Responses to Rome
Komonchak, Joseph A
Joseph A. Komonchak Joseph A. Komonchak, a priest of the Archdiocese of New York, teaches theology in the Department of Religion and Religious Education, The Catholic University of America. Home...
...It is only in this explanatory paragraph that the word "infallibly" occurs...
...He had a point, surely, and Vatican II represents an example of how a real council, carried out openly and with complete freedom in communion, will be gratefully received by the church...
...And if any sort of private consultation of the episcopate has been undertaken recently, it apparently did not include large numbers of the bishops...
...It may be that an ecumenical sensitivity has led Rome not to reassert this doctrine by way of an ex cathedra statement of the pope but by way rather of an act by which Peter once again "confirms" his brethren (see, Lk...
...It is curious that the verb "believe" is not used here, since the CDF reply says that the doctrine belongs to the deposit of the faith and the pope's letter had said it concerns the divine constitution of the church...
...Neither Ordinatio sacerdotalis nor the CDF reply states that to deny this doctrine constitutes heresy...
...The reference to the written word of God may be said to be present in earlier sections of Ordinatio sacerdotalis, where the pope refers to the practice of Christ and the Apostles...
...Yves Congar vigorously rejected the notion on the grounds that the open conversations and the common effort to reach consensus that can take place when bishops meet face-to-face is impossible when everything is carried out by private correspondence...
...Its status, then, is that of a judgment of the CDF...
...Simply for the sake of communication, other ways of exercising the teaching office have to be found...
...It takes the form of a precise and affirmative answer to a precise question: does the doctrine taught in Ordinatio sacerdotalis belong to the deposit of faith...
...The dialectic of teaching and reception is an event within the prior reality of ecclesial communion, and this places responsibilities upon both those who teach and those who receive...
...The assent required is said to be "definitive...
...As the acts of both Vatican Councils make clear, the pope is morally bound to a serious effort to make a determination of the consensus of the churches and of the bishops before proceeding to a definitive statement...
...it does not itself increase the force of the latter but simply seeks to clarify it...
...It is characterized not as "believing" but "holding" or "maintaining...
...Before Vatican II met, some theologians spoke of the consultation of the worldwide episcopate that preceded the definitions of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption as examples of an "ecumenical council by correspondence...
...At one point the CDF goes beyond the pope's letter...
...It is clear, however, that both documents insist that the teaching is one which requires definitive assent from the faithful on the grounds that it is based upon the word of God and the church's constant and universal tradition, with the CDF adding that it has been infallibly presented by the universal ordinary magisterium...
...No scholarly work is known to me that has established that the teaching of the worldwide episcopate, past or present, on the subject of the ordination of women fulfills all the elements included in Lumen gentium 25, particularly the requirement that the bishops teach this doctrine as something "definitively to be held," as distinct, say, from something which they simply took for granted...
...Teaching, one might add, is not the same thing as legislating...
...Second, the papal letter is not an infallible, ex cathedra, exercise of the papal office, something made quite clear in the press releases presumably prepared within the CDF and issued by the Vatican to accompany both texts...
...22:32...
...This would seem an effort to give the restatement a more collegial appearance than an act of the pope alone...
...To this answer there is appended a second paragraph in explanation of the affirmative answer...
...Home classic and elementary rules for the interpretation of magisterial documents permit one to say the following about the formal authority of the "Reply" of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith" (CDF) as to the meaning and authority of Pope John Paul II's letter Ordinatio sacerdotalis...
...This last claim is the one on which theologians will perhaps concentrate their attention...
...It qualifies, not the apostolic letter of the pope nor the CDF text, but the presentation of the doctrine by "the ordinary and universal magisterium...
...First, the reply itself is not an infallible text: the CDF does not possess such authority and does not here claim it...
...The CDF adds to these a reference to the written word of God and to the infallible presentation of the doctrine by the ordinary and universal magisterium...
...A difficulty that many people are experiencing is due in part to the lack of information about what effort was made, either by scholarship or by consultation of the episcopate, to discern what has been or is the definitive teaching of the worldwide episcopate...
...The vague verb "belongs to" is not clarified...
...The argument that the doctrine has been infallibly presented by the ordinary and universal magisterium does not appear to be even implicit in the papal letter...
...and indeed the precise meaning of "heresy," as defined by canon 751 of the Code of Canon Law, does not apply in the case of such disagreement...
...As Newman said, in urging understanding for those who had difficulties with Vatican I's definition of papal infallibility, believing is not the same thing as obeying...
...The pope had said merely that the doctrine excluding women from priestly ordination was "maintained by the constant and universal tradition of the church and firmly taught by the magisterium in recent documents...
...Formally, this explanation may be considered of less authority than the judgment contained in the affirmative reply...
...Third, the CDF's reply is of lesser authority than the papal letter...
...This phrase refers to the everyday exercise of their teaching office by the universal episcopate, described in Lumen gentium 25: "Although individual bishops do not enjoy the prerogative of infallibility, still when-even though dispersed but maintaining communion among themselves and with the successor of Peter and authoritatively teaching matters of faith and morals-they agree upon a judgment as definitively to be held, they infallibly state the teaching of Christ...
Vol. 123 • January 1996 • No. 2
