THE POPE’S CATHEDRAL CHURCH | November 9, 2025

Today’s feast known generally as the “Dedication of the Lateran Basilica” recalls the Dedication of the Pope’s Cathedral Church in Rome, or, to give it its full title, the Archbasilica of Our Saviour and Sts. John the Baptist and John the Evangelist. It is popularly known as “The Lateran Basilica” after the noble Roman family of the “Laterani” who gave the land to Pope St. Silvester, the first Pope to reign after the end of the great centuries of persecution. Here the Pope was at last able openly to establish his home and Cathedral Church. Because a consecrated Church building is a symbol of Christ, and of His Body, the Church built up of living stones, this feast can take the place of an Ordinary Sunday, as it does today.

     In any diocese, the Cathedral is the Mother Church, because it is the place where the bishop celebrates the Liturgy and from which he directs the local Church placed under his care by Christ, the Good Shepherd. In the case of the Cathedral of Rome, how-ever, we are considering the Church from which the Bishop of Rome, the Pope, presides as Supreme Pastor over the entire Catholic world. The Lateran Basilica, the “Archbasilica of Our Saviour”, is therefore a powerful sign of the unity of the Church on earth, focussed on the personal successor of Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, upon whom Christ established the foundation and governance of His Church.  

                                                          ~ Fr. Paul Dobson.