From: 15942@brahms.udel.edu (Stephen Barr)
Subject: Re: Authority on the Church...
Organization: University of Delaware
  There is a perfectly natural tendency I think to dismiss or
  at least minimize the significance of the teaching authority
  of the Church on the grounds that it is merely the authority
  of "men" rather than of God. A presbyterian friend of mine
  argued to me that no human being should come between us and
  God. While there is truth in these positions, I think they do
  not take sufficient account of the Incarnation. In the first 
  place God revealed himself through a human vessel, as it were.
  In his earthly ministry he healed, forgave sinners, and 
  manifested the love of God through his human nature, in his
  physical body. But the Catholic undersytanding is that the
  incarnation continues. Christ still heals, forgives, loves,
  and TEACHES, no longer through his earthly body of flesh but
  in and through his Body the Church. A critical passage in this
  regard is (I think) in Johm's Gospel where Christ says to the
  apostles "He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you
  rejects me and rejects Him who sent me." That is astounding as
  it is one of the implications of the incarnation. "As the Father
  has sent me so I send you." 
       Each of us is capable of error, but the Church herself as 
  the mystical Body of Christ teaches with the authority of Christ:
  "He who hears you hears me.." It is true that there "is no other
  mediator between God and man " except Christ. But that mediation
  occurs though his Body. In the first place through his physical
  body which was offeresd up on the cross, but also through his
  mystical Body which he also offers up in the Eucharistic sacrifice
  whereby we are united to that all-sufficient sacrifice of Christ.
  We make no new sacrifice of our own, rather on Calvary Christ
  offered his Body as a sacrifice to the Father. We are part of that
  Body. (That is why Paul says he will "make up in his own body what
  is lacking in the sufferings of Christ". Is he saying that Christ's
  sacrifice is not "all-sufficient"? No. But that as a member of his
  Body Paul 's sufferings are a part of the sufferings of Christ.
       In other words the "mediation" is not in any other way than
  through the Incarnation. It is only through the Body of Christ
  that we are united to God. 
       The Catholic understanding is that there is an identity between
  "that which has been revealed" and that which the Church believes
  and teaches as her faith: what is revealed is identical to the
  faith of the Church. The reason that not every teaching of bishop,
  pope, catachist, or theologian is infallible is that not every
  such statement truly or accurately expresses tha faith of the Church.
  However when the Church DEFINITIVEL Y  proclaims her faith she
  does so with the authority of Christ himself. The Church being Christ's
  Body, her voice is the voice of Christ himself. When a bishop errs
  it is not because the faith is in error, but because he has departed
  in some measure from the faith of the Church.
         Everyone 's faith is "his" or "hers" in the sense that it
  is his or her own free act. Noone can believe for me. But it is
  not that person's faith in the sense that that person determines the
  the content of it. Rather it is the faith of the Church which I 
  individually accept and make my own or reject: "one Lord, ONE FAITH,
  one baptism. ..." If I am trulyt united in the one Body of Christ
  I must be united in faith with her. 
         All this is the teaching of Vatican II:
  Lumen Gentium chapter III contains the following statements:
   " Therefore this sacred Council teaches that bishops by divine 
  institution have succeeded to the place of the apostles, as shepherds of the
  Church, and he who hears them hears Christ and he who rejects
  them rejects Christ and him who sent Christ"
  
   " The bishops are authentic teachers that is teachers endowed
   with the authority of Christ"
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 16:50:35 GMT

   Bishops presiding in the place of God over the flock..."

   "This Sacred Council, following closely in the footsteps of the
   First Vatican Council, ... declares and teaches that Jesus Christ
   the eternal shepherd established His holy Church, having sent
   forth the apostles as he Himself had been sent forth by the 
   Father..."

   "Although individual bishops do not enjoy the prerogative of
   infallibility, they nonetheless proclaim Christ's doctrine
   infallibly whenever-- even though dispersed throughout the 
   world, but still maintaining the bond of communion among 
   themselves and with the successor of Peter, and authentically
   teaching matters of faith and morals--- they are in agreement
   on one position AS DEFINITIVELY to be held" [emphasis mine]

   All of this is from Vatican II --- not Trent, not VaticanI.

   It would be nice to have access to the divine without going
   through the "merely human" . But that is not what the incarnation
   is all about.  

                Steve Barr

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