“From the grammatical point of view, the phrase “this rock” must relate back to the closest noun. Peter’s profession of faith (”You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”) is two verses earlier, while his name, a proper noun, is in the immediately preceding clause”
First of all, this is English, not Greek. Second of all, Peter identifies Christians as “lively stones,” and each make the same confession as himself that Christ is the Chief Cornerstone. If Christ is building the Church on Peter, and not on Christian faith (by which all become “lively stones” in God’s house) wouldn’t Peter be the Chief cornerstone? Why would Christ be the Chief Cornerstone, the Head of the Church, and yet have a second “Chief” stone on top of Him? The Catholic interpretation also suggests a hierarchy of powers, and yet the Apostles all performed the same miracles, even punishments, and administered the entire Church from one end of the world to the other. Even Paul did not hesitate to correct Peter when he was in error. And guess what? So do all Christians, since we are all a “Holy Priesthood” and “Kings and Priests” to God our Father. Each of us has full access to God to have our prayers answered, our bodies healed, our sins forgiven, and even the Devils have need to fear us. Not for us ourselves, but the Holy Spirit who dwells in each of us, a “Holy Priesthood” and new living temples for God.
Again, from the above post:
Note that Christ did not speak to the disciples in Greek. He spoke Aramaic, the common language of Palestine at that time. In that language the word for rock is kepha, which is what Jesus called him in everyday speech (note that in John 1:42 he was told, "You will be called Cephas"). What Jesus said in Matthew 16:18 was: "You are Kepha, and upon this kepha I will build my Church."When Matthew’s Gospel was translated from the original Aramaic to Greek, there arose a problem which did not confront the evangelist when he first composed his account of Christ’s life. In Aramaic the word kepha has the same ending whether it refers to a rock or is used as a man’s name. In Greek, though, the word for rock, petra, is feminine in gender. The translator could use it for the second appearance of kepha in the sentence, but not for the first because it would be inappropriate to give a man a feminine name. So he put a masculine ending on it, and hence Peter became Petros.