‘Learn from me!” the Savior implores us in Matthew 11:29. This is the only place in the Gospels wherein the Teacher, the Master, the Rabbi commands his “learners”—English uses the Latin-based word disciples, but it means “learner” all the same—to learn from him precisely.
Elsewhere he uses this imperative to tell them to go and learn the meaning of the words “I will have mercy and not sacrifice” and to “learn a parable of the fig tree.” But in these examples he commands them to learn from their own observation of other persons and things. In Matthew 11:29, he enjoins them to learn from him, from his example.
We will return to this. Just a hint, though, to carry you through to the end: learning from him means not only from his authoritative words but also by his efficacious example.
If we were to ask a Catholic priest or educated layman of the Middle Ages, “What is the Magisterium of the Church?”, his answer would be that it is the office of someone who had a licensed qualification to instruct clerics in Sacred Scripture or theology—in short, a seminary professor with a degree recognized by Rome or the local bishop. This, with one exception that we will examine later, is the only meaning given the word by St. Thomas Aquinas in the ten or so places he uses it.
In our time, if we were to ask the same question, the answer would be that the Magisterium is the Church’s teaching office residing principally in the pope and the bishops in communion with him. If we were to then ask if masters of theology were part of this ecclesiastical Magisterium, the answer would be no. Theology professors are subject to the Magisterium of the pope and bishops, and this teaching office does not reside in them; they simply represent it by the official recognition by Church authority of their role as instructors.
This distinction was not always so carefully maintained. In the Middle Ages, professors of theology from the great faculties of Europe were sometimes included as fathers in various ecumenical councils, even if they were not bishops, just as cardinals who were only simple priests and not bishops were council fathers as recently as the first sessions of the Second Vatican Council.
It is perhaps for this reason that the word magisterium was seldom used to describe the Church’s teaching authority before that same council. It was used, but it was not, as it commonly is now, for example, a key concept in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Indeed, the “old” Roman Catechism of the Council of Trent doesn’t use the word at all.
Illustration of this point can be seen in the fact that in the most commonly used and authoritative scholarly dictionaries of theology and Catholic matters in general before or immediately after Vatican II, such as the old and “New” Catholic Encyclopedia and even more tellingly in the famous Dictionnaire de Theologie Catholique, there are no articles on the topic “Magisterium.” The expression was reserved for explicit treatment in dictionaries of canon law. The word still carried strong connotations of professional or juridical qualifications rather than theological ones regarding the nature of the Church’s office of teaching.
How can we know for sure?
What is the reason for this development? It is a modern one, practically of the last hundred years or perhaps a little more, and it began to be used widely in the 1960s. The title of a recent book by Catholic Answers’ own Jimmy Akin, Teaching with Authority, gives us a hint. In this book, Jimmy gives a painstaking treatment of the different levels of doctrinal definition and assent.
The key modern anxiety from the beginning of the wider modern period has been the problem the problem of how we can have any certain knowledge—how we can know for sure and judge with certainty, especially about things that cannot be expressed with mathematical precision; or things that exist beyond the limits of space and time, the immaterial and supra-sensible.
This is why there has been so much interest in historical research, replacing tradition, and a general suspicion of things that cannot be established by repeatable experiences. Thus, the miraculous, the supernatural, the metaphysical are generally ruled out.
Therein lies a great problem for modern people. Our faith, the contents of which are in large part about these very things, is to be accepted by us as certain on the authority of God himself, attested to by miracles and directing us to a life that goes far beyond what the senses can judge.
“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him,” the apostle tells us (Cor. 2:9). St. John says, “No one has ever seen God” ( John 1:18). The Savior says, “Blessed are they who have not seen and yet believe” ( John 20:29).
In fact, in modern times, even the reliability of the senses and reason has been called into doubt by discoveries about the cosmos that contradict our common use of the appearances of things. All the more is the authority of the Faith called into question when even the simplest judgments of the senses are debunked, each day as the sun “rises” and “sets.” And now we are at the point where even the words male and female have no stable meaning!
The Church refuses to be an instrument of this intellectual “progress” that jettisons anything divine or supernatural. But neither is she (yes, she!) inclined to give in to naïve or vain beliefs such as gnostics or theosophists or visionary enthusiasts who find pseudo-spiritual things everywhere.
Thus, the Church has a Magisterium—that is, an accredited, authoritative teaching office whereby what the Lord Christ has revealed for our salvation is defined and protected from error, so that we may adhere to what the Lord has revealed.
No love without charity
But, as the Romans said, “Non scholae sed vitae discimus” (“We learn not for school but for life”). The point of the teaching office is our laying hold of Christ, and this means knowing who he is, who we are, and how we are to approach him. But even more important is the fact that he really is, that we are utterly his, and that he loves us inutterably.
At the Last Supper, before he denied the Lord, St. Peter heard these words: “I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail; and when you have turned again, strengthen your brethren” (Luke 22:32). Who heard the thrice-repeated question, “Do you love me . . . ?. . . Feed my lambs. . . . Feed my sheep” ( John 21:15-17). ( John 21:17). It is this latter encounter that the Church calls the “primacy” of Peter, who, as St. Ignatius of Antioch says, “presides in love” from the see of Rome.
At our very first reception of divine grace, the moment our sins were forgiven and we were made dwelling places of the Holy Trinity—that is, at our baptism or subsequent conversions—and whenever we have lost this grace through sin and have recuperated it by the grace of repentance, the first grace that is the form and the very life of all the others is the grace of divine love, of charity. Yes, one who is living in mortal sin can, by God’s mercy, still have faith, but this faith is dead; it is no real virtue; it cannot save us without love, without the Spirit of charity.
Thus it is that the Magisterium, which teaches us what we are to believe with the submission of our minds, is at the service of a deeper rule: that of love, which is the cause of an orthodox faith whereby we are saved.
This truth goes a long way in calming our anxieties about being uncertain about things. The promise made that the gates of hell would not prevail against the Church founded on Peter’s faith in the Rock, which in Christ is a promise of love, and the primacy of Peter is a primacy of love. It is only in this way that it is a primacy of truth.
“Feed me, thy little sheep!”
When the Savior gives his positive commands of love, they are that Peter should feed and tend his flock, when Christ puts things under their negative aspect, then he says, “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail; and when you have turned again, strengthen your brethren.”
Peter’s unfailing faith is in view of his service of the flock in love. As the Lord told St. Peter, he tells us that the evil one seeks to shake the faith of Peter. He has done so in the past, and he is doing so now. Who can deny it?
The scandals and confusion are evident, and the sheep sometimes receive a haughty and bitter response to their cries of dismay. They are visited with even further disedification, and they feel like saying, “Holy Father, do you love me? Or are my concerns ignored or mocked or spurned? Feed me, thy little sheep!”
We might well ask how the Gentile converts felt when Peter avoided them so as not to eat with them until St. Paul, his fellow bishop, rebuked him. How much like sheep without a shepherd they must have felt! Yet this sad behavior on Peter’s part led to a correction and to his splendid witness and fiery epistles and his heavenly glory.
If this is what the Holy Father needs, it will be gift of the love of the Savior to him. It will not be a hysterical attack but a plea after the example of the saints. In any case, we have the assurance that the gates of hell will not prevail, no matter how difficult things become.
In the meantime, we are not allowed to ignore or spurn the Vicar of Christ but rather must pray for him and rejoice in all the good he may do. Sacred Scripture has forewarned us of struggles such as we endure now. Leave the severe corrections to the bishops and the occasional saint such as Catherine of Siena who may arise, moved by the influence of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. It is for us to pray and persevere in the faith we have received from the saints.
Dismayed and saddened
But how still are we to know what to believe? Are we to deny that Our Lady participated in the objective redemption of the human race? Are we to approve of Christians’ having the marital embrace outside of the sacrament of marriage? Are we to wink at conclusions even further from the norm of the Church’s teaching on chastity? Are we to cooperate with assisted suicide, infant exposure, contraception, and false worship?
We know the answer to these questions. None of us has been asked to ascribe to any false teachings thus far. Like the Gentile converts and St. Peter, we have been merely dismayed and saddened. It was clear that Peter did not actually believe in the Judaizing errors he appeared to approve or tolerate, and we are bound to doubt that the present Holy Father holds to the errors proposed around and about him.
These misfortunes have nothing to do with the pope’s use of his teaching office, for should he hold to any of these errors formally and publicly, he would have to leave the Catholic Church, just as Peter would have ceased to be a Christian had he really taught and held that the Old Law is still binding. These things touch on matters long ago decided. And I for one do not believe the Holy Father holds such convictions that are offensive to pious ears at the least.
The spirit of confusion is at work here. Let us ascribe to that spirit of evil the confusion we undergo and not only to the poor human instruments the Lord uses to govern his Church, lest we join the “accuser of the brethren.” Here we are entitled to say, unless we are one of the Holy Father’s successors, “Who am I to judge?”
In the meantime, I would suggest using Jimmy Akin’s book to come to an understanding of how painstaking and careful the Church’s Magisterium is, far removed from confusion and lack of clarity. The particular terms used may change from age to age as the profile of the Holy See and the episcopate changes. But there will always be fine distinctions at work in difficult questions, for the peace of the faithful, however learned or however simple they may be.
A further suggestion that exemplifies the way in which the Magisterium has functioned cautiously in the past, regarding not only theological opinions but also real revealed dogmas, is the short book recently back in print of the great Dom Prosper Guéranger, On the Immaculate Conception, which covers the whole history of this radiant dogma. May Our Lady inspire many to read and understand it, especially as regards truths as yet to be defined regarding her!
Professor and shepherd
St. Thomas Aquinas introduces a distinction between the teaching office of the mere professor and that of a shepherd. The former can be certain that he knows his subject; the latter needs more than knowledge. He needs charity:
There are spiritual dangers that loom over those who hold the place of the magisterium. Yet knowledge with charity, which even though a man cannot know of a certainty to possess it, avoids the dangers of the magisterium of the shepherd’s chair.
The Magisterium that shepherds exercise, then, is not only teaching. It also pertains to love. How can one formulate love or define it? It is the shepherd’s being drawn to union with the Good Shepherd who gives his life for his sheep. If the pope and bishops have true charity, then they avoid the dangers of heterodoxy and sins against faith. In this they are just like any of the faithful, but with this exception: that we have Our Lord’s promise that his Church’s shepherds will never solemnly define error. Let us pray that they may persevere in genuine love of their flock and so see the Lord’s promise fulfilled.
As for learning from our Divine Teacher, what does he say? “Learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart” (Matt. 11:29). The great spiritual writer Irish Holy Ghost Fr. Edward Leen teaches that humility was Our Savior’s most characteristic virtue. We can learn it only from him, it would seem.
His example is as much a dogma of faith as any other. Thus, if we are rightly anguished by what some of our shepherds do and say, let us profess our faith in the invincible humility of the heart of the Good Shepherd and so through love confront the present crisis.
Let us join Christ’s prayer that Peter’s faith may not fail by the power of Christ’s loving and humble heart. And Christ’s prayers are infallibly heard. Of this we can be certain without any modern anxiety. It is, then, our own charity we should be concerned about, since as for that we cannot be infallibly certain.
May our deepest profession of faith be Peter’s in John 21:17: “Lord, thou knowest that I love thee!”