Folia Theologica et Canonica 10. 32/24 (2021)
Ius canonicum
66 PÉTER ERDŐ It is a valid observation for all three functions that Christ and the whole Church acts within them, but each member takes his/her part in rather different ways. This difference is due to the various states of their sacramentally established status24. It is also striking that the Christian texts of the first centuries are much more concerned with the mission of the apostles as the mutual task of the faithful25 and then with that of the bishops as representatives of Christ and in a sense as his delegates. Already in the earliest times a certain balance between charism and institution was outlined. Charisms without the Church seemed just as incoherent and precarious as clerical functions without the Spirit26. Thus there was no irreconcilable tension between charism and institution. For the task of governing an institution implies a ministry and is itself a charism. Therefore, the credibility of the prophets had to be judged by the communities and their accountable leaders27 28. 2. Synodality as the “sensus fidei fidelium” or the means of understanding the “consensus totius Ecclesiae” According to the theological conviction described above, which considers the continuation of Christ’s threefold mission as the task of the whole Church, the faithful’s sense of belief and the consensus of the entire Church in a certain subject of faith or morals have been regarded since the ancient times as a faithbased knowledge resource (locus theologicus). The Augustinian aphorism concerning the universal Church which said that ‘the world’s judgement is secure’ (securus iudicat orbis terrarum)TM, was the principal concept that led Saint John Henry Newman to adopt the Catholic faith, as he recounts in detail in his Apologia Pro Vita Sua29, written in 1864. The Church, as the living and Christi und der Kirche. Zur Entstehung und Entwicklung der Trilogien, Frankfurt 1982. Fernandez, A., Munera Christi et Munera Ecclesiae. Historia de una teória, Pamplona 1982. idem, Munera Christi, in DGDC V. 508-516. 24 Cf. Conc. Vat. II, Const, dogm. Lumen gentium 10b: „Sacerdotium autem commune fidelium et sacerdotium ministeriale seu hierarchicum, licet essentia et non gradu tantum differant, ad invicem tamen ordinantur”. 25 See already Clemens, Ep. ad Corinth. 44,3. Ignatius, Ep. ad Magn. 3,1-2; Ep. ad Trail. 3,1; Ep. ad Ephes. 5,3. Cf. e.g., Forestell, J. T., As Ministers of Christ. The Christological Dimension of Ministry in the New Testament. An exegetical and theological Study, New York-Mahwah 1991. Erdő, P., Le sacré dans la logique interne d’un Systeme juridique. Les fondements théologiques du droit canonique, Paris 2009. 81-84, n. 79. 26 Cf. Burtchaell, J. T., From synagogue to church. Public services and offices in the earliest Christian communities, Cambridge 1992. 344. 27 Cf. ICor 14,29-30. Erdő P., A presbiteri testület lelke. Adalékok a szinodalitás eszméjének fegyelmi és hittani előzményeihez, in Kánonjog 22 (2020) 7-18 = idem, Az Egyházjog lelke. Kánonjog a társadalomban és a hívő közösségben, Budapest 2021.273-286, especially 276. 28 Augustinus, Contra Epist. Parmen. 3,24. 29 Ed. e.g., Penguin Classics, London 1994.
