Episcopal Munera and the Character of Episcopal Orders

The Thomist 66 (2002): 369-94 EPISCOPAL MUNERA AND THE CHARACTER OF EPISCOPAL ORDERS GUY MANSINI, 0.S.B. St. Meinrad Archabbey St. Meinrad, Indiana DESPITE THE universal recognition of the sacramentality of the episcopate since the Second Vatican Council, and the council's related assertion that episcopal consecration imparts the munera of teaching and ruling as well as the munus of sanctifying, there has been no great attention paid to what these two assertions mean for the character that, according to the council, episcopal consecration imparts.1 Lumen gentium 21 asserts that episcopal consecration is the fullness of orders, confers the functions of teaching and ruling and sanctifying, and gives as well the Holy Spirit and a sacred character such that the bishop does these things in the person of Christ. About the relation of these things one to another the council is not wholly forthcoming. Broadly speaking, if before the council the tendency was to conceive the character exclusively as potestas ordinis, not worrying about its relation to other episcopal functions and about what else episcopal ordination might confer in their regard, now the tendency is to think of it (if one thinks of it at all) simply and inclusively as the threefold power itself. Neither of these approaches is acceptable. The first, by speaking of the effects of the sacrament of orders as sacramental power and grace, does not 1 The need for such consideration was however pointed out immediately; see John Donahue, "Sacramental Character: The State of the Question," The Thomist 31 (1967): 46162 . 369 370 GUY MANSINI, O.S.B. take full account ofwhat the liturgy of orders declares is going on. The second, which tries to do this, thinks of orders as giving the power to rule and teach in the same way as it does the power to sanctify. But this does not respect the difference between teaching and ruling, on the one hand, and sanctifying, on the other, and so does not respect the difference between the kind of capacities whence these activities spring.2 In fact, however, one notices that not much attention is paid to the notion of the character of orders. Herbert Vorgrimler largely ignores it.3 Gisbert Greshake treats of it briefly in his section on the spiritual life of the priest.4 In part, perhaps, such inattention is explained by the fact that the whole theology of sacramental. character has been attacked and the notion sidelined as much as possible.5 In part9 perhaps, it is because attention shifted first to a theology of ministry, where ministry was to be 2 Perhaps the best representative of the first, preconciliar line, is Charles Joumet, The Church ofthe Word Incarnate (NewYork: Sheed and Ward, 1955), 1:21-25, 121-26; for the second, see Seamus Ryan, "Episcopal Consecration: The Fullness of the Sacramentof Order," Irish Theological Quarterly 32 (1965): 319-21; Raymond Vaillancourt, "Le sacerdoce et les trois pouvoirs messianiques," Laval theologique et philosophique 21 (1966): 300; Stephen Patrick McHenry's 1983 dissertation, Three Significant Moments in the Theological Development of the Sacramental Character of Orders (Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, 1983), 188, 282-83; Jean Galot, Theology of the Priesthood (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1984), 209; Patrick Dunn, Priesthood' A Re-&camination ofthe Roman Catholic Theology of the Presbyterate (New York: Alba House, 1990), 148-49 (following Galot); Peter Drilling, Trinity and Ministry (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991), 76; Avery Dulles, The Priestly Office' A Theological Reflection (New York: Paulist Press, 1997), 73-74; Dermot Power, A Spiritual Theology ofthe Priesthood (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1998), 82 (following Galot). At the time of the council, in 1963, Wilhelm Bertrams spoke of the munus of ruling as ~inhering~ in episcopal character; see The Papacy, The Episcopacy, and Collegiality (Westminster, Md.: The Newman Press, 1965), 56-86. 3 Herbert Vorgrimler, Sacramental Theology (Collegeville, Minn.: The Liturgical Press, 1992). 4 Gisbert Greshake, The Meaning of Christian Priesthood (Westminster, Md.: Christian Classics, 1989), 108-11. 5 See Edward Schillebeeckx, Ministry' A Case For Change (London: SCM Press, 1981), 6065 , 72; but already much earlier, he had reduced the character to a relation to the community in Christ the Sacrament...