The Structure of the Church and the Function of the Hierarchy according to St. Bernardine of Siena

THE STRUCTURE OF THE CHURCH AND THE FUNCTION OF THE HIERARCHY ACCORDING TO ST. BERNARDINE OF SIENA I. THE STRUCTURE OF THE CHURCH The vastness of revealed truth and the Umitations of the human mind being what they are, it is no surprise that the latter, at any given period, wül focus on this or that aspect of the former, that many a great theologian wiU not adequately treat, even cursorily, the entire areaofChristian truth (once a treatment is cursory it cannot, by definition, be entire), and that for one or another reason, even a great theologian wiU lose sight of what others consider a principal datum.1 Moreover, because of their formation, their adversaries, their temperament or their function, the theologians of whatever time wiU address themselves more especiaUy to some truths, and in their own way. Thus we have Trinitarian and Christological epochs in the history of theology, conditioned by heresy, the writings of a Teresa of Avila or a Julian of Norwich, or a Margaret Mary, conditioned by temperament, of a John Chrysostom conditioned by function, and whole recognizable schools of theologians conditioned by their formation. Even theologians who are cognizant of a given body of doctrine wiU, for different reasons, choose to stress one or another aspect. If we might make the distinction between what these men hold, and what they taught, we could undoubtedly establish that they held a corpus of belief common to other theologians of other ages, but we could hardly insist that they taught it with the same emphases. For, in different ages, and to different men within an age, what is most important in theology will differ. AU of this is clear. We introduce it here not in order to give even the briefest sketch of the history of Theology, or even of the Theology of the fifteenth century, but in order to introduce what Bernardine of Siena had to say about the Church in its structure, and in order that we might appreciate the positive and negative aspects of his approach. 1 Thus P. Mersch in Le Corps Mystique du Christ, 2nd ed. (Louvain, 1936), vol. II, pp. 146—47 comments on the disappearance of the doctrine of the Mystical Body in the works of Saint Bernard. 142PATRICK J. RYAN, S. J. Since the time of the Councü of Trent2 and certainly since the first Vatican Council, the standard treatise De Ecclesia has given great emphasis to the structure of the Church, to the proofs for its monarchical institution , the distinction between presbyterate and episcopate, and the distinction of both of these from the priesthood of the faithful. The prerogatives of the Pope especiaUy, but also of bishops, have been much clarified. One is indeedtemptedto saythat, because ofthese developments, the very word 'Church' in a CathoUc context, conjures up to many minds an image of the hierarchy, its privileges and powers in governing the faithful.3 For, the defense of the structure of the Church was a need keenly felt in the face of assault from without. This development ofdoctrinehadthe natural consequence of centering the attention on certain aspects of the depositum fidei and resulted in definitions of many contested points. The truths defined, in turn, shaped the development of Ecclesiology. We find that the consideration of the Mystical Body is often assigned to the position of appendix, and that the fundamental theology which prepares for the De Ecclesia treatise is especiaUy concerned with an exploration of the Scriptures in which special emphasis is placed on the exegesis of those texts which iUumine the function of the hierarchy and the outward structure of the Church.4 What is generaUy admitted to be the post-tridentine bias of Ecclesiology , has, indeed, deep roots in the later Middle Ages. Indeed, it would be impossible to read the history of the Church in the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries without being aware that the most constant theme of the canonist-theologians is related in one way or another to the problem ofthe Church's external structure. Among the powerful influences must be 2 On the effect the reformers had on the thinking of Catholic theologians, cf. Stanislaus Jaki, Les Tendances nouvelles de...