Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Fides Service) - After meditating at the past few audiences on the significance of Tradition in the Church- “which is the permanent presence of the word and the life of Jesus among his people”, on Wednesday 10 May the Holy Father Benedict XVI dedicated his teaching to the subject of Apostolic Succession. “The word to be present needs a person, a witness - the Pope explained -. This produces reciprocity: on the one hand the word needs the person, but on the other the person, the witness, is tied to the word which is entrusted to him not invented by him. This reciprocity between content - word of God, life of the Lord - and the person who carries it forward, is characteristic of the Church’s structure”.
The Lord himself called the Twelve who represented the future People of God. These Twelve, first of all restore their number calling Matthias to take the place of Jude and then “gradually they associate others in the tasks entrusted to them to carry on their ministry”… “Just as at the start of the condition of apostle there was a call and a sending by the Risen Lord -said Pope Benedict XVI -, so the successive calling and sending of others will come, through the power of the Holy Spirit, from those already constituted in the apostolic ministry. This is how this ministry, known from the second generation onwards as the ministry of bishops, will continue”. Explaining the meaning of the term “bishop”, the Pope said it comes from the Greek episkopos and means, “one who looks from above, who ‘over’ sees, who looks with the heart”. This function of the bishop evolved and developed with time “guided by the Spirit of God who assisted the Church as she discerned authentic forms of apostolic succession, ever more clearly defined in the plurality of experiences and charismatic and ministerial forms present in the early Christian communities”.
The link between the College of Bishops and the community of the first Apostles is understood first of all in line with continuity in history the Pope said, adding “continuity of succession guarantees the perseverance, within the ecclesial community, of the college of apostles whom Christ gathers round himself. However this continuity, which we see first of all in the continuity in history of the ministers, must also be understood in a spiritual sense, because apostolic succession in the ministry is considered a privileged place for the Holy Spirit to work and to be handed on”. Here the Pope quoted St Ireneus of Lyon who spoke of the Church “founded and constituted in Rome by the most glorious Apostles Peter and Paul” and the Tradition of the faith, “which through her comes to us from the Apostles by means of the succession of bishops”. “The succession of bishops - verified on the basis of communion with that of Rome - is therefore the criterion of the permanence in the local Churches of the Tradition of the apostolic faith which from the beginning through this channel has come down to us".
This testimony of the early Church, Pope Benedict XVI explained, tells us that “the apostolic nature of the ecclesial communion consists in fidelity to the faith and practice of the Apostles through whom is guaranteed the Church’s historical and spiritual link with Christ... what the Apostles represent in the relationship between the Lord Jesus and the early Church is likewise represented by ministerial succession in the relationship between the early Church and the Church today. This is not simply a material chain, but rather history as a tool used by the Spirit to render the Lord Jesus, Head of his people present by means of those ordained to the ministry through the Bishops’ prayer and laying on of hands”. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 11/5/2006, righe 41, parole 600)
