May 25, 2025 - Pastor Message
June 7, 2025JUBILEE 2025 LUMEN GENTIUM (cont.)
JUBILEE 2025
LUMEN GENTIUM (cont.)
“And he gave some as apostles, others as prophets, others as evangelists, and others as pastors and teachers, to equip the holy ones for the work of ministry, for building up the Body of Christ” (Ephesians 4:11-12; LG 12-13).
Continuing last week’s reflection on the different gifts and different roles in the Church, all equally necessary for carrying out the Church’s mission, Lumen Gentium clarifies the role of bishops as the ministers of unity within the hierarchical structure of the Church. “Hierarchical” here should not be envisioned as the pyramid many may have learned in Catholic school or catechism years ago, with the pope at the top, the bishops just below, then priests and religious, and finally the laity at the bottom, a model that saw “the Church” as the clergy and relegated the laity to mere support staff, whose job was simply to “pray, pay and obey”. That model does not reflect the universal nature of the Church in which all share equally in its mission, though each in a way proper to our own vocation within the Church.
A more accurate model of the hierarchical Church proposed by Lumen Gentium would be a wheel, with the Pope and bishops at the center as the ministers of unity, holding the whole thing together, supported by the clergy, with the various Church ministries, including lay ministries, radiating out as spokes supporting the tire, where the rubber literally hits the road and where the vast majority of the lay faithful carry out the mission of the Church in the world through their daily lives of Christian love and witness. That’s where the missionary work of the Church happens, in the world, and the laity are the privileged ministers that carry it out in their homes, schools, workplaces, community and civic activities. The bishops and clergy are here to support them in their Christian witness, not the other way around. That is one of the most profound revolutions of Vatican II and Lumen Gentium, the re-understanding of the hierarchical structure of the Church in the service of our universal mission.
So how do the pope and bishops, supported by the clergy, serve the mission? They build up the unity of the Church, infusing it with the grace of the Holy Spirit and drawing it into communion with Christ by their sacramental ministry, holding it together by their governance, and maintaining the unity of faith in the apostolic tradition through their teaching. Just as all the baptized are spiritually conformed to Christ in a special way and are made members of his Body, the Church, through the sacrament of baptism, so Bishops and clergy are spiritually conformed to Christ in a special way through the sacrament of Holy Orders and made sharers in Christ’s identity as the Head of the Body. This empowers them for sacramental ministry, to act in the person of Christ, the High Priest and true minister of every sacrament. It invests them with the authority of the Good Shepherd to lead and govern his flock. And it gifts them with a special share in the Holy Spirit to lead the Church into all truth.
Unique among all bishops, and at the center of the Church’s unity, is the bishop of Rome, the pope. Carrying out the ministry of St. Peter, whom Christ made the rock on which he would build his Church (Matthew 16:18), the pope stands as the head of the college, or assembly, of bishops, not as their king (Christ is our only king), but as their eldest brother and chief among equals. As such, the Church, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, invests the pope with special authority of governance and teaching. Only the pope has the authority to appoint bishops, for example. The pope also has the authority to teach truths of faith and morals infallibly (without error), which the bishops acting in unison also share when they act in communion with him, as in an ecumenical council, for example. For a proposed teaching to be considered infallible, however, it must meet strict requirements, which even the pope cannot change, and has only been done a handful of times in the history of the Church (e.g. the declaration of the immaculate conception of Mary by Pope Pius IX in 1864). As we continue our reflection on Lumen Gentium and the life and mission of our Church this jubilee year, let us keep our new Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV, in prayer, that he may be blessed with all the special graces he needs to serve our Church as the successor of Peter and rock of unity today.
Fr. Marc Stockton
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