THE COLLECTIVE AND COLLABORATIVE NATURE OF TEACHING AUTHORITY
MAGISTERIUM AND PARTICIPATION TODAY
Keywords:
Co-Responsibility, Ecclesial Renewal and Reform, Laity, Lay Leadership, Magisterium, Participation, Teaching Authority, Pope Francis, Sensus FideliumAbstract
Pope Francis has called for the wider participation of the laity in helping the church both overcome current crises and in shaping its way forward for the future, not only lamenting the clericalism that he has linked to many of the church’s most pressing problems, but also for lay leadership to impact every level of the church. This essay suggests that such will require a sea-change in ecclesial culture and, above all else, it will require a recognition that the laity can and indeed do, exercise ecclesial authority — which entails aspects of both church governance but also teaching authority — i.e. magisterium. In order for this to become ever more ecclesial reality, some fundamental cultural shifts will need to take place in the church. This article considers some of those necessary in order for that fundamental ecclesial transformation — the widening of participation toward greater and genuine co-responsibility in the church – to come about. It seeks to help revise certain narrow definitions and also misunderstandings of what magisterium is, what it entails and who can and should practice it. It argues that a clearer understanding of what magisterium is and what it is concerned with, is essential in order to be able to have constructive discussions today in relation to who can and should practice it. The essay concludes that magisterium primarily refers to the function, the activity of teaching with authority and not to those who carry such a function or activity (i.e. the functionaries or actors). Others throughout the whole church, including theologians and indeed the entire laity, the collective of the People of God, have very important roles to play in shaping, informing and exercising magisterium as well. Pope Francis is encouraging such an ecclesial cultural shift.
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