Teresa Benedetta has a full translationof the General Audience talk today…in which the Pope takes a stand on some issues of authorship.

(I’m not interpreting this as a comment on priority – by "first Gospel," he means the first in the NT)

Let us remember, finally, that the tradition of the ancient Church unanimously attributed to Matthew the authorship of the first Gospel.

This was clear from the time of Papia, Bishop of Gerapoli in Frigia, around the year 130. He wrote: "Matthew put together the words of the Lord in the Hebrew language, and everyone interpreted it as they could" (in Eusebius of Caesarea, Hist eccl. III,39,16). And the historian Eusebius adds this information: "Matthew, who first preached among the Jews, upon deciding to go forth among other peoples, wrote the Gospel announced by him in his mother tongue. In this way, he sought to replace in written form, for those whom he was leaving, what they would have lost with his departure" (ibid III, 24,6).

We no longer have the Gospel written by Matthew in Hebrew or in Aramaic, but in the Greek Gospel which we continue to hear today, we hear the persuasive voice of the publican Matthew, who having become an Apostle, announces the saving mercy of God. Let us listen to the message of St. Matthew, let us meditate it ever anew so that even we may learn to rise and follow Jesus decisively.