01-03-2007 - Traces, n. 3 Fr. Giussani, the Bishops, the Popes Fr. Giussani’s fidelity to the authority of the Pope marks the life of the Movement: some EXCERPTS “Religious Awareness in Modern Man” Communio 25 (Spring 1998), pp. 134-135 Christianity is an irreducible event, an objective presence that desires to reach man; until the very end, it means to be a provocation to him, and to offer a judgment of him. Jesus said to the Apostles after His Resurrection, “Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the world” (Mt 28:20). Christianity will have a dramatic and decisive bearing on man’s life only if it is understood in accordance with its originality and its factual density, which, two thousand years ago, had the form of a single man. Yet even when He was still living, He also had the face of people whom He had brought together, and then sent out two by two, to do what He had been doing, and what He had told them to do; they came back together and returned to Him. Later, united as one, this people went out to the entire known world to present that Fact. The face of that single man today is the unity of believers, who are the sign of Him in the world, or as Saint Paul says, who are His Body, His mysterious Body–also called “the people of God”–guided and guaranteed by a living person, the Bishop of Rome. If the Christian fact is not recognized and grasped in its proper originality, it becomes nothing more than a ponderous occasion for all sorts of interpretations and opinions, or perhaps even for works; but then it lies alongside of, or more often subordinate to, all of life’s other promptings. The Journey to Truth Is an Experience Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2006, pp. 73-75 Sole authority The supreme authority is the one in which we find the meaning of all our experience. Jesus Christ is this supreme authority, and it is His Spirit who makes us understand this, opens us up to faith in Him and His person. “Just as the Father has sent me so do I send you” (Jn 20:21). The Apostles and their successors (the Pope and the bishops) constitute, in history, the living continuation of the authority who is Christ. In their dynamic succession in history and their multiplication throughout the world, Christ’s mystery is proposed ceaselessly, clarified without errors, defended without compromise. Therefore, they constitute the place, like a reliable and effervescent spring, where humanity can draw on the true meaning of its own existence, probing ever deeper. What genius is to the cry of human need, what prophecy is to our cry of expectancy, so the Apostles and their successors are to announcing the response. But just as the true answer is always perfectly specific and concrete with respect to the expectancy–which is inevitably vague and subject to illusions–so are they, like an absolute and reliable rock, infallible: “You are Peter and on this rock I shall build my Church.” Their authority not only constitutes the sure criterion for that vision of the universe and history that alone explains their (i.e., the universe’s and history’s) meaning; it is also vital–it steadfastly stimulates a true culture and persistently points to a total vision. It inexorably condemns any exaltation of the particular and idealization of the contingent; that is, it condemns all error and idolatry. The authority of the Pope and bishops, therefore, is the ultimate guide on the pilgrimage towards a genuine sharing of our lives, towards a true civilization. Where that authority is not vital and vigilant, or where it is under attack, the human pathway becomes complicated, ambiguous, and unstable; it veers towards disaster, even when on the exterior it seems powerful, flourishing, and astute, as is the case today. Where that authority is active and respected, the historic pilgrimage is confidently renewed with serenity; it is deep, genuinely human, even when the expressive methods and dynamics of sharing lives are roughshod and difficult. Still today it is the gift of the Spirit that allows us to discover the profound meaning of Ecclesiastical Authority as a supreme directive on the human path. Here is the origin of that ultimate abandonment and of that conscious obedience to it–this is why it is not the locus of the Law but of Love. One cannot understand the experience of that definitive devotion that binds the “faithful” to Authority without taking into consideration the influence of the Spirit, and that devotion often affirms itself on the Cross of a mortification of the drive of our own genius or our plans for life. Why the Church? Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2001, pp. 169-175; 230-231 a) The Ordinary Magisterium This is to say: fidelity to the ecclesial community is the first way in which the true message that Christ came to bring to the world comes to pass. Traditionally, this method is expressed by the phrase: ordinary magisterium. The Christian arrives at the divine truths the Church proposes in an ordinary way, through the very life of the community. However, the one condition for this is that this community must be truly ecciesial, that is, united to the bishop who, in his turn, is supposed to be united with the Bishop of Rome, the Pope. This is the normal source of ultimate, sure knowledge; not by theological study or biblical exegesis which will be tools in the hands of guiding authorities but through the shared way of life of the Church, bound to the ordinary magisterium of the Pope and the bishops in communion with him. b) The Extraordinary Magisterium A second way exists for the truths of the faith to be communicated in the Church, and this is when its teaching assumes an extraordinary position–when the Pope, that is, intends to state something with all the authority at his command. This can happen in a solemn, historical way, by, for example, convening an Ecumenical Council, the assembly of all the bishops under the guidance of the Bishop of Rome, or, the Pontiff might intervene personally in an initiative called an ex cathedra definition. In the life of the Church, as regards the communication of the truth, authority is like a channel, like a river bed, with a twofold function. The first is an ideal function whereby the Church indicates the direction of the river towards its mouth. In the second, the Church delimits, like a river bank; it must judge when a statement or teaching goes against or beyond the flow, flooding the banks whose purpose is to keep the water coursing in the direction of the ideal. Firstly, we should remember that the Pope, as the ultimate point of reference for the Church, is a proven fact, the documented experience of the Christian community from just a few years after Christ’s death. But, of what does this infallibility consist? Primarily, it is a characteristic born of the fact that God communicates Himself through the Church. It is not, therefore, some capacity of man, but rather a prerogative of the power of God, which manifests itself by guaranteeing His Spirit to His whole Church, under the guidance of Peter’s successor. Apostolicity Moreover, just as Christ’s will was to bind His work and His presence in the world to the Apostles and in doing so He indicated one of them as the authoritative point of reference, so, too, is the Church bound to Peter’s and the Apostles’ successors, the Pope and his bishops. This succession, historically provable as far as the Bishop of Rome is concerned, is unitary and uninterrupted precisely through the action of the Bishop of Rome. The value of this apostolic succession lies in the nature of the miracle it confers on the phenomenon of the Church itself. And in the Church’s historical dimension, the greatest miracle of all is its constructive resilience throughout the centuries, precisely in the expressions of the ideal and in the structures of experience and organization, all of which seem to be (and usually are) essentially contingent. This miracle constitutes the fact that the message of Jesus has taken root in the fiber of history: “In all truth I tell you, whoever keeps My word will never see death” (Jn 8:51).