REDISCOVERING AUTHORITY AS SERVICE IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH: THE LONG WAY FROM MYSTICI CORPORIS TO POPE FRANCIS

Authors

  • Peter De Mey Catholic University of Leuven

Keywords:

Authority, Ecclesiology, Hierarchy, Laity, Priesthood, Pope Francis, Vatican II

Abstract

It is a useful exercise in this thematic issue to study a variety of documents issued from Rome in the long period between Mystici Corporis (1943) and Evangelii Gaudium (2013) with attention to the terminology used to describe the relationship between the different categories of the people of God. Along this long but crooked path the laity are called subjects of their superiors till the final draft of Lumen Gentium and the term subordination is found in the first draft of the Dogmatic constitution on the Church as well as in the 2013 Directory for the Ministry and the Life of Priests. Since the 1962 draft of De Ecclesia, however, Catholic ecclesiology stresses that all members of the people of God participate in the threefold office of Christ and that the ordained exercise their authority as a service towards the
laity. 

Author Biography

Peter De Mey, Catholic University of Leuven

Peter De Mey is professor of Catholic ecclesiology and ecumenism at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies of the Catholic university of Leuven, Belgium. Together with Massimo Faggioli he was the founding chair of the Vatican II Studies group (2012-2016) of the American Academy of Religion. He publishes regularly on the development of the Catholic view on ecumenism prior to Vatican II, the redaction history and interpretation of Lumen Gentium, Unitatis
Redintegratio and Orientalium Ecclesiarum, post-conciliar Roman Catholic ecclesiology and ecclesiological themes in the bilateral and multilateral ecumenical dialogue.

References

“Synodality as Key Component of the Pontificate of Pope Francis: The Difficult Way from Theory to Practice,” in Changing the Church: Transformations of Christian Belief, Practice, and Life—Essays in Honour of Gerard Mannion, ed. Mark D. Chapman & Vladimir Latinovic, New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2020, 323-331.

Congregation for the Clergy, Directory for the Ministry and the Life of Priests, New Edition, Città del Vaticano: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2013, 24 (§ 13: “In” and “in the forefront of” the Church).

http://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_29061943_mystici-corporis-christi.html

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cclergy/documents/ rc_con_interdic_doc_15081997_en.html

https://jakomonchak.wordpress.com/ 2013/07/27/draft-of-a-dogmatic-constitution-on-the-church/.

LG 31: “Under the title of laity are here understood all Christ’s faithful, except those who are in sacred orders or are members of a religious state that is recognized by the church.”

Peter De Mey, “Sharing in the Threefold Office of Christ, a Different Matter for Laity and Priests? The Tria Munera in Lumen Gentium, Presbyterorum Ordinis, Apostolicam Actuositatem and Ad Gentes,” in The Letter and the Spirit: On the Forgotten Documents of Vatican II. Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium, 297, ed. Annemarie Mayer, Peeters: Leuven, 2018, 155-179.

Peter De Mey, “The Actors Involved in the Exercise of the Prophetic Office in the Church: The Common Message of Lumen Gentium 12 and 25 and Dei Verbum 7-10,” in Studia Canonica 53 (2019) 127-164.

Peter De Mey, “The Sacramental Nature and Mission of the Church in Lumen Gentium,” International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church 14 (2014) 348-361.

Peter De Mey, “Towards a Healthy Future of Catholicity in the Roman Catholic Church: Recommendations by Pope Francis,” in Catholicity under Pressure: The Ambiguous Relationship between Diversity and Unity (XVIIIth Academic Consultation of the Societas Oecumenica, 21-26 August, 2014), ed. Dagmar Heller & Peter Szentpétery, Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2016, 251-272

Peter Hünermann, “Theologischer Kommentar zur dogmatischen Konstitution über die Kirche Lumen Gentium,” in Herders theologischer Kommentar zum Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzil, II, ed. Peter Hünermann & Jochen Hilberath, Freiburg: Herder, 2004, 263-582, p. 444 (on LG 25), 446 (on LG 26) and 448 (on LG 27).

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Published

2021-02-28

How to Cite

De Mey, P. . (2021). REDISCOVERING AUTHORITY AS SERVICE IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH: THE LONG WAY FROM MYSTICI CORPORIS TO POPE FRANCIS. Asian Horizons, 15(1), 7–20. Retrieved from https://dvkjournals.in/index.php/ah/article/view/3771