St. Ennodius
Rock of the Church, St. Peter
“God perchance has willed to terminate the causes of other men by means of men; but the prelate of that [Roman] See He has reserved, without question, to His own judgment. It is His will that the successors of the blessed Apostle Peter should owe their innocence to Heaven alone, and should manifest a pure conscience to the inquisition of the most severe Judge [God]. Do you answer; such will be the condition of all souls in that scrutiny? I retort, that to one was said, ‘Thou art Peter, and upon this Rock I will build my Church’, and again, that by the voice of holy pontiffs, the dignity of his See has been made venerable in the whole world, since all the faithful everywhere are submitted to it, and it is marked out as the head of the whole body” (St. Ennodius, Bishop of Pavia (c. A.D. 473-521). Mansi, viii. 284, taken from Eric Ybarra’s article, “The First See is Judged by No One: Historical & Critical Review of Bishop +Athanasius Schneider’s Op-Ed for Rorate Caeli”).