Within Theology programs, courses such as Church History, Ecclesiology, and the Sacraments have all involved studying the Church’s evolution throughout several major periods of world history. Based on observations made during Vatican II, Tkacik and McGonigle describe the Church as a conflicted mix of Classical Essentialist and Historical Existentialist approaches to its evolution, with Classical Essentialism dominating most of Church history (7,8).
Still, the Church has been its own example of organic growth throughout the ages. Whether as a communal / household church movement working in parallel with gradual rise of physical churches and the establishment of ordained clergy; or as a more hierarchal, institutionally heavy entity, the stages the Church has grown through are similar to the stages of human development, from conception to childhood, to adulthood and onward.
Such is the case with all components of Church theology and ecclesiology. The sacraments have evolved. Ordained clergy have evolved. The liturgy has evolved. Yet all of these components trace back to early Christian teachings and practices that strikingly have many of the same characteristics as practices within modern day Catholic Church. Take holy orders, for example, and as the focus of this post: What started with Jesus commissioning the Apostles to act on his behalf (Matthew 28:19; John 20:21-23) is now an international Church with ordained successors still acting on behalf of Christ, or referred to as vicar of Christ.
Beginning in the New Testament, and by mostly following Peter and/or Paul’s direction in spreading the Gospel and establishing churches, first century Christians usually gathered at designated houses to partake in preaching, baptism, and the Eucharist. With the understanding that they were all empowered with charisms from the Holy Spirit, community members had a variety of roles, including working together to settle any issues as necessary (Power 570, 571; Tkacik and McGonigle 80).
As Christians communities moved into the late first century / early second century, all while building a stronger presence throughout the Mediterranean and Asia Minor, they increasingly found the need to remain unified in their faith in Christ. And though Peter and Paul had a major hand in the spread of Christianity and establishing churches, Timothy, Titus, Stephen, James, Barnabas, and other followers were also instrumental in laying the groundwork for what would be called the Catholic Church in the early second century (Power 571, 572). Also around this time, and what set the early stage for the Church’s institutional growth, the apostles, and then their followers helped establish diakonia (servants / deacons), presbyters, and episcopoi (bishops / overseers) as a hierarchy of ordained clergy (Tkacik SLU 2023).
From the second through the fourth centuries, the Church experienced some of its most dramatic transformation, with the Church Fathers producing voluminous works on Catholic theology, the liturgy, and the sacraments; the Church facing occasional, yet brutal bouts of persecution under Roman rule; but then only to make peace with the Roman empire in the fourth century and become the center of the religious thought that anti-Christian groups had shunned for three centuries. All the while, Church Fathers such as Cyprian had begun appointing presbyters as presiders over the Sunday liturgy. This would become a kind of double-edged sword for the Church in its evolution into the fourth century, and then into the Medieval Era: One on hand, by appointing presbyters to serve in the person of Christ and carry out the liturgy, the Church could better manage the swarms of converts coming into the faith at that time. On the other hand, as the Church grew more orderly, the clergy and laity grew further apart (Tkacik SLU 2023; Tkacik and McGonigle 82).
With the rise of presbyters, as well as deacons in the early Catholic Church, all three roles continued to work as a three-fold ministry, presiding over, or helping preside over, religious instruction and the liturgy. However, as churches became more centralized, the bishops’ role became more administrative and apparently overwhelming, given the thousands of people converting to Christian belief, especially between the fourth century and the Scholastic Age (Tkacik and McGonigle 81, 82). In parallel, and as each century passed, the monastic movement rose from its own organic roots into one of the greatest influences on how the Church evangelized itself to the world, how the liturgy would continue to evolve, and what would be the blueprint for bishops and presbyters are to live out their faith life (Tkacik and McGonigle 83).
Along with monastic movement’s growing influence on the Church, particularly from the early Medieval Era onward, the clergy continued to strengthen it hierarchy by further building up the ordination process. Laying on of hands was the key rite for ordaining deacons, presbyters, and bishops, as it meant invoking the Holy Spirit. This understanding of the rite would be the bedrock for connecting the Holy Spirit’s significance with why ordained clergy would become more commonly seen as vicars of Christ. Meanwhile, as the Church also morphed into Eastern and Western factions, ordination in the Western Church, ironically enough, had not yet developed its pneumatology as well the Greek speaking churches had. Part of the issue was the Western Church had hyper-focused on ordination as an office or order — whereas as the Eastern Church put more emphasis on the means to carry out certain ministries (Power 573).
The overall emphasis on hierarchy mostly traces back to works by Pseudo-Dionysius. That is, drawing on hierarchy’s etymological meaning — sacred power — the Church is built upon a spiritual hierarchy, with the whole of creation looking up to the threefold order as descending levels of influence and sacred power, beginning with bishops, then presbyters, and then deacons. Alongside this understanding of hierarchy, the presbyters’ role grew substantially into a priesthood “with the power to consecrate and offer the sacrifice in Christ’s body and blood (Power 574. 575). Then, within the Scholastic Era / High Middle Ages, the role of priest as serving in person Christi was a mainstay in Church order and its fortified hierarchy. Thomas Aquinas, for instance, continued to uphold Pseudo-Dionysus teaching; and the Church pressed on with its combination of being missionary to the world, but also having juridical and temporal powers, which paved the way for clerical abuses and the Reformation going ballistic on the corruption (Tkacik and McGonigle 85; Power 575).
Quite remarkably, the Council of Trent well refuted the Reformers’ contrary positions to holy orders, once again showing the Church’s overall continuity in theology and ecclesiology, thereby making a strong position for why priestly ordination is a “divinely granted authority from above” (Tkacik and McGonigle 83, 84). Specifically, through the power of the Holy Spirit, holy orders empowered ordained clergy with the ontological means to act in persona Christi, as defined in the Council’s Doctrine on the Statement of Order. Namely, although the Council did not claim that the tripartite ministries established in the first century exactly mirrored the priesthood as defined at Trent, it did show that the Church had upheld the sacraments and the liturgy since the first century — including its consistently central focus on the Eucharist as being the body and blood of Jesus – which allowed the Council to build a strong case for apostolic succession and its ultimate link to Christ as the institutor of sacraments (Power 569; Tkacik SLU 2023).
In the post-Tridentine life of the Church, the hierarchical priesthood remained, as well as the Church’s longstanding position that the papacy began with St. Peter and has been successive ever since. Tkacik and McGonigle point out both the positive and negative impacts of the Church’s trajectory: The positive was the Church maintained an order and authority that helped provide more consistent leadership, and that pastors were more thoroughly committed to helping believers lead holy lives and be servants as the People of God. This included requiring candidates for the priesthood to complete an extensive education in seminary, which helped bolster faith formation, celebrating Mass daily, and lead a devoutly pious life. The negative, however, was the wide divide between clergy and laity was still not resolved (84. 86).
From Vatican II and into modern day, priests and bishops are still empowered to act as vicars of Christ. In addition, and after a several-hundred year hiatus, the diaconate, which had once been more of steppingstone toward priesthood, has been reinstituted and with its lifelong ministry (Lumen Gentium #29; Power 58). Yet as the Church’s modern mission has been to remove any unnecessary separation between clergy and laity — and that all of the People of God participate in the threefold office of Christ: prophet priest, and king (Power 576; Lumen Gentium Ch. 4) — the ordained priesthood has been tasked with building and maintaining close, shepherding relationships with the laity, based first on the united relationship with the triune God (Power 576).
Therefore, and as explained in Vatican II’s document, Decree On The Ministry and Life of Priests (Presbyterorum Ordinis), priests carry many responsibilities crucial to the laity’s faith formation and living out their own priestly, kingly, and prophetic journey as the People of God: Priests preach the Gospel, “so that the offering of the people can be made acceptable and sanctified by the Holy Spirit” (Ch 1 #2). Additionally, as educators, they are to help the faithful mature in their Christian life and keep their spiritual priorities in order (Ch 2 #6). And as vicars of Christ who re-presents Jesus’ sacrifice during Mass, they derive their “power and force from the sacrifice of Christ.” Therefore, “through the ministry of priests, the spiritual sacrifice of the faithful is made perfect in union with the sacrifice of Christ.” (Ch 1, #2; Ch 3, #12).
Above all, the sacrament of Holy Orders means that, just as the Church is to be sacrament in itself through Christ (Lumen Gentium Ch 1, #1), sacramental character is also crucial to ordained life. After all, if priests are in fact ontologically formed into the likeness of Christ, thus means they have the added, consecrated responsibility to carry on Christ’s work and use their special grace to help the People of God lead a sanctified life and, in turn, strengthen their own sanctification and grace (Presbyterorum Ordinis Ch 3, #12; Ch 2, #7).
In fact, sacramental character means just that: it is a charism from the Holy Spirit that “effect an indelible, ontological change in the soul of the recipient.” Bearing this in mind, priests and bishops are imbued with the Holy Spirit guided means to carry out all sacraments. During the Church’s institutionally dominant days, the clergy were seen as existing in a kind of ivory tower, far away from the laity’s needs for authentic pastoral care. However, as with human stages of development, so too has the Church needed to grow from an adolescence into a mature adulthood. Vatican II helped achieved the first big steps towards maturation, including restoring “the social and communal nature of the sacraments”, while also not overstating the powers that go with holy orders (Tkacik SLU 2023). The Church was never intended to be an elitist institution. And if the Holy Spirit has truly been its guide for 2000 years — and as Tkacik and McGonigle have devoted an entire work to this question — then, just as with stages of human development, the Church has had some growing up to do.
Works Cited
Lumen Gentium. https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19641121_lumen-gentium_en.html
Power, David N., author. Fiorenza, Francis S., and John P. Galvin, eds. Systematic Theology: Roman Catholic Perspectives. 2nd ed. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2011.
Presbyterorum Ordinis. https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decree_19651207_presbyterorum-ordinis_en.html
Tkacik, Michael J. Saint Leo University, 2023
Tkacik, Michael J. Saint Leo University, 2023.