In an essay titled “The Ecclesiology of the Second Vatican Council,” Joseph Ratzinger recalls some of the key developments in theology in the years prior to the Council.
Henri de Lubac, especially, demonstrated in a magnificent work of wide-ranging scholarship that the expression corpus mysticum originally referred to the Most Holy Eucharist and that for Paul and the Church Fathers the idea of the Church as the Body of Christ was inseparably connected with the idea of the Eucharist, in which the Lord is present in a bodily manner and gives us his body to eat. So now a eucharistic ecclesiology developed that many like to refer to also as communio ecclesiology. This communio ecclesiology actually became the centerpiece of Vatican II teaching on the Church, the new and yet thoroughly primordial thing that this recent Council wanted to give us.[1]
At the heart of the Council’s teaching on the role of bishops is a vision of the Church as a communion centered on Christ’s Eucharist. In her innermost nature, the Church is a mystery of love or communion—the vertical mystery of union with the triune God established by Christ’s gift of himself which includes the gift of a new (horizontal) relationship among human beings. The Church is constituted by this eucharistic gift, and she exists to share this gift by gathering creation into the body of Christ and thus into communion with God.
This vision of the Church as a communion provides the essential context for the Council’s teaching on the pastoral office of the bishop. During the drafting of chapter three of Lumen Gentium, titled “On the Hierarchical Structure of the Church and in Particular on the Episcopate,” attention was given to the relationship between bishops and the Roman Pontiff. Two inter-related questions were debated: (1) Who is the subject of supreme authority in the Church? and (2) What is the source of the bishops’ authority or power of jurisdiction?
Regarding the first question, the seminal teaching of Lumen Gentium on collegiality is well known. After confirming Vatican I’s teaching on the full and supreme power of the Roman Pontiff, Lumen Gentium outlined the role of bishops as successors of the Apostles. All of the bishops of the Church, with the pope at their head, form a single college. “The order of bishops, which succeeds to the college of Apostles and gives this apostolic body continued existence, is also the subject of supreme and full power over the universal Church, provided we understand this body together with its head the Roman Pontiff and never without this head” (LG 22). By virtue of the sacrament of episcopal ordination, each bishop is co-responsible for the universal Church. This teaching is foundational for the establishment of the Synod of Bishops by Paul VI in 1965, and it remains a key feature of Catholic ecclesiology.
Paternal authority cannot be delegated or turned over to a committee or to a new bureaucratic structure or process. This is not clericalism, but the unity of office and love which is both a grace and a strenuous demand.
Lumen Gentium’sanswer to the second question regarding the source of episcopal authority or “power of jurisdiction” is perhaps less well known. First some background: At the Council of Trent, a group of bishops from Spain wanted the Council to address the authority and ministry of bishops.[2] These bishops were concerned about the erosion of episcopal authority within their dioceses in the face of interventions by Roman officials. The key issue that emerged concerned the source of the bishops’ power of jurisdiction: Did this power come from Christ through sacramental ordination or was it bestowed by the pope through his granting a canonical mission? For example, at the general meeting of September 23, 1562, Archbishop Pedro Guerrero of Granada argued that “bishops were instituted by Christ no less than the pope was; it was not Peter who established the other apostles, but Christ. Consequently, the bishops receive their power not from the successor of Peter but from Christ.”[3] The papal legates, seeking to safeguard the supreme and universal authority of the pope, challenged this view.[4] Relying on a distinction between “power of orders” and “power of jurisdiction,” they claimed that only the former has its origin directly from God. The power of jurisdiction, they argued, is conferred on bishops by the pope.[5] The question was debated but left unresolved by the Council of Trent.
At Vatican I, this question about the source of episcopal authority was included in the preparatory documents, but because the Council was suspended it was again left unresolved.[6] Vatican I did, of course, set forth a clear teaching on the supreme authority of the Roman Pontiff, but it did not develop a theology of the episcopacy.
Lumen Gentium addressed this lacuna, and in so doing it answered a long-standing debate about the source of the bishop’s authority:
[T]his sacred Council teaches that 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. Lk 10:16). . . . For the discharging of such great duties, the apostles were enriched by Christ with a special outpouring of the Holy Spirit coming upon them, and they passed on this spiritual gift to their helpers by the imposition of hands, and it has been transmitted down to us in episcopal consecration. And the Sacred Council teaches that by episcopal consecration the fullness of the sacrament of Orders is conferred, that fullness of power, namely, which both in the Church’s liturgical practice and in the language of the Fathers of the Church is called the high priesthood, the supreme power of the sacred ministry. But episcopal consecration, together with the office of sanctifying, also confers the office of teaching and of governing, which, however, of its very nature, can be exercised only in hierarchical communion with the head and the members of the college. (LG, 20–21)
The Catechism of the Catholic Church expresses this same point more simply: “Christ himself chose the apostles and gave them a share in his mission and authority.”[7] The pope is not the source of the bishops’ power of jurisdiction. The authority to teach and govern is a sacramental gift conferred by Christ, even as this authority or power of jurisdiction can be exercised only in hierarchical communion with the Roman pontiff.
What are some of the implications of this teaching on the source of episcopal authority? Why is it important? As many theologians have noted, this teaching safeguards a healthy subsidiarity within the life of the Church and counteracts a tendency toward centralizing all authority in Rome. This doctrine confirms the importance of the particular or local Church. A diocese is not an administrative unit or a branch of the “home office” in Rome but its own proper ecclesial reality. In the words of Vatican II’s Decree on the Pastoral Office of the Bishop, “A diocese is a portion of the people of God which is entrusted to a bishop to be shepherded by him . . . gathered together by him through the Gospel and the Eucharist in the Holy Spirit, it constitutes a particular church in which the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church of Christ is truly present and operative.”[8] Likewise, the bishop of a diocese is not simply an administrator who has received a delegated power from the Roman Pontiff, but a genuine successor of the Apostles. Episcopal authority is a sacramental gift bestowed by Christ. Kloppenburg writes:
We must stress the deeper meaning of this important conciliar doctrine. It frees us once and for all from a predominantly juridical conception of the bishop. According to this conception, the bishop was a priest who had received a special jurisdiction from the pope. . . . All the power he had he had by favor of the Holy See, which could also restrict or entirely remove the jurisdiction that had been freely given. In other words, and in practice, this kind of bishop was not a vicar of Christ but a vicar of the pope. . . . The new conception of the bishop which Vatican II has given us is predominantly sacramental: the bishop is the recipient of a charism, a power received directly from God; the power must, of course, be exercised within the bonds of hierarchic communion (and is therefore subject to juridical regulation) but it binds him directly to Christ . . . making of him a vicar of Christ and a member of the college.[9]
Vatican II’s teaching on the office of the bishop is not simply a matter of shifting some authority or power away from Rome to the particular churches. Seen at a deeper level, this teaching opens up and requires a new way of thinking about the nature of authority itself. As moderns, we tend to conflate authority and arbitrary power. For this reason, we are suspicious of any form of authority that has not been delegated or authorized by the individuals who are ruled. Both in terms of nature and grace, this is not an adequate view of authority. “Auctoritas” is derived from “augere” meaning “to increase, or cause to grow.” Genuine authority seeks the good of those who are ruled or governed. In this sense, authority is essentially different than arbitrary power. Genuine authority serves the common good by bearing witness to a transcendent order, “for all authority comes from God” (Rom 13:1).
Within the Church, authority—the office of sanctifying, ruling, and teaching—is a sacramental gift of grace. As such, it is a participation in Christ’s authority. An important text from the Catechism lays out the logic of this sacramental participation:
“Faith comes from what is heard” (Rom 10:17). No one can give himself the mandate and the mission to proclaim the Gospel. The one sent by the Lord does not speak and act on his own authority, but by virtue of Christ’s authority. . . . No one can bestow grace on himself; it must be given and offered. This fact presupposes ministers of grace, authorized and empowered by Christ. From him, they receive the mission and faculty (‘the sacred power’) to act in persona Christi Capitis. The ministry in which Christ’s emissaries do and give by God’s grace what they cannot do and give by their own powers, is called a “sacrament” by the Church’s tradition. Indeed, the ministry of the Church is conferred by a special sacrament.[10]
There are several things to note from this text. The authority to teach and to govern the Church is a sacramental gift that not all of the members of the Church receive. Furthermore, the grace of authority entails speaking and governing in the name of Christ. This is the opposite of despotism or clericalism; to speak and govern in Christ’s name is to participate in Christ’s own way of personally uniting authority and love in representation of God the Father. The exercise of authority involves a personal bearing witness to a transcendent source that is coincident with a generous service to the common good of all. This is more than a moral appeal for the Church’s hierarchical ministers to act like servants. The sacramental participation in Christ’s authority entails a responsibility to faithfully safeguard and bear witness to the priceless gift of Christ which is the deposit of faith. At key moments in history, this requires a magisterial teaching in the form of a precise confession of doctrine: “We believe in God . . . and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God . . . consubstantialwith the Father” (Nicaea); “If anyone says that the sacrifice of the Mass is a mere commemoration of the sacrifice consummated on the cross but not a propitiatory one . . . let him be anathema” (Trent). “The common priesthood of the faithful and the ministerial or hierarchical priesthood differ from each other not only in degree but also in essence” (Vatican II). What doctrinal statements like these reveal is the Church’s bi-millennial confidence, founded in the promise and command of Christ, that the bishops are entrusted with authentically interpreting the deposit of faith and identifying its binding contents. To be sure, the sensus fidei of all the baptized is an essential witness to the deposit of faith. But because no one is immaculate apart from Mary, we as believers need an authoritative office, other than ourselves, empowered to speak to us in the name of the Bridegroom and so to keep his word ever before us in all its life-giving, binding authority. For this reason, there is a dimension of apostolic authority that cannot be delegated or shared.
In his book, Rise, Let Us Be on Our Way, John Paul II recalls his esteem and affection (as a seminarian and then priest) for his bishop. He writes:
I had great trust in him, and I can say that I loved him just as other priests loved him . . . . Maybe the priests respected him because he was a prince, but they loved him first and foremost because he was a father who cared about people. This is what counts most of all: a bishop must be a father. True no one can attain perfect fatherhood, because this is fully realized only in God the Father. But we can somehow participate in this fatherhood of God. . . . There is no doubt that the episcopate is an office, but a bishop must resist with all his strength any tendency to become a mere official. He must never forget that he is a father.[11]
What are some of the characteristics of the exercise of authority in the mode of fatherhood? Fatherhood requires time and attention. This means genuine listening and attending to the needs of the family of God, especially the needs of those who are ill and suffering. But it also requires a personal bearing witness to the true source of authority. As I suggested earlier, sacramental authority requires discernment and clear teaching about the binding contents of our faith, including those truths about the human person that are most threatened in our current cultural situation. What is decisive is that this paternal authority cannot be delegated or turned over to a committee or to a new bureaucratic structure or process. This is not clericalism, but the unity of office and love which is both a grace and a strenuous demand. Christ’s most authoritative act—the living source for authority in the Church—is the mystery whereby he offers his life as a sacrificial gift to the Father and to the Church. This eucharistic self-giving of Christ reveals the unfathomable love of the Father and the dignity of those for whom he gave his life. Christ’s eucharist is both the source of episcopal authority and the source of the Church’s unity.
Conclusion
One of the most beautiful messianic prophecies in the Old Testament is found in the book of Malachi: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children, and the hearts of children to their fathers” (Mal 4:5–6). In the beginning of Luke’s Gospel, the angel Gabriel recalls these words to the Priest Zechariah, announcing that John will be filled with the Holy Spirit, and that “he will turn the sons of Israel to the Lord their God and the hearts of fathers to their children” (Lk 1:17). This reciprocal love between God and his people is fulfilled beyond all expectation with the coming of the Messiah.
The union between God and creation is realized in the womb of Mary, who is a type of the Church. This mystery of new union or covenant between God and his people is also entrusted to Joseph, who serves as a privileged example of the paternal authority of the bishops. In his seminal essay on the priority of the Marian dimension of the Church, Hans Urs von Balthasar writes:
The Church since the Council has to a large extent put off its mystical characteristics; it has become a Church of permanent conversations, organizations, advisory commissions, synods, structures and restructurings, sociological experiments. . . . May not the reason for the domination of such typically male and abstract notions be because of the abandonment of the Marian character of the Church? . . . From the cross the Son hands his mother over into the Church . . . In a hidden manner her virginal motherhood holds sway throughout the whole sphere of the Church, gives it light, warmth, protection.[12]
The synthesis report from the 2023 Synod expresses “the experience of and a desire for the Church as God’s home and family . . . a Church that is less bureaucratic and more relational.”[13] All of the faithful agree with this desideratum. There is, however, a divergence on what path to follow or how to realize this goal. From my perspective, if we want a Church that is less bureaucratic then perhaps we should not prioritize new processes and meetings and re-structurings that aim to create new bureaucratic structures that will (finally) allow the laity to share in governance and decision making in the Church.
Instead, a deeper appreciation of Vatican II’s teaching on the sacramental nature of episcopal authority goes hand-in-hand with a rediscovery of the true countenance of the Church. At the heart of the Church is the immaculate faith of Mary, who goes before us in holiness and with love that bears all things. By looking to her, the Church’s bishops and lay faithful can discern a form of mutual listening and shared responsibility that is less visible to surveys and workshops but that is more likely to bear fruit and to renew the Church’s life and mission.
[1] Joseph Ratzinger, Church, Ecumenism, and Politics: New Endeavors in Ecclesiology (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2008), 17.
[2] Cf. Bonaventure Kloppenburg, The Ecclesiology of Vatican II, trans. Matthew J. O’Connell (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1974).
[3] Concilium Tridentinum. Diariorum, actorum, epistularum, tractatuum nova collectio, vol. 9, ed. Societas Goerresiana (Freiburg 1901–2001), 50–51, cited in Kloppenburg, 18–88.
[4] Cf. Guy Bedouelle, The Reform of Catholicism, 1480–1620, trans. James K. Farge (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 2008), 75 ff.
[5] On the medieval roots of the distinction between “power of orders” and “power of jurisdiction,” see Eugenio Corecco, “Natura e struttura della ‘Sacra Potestas’ nella dottrina e nel nuovo Codice di diritto canonico,” Strumento Internazionale per un Lavoro Teologico: Communio 75 (1984): 24–52.
[6] Cf. Kloppenburg, The Ecclesiology of Vatican II, 169 ff.
[7] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1575.
[8] Christus dominus, 11.
[9] Kloppenburg, Ecclesiology of Vatican II, 222–23.
[10] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 875.
[11] John Paul II, Rise, Let Us Be on Our Way, trans. Walter Ziemba (New York: Warner Books, 2004), 134–37.
[12] Hans Urs von Balthasar, “The Marian Principle,” in Elucidations, trans. John Riches (London: SPCK, 1975), 71–72.
[13] XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, “Synthesis Report,” Part I, 1.
