There is, I think, in Peter’s personality, as it reveals itself throughout the gospels, something worth considering, insofar as it is through him, by way of a concept that Catholics call the ‘Petrine Primacy’ (which originates in an utterance of Christ, to Peter, that has come to be known as the ‘keys of the kingdom’ passage, appearing where it does in the Gospel of Matthew) that the Catholic Church maintains the tradition of the papacy, if not her entire hierarchical structure.