ELM 2003: Ecclesiology and
Ecumenism
February 12
Women, Vatican I and an
introduction to Vatican II
Review of Last Week’s Class
• Nicaea
• Period between Nicaea and Chalcedon
• Chalcedon
• Chalcedon to Trent
Constantinople II and III, Nicaea II and
Constantinople IV
Great Schism, lay investiture, Western Schism and
conciliarism
Trent: Attempt to re-vivify ossified Church
structures
Key points for Canons from Nicaea
• Discipline for the life of clerics, incardination
into a particular church
• Regulations to safeguard communion among
bishops, especially “bishops of bishops”
• One city, one bishop
• Synods
• Penitential discipline
Key points for Chalcedon
• It is Peter who has spoken through Leo
• Regulations for clerical life: renewed
prohibitions against vagante clerics, simony,
excluded from the military and business
• Metropolitans and Synods
• Deaconesses
• Canon 28 and the New Rome
Key Points on Trent
• Book recommendation: H. Jedin, History of the
Church: Reformation and CounterReformation, vol. 5.
• Attempted to revive interest in the Bible
• Formulated residence requirements for
bishops and priests with the cure of souls
• Annulled laws that limited a bishop’s authority
over his diocese
Key Points on Trent (cont.)
• Attempted to re-establish discipline for clergy,
especially secular clergy (knowledge of Latin,
clerical dress, concubinage, minimum moral
qualifications)
• Founded seminary system for secular clergy
• Ensured that there were benefices for those
ordained
• Reminded pastors of the need for instruction
before receiving sacraments
• Banned dueling
Today’s class
• A quick look at women’s role in Ecclesiology
from 451-1563
• An overview of Ecclesiology from 1563-1869
(looking also at the Protestant ecclesiology
that influenced our country’s founding)
• Vatican I
• A sketch of the Church from 1870 to 1962
Highlights for Women and Ecclesiology
• In the New Testament it is clear that women
played a key role in the life of the early Church
(including the formal roles of deaconess and
widows)
• From the patristic age to Trent, special roles
for women in the Church gravitate toward
monastic life
• After Trent, women religious began engaging
in more active apostolates (lay ministry)
Women and Ecclesiology
• The monastic ecclesiology of the early
medieval Church in Ireland, Scotland and
Wales gave jurisdiction to the Abbot or Abbess
rather than the bishop
• The famous case of Brigit of Kildaire (451-525)
• Celtic missionaries brought this custom to the
continent
• Note the distinction, still present in Canon
Law, between order and jurisdiction
Women and Ecclesiology
• Byzantine Empresses
St. Pulcheria (398-453): took a vow of virginity,
played a crucial role both at Ephesus and
Chalcedon
Irene (752-803): Regent during the resolution of
Iconoclasm
In Christendom females did occasionally exercise
temporal rule
Women and Ecclesiology (cont.)
• St. Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) doctor of Church,
abbess, mystic, preacher, theologian and composer;
friend of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, the Abbot Suger
and correspondent with popes
• St. Clare of Assisi (1194-1253) companion of Saint
Francis, abbess, religious founder, promoted
evangelical poverty in women’s religious life
• Dominic first founded Dominican nuns to support the
preaching ministry of the friars
• St. Catherine of Siena (1347-1380) Dominican tertiary,
doctor of the Church, mystic, advocate for return of the
papacy to Rome
Women and Ecclesiology (cont.)
• St. Teresa of Jesus (1515-1582) Carmelite
reformer of friars and nuns, mystic and doctor
• St. Jane Frances de Chantal (1572-1641), coworker with Saint Francis de Sales and founder of
the Visitation sisters and…
• St. Louise de Marillac (1591-1660), co-worker
with Saint Vincent de Paul and founder of the
Daughters of Charity, pioneered active women’s
religious life that took place outside of the
cloister
Highlights for Women and Ecclesiology
• In the New Testament it is clear that women
played a key role in the life of the early Church
(including the formal roles of deaconess and
widow)
• From the patristic age to Trent, special roles
for women in the Church gravitate toward
monastic life
• After Trent, women religious began engaging
in more active apostolates (lay ministry)
Overview of Ecclesiology from Trent to
Vatican I
• After Trent, Popes reformed the Roman Curia and sought to
centralize authority and power structures in Rome
• St. Robert Bellarmine (1542-1621) gives a good sense of the
flavor of Tridentine ecclesiology:
• “…according to our doctrine, the one and true Church is the
assembly of men, bound together by the profession of the
same Christian faith, and by the communion of the same
sacraments, under the rule of legitimate pastors, and in
particular of the one Vicar of Christ on earth, the Roman
Pontiff…”
• “…For the Church is an assembly of men, as visible and
palpable as the assembly of the Roman people, or the
Kingdom of France, or the Republic of the Venetians."
Overview of Ecclesiology from Trent to
Vatican I
• The same is clear in Ignatius of Loyola’s Rules for Thinking with the
Church:
• The First Rule. With all judgment of our own put aside, we ought to
keep our minds disposed and ready to be obedient in everything to
the true Spouse of Christ our Lord, which is our Holy Mother, the
hierarchical Church…
• The Thirteenth Rule. To keep ourselves right in all things, we ought
to hold fast to this principle: What I see as white, I will believe to be
black if the hierarchical Church thus determines it. For we believe
that between Christ our Lord, the Bridegroom, and the Church, his
Spouse, there is the one same Spirit who governs and guides us for
the salvation of our souls. For it is by the same Spirit and Lord of
ours who gave the ten commandments that our holy Mother
Church is guided and governed…
Overview of Ecclesiology from Trent to
Vatican I
• During the 17th and 18th centuries, the Church
faced dual challenges of Jansenism and the
question of Church-state relations
• The latter exploded with the French Revolution
and the Enlightenment more broadly
• The Church’s reaction to the French Revolution
centered on attacking democracy and religious
freedom
• At the same time, this was an age of
evangelization, particularly in Latin America
Protestant Excurus: Key Points
• There were tensions in Post-Catholic Britain
between Puritans and Anglicans
• These tensions bear on Ecclesiology: is the
bishop the ultimate authority in the church or
the individual believer interpreting the Bible?
• Early American history leans heavily toward
the latter due to Puritan and later Methodist
influences
A Protestant Excurus
• When Henry VIII split with Rome in 1534, the tone of the
Church of England remained largely Catholic.
• Henry died in 1547; it was not until 1549 that English was
used in the Eucharist and it was not until 1552 that
recognizably Protestant forms of worship were adopted.
• During the reign of Mary Tudor (1553-1558), Catholicism
was restored in England and most of the people rejoiced
(vide. Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars).
• When Queen Mary died without an heir, the Protestant
Elizabeth (1533-1603) became Queen of England.
• The XXXIX Articles of Religion (1563) defined the faith of
the Church of England and form the heart of the Elizabeth
Settlement
A Protestant Excurus (cont.)
• In 1603, the Protestant James VI of Scotland succeeded
Elizabeth as monarch of England, Wales and Ireland
(The Puritan pilgrims landed in Plymouth in 1620).
• In 1625, James was succeeded by his son Charles, who
had married a Catholic. He was seen by many as taking
the Church of England in a Catholic direction.
• Charles had an exalted vision of the monarchy and
could not get along with Parliament. This led to the
English Civil War (1642-1646 ) in which Charles lost to
the forces of Parliament and was eventually beheaded
in 1649.
A Protestant Excurus (cont.)
• The Puritan Cromwell ruled England from 1649 until his death in
1658.
• Charles II (r. 1660-1685) re-established bishops and the Prayer Book
with the XXXIX Articles. He was received into the Church on his
deathbed.
• After Charles II’s death, his brother James II, a Catholic, became
king. James advocated religious freedom and for this he was forced
to flee to France.
• He was succeed in 1688 by the Protestants William and Mary
(Protestant daughter of James II), who in turn was succeeded by
Queen Anne (1702-1714)
• On Anne’s death, the German Protestant George of Hanover (17141727) succeeded her, although there were more 50 Catholics with a
better claim
The XXXIX Articles
• VI: “Holy Scriptures containeth all things necessary to
salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may
be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it
should be believed as an article of the faith, or be thought
requisite or necessary to salvation…”
• XIX: “The visible Church of Christ is a congregation of
faithful men, in the which the pure word of God is
preached and the sacraments be duly ministered according
to Christ's ordinance in all those things that of necessity are
requisite to the same. As the Church of Jerusalem,
Alexandria, and Antioch have erred: so also the Church of
Rome hath erred, not only in their living and manner of
ceremonies, but also in matters of faith.”
The XXXIX Articles (cont.)
• XX: “The Church hath power to decree rites or ceremonies and
authority in controversies of faith; and yet it is not lawful for the
Church to ordain anything contrary to God's word written, neither
may it so expound one place of Scripture, that it be repugnant to
another. Wherefore, although the Church be a witness and a keeper
of Holy Writ: yet, as it ought not to decree anything against the
same, so besides the same ought it not to enforce anything to be
believed for necessity of salvation.”
• XXI: “General Councils may not be gathered together without the
commandment and will of princes. And when they be gathered
together, forasmuch as they be an assembly of men, whereof all be
not governed with the Spirit and word of God, they may err and
sometime have erred, even in things pertaining to God. Wherefore
things ordained by them as necessary to salvation have neither
strength nor authority, unless it may be declared that they be taken
out of Holy Scripture.”
The XXXIX Articles (cont.)
• XXIII: “It is not lawful for any man to take upon him the
office of public preaching or ministering the sacraments in
the congregation, before he be lawfully called and sent to
execute the same. And those we ought to judge lawfully
called and sent, which be chosen and called to this work by
men who have public authority given unto them in the
congregation to call and send ministers into the Lord's
vineyard.”
• XXXIII: “That persons which by open denunciation of the
Church is rightly cut off from the unity of the Church and
excommunicated, ought to be taken of the whole multitude
of the faithful as an heathen and publican, until he be
openly reconciled by penance and received into the Church
by a judge that hath authority thereto.”
Religion in the American Colonies
• New England: Puritan (Congregational with Calvinistic theology)
with the exception of Rhode Island
• Maryland: Catholic with freedom of religion in 1629, 1688 Catholics
barred from voting, mix of religions
• Other colonies: Mix of Anglican and other “dissenting” Christians.
Some established Anglican churches
• The Great Awakening (1730-1743) gave American Christianity a
more evangelical flavor.
• One of the four “Intolerable Acts” that lead to the Revolution was
the Quebec Act, which granted religious freedom to Catholics
outside the 13 colonies in British North America
• The Revolutionary War (1776-1781) made Anglicanism very
unpopular and the idea of a bishop unpopular
• In 1790 John Carroll became the first Catholic bishop in the United
States
Protestant Excurus: Key Points
• There were tensions in Post-Catholic Britain
between Puritans and Anglicans
• These tensions bear on Ecclesiology: is the
bishop the ultimate authority in the church or
the individual believer interpreting the Bible?
• Early American history leans heavily toward
the latter due to Puritan and later Methodist
influences
Key Points of Vatican I
• The Church as a motive of credibility
• The papacy
Primacy of jurisdiction that is immediate
The pope is infallible
when speaking ex cathedra
on faith and morals to be held by all the
faithful
Ecclesiology of Vatican I
• Sess. 3, III, 10: “So that we could fulfill our duty of
embracing the true faith and of persevering
unwaveringly in it, God, through his only
begotten Son, founded the Church, and he
endowed his institution with clear notes to the
end that she might be recognized by all as the
guardian and teacher of the revealed word.”
• 11: To the Catholic Church alone belong all those
things, so many and so marvelous, which have
been divinely ordained to make for the manifest
credibility of the Christian faith.
Ecclesiology of Vatican I (cont.)
• 12: What is more, the Church herself by reason of her
astonishing propagation, her outstanding holiness and
her inexhaustible fertility in every kind of goodness, by
her Catholic unity and her unconquerable stability, is
a kind of great and perpetual motive of credibility and
an incontrovertible evidence of her own divine
mission.
• 13: So it comes about that, like a standard lifted up for
the nations, she both invites to herself those who have
not yet believed, and likewise assures her sons and
daughters that the faith they profess rests on the
firmest of foundations.
Ecclesiology of Vatican I (cont.)
• 14: “…those who have accepted the faith under the
guidance of the Church can never have any just cause
for changing this faith or for calling it into question.”
• Sess. 4, 2-3 Apostolic Succession
• 4, 4 “In order, then, that the episcopal office should be
one and undivided and that, by the union of the clergy,
the whole multitude of believers should be held
together in the unity of faith and communion, he set
blessed Peter over the rest of the apostles and
instituted in him the permanent principle of both
unities and their visible foundation.”
Ecclesiology of Vatican I (cont.)
• 4, 6 “And since the gates of hell trying, if they can, to
overthrow the Church, make their assault with a hatred
that increases day by day against its divinely laid
foundation, we judge it necessary, with the approbation of
the Sacred Council, and for the protection, defense and
growth of the Catholic flock, to propound the doctrine
concerning the 1. institution, 2. permanence and 3. nature
of the sacred and apostolic primacy, upon which the
strength and coherence of the whole Church depends.”
• 4, Ch. 1, 1 “We teach and declare that, according to the
gospel evidence, a primacy of jurisdiction over the whole
Church of God was immediately and directly promised to
the blessed apostle Peter and conferred on him by Christ
the lord.”
Ecclesiology of Vatican I (cont.)
• 4, Ch. 1, 2-3: Scripture supporting primacy
• 4, Ch. 1, 4: “To this absolutely manifest teaching of the Sacred
Scriptures, as it has always been understood by the Catholic Church,
are clearly opposed the distorted opinions of those who
misrepresent the form of government which Christ the lord
established in his Church and deny that Peter, in preference to the
rest of the apostles, taken singly or collectively, was endowed by
Christ with a true and proper primacy of jurisdiction.”
• 6: “Therefore, if anyone says that blessed Peter the apostle was not
appointed by Christ the lord as prince of all the apostles and visible
head of the whole Church militant; or that it was a primacy of
honor only and not one of true and proper jurisdiction that he
directly and immediately received from our lord Jesus Christ
himself: let him be anathema.”
Ecclesiology of Vatican I (cont.)
• Ch. 2, 1: Petrine ministry does not end with Peter’s
death
• 2: Peter’s successors are the bishops of Rome
• 3: Successors of Peter receive his rock-like strength
• 4: “For this reason it has always been necessary for
every Church--that is to say the faithful throughout the
world--to be in agreement with the Roman Church
because of its more effective leadership. In
consequence of being joined, as members to head,
with that see, from which the rights of sacred
communion flow to all, they will grow together into the
structure of a single body.”
Ecclesiology of Vatican I (cont.)
• 5 “Therefore, if anyone says that it is not by the institution of Christ
the lord himself (that is to say, by divine law) that blessed Peter
should have perpetual successors in the primacy over the whole
Church; or that the Roman Pontiff is not the successor of blessed
Peter in this primacy: let him be anathema.”
• Ch. 3, 1 “…we promulgate anew the definition of the ecumenical
Council of Florence, which must be believed by all faithful
Christians, namely that the Apostolic See and the Roman Pontiff
hold a world-wide primacy, and that the Roman Pontiff is the
successor of blessed Peter, the prince of the apostles, true vicar of
Christ, head of the whole Church and father and teacher of all
Christian people. To him, in blessed Peter, full power has been given
by our lord Jesus Christ to tend, rule and govern the universal
Church.”
Ecclesiology of Vatican I (cont.)
• 2, “Wherefore we teach and declare that, by divine
ordinance, the Roman Church possesses a preeminence of ordinary power over every other Church,
• and that this jurisdictional power of the Roman Pontiff
is both episcopal and immediate. Both clergy and
faithful, of whatever rite and dignity, both singly and
collectively, are bound to submit to this power by the
duty of hierarchical subordination and true obedience,
• and this not only in matters concerning faith and
morals, but also in those which regard the discipline
and government of the Church throughout the world.”
Ecclesiology of Vatican I (cont.)
• 5: “This power of the Supreme Pontiff by no means
detracts from that ordinary and immediate power of
episcopal jurisdiction, by which bishops, who have
succeeded to the place of the apostles by appointment
of the Holy Spirit, tend and govern individually the
particular flocks which have been assigned to them…
• On the contrary, this power of theirs is asserted,
supported and defended by the Supreme and Universal
Pastor; for St. Gregory the Great says: "My honor is the
honor of the whole Church. My honor is the steadfast
strength of my brethren. Then do I receive true honor,
when it is denied to none of those to whom honor is
due."
Ecclesiology of Vatican I (cont.)
• 8: An appeal to an ecumenical council against a Pope is impossible
• 9: “So, then, if anyone says that the Roman Pontiff has merely an
office of supervision and guidance, and not the full and supreme
power of jurisdiction over the whole Church,
• and this not only in matters of faith and morals, but also in those
which concern the discipline and government of the Church
dispersed throughout the whole world;
• or that he has only the principal part, but not the absolute fullness,
of this supreme power; or that this power of his is not ordinary and
immediate both over all and each of the Churches and over all and
each of the pastors and faithful: let him be anathema.”
Ecclesiology of Vatican I (cont.)
• Ch. 4, 1: Apostolic authority includes teaching
authority
• 2: References to Constantinople IV, Lyons II and
Florence as regards Papal Primacy
• 3: “To satisfy this pastoral office, our
predecessors strove unwearyingly that the saving
teaching of Christ should be spread among all the
peoples of the world; and with equal care they
made sure that it should be kept pure and
uncontaminated wherever it was received.”
Ecclesiology of Vatican I (cont.)
• 4: “It was for this reason that the bishops of the whole world,
sometimes individually, sometimes gathered in synods, according
to the long established custom of the Churches and the pattern of
ancient usage referred to this Apostolic See those dangers
especially which arose in matters concerning the faith. This was to
ensure that any damage suffered by the faith should be repaired in
that place above all where the faith can know no failing.”
• 5: “The Roman pontiffs, too, as the circumstances of the time or the
state of affairs suggested, sometimes by summoning ecumenical
councils or consulting the opinion of the Churches scattered
throughout the world, sometimes by special synods, sometimes by
taking advantage of other useful means afforded by divine
providence, defined as doctrines to be held those things which, by
God's help, they knew to be in keeping with Sacred Scripture and
the apostolic traditions.
Ecclesiology of Vatican I (cont.)
• 6: “For the Holy Spirit was promised to the successors
of Peter not so that they might, by his revelation, make
known some new doctrine, but that, by his assistance,
they might religiously guard and faithfully expound the
revelation or deposit of faith transmitted by the
apostles….”
• 7: Why the papacy? “…so that the whole flock of Christ
might be kept away by them from the poisonous food
of error and be nourished with the sustenance of
heavenly doctrine. Thus the tendency to schism is
removed and the whole Church is preserved in unity,
and, resting on its foundation, can stand firm against
the gates of hell.”
Ecclesiology of Vatican I (cont.)
• 9: “we teach and define as a divinely revealed dogma that when the
Roman Pontiff speaks EX CATHEDRA, that is, when, in the exercise
of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians,
• in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine
concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church,
• he possesses, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed
Peter, that infallibility which the divine Redeemer willed his Church
to enjoy in defining doctrine concerning faith or morals.
• Therefore, such definitions of the Roman Pontiff are of themselves,
and not by the consent of the Church, irreformable.
Key Points of Vatican I
• The Church as a motive of credibility
• The papacy
Primacy of jurisdiction that is immediate
The pope is infallible
when speaking ex cathedra
on faith and morals to be held by all the
faithful
Why a need for a new council?
• With papal infallibility defined, some felt there would
never be the need for another council
• Vatican II was called to face a pastoral crisis that came
after two world wars and during the Cold War
• Moreover Vatican I had never finished its work!
• The council sought to proclaim the faith more
effectively to a modern world that was finding it
increasingly irrelevant
• The Liturgical Constitution provides a good example:
(1) make rites more comprehensible (2) increase in the
of the vernacular (3) facilitate deeper participation (4)
present the faith more organically