Structure of the church

Doctrinal basis

The nature of the church

In 1965 the Roman Catholic theologian Marie-Joseph Le Guillou defined the church in these terms:

The Church is recognized as a society of fellowship with God, the sacrament of salvation, the people of God established as the body of Christ and the temple of the Holy Spirit.

The progress of Roman Catholic theology can be seen in the contrast between this statement and the definition still current as late as 1960, which was substantially the one formulated by the Jesuit controversialist Robert Cardinal Bellarmine in 1621:

The society of Christian believers united in the profession of the one Christian faith and the participation in the one sacramental system under the government of the Roman Pontiff.

The older definition, created in response to the claims of Protestantism, defines the church in external and juridical terms. The more recent definition is an attempt to describe the church in terms of its inner and spiritual reality.

From its origins the church has thought of itself as the one and only worshipping community that could trace itself back to the group established by Jesus Christ. The ancient adage, “There is no salvation outside the church,” was understood as applying to those who had withdrawn from the church as well as to those who had never belonged. When this adage was combined with the notions contained in Bellarmine’s definition, lines between those inside the church and those outside it were clearly drawn. These lines were maintained in the breakup of Western Christendom in the Reformation.

There were, however, other factors determining the idea of the one true church. The Roman Catholic Church had never excluded the Orthodox Church from the community of Christian believers, even though the two churches fell into schism in 1054. Furthermore, the juridical definition of the church did not include traditional themes such as the communion of saints and the body of Christ. The theme of the communion of saints refers to the church as a whole, including both the living and the dead (the souls in purgatory—a place or condition for those who must be cleansed from lesser sins—and in heaven). The idea of communion appears in early church literature as an indication of the mutual recognition of union in the one church and the notion of mutual service.

The theme of the body of Christ appears in the letters of Paul (Romans 12; 1 Corinthians 12; Ephesians 4–5; Colossians 1). In modern Roman Catholic theology, the term mystical has been added to body, doubtless with the intention of distinguishing the church as body from the juridical society. Pius XII, in the encyclical Mystici corporis Christi (1943; “Mystical Body of Christ”), identified the mystical body with the Roman Catholic Church. Most Roman Catholic theologians now take a less rigorous view, trying to find some way of affirming membership in the body for those who are not members of the Roman Catholic Church. The documents of the Second Vatican Council described the church as the “People of God” and as a “pilgrim church,” but no generally accepted statement of membership in this church has yet emerged. Vatican II also departed from established Roman Catholic theology since the Reformation by using the word church in connection with Protestant churches. This use has caused some confusion, but the trend now is to think of one church divided rather than of one true church and other false churches.

Apostolic succession

The claim of the Roman Catholic Church to be the one legitimate continuation of the community established by Jesus Christ is based on apostolic succession. The idea of apostolic succession first appears in ad 95 in a letter of Clement, bishop of Rome, who maintained that the bishops succeeded the Apostles. The teaching on apostolic succession received fuller expression in the works of the 2nd-century Church Father Irenaeus, whose writings against the Gnostics (dualistic sects that maintained that salvation is not from faith but from esoteric knowledge) urged that Catholic teaching was verified because a continuous succession of teachers, beginning with the Apostles, could be demonstrated. In the 3rd and 4th centuries, problems of schism within churches were resolved by appealing to the power of orders (i.e., the power a person has by reason of his ordination as deacon, priest, or bishop) transmitted by the imposition of hands through a chain from the Apostles. Orders in turn enabled the subject to receive the power of jurisdiction (i.e., the power an ordained person has by reason of his office). In disputes between Rome and the Eastern churches, the idea of apostolic succession was centred in the Roman pontiff, the successor of Peter. Apostolic authority is defined as the power to teach, to administer the sacraments, and to rule the church. Apostolic succession in the Roman Catholic understanding is validated only through recognition by the Roman pontiff, and the Roman Catholic Church understands the designation “apostolic” in the creed as referring to this threefold power under the primacy of the Roman pontiff.

The Roman Catholic Church has not entirely denied apostolic succession to non-Roman churches. Rome recognizes the validity of orders in the Orthodox churches; this means that it recognizes the sacramental power of the priesthood but does not recognize the government of these churches as legitimate. The orders of the Anglican and the Lutheran churches, on the contrary, are not recognized by Rome, though negotiations aimed at resolving the differences between the churches in this regard have been held since Vatican II. Oriental churches in union with Rome (Eastern Catholics) are recognized as being in full apostolic succession. Luther and Calvin affirmed that apostolic succession had been lost in the Roman Catholic Church by doctrinal and moral corruption and that the true church was found only where the gospel was rightly preached and the sacraments were rightly administered. Thus, Protestant churches generally have not accepted the necessity of apostolic succession.

John L. McKenzie

The papacy

The papal office

The word pope (Latin papa, “father”) was used as early as the 3rd century to refer to any bishop, and the word papacy (Latin papatia, derived from papa) is of medieval origin. In its primary usage, papacy denotes the office of the bishop of Rome, for whom the title of pope has been reserved in the West since the 9th century, and, hence, the system of ecclesiastical and temporal government over which he directly presides.

The multiplicity and variety of papal titles themselves indicate the complexity of the papal office. In the Annuario Pontificio, the official Vatican directory, the pope is described as bishop of Rome, vicar of Jesus Christ, successor of the prince of the Apostles, pontifex maximus (“supreme pontiff”) of the universal church, primate of Italy, archbishop and metropolitan of the Roman province, sovereign of the state of Vatican City, and servant of the servants of God. In his more circumscribed capacities as bishop of Rome, metropolitan of the Roman province, primate of Italy, and patriarch of the West, the pope is the bearer of responsibilities and the wielder of powers that have counterparts in the other episcopal, metropolitan, primatial, and patriarchal jurisdictions of the Roman Catholic Church. What differentiates his jurisdiction from these others and renders his office unique is the teaching that the bishop of Rome is also the successor to St. Peter, prince of the Apostles. As the bearer of the Petrine office, the pope is raised to a position of lonely eminence as chief bishop, or primate, of the universal church.

Basic to the claim of primacy is the Petrine theory, according to which Christ promised the primacy to Peter alone and, after the Resurrection, actually conferred that role upon him (John 1:42 and 21:15 ff. and, especially, Matthew 16:18 ff.).

(Matthew 16:18–19)
Feed my lambs.
…Tend my sheep.
(John 21:15–16)

Following an ancient tradition, Vatican I defined the Petrine primacy by citing these three texts, interpreting them to signify that Christ himself directly established St. Peter as prince of the Apostles and visible head of the church militant, bestowing on him a primacy not merely of honour but of true jurisdiction. The council maintained also that by Christ’s establishment the Petrine primacy was to pass in perpetuity to his successors and that these successors were the bishops of Rome. In stipulating further that the Roman pontiffs, as successors in the Petrine primacy, possess the authority to issue infallible pronouncements in matters of faith or morals, the council cited both Matthew 16:18 ff. and Christ’s promise to Peter at the Last Supper:

(Luke 22:32)

Ancient and medieval views of papal authority

Of the Petrine texts, Matthew 16:18 ff. is clearly central and has the distinction of being the first scriptural text invoked to support the primatial claims of the Roman bishops. Although the exact meaning of this passage was debated by patristic exegetes (early Church Fathers who in their interpretation of the Bible used critical techniques), the tradition of Roman preeminence developed very early in the history of the church. In the late 4th and 5th centuries there was an increasing tendency on the part of Roman bishops to justify scripturally and to formulate in theoretical terms the ill-defined preeminence in the universal church that had long been attached to the Roman church and to its bishop. Thus, Damasus I, despite the existence of other churches of apostolic foundation, began to call the Roman church “the apostolic see.” At about the same time, the categories of Roman law were borrowed to explicate and formulate the prerogatives of the Roman bishop. The process of theoretical elaboration reached a culmination in the views of Leo I and Gelasius I (reigned 492–496), the former understanding himself not simply as Peter’s successor but also as his representative, or vicar. He was Peter’s “unworthy heir,” possessing by analogy with the Roman law of inheritance the full powers Peter himself had wielded—these powers being monarchical, since Peter had been endowed with the principatus over the church.

On a purely theoretical level, the distance between the claims advanced by Leo I and the position embodied in the primacy decree of Vatican I is not great. Medieval popes, such as Gregory VII, Innocent III, and Innocent IV, clarified in both theory and practice the precise meaning of that fullness of power (plenitudo potestatis) over the church to which, according to some scholars, Leo I himself had laid claim. In this they were aided not only by the efforts of publicists such as the 13th-century Italian theologian and philosopher Giles of Rome, also known as Aegidius Romanus, who magnified the pope’s monarchical powers in unrestrained and secular terms, but also by the massive development during the late 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries of canon law, which made increasing use of Roman law and legal practices. Gratian’s Decretum (c. 1140), the unofficial collection of canons that became the fundamental textbook for medieval students of canon law, laid great emphasis on the primacy of the Roman see, accepting as genuine certain canons that were based on long-standing tradition but were actually the work of 8th- and 9th-century forgers. Two such canons were restated by the 1917 Code of Canon Law as the principles “that there cannot be an ecumenical council which is not convoked by the Roman Pontiff” and that “the First See is under the judgment of nobody.”

The prevalence of such ideas and the absence of a formidable challenge to papal primatial claims during the High Middle Ages explain the lack of any conciliar definition of the Roman primacy at the great “papal” general councils of that period. Hence it took the (abortive) attempt at reunion with the Orthodox Church at the Council of Ferrara-Florence in 1439 to evoke the first solemn conciliar definition of the Roman primacy, which was included in the decree of union with the Greeks (Laetentur coeli) as follows:

We define that the Holy Apostolic See and the Roman Pontiff hold the primacy over the whole world, that the Roman Pontiff himself is the successor of Peter, prince of the Apostles, that he is the true vicar of Christ, head of the whole church, father and teacher of all Christians, and [we define] that to him in [the person of] Peter was given by our Lord Jesus Christ the full power of nourishing, ruling and governing the universal church; as it is also contained in the acts of the ecumenical councils and in the holy canons.

Early-modern and modern views of papal authority

Laetentur coeli was the basis for the solemn definition that Vatican I promulgated in 1870 as part of its dogmatic constitution Pastor aeternus. Having asserted as a matter of faith the primacy of Peter and the succession of the popes in that primacy and having quoted in full the Florentine definition, the constitution clarified what was to be understood by “the full power of nourishing, ruling, and governing” the church, which, according to that definition, inhered in the pope’s primacy. Unlike the conciliar definition arrived at in Florence, Pastor aeternus specified this to include the pope’s judicial supremacy, insisting that there is “no higher authority,” not even an ecumenical council, to which appeal can be made from a papal judgment.

An important step in the development of the definition of papal infallibility occurred in 519, when Pope Hormisdas (reigned 514–23) decreed that the Roman see had always preserved the true Catholic faith. This assertion of the teaching authority of the papacy was included in Pastor aeternus. Despite challenges to papal claims from both the Eastern and Western churches throughout the Middle Ages, many popes, canonists, and theologians, including Aquinas, upheld the belief that the institution of the papacy possessed a privileged teaching authority. In the later Middle Ages, the Spiritual Franciscan Peter John Olivi developed a theory of papal inerrancy, and other Franciscan theologians cited papal infallibility in their debate over poverty. During the era of the Great Schism and the conciliar movement, the idea of papal infallibility was further developed. An even more dramatic step was taken following the turmoil of the Protestant Reformation by the Roman, or ultramontane, theological school, whose distinguished representatives included Cardinal Bellarmine. Prominent during the 16th and 17th centuries, this school identified the supreme teaching authority of the universal church with the teaching authority of the pope and claimed that the infallibility promised to the church was also possessed by the pope acting as its head, thus guaranteeing the inerrancy even of the pope’s individual doctrinal pronouncements. Although it drew from earlier materials—notably from the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals (a 9th-century collection of canon laws, authentic and forged, attributed to the popes and councils of the first seven centuries) and from the writings of medieval theologians such as Aquinas, Giles of Rome, and Augustinus Triumphus—the ultramontane school derived much of its initial strength from the papalist reaction to the conciliar movement, and it was shaped very much by its opposition to the claims of the conciliarists and their Gallican successors on behalf of the general council. This is evident in the solemn definition of the doctrine promulgated by Vatican I, which insisted that the ex cathedra definitions of the pope—literally, those made from the papal “chair” or throne—“are irreformable of themselves and not by virtue of the consent of the Church.” The conciliar debates indicate that this sentence was intended to exclude the Gallican notion that a papal definition could not claim infallibility unless, subsequently or concomitantly, it received episcopal assent. Despite the maximalist (extremist) tendencies both of subsequent Catholic apologists and of their Protestant critics, the sentence apparently was not intended to restrict the church’s infallible teaching authority to the pope alone or to suggest that the pope was free to define doctrine without making every effort to take into account the mind of the church.

In its dogmatic constitution Lumen gentium (1964; “Light of Nations”)), Vatican II focused on the nature of episcopal authority while also endorsing Vatican I’s teaching on papal primacy and infallibility. It insisted that bishops “are not to be regarded as vicars of the Roman Pontiff, for they exercise an authority which is proper to them,” since “by divine institution…[they] have succeeded to the place of the apostles as shepherds of the Church” and are themselves, in fact, “the vicars and ambassadors of Christ.” Also, “just as, by the Lord’s will, St. Peter and the other apostles constituted one apostolic college, so in a similar way the Roman Pontiff as the successor of Peter and the bishops as the successors of the apostles are joined together.” This college, “together with its head, the Roman Pontiff, and never without this head” is “the subject of supreme and full power over the universal Church,” a supreme authority that it can exercise in more than one fashion but “in a solemn way through an ecumenical council.” The supreme authority in the church can be exercised not only personally by the pope himself but also in a collegial fashion by the whole episcopate, which of necessity includes the bishop of Rome as its head.

In so emphasizing the doctrine of episcopal collegiality, Vatican II was responding to the findings of modern New Testament and patristic scholarship concerning the nature of the primitive and ancient church; the council insisted that it was restoring an ecclesiological emphasis of great antiquity. Recent scholarship on the medieval church indicates that papal primacy was more limited, especially in the early Middle Ages, and that support for collegiality survived, in the writings of canonists and theologians, side by side with the more prominent concern with papal primacy. The great conciliarists active at the Council of Constance attempted unsuccessfully to balance these two emphases, and even in the modern period, despite the growing prominence of ultramontane views and their eventual triumph at Vatican I, the collegial concern was never fully displaced. Although episcopal collegiality was supported by Vatican II and Pope Paul VI, it has suffered as a result of the centralizing tendencies of John Paul II.

Historical conceptions of the relationship of the papacy to the world

Theories concerning the relationship of the papacy to the world at large have both reflected and conflicted with the established political conceptions of the day. The pope has been conceived successively as a leading dignitary in an imperial church headed in effect by an emperor, as a majestic potentate possessed of a supreme and direct authority even in temporal matters, and as a primarily spiritual figure who in temporal matters has no more than an indirect power of intervention. With the post-Reformation fragmentation of Christendom, the growth of secularism, and the emergence of the unified modern state claiming omnicompetence within its borders, even such attenuated claims to an indirect power became increasingly anachronistic. Throughout the 20th century the pope, although affected by the conventions regulating the relations of heads of state with each other, possessed mainly a moral authority deriving from the dignity and prestige of his office. The strength of that authority, however, depended upon his moral standing as a person, upon the persuasive force of his cause, and upon the degree of enthusiasm he could arouse within the church. Despite these limitations, the pope could still exercise great influence on political affairs, as events of the late 20th century demonstrated.

Contemporary teaching on papal authority

After the mid-20th century some voices in Roman Catholic circles questioned both the doctrine of papal infallibility and the exercise of papal primacy—at least as it was envisaged in the teaching of Vatican I and the Code of Canon Law. The church’s official teaching on the papal office remains that of Vatican I, solemnly reaffirmed at Vatican II. Nevertheless, the latter council’s juxtaposition of the doctrine of episcopal collegiality with the existing teaching on papal primacy and infallibility created something of a dilemma in Catholic ecclesiology. Although the text of Lumen gentium insisted that the doctrine of episcopal collegiality in no way impugned the pope’s primacy, a minority of the council fathers remained unconvinced, though they were said to have been won over by the explanatory note that the Theological Commission, by papal authority, appended to the decree. The note is framed in much more juristic terms than is the decree itself, and in discussing the possession by the college of bishops of “supreme and full power over the whole Church” it insists that “there is no distinction between the Roman Pontiff and the bishops taken collectively” and that “necessarily and always, the College carries with it the idea of its head,” so that the bishops acting independently of the pope cannot be considered to constitute a college. At the same time, the note insists that “since the Supreme Pontiff is the head of the College, he alone can perform certain acts which in no wise belong to the bishops, for example, convoking and directing the College, approving the norms of action, etc.,” norms that “must always be observed.”

Already in 1964 there were some who regarded this note with considerable unease, feeling that it withdrew from the bishops, in practical and legal terms, the supreme authority they were said, on theological grounds, to share. Subsequent events did little to dispel such misgivings. In 1968 Pope Paul VI, rejecting the recommendations of a commission he sanctioned and failing to consult the bishops, promulgated Humanae vitae (the encyclical on birth control), considered by some observers to be the most divisive papal initiative of recent times and one that amounted to a de facto negation of collegiality. Although Paul seemed less supportive of collegiality, he did encourage the exploration of the relationship between collegiality and infallibility. He also established the Synod of Bishops in 1965, which would continue to meet regularly throughout his papacy and that of his successors.

The controversy over papal primacy and episcopal collegiality continued during the papacy of John Paul II. Clearly committed to the spirit of Vatican II, John Paul reached out to the people of the world in his many travels and through his internationalization of the College of Cardinals. He maintained an almost ultramontane understanding of papal authority and sharply curtailed the authority of national episcopal conferences. The Roman Curia, a name first used for the body of papal assistants in the 11th century, became increasingly centralized and remained the administrative power in the church. John Paul also reestablished the papacy as a leading moral authority in the world, a role that had become increasingly important after the loss of temporal sovereignty in 1870. Although many Roman Catholics and non-Catholics alike disagreed with him on a number of issues, he remained a highly respected figure on the world stage. During his reign the papacy continued to be a force for international peace, justice, and human rights, as well as a focal point of controversy on matters of gender and sexuality.

The offices of the clergy

The Roman Curia and the College of Cardinals

In the day-to-day exercise of his primatial jurisdiction, the pope relies on the assistance of the Roman Curia. The Curia originated in the local body of presbyters (priests), deacons (lower order of clergy), and notaries (lower clerics with secretarial duties) upon which, like other bishops in their own dioceses, the early bishops of Rome relied for help. By the 11th century this body had been narrowed to include only the leading (or cardinal) presbyters and deacons of the Roman diocese and broadened to embrace the cardinal bishops (the heads of the seven neighbouring, or “suburbicarian,” dioceses). From this emerged the Sacred College of Cardinals, a corporate body possessed, from 1179 onward, of the exclusive right to elect the pope. The college, in a special assembly known as a conclave, still possesses the right to elect the pope, as well as the right to govern the church in urgent matters during a vacancy in the papal office. Since 1958, a series of popes extended the size of the Sacred College beyond the traditional limit of 70 and broadened its membership to make it more representative of the church’s international character, though Paul VI limited the number of cardinals who could participate in papal elections to 120 and decreed that cardinals could not participate in papal elections or curial business after age 80. Under John Paul II the college eventually comprised 185 cardinals from 69 countries.

Cardinals are selected by the personal choice of the pope, in consultation with the cardinals in Rome at the time, in a consistory, or solemn meeting, which is secret. The cardinals reside either as bishops in their own sees or in the Vatican as the highest rank of papal advisers and officers in the Roman Curia. Since the time of Martin V (reigned 1417–31), the names of some newly promoted cardinals have been held in pectore (Latin: “in the breast” or “in the heart”) by the pope. The name of a cardinal in pectore is not made public, and he acquires the responsibilities and rights of the other cardinals only if his name is subsequently published.

During the Middle Ages the cardinals played an important role as a corporate body, not only during papal vacancies, as today, but also during the pope’s lifetime. In the 12th century the Roman councils that popes had hitherto convoked when urgent matters were at hand were replaced by the consistory of the cardinals, which thus became the most important collegial (corporate) body advising the pope and participating in his judicial activity. Eventually it began to make oligarchic claims to a share in the powers of the Petrine office and attempted, with sporadic success, to bind the pope to act on important matters only with its consent. During the 16th century, however, the Roman congregations (administrative committees), each charged with the task of assisting the pope in a specific area of government, were finally established, and the power of the consistory began to decline, and with it the importance of the cardinals as a corporate body. At the same time, there was an increase in the power and influence of the “curial” cardinals—those who did not administer local dioceses but who served as the pope’s representatives in important foreign affairs or resided permanently in Rome, holding responsibilities in the curial congregations, tribunals, and offices that proliferated in the course of the next three centuries.

By the early 20th century the growth of the Roman Curia had produced a bewildering tangle of administrative and judicial bodies in which neither temporal and ecclesiastical functions nor executive and judicial powers were clearly demarcated. The reforms of Pius X (reigned 1903–14) and Benedict XV (reigned 1914–22) clarified and streamlined the work of the Curia and introduced a measure of order into its maze of overlapping jurisdictions. In the wake of Vatican II and in response to complaints about abuses of curial power and requests for an internationalization of curial staff and a modernization of curial functions and procedures, Paul VI pledged himself to act. His reforms, instituted in the apostolic constitution Regimini ecclesiae universae (“Government of the Universal Church”) of 1967, were further modified in 1988 by John Paul II in the apostolic constitution Pastor bonus (“The Good Shepherd”).

The Curia is divided into several agencies, or dicasteries, including the Secretariat of State, the various congregations, the tribunals, and the pontifical councils. The Secretariat of State, which is divided into two sections, is the agency that works most closely with the pope in his mission to govern the church and to establish relations with foreign countries. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (originally the Sacred Congregation of the Universal Inquisition) is the oldest of the nine congregations and is responsible for spreading and defending Roman Catholic belief. The other congregations are those for the Oriental Churches, for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, for the Causes of Saints, for the Evangelization of Peoples, for the Clergy, for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, for Catholic Education, and for Bishops. The tribunals constitute the judicial branch of the Curia and include the Apostolic Penitentiary (which grants indulgences, absolutions, and other favours), the Roman Rota (a court of appeals and first instance), and the Apostolic Signatura (the highest judicial body of the church). In addition to restructuring the established dicasteries, John Paul II also restructured a number of administrative bureaus and created the pontifical councils, which include councils for the laity, Christian unity, interreligious dialogue, dialogue with nonbelievers, and others. Finally, the offices of the Curia are responsible for the financial administration of the Curia and the papacy.

Francis Christopher Oakley The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

The college of bishops

In Roman Catholicism the college of bishops is the successor to the college of the Apostles; the earliest mention of the office of bishop is found in the New Testament. Every Roman Catholic bishop is a bishop of a place—either a proper area, or jurisdiction, of which he is the ordinary (as he is called in church law), or a fictitious place, a see no longer existing, of which he is named titular bishop. The office of the first bishops differed from the later institution; references in the Gospels to episkopoi are better understood to mean “overseers.” In the early Christian communities there was often little distinction between bishops and presbyters, and there was usually more than one bishop associated with each community, though the appearance of the bishop as the individual leader of the local church—the monarchical bishop—was a fairly early development. Ignatius of Antioch—whose letters, written about ad 107, provide an early description of the Christian community—was clearly a monarchical bishop, and he did not think of himself as the only one of his kind; thus, the institution must have arisen in apostolic or early postapostolic times.

The bishops succeed to the apostolic power, which is understood as the power to teach Catholic doctrine, to sanctify the church through the administration of the sacraments, and to govern the church. The residential bishop is supreme in his territory in this threefold function, having no superior other than the Roman pontiff. As the principal teacher of his diocese, the bishop is responsible for providing witness to Christ and for preaching the gospel of Christ. The bishop must also educate his flock on all the teachings of the church concerning faith and morals, children and the family, the individual, and society. In his priestly function, the bishop is called on to administer the sacraments and to encourage his flock to experience the Eucharist as a means of achieving unity in the love of Christ. As the chief officer of the diocese, the bishop has executive, legislative, and judicial powers to govern the church. The responsibilities of the office are great and demand considerable leadership.

Bishops in modern times have been more visible as managers of the business of the diocese than as pastors and teachers. No authentic “Catholic” activity is conducted in a diocese without at least the tacit approval of the bishop; his disposal of funds and persons makes it evident that the activity will flourish much more vigorously if it enjoys his active support and encouragement. His power to discourage or forbid activities, which he is free to use according to his judgment, is both a strength and a weakness of the Roman Catholic structure. The bishop is assisted in governing the diocese by a staff called, like the staff of the pope, a curia. The structure of the staff is to some extent determined by canon law—e.g., vicar-general, chancellor, and official, or head, of the diocesan tribunals. Otherwise, the bishop at his discretion may appoint a staff according to the needs of his diocese. His authority over the staff and his clergy is nearly absolute.

Until Vatican II the Roman Catholic Church had not dealt with the ambiguity of two concurrent jurisdictions, pontifical and episcopal. The pope cannot define or limit the powers of a bishop; the powers are “ordinary,” inhering in the office itself. Vatican II accepted the emphasis that recent theologians have laid on the collegial character of the episcopacy, and the supremacy of the pope is understood as supremacy in the college; the pope needs the college of which he is head, though Vatican I declared that he needs neither its consultation nor its approval. It is now understood that such solitary action should be the exception rather than the rule; and the Synod of Bishops, established after Vatican II, was a step toward involving the body of bishops in the policy of the entire church, hitherto formulated exclusively by the Roman see. During the papacy of John Paul II, the church proceeded along a contradictory path regarding the role of the episcopacy. In his 1995 encyclical Ut unum sint (“That They May Be One”), the pope seemingly supported the emphasis on collegiality voiced at Vatican II, but he also taught that there were limitations to episcopal independence.

Originally elected to office and often appointed by kings and emperors during the early Middle Ages, bishops have been chosen by the pope since the 11th century. In modern practice, appointments to the office are made from confidential lists of suitable priests sent to the pope every three years by the bishops. Bishops in modern times have generally been career administrators in the church, but any priest can ascend to the office if he possesses certain qualifications. A candidate for the office must be at least 35 years old and have served as a priest for at least five years; he must also have strength of faith and moral character, and he must have a licence or expertise in Scripture, theology, and canon law. In 1970 Pope Paul VI established 75 as the mandatory age of retirement for all bishops except the bishop of Rome.

Ecumenical councils

The first church council, which set the precedent for all subsequent meetings, took place at Jerusalem about ad 50 and was attended by the Apostles, who debated whether Gentile Christians were obliged to follow the Mosaic Law. Regional councils of bishops, convoked to settle doctrinal and disciplinary questions, appeared in the 2nd century. The first general council representing the bishops of the whole world occurred at Nicaea in Asia Minor in 325 (the Greek oikumenē, from which the word ecumenical is derived, referred to the inhabited world). The council was convoked not by an ecclesiastical authority but by the Roman emperor Constantine, who wanted the church to reach a final decision on the Arian controversy. (According to Arius, the Son of God was a creature of similar but not the same substance as God the Father.) The Roman Catholic Church has held 21 such assemblies, though only three (Trent, Vatican I, and Vatican II) have been held since the mid-16th century.

Canon law defines an ecumenical council and its procedure; actually, the law represents the procedure followed in the convocation of Vatican I. There is no precise criterion for determining what is an ecumenical council, and one can say only that councils are ecumenical if and only if the Roman Catholic Church regards them as such. The Orthodox churches recognize the first eight councils only.

The ecumenical council is recognized as the supreme authority within the Roman Catholic Church. Along with the pope this makes two supreme authorities; the church reconciles this logical dilemma by asserting that the ecumenical council, acting with the pope, is supreme. Only the pope can convoke an ecumenical council, and he or his legates must preside. There are no limits to the competence of an ecumenical council, but the pope must approve its decrees.

The Great Schism (1378–1417), during which three men claimed the papacy simultaneously, led to the movement known as conciliarism, which maintained that the ecumenical council was the means of saving the church from scandal and corruption. The idea of conciliarism was rooted in debates from the 12th century; in the 15th century it was applied with much success to the resolution of the schism, though the excesses of extremist conciliarists soon led to the demise of the movement, and much of the policy of the Roman see since that time has been devoted to the suppression of conciliarist sentiments. This has naturally led to questions about the value of ecumenical councils, which are cumbersome and expensive compared with an omnicompetent office such as the papacy. Nevertheless, the usefulness of ecumenical councils has been illustrated by both Vatican I and Vatican II. Apart from the public and psychological impact produced by a consensus so broad, the council makes available to the church a fund of wisdom and experience not available to the Roman Curia, and it seems to generate among participants a state of mind and a strength of purpose that is above their normal level of thought and action.

The priesthood

Although the term “priest” (Greek hiereus) refers to the entire Christian people, it is given to no church officer in the New Testament. First appearing in the 2nd century, the office is associated with the establishment of the eucharistic sacrifice, over which the priest was called to preside. No doubt the development of the monarchical episcopate also contributed to the emergence of the priesthood; the bishop needed assistance in his threefold task of teaching, sanctifying, and governing, and the priest exercised this power as an officer of the bishop. Although priests are members of either a diocese or a religious community, in the exercise of the threefold ministry every priest is subject to the bishop of the diocese in which the ministry is conducted.

The pastor of the parish is the model priest. Despite the fact that in large parishes the pastor may be primarily an administrator, Catholics experience their church directly through the parochial clergy. Catholics hear sermons, worship, receive the sacraments, and look for religious counsel and direction in their parish. Many Catholics, particularly in the United States, send their children to parish schools. The parish is also the centre of activities ranging from recreation to adult education and social work, all under the direction of the clergy. Whereas the parochial clergy are genuine pastors, the pastoral office has often been reduced for the bishop and is barely visible in the pope. The strength of the Roman Catholic Church historically has been rooted in its priests, especially in its parochial clergy.

Roman Catholicism for centuries has fostered a distinct clerical identity, symbolized by clerical garb, which sets priests as a class apart from lay Catholics. The priesthood is also set apart by gender; only men may become Catholic priests. The most striking feature of this class, celibacy, has stirred up considerable dissatisfaction in the modern church. Many priests and other observers have called for the acceptance of married priests, arguing that the rule of celibacy interferes with the ministry. Others have urged the acceptance of female priests. Because of this dissatisfaction and the issues related to it, there have been a significant number of departures from the priesthood and an alarming decrease in the number of candidates.

Religious communities

Religious communities in the Roman Catholic Church consist of groups of men or women who live a common life and pronounce the three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience (the evangelical counsels). Members of religious communities generally accept a rule of life that emphasizes humility and the renunciation of worldly goods and pleasures. The aim of such a life has traditionally been the contemplation of God and the pursuit of Christian perfection (theologically defined as perfect love). The religious life also has been understood as flight from the world, though monastic communities often have been great economic and cultural centres.

Hermits and monks

The origins of the religious life traditionally have been traced to the apostolic community in Jerusalem at the very beginning of the church. In the 1st century, groups of ascetics adopted lives of celibacy and poverty. In the 3rd and 4th centuries St. Anthony and other anchorites, or hermits, who escaped sin and temptation by flight from the world—mostly in the deserts of Syria, Egypt, and Palestine—greatly stimulated the growth of the movement. Flight from the world became the rule of the cloister, forbidding both free entrance of “externs” and free egress of the religious and imposing supervision in all dealings with seculars. The evangelical counsels meant a life of solitude and destitution and an effort to attain union with God by prolonged, almost constant contemplation. Where large numbers of hermits assembled in the same place, cenobitism (common life) emerged, and the hermits or monks (Greek monachos, “solitary”) elected one of their members abbot (Aramaic abba, “father”). Eastern monasticism produced the rules of Pachomius and Basil in the 4th century, and travelers (most notably John Cassian) introduced monasticism into the Latin church. Western monasticism, however, came to be dominated by the rule of Benedict of Nursia, who founded his communities in Italy in the 6th century.

Compared with most contemporary monastic rules, the Benedictine Rule emphasizes less austerity and contemplation and more common life and common work in charity and harmony. It has many offshoots and variations, and it has proved itself sturdy, surviving many near collapses and reforms. The monk does not join an “order” but a monastery. He takes vows of obedience, stability, and fidelity to the monastic life, adopts the habit (i.e., the distinct form of dress of the order), and the tonsure. Although Benedictine monasteries were almost always located in rural regions, the labour of the monks transformed them into food-producing areas which then attracted settlement. Thus, the monks who had fled the world found that the world sought them out for services, which they gladly rendered.

The monks established internal and external schools in their communities and preserved the learning of antiquity by copying numerous ancient Latin manuscripts, both pagan and Christian. The primary purpose of the monastic community, however, was religious. The Benedictine monk was committed to a life of prayer, which was fulfilled in choir by the communal chanting of the divine office (a set form of liturgical prayer) at specific times of day. As the centre of the perfected religious life, monasteries received much support from the laity, who bestowed upon the monks numerous pious donations in the hopes of establishing spiritual kinship with them and being included in the monks’ prayers.

Mendicant friars and clerks regular

Mendicant orders, such as the Franciscans, the Dominicans, the Carmelites, and the Augustinians, arose in the 13th century. The friary was like a monastery, with common life and the divine office in choir, but the friars made excursions, sometimes at great length both in time and distance, for apostolic works, mostly preaching. All of the mendicant orders had apostolic work in mind at their foundation. They were thus at the ready disposal of the pope, and the principle of clerical exemption (exemption from the jurisdiction of the bishop) became much more important than it had been for the monks. Originally, the friars did not need even the approval of the bishop to preach in his diocese, though this freedom has been restricted in modern times. Preaching became almost the specialty of the mendicant friars in the Middle Ages, and they were important in the foundation of the great medieval universities.

The third major form of religious life, that of the clerks regular, developed in the 16th century. These communities were formally and frankly directed to active ministry. According to Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits)—the best-known example of clerks regular—the Society imitated the manner of living of devout secular priests (i.e., priests not bound by a rule) and placed itself at the disposal of the pope. The clerks regular were even more mobile than the friars and possessed the resources necessary to undertake specialized works. Since the 16th century the works of these religious communities have been education, foreign missions, preaching, and theological scholarship.

Nuns and brothers

Until the 17th century, religious communities of women were almost entirely contemplative and generally subject to rigid cloister, or seclusion. (The Beguine movement—laywomen living communal lives of celibacy, prayer, and work—is one exception to this tradition.) Beginning in the 16th century, women’s communities began to admit girls into the convents not as novices (those admitted to probationary membership in the community) but to educate them as gentlewomen. Modern communities of women all stem from the type of community instituted in France in the mid-17th century by Vincent de Paul under the name Daughters of Charity. At first these groups were deliberately nonmonastic; Vincent did not wish cloister. The Daughters of Charity was founded to help the poor and the sick and to provide their children with religious training and rudimentary education. These have remained the major works of the communities of women.

Religious communities are orders if the members (or some of them) pronounce solemn vows and are congregations if the members pronounce simple vows. Whereas solemn vows are perpetual, simple vows may be perpetual or temporary. The difference between the two is subtle: solemn vows, though dispensable, were meant to be a more permanent and durable consecration than simple vows. Men who make religious profession but who do not receive the sacrament of holy orders are “brothers.”

Secular institutes, such as Opus Dei, have arisen since World War II. They are not religious (and therefore do not pronounce the three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience), have little or no common life in a common residence, have no superior but rather a manager of their few common affairs, and intend to bear Christian witness in the world in any type of secular employment.

The laity

Although the laity as a class are not mentioned in the New Testament, they came into being with the clergy at the end of the 1st century; the laity were identified as the part of the church that is not in orders. If the office of the clergy is conceived as teaching, sanctifying, and governing, then the function of the laity is to be taught, sanctified, and governed. The modern term Catholic Action (especially under Pius X and Pius XI) meant the organized general assistance by the laity in the mission of the church, yet, as it was more closely defined, the mission of the church was still entirely clerical, and lay action was accessory to the mission proper.

Building on the precedents of the two popes Pius, Vatican II redefined the laity as part of the people of God and revised the role of the laity in the church. It called “secular” all nonecclesiastical activity and declared that the secular is the proper area of the layperson. This means that laypersons are the judges of how to realize their Christian destiny in the secular sphere. Although “proper” does not mean exclusive, the statement implies that the clergy can offer principles and general directions but not make specific decisions. The Roman Catholic Church intended to make the laity the channel of its relevance in the world.

The council also took steps against passivity of the laity in ecclesiastical life, a reform some Roman Catholics were at first slow to accept, because they were not accustomed to the idea and because they were uncertain about how it should be implemented. The council’s most visible reform involved the liturgy, which was now rendered in the vernacular. The altar was turned around so that the presiding priest faced the laity, who participated more fully in the mass through congregational singing and by responding to liturgical prayer. The council also recommended the creation of lay councils in each diocese and parish, which were gradually established in the following generation.

The council’s reform of the role of the laity was reinforced by a revision in 1983 of the Code of Canon Law and by Pope John Paul II’s apostolic exhortation Christifidelis laici (December 30, 1988; “The Lay Members of Christ’s Faithful People”). The new law code highlighted a number of rights for the laity, including eligibility to hold church offices. Laypersons were allowed to serve as diocesan chancellors and to attend diocesan synods. The laity were also called on to participate in diocesan and parish financial and pastoral councils and to serve as advisers to bishops and priests. The revised code also established the right of laypersons to serve as lectors, commentators, and cantors, and they were even allowed to preach, confer baptism, and distribute Holy Communion. In his exhortation, the pope sanctioned the new lay ministries and duties described in the canon law. Drawing from the decrees of Vatican II, John Paul explained that all Christians share in the mission of Jesus Christ and are responsible for spreading the faith. The laity are called on to manifest the faith in their daily lives and to live as Christians in the world, thereby sanctifying it.

Canon law

The earliest individual church law was called a canon (Greek kanōn, “rule, measure, standard”), and the canons came to be referred to as canon law. Church laws appeared almost as soon as church authority, and some passages of the New Testament reflect early rules; whether they should be called “law” at this primitive stage is doubtful. Laws of dioceses or of regions were formed by diocesan synods or regional councils even before Constantine. Laws for the whole church appear with the earliest ecumenical councils. Collections of canon law, which were made throughout the Middle Ages, include the important codes of Burchard of Worms and Ivo of Chartres, though the first definitive codification was made only about 1140 by Gratian in the Decretum Gratiani. To this collection in the next 400 years were added the decretals (papal decrees on points of law) produced in the reigns of Gregory IX (1234), Boniface VIII (1298), and John XXII (1317) and two collections known as Extravagantes (1500). These formed the Corpus Juris Canonici (“Body of Canon Law”); no further collection of laws was made later than the Corpus. Effectively, though not formally, canon law included the opinions of canonists who interpreted the Corpus.

This unsatisfactory and cumbersome collection led to calls for codification. No doubt the desire was influenced by the production of the Napoleonic Code (1804), which became the basic law of most of the nations of western Europe. The codification was begun by a document of Pius X (1904) and was completed, under the direction of Cardinal Pietro Gasparri, during the reign of Benedict XV (1917); it became law in 1918. This Codex Juris Canonici (Code of Canon Law) remained the basic law of the Roman Catholic Church until 1983, when a new Code of Canon Law, originally commissioned by Pope John XXIII, was instituted by Pope John Paul II. Eastern Catholic Churches in union with Rome, however, have their own code of canon law.

The history and structure of church law are treated more fully under canon law.

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