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Journeyman
A Journal for the Inquiring Christian
Vol. 1, No. 3, March 2002
A Crisis of Authority
Greg Krehbiel's “The Twofold Magisterium and Ecumenism,” in which he reviews and expands upon Avery Dulles' book A Church to Believe In, springs from a good desire to remove any unnecessary obstacles to Christian unity. Mr. Krehbiel is anxious to show that Catholic doctrine, properly understood, does not overturn Protestant beliefs about ecclesiology and church government, but rather affirms them and completes them. He argues that the Catholic Magisterium consists of both the hierarchy and the faithful, with neither, apparently, having a greater claim to authority than the other. He also expands upon the idea that papal infallibility (which is an extension of the Church's infallibility) is dependent upon the idea of “reception” — to the extent that, should a doctrine not receive the full assent of the faithful, it may not be infallibly binding on the Christian conscience. Furthermore, citing Dulles' work, Krehbiel defines “the faithful” to include even those “outside the institutional borders of the Roman Catholic Church.”
There is much more to his essay, but I will limit my remarks to these few topics.
Although I applaud the writer's intentions, I am not favorably disposed to the “Twofold Magesterium” as presented.
The first problem is that of defining “the faithful” or “the Church,” since we are considering whether the “the faithful” is a component of the Catholic Magisterium, and whether infallibility depends upon the full assent of “the faithful.” Since Dulles' apparently defines the Church as including “all those who have faith, hope, and charity, even though they be not Catholics or even Christians,” we have a problem here. How is it possible to have faith, in a practical and discernible sense, and not be a Christian? How is it possible to have charity, in the truest and fullest sense, while rejecting the unity of the Church? Would the Nicene Creed win the “assent of the faithful” by this definition? Original Sin? The Real Presence? Baptismal regeneration? The indissolubility of marriage? It is easy to see that the doctrine of “reception,” as presented here in an ecumenical way, would strip infallible certainty from much that is essential to Catholic Christianity, reducing the doctrine of infallibility itself to meaninglessness.
The next problem concerns the inappropriateness of emphasizing a strong doctrinal role for the laity in our time. Since the 16th century, the history of the West has been a continuous and relentless assault against the rights of Authority. Today's ultra-democratized Catholic laymen, already saturated in power politics, would inevitably see the “Twofold Magesterium” as permission for doctrinal tug-of-war with the hierarchy — and worse still, as justification for more obnoxious opinion polls. No, now is not the time for more concessions to an uncatechized American Catholic laity (not be provincial, but America is what we know), 80 percent of whom are practicing contraception, and 70 percent of whom disbelieve in the Real Presence. Even though most modern Catholics are theological illiterates, they do not typically have problems asserting their opinions or their “rights”; rather, they have problems with obedience, and they have problems paying attention to a ten-minute homily. In short, today we need more teachers in the hierarchy, and more learners in the pews.
As an aside, Cardinal Newman is famous for setting off a firestorm in the Catholic Church with his essay On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine.
In this work, Newman provided examples from Church history — most notably the Arian crisis — in which the main body of the laity upheld the orthodox catholic faith while bishops and councils lapsed into negligence, error, and even apostasy. He further supported his argument with patristic testimony appealing to the consensus fidelium, or the popular consensus of the faithful, in matters of doctrine. The essay was controversial because it was misunderstood. In the first place, the word “consult” was problematic from the start. Newman was compelled to explain that his use of the word “consult” was “expressive of trust and deference, but not of submission.” This is an important point for those who might think in terms of “mutual submission” between the laity and hierarchy. A father who wishes to arrange his daughter's education may consult with her, but only for the purpose of informing his own decisions: he does not “submit” to her. Likewise, the hierarchy consults the laity, but only for the purpose of making better judgments: the hierarchy does not “submit” to the laity.
With great humility and deference to the doctrine of the Catholic Church, Newman further clarified his position thus:
In drawing out this comparison between the conduct of the Catholic Bishops and that of their flocks during the Arian troubles, I must not be understood as intending any conclusion inconsistent with the infallibility of the Ecclesia docens, (that is, the Church when teaching) and with the claim of the Pope and the Bishops to constitute the Church in that aspect. I am led to give this caution, because, for the want of it, I was seriously misunderstood in some quarters on my first writing on the above subject in the Rambler Magazine of May, 1859. But on that occasion I was writing simply historically, not doctrinally, and, while it is historically true, it is in no sense doctrinally false, that a Pope, as a private doctor, and much more Bishops, when not teaching formally, may err, as we find they did err in the fourth century. Pope Liberius might sign a Eusebian formula at Sirmium, and the mass of Bishops at Ariminum or elsewhere, and yet they might, in spite of this error, be infallible in their ex cathedrâ decisions. {465}
Cardinal Newman, after all, does not make the infallibility of the Pope conditional upon the “assent of the faithful.”
By far the most serious problem with the “Twofold Magesterium,” as I understand it, is that it cannot survive the censures of the popes. Among the obstacles, we find the following similar ideas condemned by Saint Pius X in the Syllabus of Errors:
“6. The 'Church learning' and the 'Church teaching' collaborate in such a way in defining truths that it only remains for the 'Church teaching' to sanction the opinions of the 'Church learning'.”
“7. In proscribing errors, the Church cannot demand any internal assent from the faithful by which the judgments she issues are to be embraced.”
“8. Heterodox exegetes have expressed the true sense of the Scriptures more faithfully than Catholic exegetes.”
Later, the same pope writes in his encyclical On Modernism:
“But much more evil and pernicious are their opinions on doctrinal and dogmatic authority. The following is their conception of the Magisterium of the Church: No religious society, they say, can be a real unit unless the religious conscience of its members be one, and also the formula which they adopt. But this double unity requires a kind of common mind whose office is to find and determine the formula that corresponds best with the common conscience; and it must have, moreover, an authority sufficient to enable it to impose on the community the formula which has been decided upon. From the combination and, as it were, fusion of these two elements, the common mind which draws up the formula and the authority which imposes it, arises, according to the Modernists, the notion of the ecclesiastical Magisterium.”
Pope Pius XI, in the encyclical On Fostering True Religious Unity, thoroughly condemns any notion that “the Church” or “the faithful” may be understood as something other than, or beyond, the institutional members of the Catholic Church:
“Furthermore, in this one Church of Christ no man can be or remain who does not accept, recognize and obey the authority and supremacy of Peter and his legitimate successors. Did not the ancestors of those who are now entangled in the errors of Photius and the reformers, obey the Bishop of Rome, the chief shepherd of souls? ”
Unfortunately I cannot provide a comprehensive survey of papal statements here, but I am convinced that the sum total of papal teaching affirms that the Church's Magisterium is indeed top-down, and not bottom-up, and not some combination of both, and that insofar as the laity does have a doctrinal role to play, that laity is the orthodox Catholic faithful in communion with Rome, and does not extend to include non-Catholics and non-Christians.
Like many other converts, I became a Roman Catholic in part because I do not think Christians were meant to endlessly debate ecclesiology. For me, the matter is settled — not perfectly understood, but settled enough to get on with the Christian life, take on my small penances, and pray for the conversion of sinners. In the midst of a Modernist crisis that has thrown everything into darkness and confusion, faithful Shepherds of the One Fold speak to us clearly, and from their common doctrine I shall not stray.
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