” From this he concludes:

Therefore, so that he might more show his own power, in Rome itself, which was the head of the globe, he established the head of his Church, in sign of his perfect victory, so that thence the faith would be dispersed to the whole world . . .

In short, Our Lord chose Bethlehem as his birthplace so no one could ascribe his victory to the earthly power of his origins; but he chose Rome as the head of his Church, so that the extent of his victory would be total and undeniable. Rome was the capitol of the world, so it was fitting that it should become the capitol of the Church, that the Church’s triumph over the world could be more clearly evident.