Writer's Wednesday - Avery Dulles, SJ

The term "Magisterium" designates not on the function of the official teaching but also the body of persons who carry on this function, the official teachers...

The offices of teaching, sanctifying, and ruling are closely interrelated in the Church, since all of them are exercised by the same persons with a view to the same end--the salvation of souls...

Unlike civil society, the Church is a society of faith. Its members are united by professing the same body of revealed truth, expressed in creeds and dogmas. To reject the faith of the community is to exclude oneself from the Church as a society. The teaching of the Magisterium therefore has an obligatory force resembling that of a law or precept. But the two are not the same. The ruling power calls for obedience; the Magisterium calls for free, internal assent. The ruling power speaks first of all to the will; the Magisterium, to the intellect.

In the atmosphere of contemporary liberal democratic societies, the very idea of an authoritative Magisterium provokes misgivings. People tend to think they have both the right and the duty to make up their own minds about what to believe in matters of religion. They may be willing to take advice from theologians and biblical scholars who have professional qualifications, but they balk at the idea that some body of pastors without specialized training should presume to tell them what they must believe....

The Catholic Church believes that Christ delivered his revelation to the Church as a corporate body. Having received the word of God, the Church has an inalienable responsibility to hand it on, explain it, and defend it against errors...

In establishing the Magisterium, Christ responded to a real human need...

It is logical to suppose that if God deems it important to give a revelation, he will make provision to assure its conservation. If he did not set up reliable organs of transmission, the revelation would in a few generations be partly forgotten and inextricably commingled with human speculations, as happened, for instance, in Gnosticism. The New Testament and the early Fathers attest that Jesus conferred upon his Apostles and their successors the authority to teach doctrine in his name. [Jesus] promised to remain present with the apostolic leadership to the end of time, and he conferred the Holy Spirit to assist the leadership in remaining faithful. Just as the Christians of the first century had to rely on the word of the Apostles and their fellow-workers, so the Christians of later generations must continue to rely on the living authority of those who succeed to the place of the apostles.

The authority of the Magisterium is closely linked with the structure of Christian faith as personal self-surrender to the word of God. Faith is never the mere self-assertion of believers but an acceptance by them of something received from others--in the last analysis, from God. The faithful submit to the word as something higher and more reliable than their own personal insights...

The acceptance of a faith proclaimed by a divinely commissioned witness is not, as some imagine, an abdication of person responsibility. It is, on the contrary, a preeminently free and personal act. Freedom is given to us so that we may personally seek and embrace the truth, committing ourselves to live according to it. To withhold assent from the testimony of properly authenticated witnesses to revelation would be a misuse of freedom.

---Avery Cardinal Dulles, sj, Magisterium. (2007)