Transcript

Why is the Church organized with the hierarchy that it has?

Well, you've got to remember that when Jesus founded the Church, He didn't just found it in a vacuum.

He founded it on St. Peter and the Twelve Apostles.

When He said, You are rock, and on this rock I will build my Church, He addressed His teaching to the Apostles and prayed for them.

When He is gone, they are the founding fathers of the Church, and they spread out over especially the Eastern Roman Empire, but in some places a little further, to spread that good news.

But they started dying off; they were all martyred, and many of the eyewitnesses of Jesus died off—some martyred, some died naturally.

After founding these communities, either before they died or when they moved on, they established a method of succession, and the successors to the Apostles are the bishops.

Now, over time, the Church came to recognize the successor of Peter as the unifying head of all the bishops throughout the world, and specifically, the Bishop of Rome was recognized as a successor not just to the Apostles, but specifically the successor to Peter.

Now again, the Pope doesn't rule in a vacuum any more than Peter administered in a vacuum.

He was one among twelve, and the Pope is one among many bishops throughout the world.

But what distinguishes the Catholic Church from other Christian churches that are Catholic is their bishop, their leader, is united with the unifying head in Rome, the successor to Peter.

He is that unifier of all the churches throughout the world; he is the highest authority, but he doesn't work in a vacuum.

He works with all the other apostolic successors, which are the bishops throughout the world, and the priests are extensions of the bishops themselves in their individual dioceses.

As a priest, I'm nothing if I'm not connected to a local bishop.

Even seminarians need to be connected and approved and accepted by a local bishop.

So, it's a hierarchy of organization to preserve the teaching of the Church and organize the teaching of the Church so that it doesn't scatter into chaos and all different factions.

But there's that one unifying factor, principally in Jesus, but in those He left to be the founding fathers of the Church—the Twelve Apostles—with their unifying head in Peter.

We have our apostolic successors and the bishops with their unifying head in the Pope, who specifically succeeds St. Peter as the unifying head of all the bishops throughout the world.

Well, a common misconception of the Holy Father is that he is a benevolent dictator of dogma, where if he wants to change a teaching, he can because he has the authority to change that teaching.

What the Pope will build upon is not necessarily liking or disliking the teaching of a previous Pope, but building upon the previous teachings of the Popes on the teachings of the Church.

Many people would wish the current Pope to change such teachings, say on morality, sexuality, birth control, and so on, and they'll say he has the power to change that teaching.

But actually, he doesn't. His authority is in preserving the teaching of the Church, and previous Holy Fathers have found different ways and different angles to address that teaching to its current circumstances and to apply the teaching.

So, Popes will look back on the ways that previous Popes had applied that teaching and perhaps make use of it for their own creative application of the teaching of the Church to address the current issues that the Church faces in the modern world.

What about the infallibility of the Pope?

Believe it or not, the Pope is not the only thing in the Church that is infallible.

Infallibility was defined in 1868 by the First Vatican Council.

It was pushed by Pope Pius IX, and it was to define what exactly is the teaching role and authority of the successor to St. Peter in light of the other bishops throughout the world and his role as the unifying head of the bishops throughout the world.

Under what circumstance does he have that charism of infallibility?

The First Vatican Council defined infallibility as being possessed by the Holy Father in virtue of his office as the successor of Peter and the chief shepherd and teacher of the Church.

He has the authority of infallibility when he speaks ex cathedra.

Ex cathedra means from the chair, from the chair of Peter.

So, he has to specifically exercise that charism.

It's not a charism in which he wakes up one day on a rainy day and says, Wow, what beautiful weather we're having today, and there we now have, as an official deposit of faith, rainy weather constitutes beautiful weather because the Pope has made that declaration.

That's not what infallibility is.

The Pope makes a formal declaration from the chair of Saint Peter, and since that definition of the First Vatican Council, the Pope has exercised that charism a grand total of once—in 1948—when he defined the doctrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The First Vatican Council also says that the body of bishops carries with them the authority of infallibility when, as a unified body in union with the Holy Father, they exercise that magisterium as successors to the Apostles.

The specific instance that illustrates this, as noted by both the First Vatican Council and the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 891, is when the bishops with the Pope speak in ecumenical council.

So, it's acknowledging that in the entire history of the Church, the 21 ecumenical councils carry with them the weight of infallibility, where those councils have defined elements of faith and have defined charisms of the Church.

Even in the case of the Second Vatican Council, where there are some factions within the Church that say the council was invalid, if we look at the definition of the Council of First Vatican, Vatican II is not invalid.

Vatican II is infallible because it's the bishops throughout the world exercising that magisterium with the Holy Father.

So, when it comes to the bishops together exercising that magisterium, we've seen it in the ecumenical council 21 times in history, once in the Second Vatican Council since the formal definition in the First Vatican Council.

But of the Pope exercising a personal charism of infallibility, that too has been exercised perhaps a number of times before the formal definition.

However, since the formal definition in Vatican I, the Pope has exercised that infallible charism once in the definition of the doctrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

So, it's not simply that anything the Pope says is to be held infallibly, nor does it mean that if he isn't speaking infallibly, we don't listen to him.

What it defines is a formal charism of the Pope to define matters of faith and morals when he speaks from the chair, when he speaks ex cathedra, or when the body of bishops in union with the Pope exercises that magisterium as successors to the Apostles.

The most obvious and clear format is when they speak in ecumenical council.

Now, some people have often asked me, in light of many of the controversial teachings of the Church, especially teachings in which even Catholics, in particular, and society in general do not react positively towards, some have asked, Well, Father, why doesn't the Pope make an infallible statement about, say, birth control or abortion?

And that's a very good question because it speaks to the whole issue of whether we even need to listen to the Pope when he doesn't speak ex cathedra, when he doesn't speak infallibly.

In answer to that question regarding abortion or birth control, I would say he doesn't have to speak ex cathedra; he doesn't have to speak infallibly because that is a teaching of the Church based on fundamental principles of life, marriage, human sexuality, and the creation of life that has always been with the Church throughout history.

It is a teaching that is held by the Pope and all the bishops throughout the world.

So, this is not a teaching that is a result of the Pope sitting in the chair of Peter and speaking ex cathedra, nor is this necessarily the result of an ecumenical council making a formal declaration as one body of apostolic successors against abortion or birth control.

But it is a consistent and historic teaching that the Pope and all the bishops together have taught, and therefore it doesn't need the stamp of an ecumenical council or the formal declaration of infallibility.

So, to the question, Why doesn't the Pope make an infallible statement on such issues as that?

The answer is he doesn't have to; it already carries with it the weight of the magisterium in virtue of the foundational teachings on which it is built and on the historical consistency of those teachings.