By DON FIER
When Jesus founded the Church, as we saw last week, “He gave her authority and mission, orientation and goal” (Catechism of the Catholic Church [CCC], n. 874). With the overarching objective to ensure that the ministry He introduced during His time on earth would be carried forward until the end of time, Christ organized her along hierarchical lines with the mandate to teach, sanctify, and govern the People of God.
As stated concisely by the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “Christ instituted an ecclesiastical hierarchy with the mission of feeding the people of God in his name and for this reason gave it authority” (n. 179).
The means chosen by Jesus to accomplish this goal was to organize the Church under the sacred leadership of ordained ministers, men who are called to lead and guide the Church in a spirit of service in imitation of the self-emptying love of the Crucified One.
Several reasons are articulated by the Catechism for ecclesial ministry, but none more decisive than: “No one can bestow grace on himself; it must be given and offered. This fact presupposes ministers of grace, authorized and empowered by Christ…to act in persona Christi Capitis” (CCC, n. 875).
It is through the special Sacrament of Holy Orders that sacred ministers are given the power to confer grace through the sacraments and act in the name of Christ.
Moreover, as we also saw last week, “Sacramental ministry in the Church…has a personal character and a collegial form” (CCC, n. 879), a teaching that can be traced back to apostolic times. As explained by Fr. John A. Hardon, SJ, “The apostles were not only called individually by Christ and sent as individuals into the world in his name; they were also a collegial community, bound together by common loyalty to him and intended by him to work, under Peter, as the nucleus of the Church” (The Catholic Catechism [TCC], p. 220).
Bishops, as successors of the apostles, similarly receive their call individually and personally, and are likewise bound together by common loyalty under the Vicar of Christ, the Successor of St. Peter.
The Catechism now focuses specifically on the collegial form of ecclesial ministry as manifested in the Church by the episcopal college (college of bishops) and its head, the Pope. The Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on the Church is referenced to begin this discussion:
“The Lord Jesus, after praying to the Father, calling to Himself those whom He desired, appointed twelve to be with Him, and whom He would send to preach the Kingdom of God (Mark 3:13-19; Matt. 10:1-42); and these apostles (cf. Luke 6:13) He formed after the manner of a college or a stable group, over which He placed Peter chosen from among them (cf. John 21:15-17)” (Lumen Gentium [LG], n. 19; as cited in CCC, n. 880).
The analogy to the historical and current structure of the Church, as pointed out by Pope St. John Paul II in his general audience of October 21, 1992, is unmistakable: “Just as in the Gospel…St. Peter and the other apostles constitute one apostolic college, so in a similar way the Roman Pontiff, the successor of Peter, and the bishops, the successors of the apostles, are joined together” (LG, n. 22 § 1).
Just as St. Peter holds the first place in the college of the Twelve, so too does the Vicar of Christ hold the first place in the college of bishops. As expressed in the Catechism, “This pastoral office of Peter and the other apostles belongs to the Church’s very foundation and is continued by the bishops under the primacy of the Pope” (CCC, n. 881).
Accounts of the apostles acting as a body under the leadership of St. Peter can be found even in the writings of the New Testament. As noted by Fr. Hardon, “we see them acting as a body during the novena of waiting for the Spirit after Christ’s Ascension, when, on Peter’s initiative, they chose Matthias to replace Judas [see Acts 1:15-26]” (TCC, p. 220).
Likewise, we see in the Acts of the Apostles an account of the Council of Jerusalem (~AD 50) when the apostles gathered under St. Peter to decide on the thorny issue of whether Christian converts should be required to be circumcised (see Acts 15:2-35). It was solemnly decreed at this first apostolic council that Gentile Christians did not have to observe the Mosaic Law of the Jews.
Before continuing with a more in-depth exposition on apostolic and ecumenical councils, the Catechism is attentive to instruct the faithful that “the college or body of bishops has no authority unless it is understood together with the Roman Pontiff, the successor of Peter as its head” (LG, n. 22 § 2; as cited in CCC, n. 883).
What is the implication of this statement? Simply put, through the authority of divine law and “in virtue of his office . . . as Vicar of Christ and pastor of the whole Church, the Roman Pontiff has full, supreme, and universal power over the Church. And he is always free to exercise this power” (ibid.; cf. Christus Dominus, nn. 2, 9).
At the same time, however, “the college of bishops exercises power over the universal Church in a solemn manner in an ecumenical council” (1983 Code of Canon Law [CIC], canon 337 § 1).
What is an ecumenical council? As defined by the Catechism, it is “a gathering of all the bishops of the world, in the exercise of their ecclesial authority over the universal Church. An ecumenical council is usually called by the successor of St. Peter, the Pope, or at least confirmed or accepted by him” (CCC, Glossary).
Inclusive of the Second Vatican Council which took place from 1962 to 1965, there have been 23 ecumenical councils in the Church’s history.
Fr. Hardon provides a brief but informative history of the expansion of both number and frequency of meetings and correspondence of the episcopal college in The Catholic Catechism. After the Council of Jerusalem and by the end of the apostolic age, the world’s Catholic bishops began meeting periodically on a regional basis.
Such important matters as the rebaptism issue in North Africa and how to deal with the threat of Gnosticism throughout the Church were dealt with by the bishops collectively with deference to the Pope as final arbiter. This cooperative collegial activity reached worldwide proportion with the first ecumenical council at Nicea in AD 325 which condemned the Arian heresy and formulated the Nicene Creed.
“For more than sixteen centuries,” notes Fr. Hardon, “these forms of collegiality-in-practice were commonplace in the Church, yet the doctrine itself was only partially realized until the mid-twentieth century and formally under John XXIII and Paul VI” (TCC, p. 221).
The servant of God goes on to say that there may be several contributing reasons, but among them is “the dawn of the communications age and the rise of the secular state” (ibid.). And this was perhaps never so evident than just recently when the Synod of Bishops gathered in Rome for the Extraordinary Synod on the Family (as reported extensively in recent issues of The Wanderer).
The Sense Of The Faith
What is a synod? As defined by the Catechism, it is “a meeting of bishops of an ecclesiastical province or patriarchate (or even of the whole world, e.g., Synod of Bishops) to discuss the doctrinal and pastoral needs of the Church” (CCC, Glossary).
The code defines the Synod of Bishops as “a group of bishops who have been chosen from different regions of the world and meet together at fixed times to foster closer unity between the Roman Pontiff and bishops, to assist the Roman Pontiff with their counsel in the preservation and growth of faith and morals and in the observance and strengthening of ecclesiastical discipline, and to consider questions pertaining to the activity of the Church in the world” (CIC, canon 342).
Pope Paul VI set up this body, which meets about every three years, as Vatican II was drawing to a close in 1965.
“This college, insofar as it is composed of many,” teaches the Catechism, “expresses the variety and universality of the People of God, but insofar as it is assembled under one head, it expresses the unity of the flock of Christ” (LG, n. 22 § 2; as cited in CCC, n. 885).
With regard to the recent Extraordinary Synod on the Family, which so many secular media outlets inaccurately reported as opening to change basic and foundational doctrinal Church teachings on marriage and the family, the faithful can take great solace in words spoken by Pope Francis in his closing synodal address:
“When the Church, in the variety of her charisms, expresses herself in communion, she cannot err: It is the beauty and the strength of the sensus fidei, of that supernatural sense of the faith which is bestowed by the Holy Spirit so that, together, we can all enter into the heart of the Gospel and learn to follow Jesus in our life” (as reported by ZENIT News Agency, October 19, 2014).
Let us join in prayer for a fruitful year of study and deliberation as the synod fathers prepare for the 2015 General Synod on the Family.
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(Don Fier serves on the board of directors for The Catholic Servant, a Minneapolis-based monthly publication. He and his wife are the parents of seven children. Fier is a 2009 graduate of Ave Maria University’s Institute for Pastoral Theology. He is doing research for writing a definitive biography of Fr. John A. Hardon, SJ.)
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