When I was a teenager, I joined a Catholic camp. During one of the sessions, Emeritus Bishop Dominic Su asked the participants (all of us are secondary school students), “Why are you a Catholic?” Several of us gave answers like, “because Jesus is our Saviour”, “because my parents are Catholics”, etc. Emeritus Bishop Dominic Su then told us that other religious or other Christian denominations can give the same answers.

Recently, there are some Catholics do not acknowledge Pope Francis as a pope. This is ridiculous because one of the main factors that Catholic is different from the other denominations is because of papacy. There are so many Catholics today, yet they are united because of the papacy.

Jesus chose the twelve apostles. Among them, Simon was named Peter, which means rock. Lord gave him the keys of the kingdom of heaven, so that whatever he binds on earth, shall be bound in heaven; whatever he loses on earth should be loosed in heaven. Peter is special. He denied the Lord three times, yet after the resurrection of Jesus, Jesus asked Peter three times whether Peter loved him, and asked Peter to feed his sheep. Pope is the successor of Peter, which today’s pope is Pope Francis.