Victor R. Claveau, MJ
Many non-conforming Protestant Christians have an enthusiastic zeal for Scripture, considering it as the entire foundation of their faith, rejecting the doctrines of Papal Infallibility and Oral Tradition—doctrines which are clearly established in Scripture—and also dismissing the writings of the early Church Fathers as unbiblical. They predicate these prejudices on the Lutheran teachings. In actuality, as mentioned by Right Reverend Henry Graham, the Bible is, foremost, a Catholic book. It was written by Catholics for Catholics. Scripture was never intended to be utilized in the absence of Sacred Tradition nor without the authority of the Magisterium. The Holy Spirit set forth Sacred Scripture within the framework of the Catholic Church precisely so that the passages would be interpreted infallibly, having conferred upon His Church alone this sacred gift.
Christ is the Founder and the Pastor of His Church, bestowing upon it an authority superior to all societies on earth when He declared, “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it.”[1] The Church received her commission to teach directly from Jesus. “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”[2] This is the preamble of the Church of Jesus Christ, giving authenticity and potency to its credibility. As mentioned earlier, issuing forth from this was His command: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”[3] To ensure that His commission would not expire with the death of the Apostles, Christ immediately added, “and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.”[4]
It is therefore implicitly understood that Jesus’ promise was to remain with His Church until the end of earthly time and that she, His Bride, would speak His Word through her lips, words which are infallible, binding, and authoritative. Hence, He pronounced this sentence against any person who refuses to accept the Church’s teachings: “If he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”[5] Our Savior demonstrated absolute confidence in the teaching authority of the Church of His lineage. He indicated no dissimilarity between His authority and that of His bishops and priests: “He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me, and he who rejects me rejects him who sent me.”[6]
Saint Paul, the faithful Apostle of Christ and archetypical interpreter of His doctrines, took several occasions to establish the Church’s authority in the persons of her ministers appointed by Christ to be our guides in spiritual matters. While traveling to Jerusalem, he assembled the clergy of Ephesus, and he said to them: “Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of the Lord which he obtained with the blood of his own.”[7]
Feeding and being fed and governing and being governed have a reciprocal relationship. The same divine authority that bestows the governing power to the pastors of the Church requires a quid pro quo submission (obedience) of their flock. On this principle, Saint Paul in his Epistle to the Hebrews, instructs them on the critical lesson of submission to their spiritual guides: “Obey your leaders and submit to them; for they are keeping watch over your souls, as men who will have to give account. Let them do this joyfully, and not sadly, for that would be of no advantage to you.”[8] And, speaking of the same guides, he commanded the Hebrews to “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God; consider the outcome of their life, and imitate their faith.”[9] [martyrdom]
In his Epistle to the Ephesians, Saint Paul tells us that Christ had given to His Church “pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith…so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the cunning of men, by their craftiness in deceitful wiles.”[10] Here, Saint Paul teaches that the pastors of the Church are appointed by God to be our guides in Faith and that He established this method of uniting all of His children in one and the same belief to the end, “so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me. And I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one.”[11]
From this, we deduce that these descendent guides will continue in the Church of Christ unceasingly until the end of the world and until we all come into the unity of Faith. It is clear, then, that all controversies of belief are to be submitted to the judgment of that Church which Christ had established.
Thus, the authority of the Church in her bishops is established outright by explicit mention in the most lucid and frank texts of Scripture. It is evident that the sincerity of the Protestant Reformers, who, while they claimed Sola Scriptura, acted openly against that very rule by rejecting the authority that it expressly recommends. We cannot rationally form any other conclusion than that Luther’s self-proclaimed demonic visions caused him to cast the cloak of subversion over the entire frame of Church government. For all the show of Protestant zeal for Scripture and the Word of God (which was the Protestant cry in the beginning of the Revolt), their underhanded attempts were to bring these guides, installed by God, underfoot. And thus, the Reformers perverted Scripture with aberrant explanations of Scriptural texts, wrestled from the sense intended by the Holy Spirit.
[1] Matthew 16:18
[2] Matthew 28:18.
[3]Ibid. 28:19.
[4] Ibid. 28:20.
[5] Ibid. 8:17.
[6] Luke 10:16.
[7] Acts 20:28.
[8] Hebrews 13:17.
[9] Ibid. 13:7.
[10] Ephesians 4:11-14.
[11] John 18: 21-22.