Primacy and Episcopacy: A Doctrinal Reflection

PRIMACY AND EPISCOPACY: A DOCTRINAL REFLECTION THE first Vatican Council defined the primacy of the Roman pontiff. We profess, therefore, that the bishop of Rome is an infallible teacher of the gospel and that he holds universal jurisdiction over the whole Church. The first Vatican Council specified that this jurisdiction is immediate and ordinary, in other words truly episcopal, and hence we are justified in calling the pope the universal bishop of the Church. At the same time the pope is not the only bishop. In fact, bishops are as essential to the Catholic Church as he is. Despite his primacy, he could never dispense with the episcopal structure of the Church universal and administrate the Catholic people through a system of government more directly under his control. The First Vatican itself made this clear.1 This, however, was all that the First Vatican said about bishops in the Church. The original document prepared for the conciliar deliberations included fifteen chapters on the Church and her constitution, but the briefness of the session did not permit the bishops to discuss more than the chapter dealing with papal primacy. Since the council did not deal with the role of bishops in the Church nor define their relationship to the Roman pontiff, the impression was created in many quarters outside the Church that the council had suppressed the episcopal structure of the Catholic Church and introduced a papal government in its stead. The accusations became vocal in terms such as " episcopal jurisdiction has been absorbed into papal," " the pope no longer exercises cer1 " Tantum abest, ut haec Summi Pontificis potestas officiat ordinariae ac immediatae illi episcopis iurisdictionis potestati, qua episcopi, qui positi a Spiritu Sancto in Apostolorum locum successerunt, tamquam veri pastores assignatos sibi greges, singuli singulos, pascunt et regunt" (Denz. 1828). ~11 212 GREGORY BAUM tain reserved rights, as he has in the past, but now holds the whole of the bishops' rights in his hands," "the pope has, in principle, taken the place of each bishop." To reply to these accusations, the German bishops made a collective declaration in 1875 in which they asserted that the episcopal structure of the Catholic Church has remained intact and declared that, despite papal primacy, defined at the council, Catholic bishops continue to teach and rule in their diocese as they always have in the Church.2 Pope Pius IX expressed his whole-hearted approval of the declaration. Twenty years later, in his encyclical Satis Cognitum (1896) Pope Leo XIII re-asserted the episcopal structure of the Church universal. I shall quote the rather lengthy passage in English: But if the authority of Peter and his successor is plenary and supreme, it is not to be regarded as the sole authority. For He who made Peter the foundation of the Church also chose twelve whom he called apostles; and just as it is necessary that the authority of Peter be perpetuated in the Roman pontiff, so the bishops who succeed the apostles must inherit their ordinary power. Thus the episcopal order necessarily belongs to the essential constitution of the Church. Although bishops do not receive plenary, universal or supreme authority, they are not to be looked upon as mere representatives of the Roman pontiffs. They exercise a power truly their own and are ordinary pastors of the people whom they govern.3 In these citations dealing with episcopal authority, the principal concern is the role of the bishop in his own diocese, and hence, whatever is said about the relationship of pope and episcopacy really refers to the pope's relationship to the individual bishops. It is now common doctrine that the pope has immediate and ordinary jurisdiction in every diocese of the world, and that, at the same time, the local bishop also has immediate and ordinary jurisdiction in the diocese of • (The collective declaration is most easily available in English in the appendix of H. Kiing's The Council, Reform and Reunion (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1961). • (Satis Oognitum, § 5fl.) PRIMACY AND EPISCOPACY 213 which he is the pastor. These two jurisdictions in the same territory do not conflict with one another; they do not cancel or inhibit one another, but, on the...