The Church

Richard P. McBrien

• Publisher: HarperOne
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9780061982613
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Systematic Theology & Ethics

"The Church is a lucid, balanced, and readable book—a work of integration that is always reasonable, well informed, honest, and deeply hopeful."
— Commonweal

In The Church, renowned religious historian and Vatican expert Richard P. McBrien offers a sweeping history of the evolution of the Roman Catholic Church, its influence and power in an ever-changing world. From Jesus's apostle Peter to Pope Benedict XVI, The Church is a remarkable achievement that delves deeply into the past and the future ofChristianity's largest branch—in fact, the largest religious institution in the world—exploring its politics, doctrines, and the way the Roman Catholic Church views itself.

PART I

Introduction

The Content and Scope of Ecclesiology

What Is Ecclesiology?

Ecclesiology is literally the study of the Church (from Gk. logos, “study of,” and ekklesia, “assembly,” or “church”). But this is only a generic, etymological definition. Many other disciplines study the Church, for example, history, anthropology, political science, sociology, and philosophy. What, then, is distinctive about ecclesiology?

Ecclesiology is the theological study of the Church, which is to say that it studies the Church as a mystery, or sacrament. The late Pope Paul VI (1963–78), in his address to the opening of the second session of the Second Vatican Council on September 29, 1963, declared: “The Church is a mystery. It is a reality imbued with the hidden presence of God. It lies, therefore, within the very nature of the Church to be always open to new and greater exploration.”¹

To view the Church as a mystery, or sacrament, is to see it not simply as a religious community, institution, or movement (although it is all of these and more), but as the corporate, communal presence of the triune God. The Church is a mystery, or sacrament, because the triune God is present and redemptively active in it on humankind’s and the world’s spiritual and material behalf.

Page numbers for references to other Parts of this book can be found listed in the table of contents.

The terms “mystery” and “sacrament,” although closely related, are not identical. A sacrament is, in St. Augustine’s classic definition, a visible sign of an invisible grace. The word “grace” is from the Greek charis (as in “charism”), which means “gift.” The “gift” in this instance is God’s gift of self. The invisible grace, therefore, is the triune God present and active in the Church. A sacrament is both a sign and an instrument of that grace. The council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church puts it this way: “The church, in Christ, is a sacrament—a sign and instrument, that is, of communion with God and of the unity of the entire human race—…for the benefit of the faithful and of the entire world” (n. 1, para. 1).²

Given this understanding of the Church as mystery and sacrament, it follows that only believers can do ecclesiology. When Christians—not just Catholics—recite the Nicene Creed and confess that they “believe in the Church,” what they are saying is not that they “believe in” the Church as an institution or that they “believe in” the authority figures and teachings of the Church, but that they “believe in” the presence of the triune God within the Church. Only God is the proper object of faith.³

What Is the Church?

TOWARD A DEFINITION

The working definition of ecclesiology as the theological study of the Church, of course, begs a major question: what is the Church? In brief, the Church is the community of those who confess the lordship of Jesus (that he is “the way, the truth, and the life”—John 14:6) and who strive to live their lives in accordance with his example and teachings. The Church is also known as the People of God, the Body of Christ, and the Temple of the Holy Spirit among other names. Those three names, however, accentuate the trinitarian context for an understanding of the Church, a context that is also employed by Vatican II’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (nn. 2–4).

A more detailed definition, which ecclesiologist Yves Congar (d. 1995) himself adopted,⁴ describes the Church as “the whole body, or congregation, of persons who are called by God the Father to acknowledge the Lordship of Jesus, the Son, in word, in sacrament, in witness, and in service, and, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to collaborate with Jesus’ historic mission for the sake of the Kingdom of God.”⁵ Indeed, as Vatican II’s Pastoral Constitution on the Church puts it: “The church has but one sole purpose—that the kingdom of God may come and the salvation of the human race may be accomplished” (n. 45).

MISSION

The mission of the Church, which is for the sake of the Kingdom, or Reign, of God, is fourfold: word, sacrament (or worship), witness, and service. The Church is “sent” (the root meaning of the Latin word missio) to confess and proclaim that Jesus is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6; see also the classic missionary text in Matt. 28:19–20). It does this through preaching and teaching in a variety of forms: the official teaching by bishops; the teaching rooted in scholarship by theologians; the formation of adults, children, and converts by religious educators and other pastoral ministers; and the teaching of children by parents and other caregivers.

The Church’s mission includes, second, its whole sacramental and devotional life, at the center of which is the Eucharist (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, n. 10). Indeed, the Church itself is a sacrament (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, n. 1). The liturgy, or public worship, of the Church consists of its participation in Christ’s eternal worship of his Father (Pope Pius XII, Mediator Dei, nn. 3, 20).⁶

Third, the Church has been “sent” to give witness to the validity of Christ’s teachings and his own personal and compelling example of how one should live a fully human life. The Church, therefore, has a missionary obligation to practice what it preaches and teaches. Otherwise, its sacramental character and effectiveness are significantly diminished.⁷

Finally, the Church exists to share its own limited material resources to assist the poor, the sick, the socially marginalized, and others in need of aid (Luke 4:18–21). This encompasses the whole of what was once commonly called the social apostolate of the Church. It includes not only assistance to individuals, but also involvement in institutional change in the causes of social justice, human rights, and peace.⁸

THE CHURCH AND THE KINGDOM, OR REIGN, OF GOD

The Kingdom, or Reign, of God, for which the Church is “sent” and which was at the heart and center of Jesus’s preaching and ministry (Mark 1:15; see also Part II.2.4*), is the redemptive presence of God actualized through the power of God’s reconciling Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the active, incarnate power of love by which human beings, their communities, and the world at large are healed, renewed, and brought to the fullness of perfection. In brief, wherever the will of God is done, there is the Kingdom of God. God “reigns” wherever and whenever God’s will is acknowledged and fulfilled.⁹

Although the Church has never defined the Kingdom, or Reign, of God, the Second Vatican Council’s Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World describes it variously as “the consummation of the earth and of humanity,” “a new dwelling place and a new earth where justice will abide, and whose blessedness will answer and surpass all the longings for peace which spring up in the human heart,” a “new age,” and a reality “of truth and life, of holiness and grace, of justice, love, and peace” (n. 39).

Article 5 of the council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church was added toward the end of the drafting process to counteract a residual tendency in the direction of triumphalism, that is, the identification of the Church with the Kingdom of God itself. That constitution notes that just as Christ came to proclaim, personify, and begin distributing the benefits of the Kingdom, so the Church exists to proclaim, witness to, and serve the Kingdom, which definitively broke into history in the person of Jesus Christ and in the redemptive work he performed on humanity’s behalf. Although the Church is not itself the Kingdom, it is on earth “the seed and the beginning” of that Kingdom.

Like Christ himself, the Church exists for the sake of the Kingdom of God, not vice versa. The Kingdom, not the Church, is at the center of the history of salvation and is the ultimate hope and destiny of the whole human race. The Church is its sign and instrument in history (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, n. 1).¹⁰

DISTINCTIONS WITHIN THE CHURCH AND BETWEEN THE CHURCHES

This more detailed definition of the Church embraces in principle all Christians: Catholics, Orthodox, Anglicans, Protestants, and non-Orthodox Oriental Christians. In other words, there is “the Church” and there are also “Churches.” This is not to say, however, that all Christian communities fully satisfy the criteria implied in the definition. To the extent that they do, they are recognized by the Catholic Church as “Churches.” If they do not meet these criteria, officials of the Catholic Church refer to them as “ecclesial communities,” a term one finds in Vatican II’s Decree on Ecumenism (chap. 3). The ecumenically important notion of “sister churches” will be discussed in VI.3.3.b.

The distinction between the Church and the Churches is not only ecumenical. A distinction is also made between the “Church universal” and the “local church.” “Church” refers at once to the whole Body of Christ and the whole People of God as well as to the individual congregations of Christians in a parish or a diocese, for example. In fact, the universal Catholic Church is itself a communion of Churches, the largest of which by far is the Roman Catholic Church. It is, in turn, divided into local, or particular, churches known as dioceses. The universal ecumenical Church is a communion of denominations and they, in turn, consist of a communion of local churches or congregations within each denomination.¹¹

THE CATHOLICITY OF THE CHURCH

As made clear in the Preface, this ecclesiological presentation is “primarily reflective” of the Catholic tradition. As such, this book is unapologetically Catholic in its starting point, focus, and overall perspective. But is “Catholic” synonymous with “Roman Catholic”? And is it accurate to refer to the Roman Catholic Church as simply the “Roman Church”? The answer to both questions is no.

The adjective “Roman” applies more properly to the diocese, or see, of Rome than to the worldwide Communion of Churches that is in union with the Bishop of Rome. Indeed, it strikes some Catholics as contradictory to call the Church “Catholic” and “Roman” at one and the same time. Eastern-rite Catholics, of whom there are more than twenty million, also find the adjective “Roman” objectionable. In addition to the Latin, or Roman, tradition, there are seven non-Latin, non-Roman ecclesial traditions: Armenian, Byzantine, Coptic, Ethiopian, East Syrian (Chaldean), West Syrian, and Maronite. Each of the Churches within these non-Latin traditions is as Catholic as the Roman Catholic Church. Thus, not all Catholics are Roman Catholic.

To be Catholic—whether Roman or non-Roman—in the ecclesiological sense of the word is to be in full communion with the Bishop of Rome and as such to be an integral part of the Catholic Communion of Churches. To repeat a point made earlier, it is not a matter of either/or—either one is in communion with the Bishop of Rome, or one is not. The council implicitly set aside the category of membership and replaced it with degrees of communion. As in a family, there are degrees of relationships: parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews and nieces, in-laws. In many cultures, the notion of family is broader than blood and legal relationships. In Chinese culture, for example, individuals are designated as aunts and uncles as an expression of respect and affection, even though technically no blood or marital relationships exist. Even in U.S. Caucasian culture, there is increasing acceptance of what sociologists refer to as the “extended family.” And more recent disputes about gay and lesbian unions have challenged the traditional concept of family even further.

Where Ecclesiology Fits

Many teachers are tempted to regard their own area of specialization as the most important in an entire curriculum. Theologians are not immune to such temptation. The subject matter of this book, although of great doctrinal and pastoral significance, is not the most fundamental of theological topics. Ecclesiology presupposes other, more basic areas of theology. The faith claim that the Church is the Body of Christ begs the question: who is Jesus Christ? And faith claims about Christ, that he is God incarnate, beg the question: who or what is God? And the God question, in turn, begs the question of the Trinity: who or what is the Holy Spirit? And if God is the ultimate ground and destiny of human existence, the God question begs another, parallel question: what does it mean to be human? Ecclesiology, therefore, presupposes Christology, the mystery of the triune God, and theological anthropology.

Theologian Karl Rahner (d. 1984) describes the place of ecclesiology in similar fashion. “Vatican II says in its Decree on Ecumenism, Unitatis redintegratio [Lat., ‘The restoration of unity’] (art. 11) that there is an ordered structure or a ‘hierarchy of truths’ in Catholic doctrine. If we reflect upon this, surely ecclesiology and the ecclesial consciousness even of an orthodox and unambiguously Catholic Christian are not the basis and the foundation of his Christianity.” Rahner continues: “Jesus Christ, faith and love, entrusting oneself to the darkness of existence and into the incomprehensibility of God in trust and in the company of Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen one, these are the central realities for a Christian.”¹²

Because it is a historical institution and movement with characteristics similar to those of other institutions and movements and with a long history of development besides, ecclesiology also interfaces with the sociology of religion, the philosophy of religion, history, political science, the fine arts, architecture, biblical exegesis, biblical theology, historical theology, and several other cognate disciplines and areas of specialization. Finally, notwithstanding the Rahner quote above, ecclesiology is itself foundational for other areas of theology: social ethics, canon law, liturgical studies, pastoral theology, and the like. Each of these areas of study presupposes some understanding of the Church, its mission, its ministerial life, and its structural operations. Ecclesiology is not the whole of the theological enterprise, but it is central and indispensable to it.

The Ecumenical and Interfaith Dimensions of Ecclesiology

Beginning with the pontificate of Pope John XXIII (1958–63) and the Second Vatican Council (19...