Tag: Ecclesiology

Ruling (the) Class

“Rulers” (e.g., governors, presidents, CEO’s, kings, tyrants, dictators, bosses) may but are not obliged to justify their decisions or actions.
   They wield power. They may possess it through family, social status, election, appointment, class privilege or even deception, falsification, assassination.
   “Teachers” (e.g., professors, school teachers, scout masters, dieticians, counselors, trainers, guides, trail blazers, therapists, models, designers, artists, directors) are the opposites of rulers
   They coach and challenge others to learn to think, analyze, and understand, encouraging them to encounter new ideas, perspectives, and experiences.
   “Leaders” are a sort of blend of both. They have a responsibility for organized groups with common purposes. They serve the group both through personal qualities and example and through their special role of making decisions for the common good.
   What is the principal role of clergy? When a bishop, priest, deacon, or other minister is preaching the Good News, explaining the Scriptures, or counseling an individual or a congregation, is it mostly a matter of teaching, leading, or ruling? Is it more about witnessing, persuading, or demanding?
   There’s a complicated history to all of this, and the answers may vary depending on the era you have in mind.
   Jesus was not a ruler, even though he spoke with the language of his day of a kingdom not of this world. He taught by word and example, he led and guided, he gave standards and mandates.
   His early followers were heralds and proclaimers of what they considered to be good news all over in and outside of the Roman empire in which they lived. But, they needed and had leaders, not rulers, to guide them, coordinate their efforts, and foster their unity and common values.

   Jesus and his first followers were Jews, whose tradition was that priests and other Levites were a special tribe with roles and power as presiders in religious rituals and as adjudicators of the laws of God.
   The early Christians in the Jewish world were influenced by this tradition, while those in the pagan world struggled to accommodate the proclamation of Jesus and his teachings to the traditions and ways of a foreign culture.
   When Christianity became the official religion of the empire, the proclaimers of the message and the celebrants of the rituals possessed a status in the empire, as the new priesthood and temples replaced the old.
   With the collapse of imperial authority in the West, Christian leaders in Rome began to fill the gap, by ruling and wielding political power. This blurred the distinctions between ruling, teaching, and leading for many centuries. (Movie fans, just think of Becket, A Man for All Seasons, and films about Joan of Arc.)
   Vestiges of this, like the pope’s appointing nuncios (ambassadors) to countries or establishing codes of law, still linger. Is the Pope today a powerful enforcer of legislation, a fearsome wielder of life or death decisions? Hardly!
   His power lies in faith and witness, in his skill in teaching, motivating, and leading. Dictates are out-of-date and ineffective.
   Decreeing, judging, and penalizing have become outdated religious methodologies, while witnessing, explaining, persuading, and leading are far more effective.
   Even so, trying to rule as well as to teach and to lead still lingers as a methodology of some religious leaders and their followers.


18 July 2021

Imperfect Societies

Imagination knows no bounds. We can imagine things that may never have been and may never be. If we strive to attain what we imagine, we may make progress but may also never attain our goal completely.
   In 1516 Thomas More wrought a book, Utopia, about an imaginary island where everything was almost perfect. But “utopian” now means a vision of things so idealistic that it is almost a dream and unrealistic.
   Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mean that aspiring to be or to make things better and better is not a good thing, but realistically perfection is never attainable.
   A very popular notion in ecclesiology before and even during much of the last century was that of the perfect society.
   The perfect society had basic institutions and structures to ensure the common good, protection of rights, and justice; it included legislative, administrative, and judicial institutions.
   A popular teaching in the once Christian part of the world was that there are only two perfect societies, the State and the Church.
   Why in the world was the Church identified as on a par with the State? Perhaps it had to do with the decline and fall of the Western Roman Empire which left the Church as a quasi-governmental force and institution in central Italy, the Papal States
   Perhaps it was the influence of books of the Bible that describe the history of the Jewish people as a nation of believers ruled and guided by God, often speaking through prophets and priests.
   The Church’s role became entangled with government’s. The Church had its own laws, rules, and regulations; mechanisms for teaching and enforcement; and penalties.
   Although early Christianity was tormented and rejected by the civil society, the Roman Empire, it gradually became the imperial state religion and the Church wielded great power in many countries.

   Is there still room for such a role of the Church? Should the Church have a system of laws and punishments as the State does? Should the clergy in varying degrees be a ruling class
   You know, it was only as recent as a little over 50 years ago, when Pope St. Paul VI, rejecting this, eliminated the papal coronation and the triple crown itself
   It may seem strange and hard to imagine for us now-a-days, but the classic conclusion to a formal letter to a pope used to close with, “humbly prostrate and kissing the sacred purple…”
   To what extent should the Church regulate the conditions for and validity of marriages? Clearly the Church may place preconditions before choosing to bless and recognize a marriage. But, the legal regulation of marriages in contemporary societies is seen as the role of the State
   The State can and does set conditions for recognizing the existence of a marriage and for ceasing to recognize it. But the heart of any marriage is the mutual consent of the parties, no matter the recognition or not by Church or State.
   Thanks be to God the days of Church trials and deadly punishments are long gone—think of Joan of Arc—but the tendency to judge and even publicly punish its members still lingers.
   As we study history, hopefully we learn from the mistakes of the past—which, considering the state of the past world and of human knowledge and experience in bygone days, were understandable.
   I’m glad I’m not as deaf, dumb, and blind as I once was. There may still be a chance for me after all!


4 July 2021

Upstairs, Downstairs

Perhaps the most popular BBC television series ever, “Upstairs, Downstairs” has captivated viewers worldwide since 1971. The story concerned the “upstairs” people, the sophisticated society folk, and their relations and interactions with the “downstairs” people, the live-in servants.
One   thing was clear — although they lived in different worlds, the lives of both were inextricably intertwined.
The history of Christianity and the Roman Empire has something of an “Upstairs, Downstairs” aspect.
Christianity didn’t really move into the Roman house in the first centuries; Christians were more like folks who broke in or who were squatters in an unimportant part of the dwelling.
Officially, living together started with the emperor Constantine. By the end of the fourth century Christianity and Christians were “in.” Christianity had become the established religion of the empire and the great city of Constantine, New Rome, flourished as a Christian capital city.
All this hardly changed the fundamental nature of imperial authority — in practice it was considered of divine right. One of the titles of the Christian Roman emperor was “coequal of the Apostles.” It was the emperor who presided over the first ecumenical councils and set their agenda.
   Church and State were certainly living in the same house, but State lived upstairs and Church, downstairs. In the Eastern Roman Empire this living arrangement and relationship lasted for a thousand years after the “decline and fall” of the short-lived Western Christian Empire in the fifth century.
In the vacuum of Roman authority in the west, the bishop of Rome, the pope, gradually emerged as the most significant authority figure. He began to use some of the trappings of imperial authority and to exercise some of its powers.

In 800, the pope constituted a “Holy Roman Empire” in the west, anointing Charlemagne as its head. Although relationships between civil and ecclesiastical authorities were often uneasy in succeeding centuries, the greater authority was always that of the pope.
Church and State were living together in the same house, but in the west the Church was living upstairs and State was downstairs.
This diversity in Eastern and Western history is reflected in diverse ecclesiastical traditions.
Orthodox Eastern churches are accustomed to be subordinated to civil authority, often need its confirmation to function, and more often than not are structured as national churches.
The Catholic Western church is accustomed to greater autonomy, once was supreme over civil authority, and is international.
The contemporary concept of separation of Church and State has not been welcomed by all Christians. Some see it as a disruption of a reasonably well-functioning household or, worse, as not only separation but divorce.
In countries where they were wedded, the process of divorce often has been painful and sometimes full of recriminations. In others, where they never lived closely together, both have been learning to flourish separately.
Today we take for granted the values of freedom of conscience, freedom of worship and freedom of religion, but this is a relatively recent development. There is a long history of Christian martyrdom and many were martyred even under “Christian” authorities.
Jesus told his disciples to “repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.” It has taken us a long time to begin to understand the implications of this teaching of the Lord.


(Published in
one, 37:4, July 2011)

Communion Is a Network

A turning point in the history of Christianity was its establishment as the official religion of the Roman Empire. Christianity not only was tolerated but also became an integral part of the structure of civil society.
How did Christians see themselves and their interrelationships before being organized into territories (dioceses) under religious leaders recognized and empowered by the government?
Early Christianity did not have the complexity of structure we are familiar with now. Fundamentally, Christians understood themselves and recognized each other as disciples and followers of Jesus.
A “church” was a local assembly or community of believers, united in the Spirit and guided by duly constituted leaders, the successors of the Apostles and those appointed by them.
The bond of union of these local Christian communities was pax et communio. They communicated with each other by letters or delegates, recognizing each other as fellow believers and exchanging peace in the Lord.
The community of communities — the universal church — was held together in the early centuries not primarily by juridical or sacramental ties but by the action of the Holy Spirit and personal relationships among its members. This unity, as the word “communio” suggests, was nurtured by frequent and regular communication.
From this point of view, the church is a kind of network — a network of communication among its members with and in the Spirit of Jesus. This is a concept that today’s world understands very well. It is the essence of the internet, the powerful communication tool that is revolutionizing modern society.
The mysterium or complex reality of the church always can be viewed from a variety of perspectives, each with its own merit and validity.

Viewing the church as a communion of persons, as a communications network, can shed some new light on many issues.
For example, the question of the pastoral care of Eastern Catholics living outside their homelands: Traditionally, the jurisdiction of Eastern Catholic patriarchs is limited to their historical territories. From the perspective of the church as a personal network, geography is less significant and restriction of patriarchal authority, less appropriate.
Another example, the ancient principle of one bishop for each place: If participation and communication in a personal network is a defining element of a local church, then there is no problem in having many different personal networks, different churches, in the same geographic area.
Communio grows with increasing, deeper and more effective communication.
From this perspective, looking at Christian churches around the world that are overcoming their isolation one from the other and regularly and frequently communicating, the church of Christ is gradually becoming more and more “one.”
The challenge of establishing and developing interreligious relations is also a matter of extending communio — of increasing personal communication in spite of differences.
Through visits, dialogue, and sharing of resources as well as better understanding of ethnic, cultural and linguistic differences, personal networks can and will grow. Our goal should be to build networks that not only join together Christians and believers in the one God but also join together all men and women of good will — ultimately, the whole human family.


(Published as “Networking” in
one, 36:6, November 2010)

Initial Intervention – Communio

(In the Special Assembly for the Middle East of the Synod of Bishops (10-24 October, 2010), each member was allotted five minutes for an initial intervention, to be submitted in writing beforehand.)


In many languages, the word “church” has a variety of meanings. A church is a building where people pray. “Teachings of the church” refers the magisterium. “Local church” often refers to the geographical area of a diocese or eparchy. “Sui iuris church” implies both a geographical area and a body of the Christian faithful bound by similar laws, heritage and customs.
Years ago, Cardinal Avery Dulles published a theological work called “Models of the Church”. He suggested that the mystery of the Church can be described from various points of view, none of which is adequate to describe its entire reality.
We use “models” of church, whether we are conscious of it or not. For example, if you studied in a pre-Vatican II seminary, you learned the classic description of the church as a perfect society. The encyclical, “Mystici Corporis Christi”, balanced this with an emphasis on the invisible, spiritual reality of the church. Vatican II offered the image of the church as the “pilgrim People of God”. These are all models.
What was the early model of church, before Christianity became the established religion of the Roman Empire? It shows itself in the early church’s understanding of unity. Unity was fostered and recognized by ties of “pax et communio.”
This aspect of the church is a central theme of our deliberations. It stresses that the church is held together not primarily by juridical or sacramental ties but by the action of the Holy Spirit and personal bonds among its members. These bonds are nurtured, as the word “communio” suggests, by frequent and regular communication.
Our contemporary world understands this model very well — it is the essence of the internet, the powerful communication tool that is revolutionizing modern society. The name is very accurate; it truly is a network. The church itself, as a “communio”, has this aspect of a personal communications network in the Spirit.
Why bring up these considerations of ecclesiology? Because unconsciously our models of church affect our practical decisions and preoccupations.
For example, the question of jurisdiction over Eastern Christians in “the diaspora”: According to the Eastern Code, the jurisdiction of Eastern patriarchs and major archbishops is limited to their historical homelands; this presumes a territorial, geographical model of a sui iuris church. If we view such a church more as a personal network, geography is less significant and restriction of authority, less appropriate.
A second example, the immemorial principle of one bishop for each place: This presumes that “local church” means a body of Christian people living in a defined geographical area. However, if participation and communication in a personal network describe a local church, geography ceases to be the defining factor. There can be many different personal networks and many “local ordinaries” functioning in the same area.
A related example concerns interchurch relations: Since, in the perspective of church as a personal network, the peaceful coexistence of many different rites and churches in the same territory is normal, rivalries and attempts by one rite or church to recruit members from and to dominate another are inappropriate.
Canon law tends to favor a geographic notion of church. For example, there is a presumption that people live “in” a parish — but in most urban areas, people chose their parish regardless of where they live. In this case, seeking recommendations and permissions from their local, territorial pastor is awkward and usually pro forma.
Emigration can be seen in a similar way: If our concern for Middle East Christians is predominantly geographic — that they stay “in” their homelands — it is distressing to witness the steadily declining number of native Christians. However, if our concern for Middle East Christians East is personal, we can celebrate the flourishing life of those who choose to live in other parts of the world.
The “communio” of the church grows with increasing, deeper, and more effective communication. From this perspective, as we look at the churches in the Middle East and around the world, thanks be to God the church of Christ is gradually becoming more and more “one”. On the other hand, if our model of church union and unity is predominately societal and jurisdictional, then full union is an unattainable ideal.
Finally, understanding “communio” as stemming not so much from juridical or merely sacramental ties as from participation in a personal network animated by the Spirit of Christ is very important not only regarding ecumenism but also interreligious relations.
Building interreligious relations has the same challenge of increasing personal communication. Through sharing of resources, exchange of visits, common reflection, and better understanding of ethnic, cultural and linguistic differences, personal networks can and will grow — not only networks joining together believers in the one God but also joining together all spiritual and religious persons and all men and women of good will — ultimately, the whole human family.

Surviving Vatican II

I don’t belong to any survivors’ network. In fact, I don’t even know if there is one that I can join. But, I am a survivor — a survivor of the Second Vatican Council.
By now, most of the people who attended the Second Vatican Council have gone on to their eternal reward. The council met annually from 1962 through 1965. Any bishop who attended the council would have to be now about 80 or older; any priests or lay experts would have to be now around 70 or older.
I had a very minor role in the council, as a kind of administrative assistant during the second (1963) and third (1964) sessions. It was a great privilege to be able to attend the daily plenary meetings in St. Peter’s Basilica, listen to all the speeches and study all of the working documents.
Above all else, it was an almost tangible experience of the presence and action of the Holy Spirit.
The real survivors of the council are the great ideas, concepts and understandings that were born of the Spirit during those rich and fruitful years and that still perdure and revitalize the church today.
One of the most powerful of them has to do with understanding the very nature of the church itself.
The first draft of what was to become the dogmatic constitution on the church, prepared by experts of the Roman curia in preparation for the opening of the council in October 1962, was among the documents rejected by the council fathers.
A new draft was studied, debated and amended by the council fathers during the fall 1963 council session, and a final text was overwhelmingly approved by the council and promulgated by Pope Paul VI on 21 November 1964.
There was one modest but incredibly significant change made in the text as a result of the 1963 deliberations.

The working draft presented to the council fathers in 1963, referred to the church of Jesus Christ and identified it with the Catholic Church, headed by the Roman Pontiff and the bishops in communion with him.
The draft was amended to introduce an important new concept, “subsists.” It stated that the church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church, governed by the successor of Peter and the bishops in communion with him.
This one little word unlocked a great door in Catholic theological understanding of the church. It implied a difference, albeit modest, between the church of Christ and the Catholic Church.
This seed notion, regarded as dangerous and almost heretical by many, has born fruit in the great ecumenical advances of the past decades. It has provided a foundation for the many declarations and actions of reconciliation that have blessed the entire church of Christ.
A new chapter of Christian history has opened. The tales of narrowly individual churches — Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, Evangelical — denouncing the others and denying salvation to all but their own members have begun to fade into the past.
The process still continues. As the council also reminded us, the church of Christ is a pilgrim church, filled with imperfections. Yet it wends its way to the fulfillment of the divine plan, guided by the Spirit.
In spite of the misgivings, setbacks, misunderstandings, prejudices and apprehensions, the new understanding of the church is growing.
It’s a survivor.


(Published as “Survivors” in
one, 35:3, May 2009 )

Unity – Same Page or Same Place?

My dictionary defines a community as, “1. a) all the people living in a particular district, city, etc. b) the district, city, etc. where they live 2. a group of people living together as a smaller social unit within a larger one, and having interests, work, etc. in common . . .”
“Community” has a strong sense of place — of people living together. This comes from the word’s Latin root, the verb communire, which means to fortify thoroughly on all sides.
A good example of community in this sense is group of people living in a walled village, banded together in defense against a common enemy or threat.
More positively, a community may be a group of people who have so much in common that they want to be identified as such and distinguished from others.
Such like-minded people don’t have to be living in the same place or physically banded together. With the rapid advance of communications, the element of place — geography — is no longer important.
If you take territory away from the meaning of community, you have “a group of people [functioning] together as a smaller social unit within a larger one, and having interests, work, etc. in common.”
The best word to describe that kind of community is “network.”
Going back to the dictionary again, a network is, “1. any arrangement or fabric of parallel wires, threads, etc. crossed at regular intervals by others fastened to them so as to leave open spaces; netting; mesh 2. a thing resembling this in some way; specifically . . . a group, system, etc. of interconnected or cooperating individuals.”

The church has both kinds of communities — communities linked to place and communities as networks.
For example, there have always been territorial parishes (parishes defined by a geographic area) and personal parishes (parishes for certain groups of people with the same language, nationality, etc.). In practice, more and more people act as though their parish community is a network rather than a geographical area.
Authority can be exercised in both senses as well. For example, three patriarchs live in Damascus — Greek Orthodox, Melkite Greek Catholic, and Syrian Orthodox. Each is titled Patriarch of Antioch, but they are spiritual leaders of separate networks of Christians, not of all the Christians who live in the one place.
Religious communities have always been considered groups of people united by a common spirituality and tasks, even though they may be scattered all about.
Actually, a good model for the whole church is that of a network, even a network of networks. From this point of view, Christian unity is all about building interconnections and cooperation.
This is almost the way church unity was described in the early centuries. Unity was considered to exist if there was “peace and communion” among the churches.
Banded together behind common walls doesn’t make for unity, but functioning together in the Spirit of the Lord does.


(Published as “Networks” in
CNEWA World, 30:3, May 2004)

Multiform Mission

A few weeks ago I met an American Catholic priest who had grown up Presbyterian. When he decided to enter the Catholic Church, he joined the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church. He is the first diocesan priest of the missionary Syro-Malabar diocese of Rajkot in India’s Gujarat state.
Perhaps you might be thinking, “Shouldn’t a Presbyterian who wants to become a Catholic join the Roman Catholic Church? How can he join the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church?”
You may even have a more subtle question in mind, “Why does the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church have a missionary diocese? Isn’t missionary work the job of the Roman Catholic Church?”
Even though “missionary work” has a fairly modern ring to it, it refers to the perennial outreach of the church — to spread the Good News throughout the world, to all places, peoples, and times.
From the days when the apostles traveled from Iberia to India, Christians have sought to share the good they possess with those who do not know of it. Sometimes this has a political dimension as well. When “Christian” countries promoted the spread of Christianity, it often included colonial expansion.
Ancient Persian resistance to Christianity, the imperial state religion, was, in part, resistance to the Byzantine state. When Spain and Portugal settled the New World, conquest and conversion went hand in hand.
European colonialism brought Christianity to many parts of Africa, but it is only in our day that African Christianity is beginning to lose its European associations.

Indians still think of Christianity as a Western religion because of the British Raj — and the Portuguese before them — even though St. Thomas brought the Gospel to India in the first century, before it reached Britain.
There is still a little bit of that European colonial mentality clouding thinking about the mission of the church and about its work of evangelization.
That modern colonial expansion was begun by Western European countries, traditionally Roman Catholic, does not mean missionary outreach is an exclusive prerogative of the Roman Catholic Church.
Every part of the one church of Christ has an obligation to spread the faith. The Catholic family of churches includes the Western and 21 Eastern churches. Just as there are many churches, there are many missionary works. We each try to share what we have and know best.
The Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples in Rome supports the work of the church in “mission countries” — but, with the possible exceptions of Ethiopia, Eritrea, and India, the support is usually perceived as support for the outreach of the Roman Catholic Church.
So, it is understandable to be surprised to hear about an American Presbyterian who decided to become a Syro-Malabar Catholic missionary priest. His choice, and his life, challenges our thinking.
The Gospel is not constrained by any one country — or branch of the Church.


(An earlier version
published in
CNEWA World, 29:5, September 2003)