From the desk of
®
JOHN BRADSHAW
March 2026
Dear Partner in ministry, Words like these were once responsible for wars and martyrdoms. “The Church is the rightful home of sacred Scripture.” Those words were spoken in a February 11 address delivered by Robert Prevost, who on May 8 of last year became Pope Leo XIV. As reported by the Catholic EWTN News network, the first American pope said, “All the faithful are called to drink from this wellspring, first and foremost in the celebration of the Eucharist and the other sacraments.”1 While it’s important not to exaggerate the importance of these statements, it is equally important not to dismiss them. In a world with many Christian denominations and a number of major global religions, the leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Roman Catholics, and one of the most powerful people on the planet, openly stated that Rome is responsible for both safeguarding and interpreting Scripture. As EWTN News reported, “Pope Leo XIV affirmed Wednesday that sacred Scripture has been entrusted to the Catholic Church—that she preserves and explains it, and supports its purpose of making Christ known to the world.”
BY EDGAR BELTRÁN, THE PILLAR OWN WORK, CC BY-SA 4.0, HTTPS:// COMMONS.WIKIMEDIA.ORG/W/INDEX. PHP?CURID=165144712
Statements such as these call to mind the Protestant Reformation, which arose precisely because the ruling church believed itself to be “the rightful home of sacred Scripture.” 1 https://www.ewtnnews.com/vatican/pope-leo-xiv-the-church-is-the-rightful-home-of-sacredscripture