You are invited to attend our next monthly meeting to be held on Friday, June 12th from 4:00pm to 5:30pm. We will be discussing “Episcopal Authority and Communio Ecclesiology: Some Lessons from History” by Nicholas J. Healy Jr. from the Fall 2025 issue entitled “Authority” (Volume 52.3).
Here is an excerpt from the Introduction to the issue:
In “Episcopal Authority and Communio Ecclesiology: Some Lessons from History,” Nicholas J. Healy considers the contemporary call for greater shared responsibility in the life of the Church, today commonly gathered under the heading of “synodality,” within a longer theological and ecclesiological history that goes back at least to the early Church, and which took concrete historical form institutionally in regional and diocesan synods, as well as spiritually in moments when the faith was preserved through the consensus fidelium. These precedents indicate that authority in the Church has never been exercised in isolation from communion, but always within the living faith of the whole body. Healy therefore seeks to clarify episcopal authority in light of the ecclesiology of communion articulated by Vatican II. He notes that the Council was not convened to resolve a doctrinal crisis, but to address the modern situation pastorally, with Christ and the human person revealed in Christ as the hermeneutical key to the Council. From this perspective, the Church is understood first as a sacrament, or “real symbol,” of God’s plan to recapitulate all things in Christ. In this light, the Church is understood as a mystery of love and communion grounded in the Eucharist, which establishes the Church’s “vertical” communion with the Trinity and gives rise to the “horizontal” communion of the human race gathered into Christ’s body. This Eucharistic ecclesiology makes it possible to see episcopal authority as much more than juridical or administrative power. Rather, the episcopacy is a sacramental reality ordered to communion and mission. While the bishop’s authority is exercised collegially with and under the pope, it is not given to him by the Successor of Peter, but directly by Christ through the plenitude of the sacrament of Holy Orders. The episcopacy, therefore, is not a delegated function, but a participation in apostolic responsibility for the Church. The implications for this communio ecclesiology extend to the laity, as well: genuine co-responsibility, Healy argues, does not consist in extending governance to all, but in honoring the distinct vocations of clergy and laity within the Church’s mission. Synodality, if it is to renew the Church, must therefore not be reduced to the extension of bureaucratic processes, but lived as Eucharistic communion and holiness, through which authority truly “causes to grow” the life of the Church.
It is recommended that you read LUMEN GENTIUM: DOGMATIC CONSTITUTION ON THE CHURCH, CHAPTER III: ON THE HIERARCHICAL STRUCTURE OF THE CHURCH AND IN PARTICULAR ON THE EPISCOPATE, in preparation for the meeting.
We will meet in the Kateri Room located at St. Michael’s Church, 240 Hemlock Street, Waterloo, Ontario. Use the east side parking lot and enter by the rear doors. Walk up the stairs. The Kateri Room is on your right before you enter the church proper.
This work, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.