IRELAND
Association of Catholic Priests
Richard Gaillardetz, a lay theologian from the U.S., puts the current exercise of authority within the Catholic Church into a historical perspective. The magisterial activism that we are witnessing today is not traditional, he maintains: it is quite novel and its merits will need to be assessed in that light. (First published in the 1-14 Feb issue of the NCR under the headline: The church’s shifts in spheres of authority.)
The proper role and function of the magisterium continue to be a source of controversy in many corners of the Catholic church today. Any fruitful reflection on the magisterium requires that we place the topic in its proper historical context.
Today the term magisterium generally refers to the doctrinal teaching office and authority of the bishops in communion with the bishop of Rome. That more narrow meaning is a fairly recent one. The word magisterium simply means, “the authority of the master or teacher” (magister, magistra) and it was used in a wide range of ecclesial contexts in the early church. Although the term magisterium did not then have the specialized meaning that it carries today, that does not mean that there was no sense of doctrinal authority in the early church.
In the pastoral letters of the New Testament we find officeholders (using the term somewhat loosely) who were recognized for a distinctive teaching responsibility, though the specific character and scope of that authority was not yet established. By the end of the second century, the office of bishop had emerged as an authoritative church office and there was a general conviction that they had in some sense succeeded to the authority of the apostles as guardians of the apostolic faith.
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