Fr. Elwood Sylvester Berry, STD,
Finally, the Church is Apostolic in ministry (or
succession), because the authority which Christ conferred upon the Apostles has
come down through an unbroken line of legitimate successors in the ministry of
the Church.
Apostolicity of origin and of doctrine are easily understood
without further explanation, but some knowledge of succession is necessary for
a proper conception of apostolicity of ministry. Succession, as used in this
connection, is the following of one person after another in an official position,
and may be either legitimate or illegitimate. Theologians call the one formal
succession; the other, material. A material successor is one who assumes the
official position of another contrary to the laws or constitution of the
society in question. He may be called a successor in as much as he actually
holds the position, but he has no authority, and his acts have no official
value, even though he be ignorant of the illegal tenure of his office. A
formal, or legitimate, successor not only succeeds to the place of his
predecessor, but also receives due authority to exercise the functions of his
office with binding force in the society. It
is evident that authority can be transmitted only by legitimate succession;
therefore the Church must have a legitimate, or formal, succession of pastors
to transmit apostolic authority from age to age. One who intrudes
himself into the ministry against the laws of the Church receives no authority,
and consequently can transmit none to his successors.
Succession in the Church differs from that in other
societies from the fact that there is a twofold
power to transmit, -- the power of Orders and the power of jurisdiction or
government. The power of Orders is purely spiritual and concerned directly with
the conferring of grace; it is obtained through the Sacrament of Orders validly
received and cannot be revoked by any power of the Church. For this reason, the
power of Orders may be obtained by fraud or conferred agianst the will of the
Church by anyone having valid Orders
himself, and therefore does not
depend upon legitimate succession.
Jurisdiction is authority to govern and must be transmitted
in the Church as in any other society; it can be conferred only by a lawful
superior, according to the constitution and laws of the society and may be
revoked at any time. Consequently jurisdiction in the Church can neither be
obtained nor held against the will of her supreme authority; sufficient
therefore, that a church have valid Orders; it must also have legitimate succession
of ministers, reaching back in an unbroken line to the Apostles, upon whom our
Lord conferred all authority to rule His Church.[1]
…
Thesis. The Church of Christ is Necessarily Apostolic in
Origin, Doctrine, and Ministry.[2]
…
c) Ministry. It is evident that there can be no authority in
the Church save that which comes directly or indirectly from her Divine
Founder, Jesus Christ. But there is not the slightest intimation in Scripture
or tradition that Christ ever promised to confer authority upon the ministers
of the Church; consequently it can only be obtained by lawful succession from
those upon whom Christ personally and directly conferred it, i.e., from the
Apostles. In other words, the Church
must be Apostolic in her ministry by means of a legititmate succession reaching
back in an unbroken line to the Apostles.[3]
…
Most
of the Orthodox churches of the East
have valid Orders, and to that extent may be called Apostolic; they have
Apostolic succession of the power of Orders. In some cases they may also have a material succession of bishops
from Apostolic times, but this avails
them nothing, since they lack both unity and Catholicity, -- two
essential marks of the true Church. In
no case do they have legitimate succession; there is no transmission of jurisdiction because they have withdrawn
from communion with Rome, the center and source of all jurisdiction.[4]
…
All
power in the Church was originally conferred upon the Apostles, to the
exclusion of all others, and there is not the slightest intimation in Scripture
or tradition that Christ promised to confer a similar power upon others at any
time in the future. It follows, then,
that all power, whether of Orders or jurisdiction, must be perpetuated by an
unbroken line of succession, reaching back to the Apostles, who received it directly
from Christ Himself. This is clearly intimated in the words of Christ
to the Apostles: “Behold, I am with you all days, even unto the consummation of
the world” (Matt 28:20). Christ was with His Apostles during their life on earth;
He remains with time in their successors through all the centuries. Therefore,
succession is a matter of divine institution, and those who occupy the place of
the Apostles in the Church, obtain also their power and authority; they obtain
it independently of any action on the part of the faithful, and exercise it by
divine right.[5]
…
In
the strict sense of the term, the successors of the Apostles are those in the
Church who obtain by right of succession the full powers of Orders and jurisdiction
enjoyed by the Apostles. Other ministers of the Church, who participate more or
less in the power of Orders and exercise a delegated jurisdiction., may also be
called successors in a less proper sense of the term.[6]
….
It
is a doctrine of faith, defined by the Council of Trent, that the bishops of
the Church are the true and legitimate successors of the Apostles: “Wherefore
the holy Synod declares that besides the other ecclesiastical grades, bishops
in particular belong to the hierarchical order, since they succeed to the place
of the Apostles and were placed as the Apostle says, by the Holy Spirit to rule
the Church of God.” (Denz. 960).
Proofs.
It has just been proved that the
Apostles must have successors to perpetuate their powers of teaching,
governing, and sanctifying until the end of time; but it is a
well-known fact that the bishops, and the bishops alone, have ever claimed and
exercised these powers in their fullness, and they alone have ever been
recognized as the legitimate successors to these powers. Before the so-called
Reformation of the sixteenth century, the right of the bishops to rule as
successors of the Apostles was never questioned, except by a few individuals swayed
by political or private interests. Even today, all parties admit that the
bishops were the recognized successors of the Apostles, at least from the
second century until the time of the pseudo-Reformation. Testimony from the
Apostles and early Fathers prove that they were recognized as such from the earliest
years of the Church. Now it is manifestly
impossible for any body of men to obtain recognition as successors of the
Apostles from the very beginning of the Church, and maintain that position undisputed
for sixteen centuries, unless they were in fact what they claimed to be, --
true successors. Any other hypothesis
would mean that the Church, as Christ founded it, ceased to exist with the
death of the Apostles, and that the world has since been without the means of salvation;
it would mean that Christ failed in His promise to be with the Church all days,
even to the consummation of the world. If the bishops of the Church are not the
successors of the Apostles, then there are no successors, for no one else has
even claimed this distinction; in
that case the power and authority committed to the Apostles have lapsed, and
cannot be renewed, except by a direct intervention of Christ in
conferring them anew and re-establishing His Church. Such an act on the part of
Christ would have to be confirmed by the performance of miracles as the only
means by which we could be assured of its reality.[7]
….
The Apostles personally
received form Christ a real power of jurisdiction to be exercised in subjection
to St. Peter, their divinely constituted head. Christ also ordained that the Apostles
should have successors in the Church for all time. He said to them: “Go,
therefore, and make disciples of all nation, . . . and behold, I am with you
all days, even unto the consummation of the world.” Consequently the bishops of
the Church, as successors of the Apostles, constitute an order of divine institution.
It is the will of Christ that there should always be bishops to teach and
govern the particular portions of the Church committed to their care. The pope,
then, is not free to govern the Church alone without the assistance of bishops,
for, as Leo XIII says, “although the power of Peter and his successors is
complete and supreme, it is not an only power. He who made Peter the foundation of the Church, also selected the
twelve, whom He called Apostles. Just as the authority of Peter must be
perpetuated in the Roman Pontiff, so also the ordinary power of the Apostles
must be inherited by their successors, the bishops. Hence the order of
bishops pertains of necessity to the very constitution of the Church.” (De
Initate Ecclesiae, 29 June 1896).
Every lawfully constituted
bishops is a true successor of the Apostles, taken collectively.
The Apostles, with St. Peter at their
head, formed a ruling body that must be perpetuated for all time, and enlarged,
as the Church increase in numbers and extent. In this respect the Apostolic
body is like a legal corporation, it must be perpetuated and enlarged by the
admission, from time to time, of new members, who participate in the powers originally
conferred upon its first members, the Apostles. A bishop, then is a new member incorporated
in the Apostolic body perpetuated in the Church; he succeeds the Apostles in
the same sense that a new member of a corporation succeeds its charter members.
The presidency, or supreme power, over the Apostolic body is held ex officio by
the Roman Pontiff, in virtue of the fact that he is the direct and only
successor of St. Peter, whom Christ personally constituted its first head,
ordaining that his successors should hold the same position.[8]
….
The
Apostles were not only commissioned to teach, but were also endowed with
authority, such that all who heard their teaching were obliged, under pain of
eternal damnation to accept it: “He who does not believe shall be condemned,” (Mark
16:16) and “he who hears you, hears me; and he who rejects you, rejects me”
(Luke 10:16; Matt 10:14). St Paul says that he received the grace of the
Apostolate “to bring about obedience to faith among all the nations, . . .
bringing every mind into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and being
prepared to take vengeance on all disobedience” (Rom 1:5; 2 Cor 10:4). He
admonished Titus: “Thus speak, and exhort, and rebuke, with all authority. Let no
one despise thee” (Titus 2:15).
These few references
prove that the teaching office, or magisterium, of the Church belongs to her
power of jurisdiction, which, therefore, includes authority both to rule and to
teach and likewise demands submission of intellect and will.
The very purpose of
teaching office in the Church demands that it be perpetual,
for, as St. Paul says, “God wishes all men to be saved and to come to the
knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim 2:4). And Christ not only promised that He
Himself would be with the Apostles for all time in the discharge of their duty
as teacher; He also promised them the Holy Spirit to assist them in this same work also promised them the Holy
Spirit to assist them in this same work forever: “O will ask the Father and he
will give you another advocate to dwell with you forever, … he will teach you
all things, and bring to your mind whatever I have said to you” (John 14:16,
26.
Since the teaching
authority conferred upon the Apostles is a permanent institution in the Church,
it must descend to their lawful successors, the bishops,
who thereby become the divinely appointed teaches to preserve the doctrines of
Christ and bring them to the knowledge of men in all ages until the
consummation of the world. For this reason St. Paul was careful to mention
ability to teach as a necessary qualification in bishops…
The bishops of the
Church are the only divinely authorized teachers, since teaching with authority
is an act of jurisdiction which they alone possess by divine right.
From this it follows that the Roman Pontiff, holding the supreme power of jurisdiction,
also holds the supreme teaching authority in the Church. In each diocese the bishops
is the divinely constituted teacher and judge in matters of faith, but he exercises
this office in subjection to the supreme teaching authority of the Roman
Pontiff.[9]
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