![]() 12 Lumen Gentium, § 10 reads: ‘Though they differ essentially and not only in degree, the common priesthood of the faithful and the ministerial or hierarchical priesthood are none the less ordered to one another … he ministerial priest, by the sacred power that he has, forms and rules the priestly people.’ While many commentators have emphasised that this statement should not be understood in terms of a pyramid of power – and so of inequality – but in terms of common equality of baptism. Lumen Gentium can be seen as an attempt to hold the notion of equality and that of specific special ministerial identity and status together, without acknowledging that that there is an internal contradiction between these notions. ![]() ![]() 8 While it is true that in this latter approach the dignity of each of the baptised as part of the priestly People of God becomes central – and so an implicit statement of equality in baptism – it had to be balanced by what was said in the decree Presbyterorum ordinis (1965) with its re-iteration of the significance of ‘the sacred power of Order’ and that ‘special character’ such that the ordained ‘are configured to Christ the priest in such a way that they are able to act in the person of Christ the head.’ 9 The distinctiveness of those in Holy Order, the clergy, is presented analogically in reference to head to body (the classic ‘Pauline’ image): 10 Christ and the church, the Twelve and the other disciples. However, Vatican ii did not so much address the societal model – and so the issue of equality – as replace it with a sacramental approach to the church. This issue of equality and inequality is sometimes imagined as having been resolved in the Second Vatican Council (1962–65) in that it did not use the notion of a societas perfecta so common in writing on ecclesiology until the 1950s. A guide to the Commission’s reading strategy and to their position vis-à-vis the normal methods of historians, would produce a more coherent discussion. By the time we reach § 22, this council is a simple fact of early church history, while by § 42 it is not merely a fact but has an ‘exemplary and normative character’. The appeal to the ‘Council of Jerusalem’ is a case in point: at the first mention (§ 20), it is referred to with a little circumspection as ‘what has been called “the Council …’ and the reference is given as ‘cf. ![]() One disturbing feature of many recent documents emanating from the Vatican, for example Synodality in the Life and Mission of the Church, is that no consistent hermeneutic of texts relating to authority is discernible. This discomfort arises because the ideal of equality has to be accommodated to the teaching that the ministry of priests 5 is different in nature and not only in degree from that of the rest of the baptised that the powers and authority of bishops come directly from the apostles and not from those whom they ‘govern’ 6 and especially that the authority of the Bishop of Rome is unique – even alongside other patriarchs he cannot simply be viewed as primus inter pares – for his authority is presented as the result of action of Christ specifically authorising Peter (Matt. 4 We may live in a world where ‘equality’ has been a favourite political slogan since 1789, but for many in the Roman Catholic Church it is still somehow problematic. There it is not dismissed as down-right wrong, but side-stepped as an exaggeration – its context being its justification: ‘an apologetic reaction to the Protestant Reformation’s criticism of ecclesiastical authority’. 3 This shadow is still present in Roman Catholic theology: that famous phrase societas perfecta et inaequalium is cited in the 2018 document from the International Theological Commission entitled: Synodality in the Life and Mission of the Church. 2 The ‘altar’ supported the ‘crown’ and vice versa, and bishops, accustomed to being addressed with feudal deference, appeared as flanking supports in those states’ displays of power. 1 This claim has cast a long shadow over the Roman Catholic Church because all too often there was an implicit alliance between the church and others, such as the great landowners in places like Spain or South America or with regimes in ‘Catholic’ countries, for mutual support. Not only was the church a society of unequals, but that very inequality (arising from its having those among it with the s0-called ‘powers’ of ‘order’ and of ‘jurisdiction’) was part of its perfection – and that it was a societas perfecta was commonly seen as a matter of faith. Not so long ago Roman Catholics openly declared themselves to belong to a church of unequals. ![]()
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