This week on the solemnity of St. Joseph the opening prayer of Mass said, "May his prayer help your Church be an equally faithful guardian of your mysteries."
That prayer succinctly expresses the reason why the Lord ordained that his Church on earth be hierarchical. To preserve the mysterious and salvific nature of the Church, to see to it that the people of God receive the gifts promised by the Lord, to guarantee that the sacraments, and especially the Eucharist, be faithfully and fully celebrated, to lead the people in truth, a truth guaranteed by teachers who are "sent" as the apostles and their successors, all this demands that this Church, the Body of Christ, his holy people, be constituted by the sending of the first apostles and their successors "to be shepherds of the Church until the end of time."
The shaping of the Church around the apostles and their successors, the bishops, was not a sociological phenomenon. It is a theological truth because it reflects what God willed and his son called into being. The bishops existed before the formation of the New Testament and indeed they are the guarantors that the books of the Bible are the true and authentic Word of God given to the people. The third chapter of Lumen Gentium makes this abundantly clear. "The bishops received the charge of the community, presiding in God's stead over the flock of which they are the shepherds in that they are teachers of doctrine, ministers of sacred worship and holders of office in government." This leadership of service to the people of God is a continuation of the Lord's care for his flock and must be exercised in that same spirit of Christ who "came to serve and not to be served." The Fathers of the Council put it this way: "The sacred synod consequently teaches that the bishops have by divine institution taken the place of the apostles as pastors of the Church in such wise that whoever listens to them is listening to Christ and whoever despises them despises Christ and him who sent Christ."
While the pope has "full, supreme and universal power over the whole Church," the bishops "with Peter and under Peter," form a college of bishops by virtue of their ordination which confers on them a sacred character. The individual bishop is "the visible source and foundation of the unity of his own particular Church" for which he must ever exercise his own solicitude, a solicitude that extends in care beyond his own local Church to the Church universal. Yet the principal task of the bishop is always to shepherd the Church to which he has been sent and ultimately that mission to shepherd the Church entrusted to him comes from the mission given him by the Lord, "so that all may attain to salvation through faith, baptism and the observance of the commandments."
This office of bishop which is willed by the Lord for the good of the people is "in the strict sense of the term a service." No part of that service is more central to their office than preaching the Word of God. In that role the bishops are "authentic teachers, that is teachers endowed with the authority of Christ" who, so long as they teach in communion with the Roman pontiff "are to be revered by all as witnesses of divine and Catholic truth." It is too much at this point to go into the very complicated issue of infallibility which Lumen Gentium sets forth in ยง 25 of this chapter on the hierarchy. However, the council fathers clearly and helpfully delineate the nature of infallibility as exercised by the pope and by the bishops in union with him as a gift of the Lord for the good of the life of the Church.
What we do need always to recognize is the role of sanctifying that charges the bishop to lead the local Church especially in the celebration of the Eucharist. Here we encounter the true Church of Christ with all her members united in worship and with a special regard for the poor for whom the Lord shows a preferential love. The Eucharist is the heart of the Church and from it flow all the other sacraments. Here the bishop is called to preside with his priests and people gathered around him, making a visible sacrament of unity and charity to the glory of God and the service to the world "that the world might believe."
As teachers and sanctifiers of their people, bishops are called as well to lead and govern the Church to which they have been sent. While the pope always has "immediate jurisdiction" over the whole Church and all of her parts, the bishop of a local Church is not simply a "vicar" of the pope. Rather, bishops "exercise the power which they possess in their own right." That does not give the bishop some sort of "right" to live in his own world or be unmindful of his people. Just the opposite! "He should not refuse to listen to his people whose welfare" he is called to promote with an attitude of care and solicitude for the people of his diocese as well as all the people for whom he can show his loving care. This calls for a humble and willing service to his people, and it calls on the people to work willingly with him in a mutual attachment of truth and charity.
The priests are key to the living out of this vision of the local Church. While they depend on their bishop for the exercise of their holy orders, they are his closest collaborators and his brothers, sharing the mission of teaching, sanctifying and leading the people entrusted to them. The council calls priests "prudent cooperators of the episcopal college" and informs us that "they assemble the people of God as a brotherhood fired with a single ideal." In this way they form one "presbyterate" with the bishop, a college united in loving service to the people whom they love as their own brothers and sisters in Christ.
Deacons, brought back into the pastoral life of the Church by the council, are called to work with them in ministry, a ministry of service and of charity.
In this way the hierarchical nature of the Church can function, as Christ willed, to be the instrument of priestly service for the unity of the Church and for the building up of the Body of Christ. Thus, the whole people of God can give witness to God's love made manifest in the death and resurrection of his son, a witness that makes the Church a sacrament of unity with God as she seeks to be a sacrament that builds up the unity of God with all humankind.