Bishops & Priests - XI

Both Father Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) and (the then) Bishop Karol Wojtyla (later to become Pope John Paul II) attended and participated in all the sessions and activities of the Second Vatican Council, Ratzinger as a "peritus" (credentialed expert) and Wojtyla as an actual voting member. In subsequent writings both reiterated what is generally held by all experts about one of the major thrusts of that Ecumenical Council. As Pope John Paul II put it: "The Second Vatican Council, in fact, looked specifically at the responsibilities of the Bishop. The First Vatican Council addressed papal primacy, but the Second gave particular attention to Bishops." Pope Benedict XVI, in his 1986 interview book, "The Ratzinger Report", (published by Ignatius Press), notes that "Bishops, the successors of the Apostles, holding the fullness of the Sacrament of Holy Orders, are the authentic, autonomous, and immediate authority in the Dioceses entrusted to them, of which they are the principle and foundation of unity. United in the episcopal college with their head, the Pope, they act in the Person of Christ in order to govern the Universal Church. All these definitions are specific to the (perennial) Catholic doctrine on the episcopate, and they have been vigorously reaffirmed by the Second Vatican Council."

"The Council wanted specifically to strengthen the role and responsibility of Bishops by resuming and completing the work, interrupted by the capture of Rome, of Vatican I, which was only able to concern itself with the Pope. The Council Fathers had confirmed the Pope’s infallibility in the Magisterium when, as Supreme Shepherd and Teacher, he proclaims a teaching on faith or morals as binding. By doing this, however, a certain imbalance was created with some theologians who did not sufficiently stress that the episcopal college also enjoys the same infallibility in the Magisterium, provided the Bishops preserve the bond of communion among themselves and with the Successor of Peter."

In his book, written toward the end of his life, "Rise. Let Us Be On Our Way" (published in English by Warner Books), Pope John Paul II asks, "What is the place that God in His goodness assigns to a Bishop within the Church? The mystery of a Bishop’s vocation in the Church consists precisely in the fact that he is situated both in a particular visible community for which he has been made a Bishop, and at the same time in the Universal Church. It is important to understand clearly the connection between these two aspects. It would undoubtedly be an oversimplification and a serious misunderstanding of the mystery to think that the Bishop represents the Universal Church in his own diocesan community and at the same time represents this community to the Universal Church, in the way in that, for example, ambassadors represent their respective states or international organizations." An American Bishop observed during the Council that " Catholic Bishops, by Christ’s design for the Catholic Church which He founded, are not merely satraps."

Pope John Paul II goes on to write, "Every Bishop, while he bears within himself a responsibility for the Universal Church, finds himself placed at the center of a particular Church, namely the community that Christ has entrusted specifically to him, so that through his episcopal ministry the mystery of the Church, the sign of salvation for all people, might be realized ever more perfectly." Pope John Paul II then quotes the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church ("Lumen Gentium") of the Second Vatican Council: "This Church of Christ is really present in all legitimately organized local groups of the faithful which, insofar as they are united to their pastors, are also quite appropriately called Churches in the New Testament. In each community gathered around the altar and gathered under the sacred ministry of the Bishop, a manifest symbol is to be seen of that charity and unity of the Mystical Body, without which there can be no salvation. In these communities, though they may often be small and poor or existing in the "diaspora", Christ is present through Whose power and influence the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church is constituted."

Pope Benedict XVI notes, however, that there is "another of the paradoxical effects of the post-conciliar era" in that, while on paper the balance and place of the Bishops in the Church is clear, it is not always so in practice. "The decisive new emphasis on the role of Bishops is in reality restrained or actually risks being smothered by the insertion of Bishops into episcopal conferences that are ever more organized often with burdensome bureaucratic structures. We must not forget that episcopal conferences have no theological basis. They do not belong to the structure of the Church as willed by Christ as structures that cannot be eliminated. Those conferences have only a practical and concrete function. The new Code of Canon Law prescribes the extent of the authority of the conferences, which cannot validly act in the name of all Bishops unless each and every Bishop has given his consent, except in cases where the common law prescribes it or a special mandate of the Holy See determines it. The collective, therefore, does not substitute for the persons of the Bishops, who, recalls the Code confirming the Council, are the authentic teachers and instructors of the faith for the faithful entrusted to their care. No episcopal conference as such has a teaching mission. Its documents have no weight of their own save that of the consent given to them by individual Bishops."

The Holy Father sees this as very important because "It is a matter of safeguarding the very nature of the Catholic Church, which is based on an episcopal structure and not on a kind of federation of national churches. The national level is not an ecclesial dimension. It must once again become clear that in each Diocese there is only one shepherd and teacher of the faith in communion with the other pastors and teachers and with the Vicar of Christ. The Catholic Church is based on a balance between the community and the person, in this case between the community of individual particular Churches united in the Universal Church and the person of the responsible head of the Diocese."

Because the concerns expressed by Cardinal Ratzinger were also those of many other thoughtful Bishops from around the world, Pope John Paul II, with Ratzinger’s urging and advice, issued a "Motu Proprio" Encyclical, entitled from its first words in Latin "Apostolos Suos" ("His Apostles"), on May 21, 1998. The theme for the title and work according to the Pope was "On the Theological and Juridical Nature of Episcopal Conferences". Reviewing the history of joint episcopal meetings and activities throughout the two millennia of the Catholic Church’s existence and situating modern Bishops’ Conferences and their work in that history and in the intentions of the Second Vatican Council and the current Code of Canon Law, the Pope wrote about the positive and useful features of Bishops’ Conferences, as well as about their limitations and their necessarily circumscribed functions and activities, which are circumscribed by both divine and ecclesiastical laws.