I The Pope and Bishops Collegiality in Service of Catholicity Richard R. Gaillardetz
Pope Francis greets bishops at the end of a solemn profession of faith of the Italian bishops in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican May 23, 2013.
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n the very first line of his first public address, Pope Francis said the following: “You all know that the duty of the Conclave was to give a bishop to Rome.” These carefully spoken words reaffirm what many Catholics have forgotten: The pope is special because of the Church he presides over; not the universal Church, but the Church of Rome. As if to respond to any confusion caused by his words, Francis went on to say the following: “And now let us begin this journey, the Bishop and people, this journey of the Church of Rome, which presides in charity over all the Churches, a journey of brotherhood in love, of mutual trust.” For Francis, in order to fulfill his role as pope, he must first seek to be a bishop to his local church. The central importance of the relationship between a bishop and his local church is what gives Catholicism its unique form of unity that we call catholicity. As Christianity developed in the first five centuries, a strong bond developed between the bishop and the local church. The very raison d’être of the ministry of the bishop was to serve as leader of a local church. Today’s practice of ordaining a priest to the episcopate because he was going to serve as a diplomat (legate, apostolic delegate, or nuncio) or as a high-ranking bureaucrat in the Vatican (often referred to as a titular ordination) would have been incomprehensible in the churches of the early centuries. The episcopate was not viewed as an honorific, a reward for ecclesiastical advancement; rather, one was ordained bishop for the sole purpose of pastoring a local church. This firm bond between bishop and local church was reinforced by Church discipline. We find impressive documentary evidence in the first five centuries that the members of a local church played an active role in the appointment of a bishop to the local church. One of the first documents containing an ordination ritual, the third-century Apostolic Tradition, forthrightly states: