On Obedience to Local Bishops

On Obedience to Local Bishops
The website – cinops be gone – Sunday, Jan. 4, 2009

Canonist Dominican J.D. Brunetta, Faith and Family, Sep. /Oct. 08 – p. 43:
If the pope is the head of the Church, why do we need to follow the precepts of the local bishop?

Answer: The pope is “the bishop of the Church of Rome, in whom continues the office given by the Lord uniquely to Peter, the first of the apostles,” and he “is the head of the college of bishops, the Vicar of Christ, and pastor of the universal Church on earth.”

By virtue of his office, the Holy Father therefore possesses “supreme, full, immediate and universal ordinary power in the Church (Canon 331).

Yet while the pope possesses this universal power in the Church, the authority of the diocesan bishops is not merely delegated to them by the pope. Rather, the bishops, “who by divine institution succeed in the place of the apostles through the Holy Spirit who has been given to them” (Canon 375, 1), form a single college, i.e., collegial body, with the pope as its head, “by virtue of sacramental consecration and hierarchical communion with the head and members” (Canon 336). As the apostles did not receive their authority from Peter, but from Christ, so the bishops receive their authority not from the pope but through the power of the Holy Spirit.

By virtue of the fullness of the sacrament of holy order, the bishops “are constituted pastors of the Church, so that they are teachers of doctrine, priests of sacred worship, and ministers of governance” (Canon 375). As successors to the apostle, our local bishops have “all ordinary, proper, and immediate power which is required for the exercise of {their} pastoral function (Canon 381, 1)….
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“THE TASK OF THE BISHOP: HE TOO, AND ESPECIALLY HE, IS A “CO-WORKER”, THAT IS, HE DOES NOT ACT IN HIS OWN NAME BUT ALWAYS AND TOTALLY TO A “WITH”. ONLY WHEN HE ACTS “WITH” CHRIST AND “WITH” THE WHOLE BELIEVING CHURCH OF ALL TIMES AND ALL PLACES DOES HE WHAT HE IS MEANT TO DO. IT IS NOT HIS TASK TO FASHION A COMMUNITY FOR HIMSELF, BUT, RATHER TO FASHION THE CHURCH FOR CHRIST. THAT MEANS HE MUST POINT TO HIM WHO IS THE WAY BECAUSE HE IS THE TRUTH. (JN 14:6)

“For the simple reason that it comes from the truth and leads to the truth, the love that is the goal of faith is, in a very real sense the hope and redemption of the human race, A MERE COMMUNITY OF INTERESTS WITHOUT TRUTH WOULD BE JUST A DRUG, NOT A HEALING….”co-workers of the truth” is the relationship between truth and love.” Pope Benedict XVI in Co-Workers of the Truth.”

Our Holy Father’s Monthly Intentions for January: Family: - That the family may increasingly be a place of formation in charity, personal growth, and the transmission of the faith. Christian Unity: - That Christian denominations may strive for full unity so as to be more credible witnesses of the Gospel to a world in need of a “new evangelization.”

From Pope Benedict’s visit to America in 2008, truth and pro-life are the future; status quo and religious correctness are the past. Evangelize - orthodoxy.
George H. Kubeck