The privilege of
infallibility is not merely actual absence of error, but the impossibility
of erring. It is of course a supernatural gift, and since it works
not to the advantage of the recipients themselves, but to that of the whole
Church, it is a gratia gratis data or charism. It is often called “the
charism of truth.” (G. Van Noort, Dogmatic Theology, Volume II: Christ’s
Church [trans. John J. Castelot; Cork: The Mercier Press Limited, 1961], 119)
Assertion 3: With the
exception of the Roman pontiff, no bishop possesses authority over other
bishops by divine right.
The body of bishops
continues the college of the apostles. Now among the apostles no one was placed
in authority over the rest of them by Christ, except St. Peter. The conclusion
is obvious. Consequently, all the degrees of hierarchical rank factually
existing between the papacy and the episcopacy—patriarchal, primatial, and
archiepiscopal—are ecclesiastical in origin. From this it follows that: (a)
the office of patriarch, primate, etc., considered precisely as an office,
consists in a kind of participation in the papal office; (b) the
supra-episcopal authority possessed by patriarchs, etc., over bishops within
their orbit is bestowed upon them by the pope. The fact is symbolized by the
cloak (pallium) which “taken from the body of St. Peter,” is sent to
them as a sign of their sharing in a supra-episcopal jurisdiction” (See Pontificale
Romanum, p. 1, De pallio).
Assertion 4: Bishops
to be able to exercise jurisdiction over their flocks, must be adopted by the
authority of the pope.
The way in which
individual bishops are established must now be discussed. Even though the
episcopal office is something established by God, it is quite obvious that
individual rulers of individual dioceses are directly established not by God,
but by men. At this juncture we are not inquiring from whom the bishops
proximately receive their jurisdiction . . . but what is required for them actually
to function as pastors of their diocese and to exercise their
jurisdiction there. To be able to do this, we state, they must be adopted by
the authority of the supreme pontiff. Adoption (assumption) is a
short form standing for “adoption or assumption into the corporate body of the
pastors of the Church.” It designates the factor by which the formal admittance
of a selected or elected candidate is brought to its final conclusion. We use
the phrase, “by the authority of the people” to indicate that a direct,
personal intervention by the people is not necessarily required. So long as the
adoption be done by someone to whom the people has entrusted the task
(regardless of the precise way in which the pope commissions him to do so), or
in accord with regulations already established or approved by the pope, in
saying that papal adoption is necessary, we do not mean it is merely
necessary because of ecclesiastical law currently in force; we mean it is
necessary by the divine law itself. Even though this necessity has never been
explicitly defined, it follows absolutely from Catholic principles.
It is a fact that a
bishop cannot act as a pastor of the Church unless he is a member of that body
which is a continuation of the apostolic college. Now the Roman pontiff, as
Christ’s vicar, presides over that college with full and supreme authority. It
would be ridiculous, therefore, to think that someone could be constituted a
member of that body in such fashion as not to need to be acknowledged or
adopted in any way by the very head of that body, i.e., the Roman pontiff.
Again, the Roman pontiff is the supreme shepherd of the entire Church to which
the bishops may be compared as subordinate shepherds for each individual part
of the Church. Clearly it would be nonsensical to think someone would take
charge of part of the sheepfold without the agreement of the one who rules the
universal sheepfold with complete authority.
The objection
is raised: in ancient times the peoples did not intervene in any way at all in
the selection of bishops. That they did not always intervene directly and by
explicit consent, is granted; that they did not intervene at all, not
even mediately and by legal consent, we deny. In the absence of
historical testimony, it is admittedly impossible to prove this statement
directly.
Still, keeping in
mind Catholic principles, it is fair enough to reconstruct the process somewhat
as follows. The apostles and their principal aides, in accord with Peter’s
consent and will, both selected the first bishops, and decreed that thereafter
when sees became vacant the vacancy should be taken care of in some
satisfactory way, and in a way which at the very least would not be without the
intervention of the neighboring bishops. As often, therefore, in accord with
this process, established with Peter’s approval, a new bishop was constituted
in the early Church, Peter’s authority ratified that selection implicitly.
Later on, when ecclesiastical affairs were arranged more precisely by positive
law, the patriarchs in the Eastern churches and the metropolitans in the
Western churches used to establish the bishops; but they did so only in virtue
of the authority of the Apostolic See by which they themselves had been
established, even though in a variety of ways. Finally, in later centuries the
matter of establishing bishops was set up in different fashion; indeed in such
a way that in the Latin church especially, the direct intervention of the Roman
pontiff was required. (Ibid., 322-24, italics in original)
