The Bishop’s Participation in the Threefold Munera: Comparing the Appeal to the Pattern of the Tria Munera at Vatican II and in the Ecumenical Dialogues

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* Faculty of Theology, Catholic University of Louvain. 1 This article will especially focus on LG 25–27. For an analysis of CD 11–21 see the article of our deceased seminar member Georges Tavard, “The Task of a Bishop in his Diocese: Christus Dominus 11–21,” The Jurist 68 (2008) 361–381. 2 Peter Hünermann, “Theologischer Kommentar zur dogmatischen Konstitution über die Kirche Lumen Gentium,” in Herders theologischer Kommentar zum Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzil, II, ed. Peter Hünermann & Jochen Hilberath (Freiburg: Herder, 2004) 263–582. 3 Cf. Myriam Wijlens, “ ‘Peter and Paul Seminar’: A Follow up by Theologians and Canon Lawyers to the Groupe des Dombe’s Publication For the Conversion of the Churches,” The Jurist 64 (2004) 6–20. 31 The Jurist 69 (2009) 31–58 THE BISHOP’S PARTICIPATION IN THE THREEFOLD MUNERA: COMPARING THE APPEAL TO THE PATTERN OF THE TRIA MUNERA AT VATICAN II AND IN THE ECUMENICAL DIALOGUES Peter De Mey* The work of the Peter and Paul Seminar presented in this and the previous issue of The Jurist focuses on the role of the bishop in the local church. This contribution focuses on the pattern selected by the council fathers to introduce the teaching of the Catholic Church on the bishop as teacher, liturgical presider, and pastor within the local Church. Vatican II made use of the figure of the tria munera to structure its reflections on the people of God and its constitutive parts, and thus also paid attention to the bishops’ participation in the threefold office of Christ in both Lumen gentium 25–27 (LG) and Christus Dominus 11–21 (CD).1 This rereading of LG 25–27 also hopes to serve the goal of introducing the reader to the new Herder commentary on the documents of Vatican II which unfortunately is available only in German.2 Since it is an essential part of the methodology of the Peter and Paul Seminar to discuss ecclesiological topics from an ecumenical perspective,3 the author will, in a second step, investigate whether the pattern of the tria munera has been received in the ecumenical dialogue—implicitly or explicitly—to reflect on the ministry of the people of God and of those exercising episkope in the Church. The author will limit himself to the study of a number of agreed statements from bilateral and multilateral dialogues in which the Roman Catholic Church officially takes part. The ecclesiological statements of Faith and Order, and a number of texts from the Roman 4 For this historical overview the author is partially indebted to a doctoral dissertation on the relationship between the ordained priesthood and the priesthood of all believers in Roman Catholic ecclesiology, defended in 2006 at the Catholic University of Leuven by Stefaan Franco. 5 For more information on the tria munera in the Scriptures and the early tradition, see Juan Alfaro, Die Heilsfunktionen Christi als Offenbarer, Herr und Priester. Mysterium Salutis 3/1 (Einsiedeln: Benziger, 1970). 6 Biblical references are taken from The Holy Bible containing the Old and New Testaments . New Revised Standard Version: Anglicized Text (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). Catholic-Anglican and the Roman Catholic-Orthodox dialogue seemed most helpful for the question under discussion. I Vatican II on the Bishops’Participation in the Tria Munera 1.The History of the Concept This paper will concentrate on the way the bishops participate in the threefold office of Christ. By way of introduction, however, it seems relevant to highlight briefly the history of the concept and the way it is used in the documents of Vatican II in general.4 The New Testament neither speaks in a systematic way about the threefold office of Christ; nor characterizes the mission of the disciples or of the leaders of the early Christian communities by means of this terminology .5 In the New Testament writings, the terms prophet, teacher, and king, however, are more often applied to Christ than to the Christian community and its leaders. Only the Letter to the Hebrews presents Christ as priest, and it insists on the continuity and discontinuity with the Levitic priesthood. Finally, in the New Testament no one is called king other than the Risen Lord. Thus, it...