“Essentia et non Gradu Tantum Differant”: A Note on the Priesthood and Analogical Predication

559 The Thomist 77 (2013): 559-76 “ESSENTIA ET NON GRADU TANTUM DIFFERANT”: A NOTE ON THE PRIESTHOOD AND ANALOGICAL PREDICATION THOMAS G. GUARINO Seton Hall University South Orange, New Jersey VERYONE KNOWS the passage in Lumen gentium (no. 10) wherein the Second Vatican Council states that the priesthood of the faithful and the ministerial or hierarchical priesthood, while always ordered to each other, nonetheless “differ by essence and not only by degree.” Although this passage is frequently cited by both the magisterium and theologians, there has been little sustained attention to the meaning of this crucial phrase.1 Why is this phrase important? What is meant by an “essential” difference between the two priesthoods? And does positing an essential difference bespeak a depreciation of the priesthood of the faithful?2 Several years ago, I offered an analysis of the preliminary schemata of Vatican II in which the paragraph containing this 1 The full sentence reads: “Sacerdotium autem commune fidelium et sacerdotium ministeriale seu hierarchicum, licet essentia et non gradu tantum differant, ad invicem tamen ordinantur; unum enim et alterum suo peculiari modo de uno Christi sacerdotio participant.” 2 In a recent volume, Lawrence B. Porter adduces several theologians who claim that Vatican II offers very little light concerning the “essential difference” between the two priesthoods. For his brisk treatment of Gisbert Greshake, André Feuillet, and others, see The Assault on Priesthood (Eugene, Ore.: Wipf and Stock, 2012), xliv-xlv. E 560 THOMAS G. GUARINO significant phrase was debated.3 In the present essay, I undertake not another historical review of the Acta synodalia (although the conciliar documents, at all stages, are at the basis of this discussion). Instead, I offer a more speculative consideration of the relationship between the two priesthoods and of the meaning of the phrase “essentia et non gradu tantum differant.” I propose that the Thomistic notions of participation and analogy are the two philosophical themes undergirding this distinction. They help to explain how there is a real sharing in the one priesthood of Jesus Christ by both the faithful and their ministers, even though Christ’s priesthood subsists in a proportionately different way in each state of life. I further argue that this passage of Lumen gentium offers a good example of the “hermeneutic of reform” that Benedict XVI endorsed in his well-known Christmas address of 2005 on the proper interpretation of Vatican II.4 Of course, the very language of “essential difference” is a cause for some uneasiness in contemporary theology. The primary reason for this anxiety is that all Christians, whatever their state in life, are first and foremost disciples of Jesus Christ, sharing a common vocation to holiness. This was, indeed, the point of inserting the chapter on the “people of God” in Lumen gentium prior to discussing any particular states of life or offices within the Church. To speak, then, of an “essential difference” among Christians appears to smack of an “unequal” approach to the Church rather than a perspective that views the Church as the one people of God journeying toward fulfillment.5 3 See Thomas G. Guarino, “The Priesthood and Analogy: A Note on the Formation and Redaction of Lumen Gentium 10,” Angelicum 67 (1990): 309-28. 4 The pope spoke of “the ‘hermeneutic of reform,’ of renewal in the continuity of the one subject-Church which the Lord has given to us.” See “Christmas Address to the Roman Curia” (22 December 2005) in Acta Apostolicae Sedis 98 (2006): 40-53 at 4546 . 5 Yves Congar says that chapter 2 of Lumen gentium sought to surpass the image of the Church as a “societas inaequalis” in Le Concile de Vatican II: Son Église, Peuple de Dieu et Corps du Christ (Paris: Beauchesne, 1984), 109-22, particularly 113. THE PRIESTHOOD AND ANALOGICAL PREDICATION 561 The very idea of an essentially different ministerial priesthood appears, at least on the surface, to purvey a kind of elitism and social stratification characteristic of the ancien régime, an idea entirely outdated given our long experience of egalitarian democracy. Isn’t it truer to the nature of the Church to emphasize the equality of all the baptized on their pilgrim journey to the...