Apostolic Office: Sacrament of Christ

Abstract

THE FIFTH session of the International Theological Commission (ITC), October 5-11, 1973, discussed a document on the subject of the nature of office and non-Catholic ordained ministry. It was remanded to a subcommittee for revision and published by it with approval of the Holy See. This text offers a traditional view of office, including several formulations which seem to favor physical through a chain of ordinations going back to the apostles. On the other hand, it contains a more positive assessment of Protestant ordained ministry than was made at Vatican II. While Vatican II recognized elements of church outside the structure of the Roman Catholic Church and explicitly referred this to Protestant communities, it only stated ordained ministry in the Reformation tradition lacked the sacrament of orders. The Council could have affirmed in the measure these communities are churches, in an analogous sense, they have a correspondingly qualified ministry. An explicit denial of this would have made the ecclesiological statements about Protestant communities, especially the assertion the Spirit uses them as means of salvation, purely abstract and theoretical. Many Catholic theologians have pointed out such statements are unintelligible, indeed contradictory, without a corresponding recognition of the ministry of word and sacrament. The ITC subcommittee, taking the logical step, affirms Protestant ordained ministry possesses a truly spiritual content and participates in the apostolicity of the Church. However, it is not considered to be equivalent to office because of the lack of the sacrament of orders. A key passage of the ITC text describes apostolic succession (of ministry) as that aspect of the nature and life of the Church which shows the actual dependence of the community in relation to Christ 1 L'Apostolicite de l'eglise et la apostolique, Esprit et vie 84 (1974) 433-40 (cf. also Documentation catholique, July 7, 1974, pp. 612-18). Approbation of the Holy See indicates the content is not opposed to Catholic faith. Cf. introductory remark of Msgr. J. Medina Estevez (ibid., p. 433). Ibid., p. 440. Lumen gentium, no. 8. 4 Unitatis reintegratio, nos. 3, 19-23. Ibid., no. 22. *Ibid., no. 3. 7 E.g., W. Kasper, Zur Frage der Anerkennung der Amter in den lutherischen Kirchen, Theologische Quartalschrift 151 (1971) 97-109. 8 Cf. comments of Estevez (η. 1 above) p. 435.