By DON FIER
The Church, founded by Jesus Christ and guided by the Holy Spirit, has a solemn duty to “continue the mission of Christ himself in the course of history” (Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 173). It is in this sense, as we saw last week, that she is missionary in her very nature. “Christians must, therefore, proclaim to everyone the Good News borne by Christ; and, following his path, they must be ready for self-sacrifice, even unto martyrdom.”
Fr. John A. Hardon, SJ, expertly encapsulates the teaching of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) on the Church’s missionary mandate: It originates with Christ’s commandment to His apostles to go forth and teach all nations (see Matt. 28:19); it expresses the eternal love of God that is to be shared with all mankind; it is based on God’s Revelation of truth and is directed by the Holy Spirit and finally; it requires the practice of penance, a willingness to accept and bear crosses that come into our lives, and must be accompanied by a deep respect for other people which builds on truths contained in their religious beliefs (cf. The Faith, p. 91).
The missionary aspect of the Church, which concludes the Catechism’s discussion of her third distinguishing mark — catholicity — must be targeted not only to those who have not heard the Gospel message, but to those in need of re-evangelization. The “missionary endeavor requires patience…[for] there will be times of defeat” (CCC, n. 854), must be directed toward stimulating “efforts towards Christian unity” (CCC, n. 855), and “implies a respectful dialogue with those who do not yet accept the Gospel” (CCC, n. 856). Moreover, it is our witness, the way in which we live our day-to-day lives, more so than our words, which will convert hearts.
The Catechism now focuses on the fourth distinguishing property or mark of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church that we profess each time we say the Nicene Creed, her apostolicity. “The Church is apostolic,” the Catechism affirms, “because she is founded on the apostles” (CCC, n. 857). Three ways are acknowledged by which we can know this to be true: through her origin, through her doctrine, and through her authority and episcopal succession.
First, the Church is apostolic because she is “built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone” (Eph. 2:20). The Gospels are unanimous in reporting that Jesus entrusted to the apostles, in His stead, the mission He had received from the Father. “As the Father has sent me,” Jesus said to them, “even so I send you” (John 20:21). They were commissioned to “make disciples of all nations” (Matt. 28:18), the ones chosen by Christ Himself, who, with the help of the Holy Spirit, were to be His “witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). It was these men who were sent forth to “go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation” (Mark 16:15).
Secondly, the Church is apostolic because she continues to proclaim and defend the teaching of the apostles as they received it directly from Christ Himself. The reservoir of truths contained in God’s Revelation is inexhaustible and the Church, guided by the Holy Spirit, will continue to more fully discover its richness until the end of time. However, the “Deposit of Faith” as handed on to the apostles, in its essence, always has and always will remain unchanged.
Finally, the Church is apostolic because “she continues to be taught, sanctified, and guided by the apostles until Christ’s return, through their successors in pastoral office” (CCC, n. 857). St. Peter, of course, was personally named by Christ to be the visible head of the Church: “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18). The rest of the apostles, too, were granted power and authority by the Lord: “Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Matt. 18:18).
Thus, “the supreme authority entrusted to Peter,” teaches Pope St. John Paul II, “does not nullify the authority conferred on the other apostles in the kingdom. The pastoral mission is shared by the Twelve under the authority of a single, universal shepherd, who is the agent and representative of the good shepherd, Christ” (general audience, July 1, 1992). But “in order that the full and living Gospel might always be preserved in the Church the apostles left bishops as their successors. They gave them ‘their own position of teaching authority’” (CCC, n. 77).
In other words, as explained by Fr. Hardon, “When Christ ordained the apostles, He enabled them to confer the same powers they had received from Him” (Pocket Catholic Catechism, p. 86). Likewise, bishops ordained by the apostles were given the authority to transmit their episcopal powers to their successors, and so on down the line.
Through episcopal Ordination, therefore, an unbroken perpetuation of the teaching, sanctifying, and governing offices of the Church, an essential characteristic of apostolicity, is preserved until Christ’s Second Coming.
Before continuing, it would be good to examine the word “apostle.” What exactly does the term mean? Its etymology comes from the Latin apostolus, or the Greek apostolos, which literally means “one who is sent off.” In his Modern Catholic Dictionary Fr. Hardon defines apostle as “a messenger and authorized representative of the sender” (p. 35). As recorded in Sacred Scripture, Jesus “appointed twelve [apostles] to be with him, and to be sent out to preach” (Mark 3:14). Just as “Jesus is the Father’s Emissary…they would also be his ‘emissaries.’ In them, Christ continues his own mission” (CCC, n. 858). They were commissioned to preach the Gospel to all mankind (cf. Matt. 28:19-20) and it was Christ from whom “they received both the mandate for their mission and the power to carry it out” (CCC, n. 859).
Yet there is an aspect of the office received by the Twelve that is unique and cannot be transmitted. Unlike the bishops who succeeded them, they alone were selected “to be the chosen witnesses of the Lord’s Resurrection and so the foundation stones of the Church” (CCC, n. 860).
But their office, as has been noted, also has a permanent aspect. “For this reason the apostles, appointed as rulers in this society, took care to appoint successors. . . . In order that the mission assigned to them might continue after their death, they passed on to their immediate cooperators, as it were, in the form of a testament, the duty of confirming and finishing the work begun by themselves” (Lumen Gentium [LG], n. 20 §§ 1-2).
Apostolic Succession
The transmission of the apostolic mission begins to emerge in the New Testament, especially in St. Paul’s pastoral letters (1 and 2 Timothy and Titus) where the laying on of hands to place others in apostolic ministry is described (see 1 Tim. 4:14; 2 Tim. 1:6; 2:2; Titus 1:5).
And in the immediate post-apostolic period, the notion of apostolic succession is documented by such non-biblical Christian writers such as St. Clement of Rome (~AD 95) and St. Ignatius of Antioch (~AD 110). St. Hegesippus, an early Christian historian who wrote against the Gnostic heresy, is credited with drawing up a list of bishops (~AD 180) and a detailed theology of apostolic succession has been provided by St. Irenaeus of Lyons (~AD 180) and Tertullian (~AD 200).
Thus, as taught by Vatican Council II, “Bishops by divine institution have succeeded to the place of the apostles, as shepherds of the Church, and he who hears them, hears Christ, and he who rejects them, rejects Christ and Him who sent Christ (cf. Luke 10:16)” (LG, n. 20 § 3).
But what is the responsibility of lay members of the Church with regard to the apostolic mission? “All members of the Church,” states the Catechism, “share in this mission, though in various ways” (CCC, n. 861). Vatican II’s Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity emphatically teaches that “the Christian vocation by its very nature is also a vocation to the apostolate” (Apostolicam Actuositatem, n. 2), where apostolate is defined as “the activity of the Christian which fulfills the apostolic nature of the whole Church by working to extend the reign of Christ to the entire world” (CCC, Glossary).
Indeed, “all the faithful . . .are entrusted by God with the apostolate by virtue of their Baptism and Confirmation, [and] they have the right and duty, individually or grouped in associations, to work so that the divine message of salvation may be known and accepted by all men throughout the earth” (CCC, n. 900). For, as taught by Gaudium et Spes, all members of the Church “are in their own way made sharers in the priestly, prophetical, and kingly functions of Christ” (n. 31).
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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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