Is the Catholic Church Hierarchical in Structure or Communitarian? 1
This article examines recent [1986] claims that the Church has changed her basic structure.

Community of Believers - Understanding the Vatican Council

by Frank Mobbs

Just before the visit of Pope John Paul II to Australia last year. Father Paul Collins's book. Mixed Blessings: John Paul II and the Church of the eighties, 2 hit the newsstands. The book claims that 'Many of the difficulties and contradictions confronting Catholics now result from compromises made at the Council and from deficiencies in the conciliar texts.' 3

According to Father Collins, the Second Vatican Council in its Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, proposed 'two mutually exclusive ideas of what the Church is and what it is all about.' 4

'Thus chapter two of Lumen Gentium presents a communal model of the Church, a model which does not sit easily or comfortably with the concept of the Church as a self-enclosed hierarchical institution. Yet chapter three presents the Church as an essentially hierarchical institution, and develops this model of the Church almost as though the two previous chapters did not exist.' 5

What does Collins mean by 'hierarchical institution'? He points to the example of Cardinal Cody of Chicago who frequently overrode decisions of diocesan bodies or ignored their advice — an 'episcopal despot'.

Clearly, Hierarchical is Bad.

What is a 'communal model' of the Church? It is to be found in chapter two of Lumen Gentium which according to Collins offers a conception of the Church that begins not at the top with the hierarchy, but at the bottom with the people. 6

Collins offers an example to illustrate this conception. 'Take the example of the parish that develops programmes that involve the people in decision making, in religious education and the liturgy.' 7 It is a 'participative Church' in which members have come to a sense of ownership of their community.' 8

Clearly, Communal is Good.

Actually Collins never makes clear what he means by 'communal,' 'communitarian,' or 'communial'.

A communitarian Church is stated to be one in which the people 'experience a sense of participation in the diocesan Church and the local community.' 9

Does this mean full-blown democracy, with policy decided by majorities of voters? Or can a bishop, for example, still overrule a majority of voters? If this happened occasionally, could the people still be said to 'experience a sense of participation'? These tiresome questions are ignored.

According to Collins. Vatican II did not rest content with enunciating two incompatible conceptions of the structure of the Church but rather it came down on the side of one of them: 'Vatican II clearly opts for the communial model, thus breaking with the past and bringing to an end an era in the Church.'10

Not a shred of evidence is offered for this crucial claim. Indeed it is worthy of remark that, in a book in which the author repeatedly claims he is standing with the Council and against the foot-dragging diehards who have still not grasped its message, he never cites a conciliar document.

Collins's central claim is that the Council taught that the Church is essentially communitarian, in the sense that it is non-hierarchical in government. The claim needs examination not because Collins has given it some currency, but because it has become an accepted interpretation of the Council's ecclesiology, riding under the banner WE ARE THE CHURCH. It has come to be regarded as heterodox even to challenge it: Is not that to impugn the authority of Vatican II?

The question before us is: what in fact do the documents of Vatican II say? Did Vatican II say that Christ gave the Church a communitarian form of government as distinct from a hierarchical one?

Note that the question concerns forms of government. According to the Council, with what form or forms of government has the Church been constituted? Collins relies exclusively on chapter two of Lumen Gentium for an answer. Presumably it furnishes the strongest evidence in support of Collins's thesis. Let us then turn to it.

A reading of chapter two reveals an interesting fact — it is almost entirely irrelevant. Nowhere is there any account of forms of government, or procedures for decision making, or even anything that could be described as 'communial' or 'hierarchical'.

Chapter three deals with the structure of the Church, while chapter two takes a hierarchical form of government for granted.

'The ministerial priest, by the sacred power he has, forms and rules (regit) the priestly people' (Art. 10 — my emphasis).

The whole body of the faithful cannot err in matters of belief and 'this characteristic is shown in the sensus fidei of the whole people when "from the bishops to the last of the faithful" they manifest a universal consent' (Art, 12). 'By this appreciation of the faith the people of God, guided by the sacred magisterium, and obeying it' (sub ductu sacri magisterii, cui fideliter obsequens) receives the word of God (Art. 12).

The Holy Spirit distributes special graces amongst the faithful of every rank, a fact to which Collins frequently refers. But the judgment as to the genuineness and right use of these gifts belongs to those who rule in the Church (qui in Ecclesia praesunt) (Art. 12).

'Particular Churches retain their own traditions without prejudice to the Chair of Peter which presides over the whole assembly of charity' (Art. 13).

The hierarchical structure is taken for granted and no wonder because already, in chapter one, the Constitution has asserted that

'this sole Church of Christ which in the creed we profess to be one holy catholic and apostolic . . . which our Saviour, after his resurrection, entrusted to Peter's pastoral care (Jn 21:17) commissioning him and the other apostles to extend and rule it . . . This Church, constituted and organised as a society in the present world, subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by (gubernata) the successor of Peter and by the bishops in communion with him' (Art. 8).

Again no wonder it can be taken for granted, seeing that chapter three will describe the form of government determined by Christ for his Church.

Chapter three says Christ instituted the college of bishops (including the Bishop of Rome) which has 'the supreme authority over the whole church' (Art.22).

'In virtue of this power bishops have a sacred right and a duty before the Lord of legislating for and passing judgment on their subjects, as well as of regulating everything that concerns the good order of divine worship and of the apostolate' (Art.27).

Further citation would be superfluous because Collins is in agreement with this assessment of chapter three.

The Council makes perfectly clear in chapter four of Lumen Gentium that these truths do not prevent the laity from exercising many important ministries.

The Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity, Apostolicam Actuositatem, asserts the hierarchical constitution of the Church and also the exalted status of laity as ministers of Christ. But the laity do not share in the ministry of the supreme government of the Church.

According to Collins, 'Vatican II clearly opts for the communial model'. Yet this Decree on the laity was published during the final session of the Council. So was the Decree on the Pastoral Office of Bishops, Christus Dominus, which sets down the hierarchical structure of the Church by repeating the words of Lumen Gentium: 'Together with their head, the Supreme Pontiff, and never apart from him, (bishops) have supreme and full authority over the universal Church' (Art. 4).

Apparently the Fathers of the Council were, at this late stage, still unaware of Collins 'ecclesiological mutation'.11

A word about the initial implausibility of Collins's thesis. Surely it is highly improbable that the body of bishops, renowned for their convention of their own authority, should have suddenly decided in 1964 that the Church is a democracy in which they merely participate in governing. Given the low probability of this having occurred, Collins would need a lot of evidence to convince us. Yet he offers us none.

The kind of ecclesiology propounded by Collins frequently rides these days under the banner WE ARE THE CHURCH.

According to Vatican II we are indeed — provided we are the subjects of the successors of the apostles and thus the servants of the Lord of the Church.

REFERENCES:

  1. Collins uses the terms 'communitarian' and 'com- munial' and 'communal' interchangeably.
  2. Ringwood. Victoria: Penguin. 1986.
  3. Collins, p51.
  4. ibid. p55
  5. ibid. p 54-55
  6. ibid. p55
  7. ibid. p57
  8. ibid.
  9. ibid. p.245
  10. ibid. p.58
  11. ibid.

From "Annals Australia" September 1987

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