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Catholic World News News Feature

CONFERENCE APPRAISES PAPAL PRIMACY December 05, 1996

VATICAN (CWN) -- The Congregation for Doctrine of the Faith today published a communique at the end of a symposium on papal primacy, which was held at the Vatican this week.

Pope John Paul II had called for serious study on "the authentic mission of the successor of Peter," who should be "the principle and visible sign of unity among all Christians." The task, he said, was for the Church to gain a deeper understanding of that role, particularly in its relationship to the principle of collegiality among the bishops of the world.

The Vatican conference brought together scholars from several fields, to examine the petrine office from the perspective of Biblical exegesis, historical studies, and theological analysis. The document produced by that conference affirmed: "The primacy is a continuation, in the ministry of the Bishop of Rome, of the prerogatives conferred by Christ to Peter in relation to his Church."

Thus, the Vatican document explained, the care for the Diocese of Rome implicitly includes care for the welfare of the universal Church: "The Pope, as successor to Peter, exercises his care for all the churches."

Turning to the question of collegiality among bishops, the document stressed that papal primacy and episcopal collegiality should never be understood "in juxtaposition" or "opposition." Rather, the principle of collegiality implies the papal primacy, and vice versa. "The collegial nature of the episcopacy in fact includes the primatial function," the communique states. It is for that reason that the petrine ministry is "in service to the unity of the Church."

The proceedings of the Vatican conference will be edited and published as a collection of essays, serving as a contribution from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to the task of deepening understanding of the papal mission. The first day of the symposium had centered on the Biblical and dogmatic foundations for the primacy of St. Peter and his successors. The second day was devoted to the interplay between the complementary principles of primacy and collegiality. The third and final day was taken up with study of the historical cases in which popes have intervened in the particular churches through the two millennia of Christian history.

The symposium was held in response to the charge, set out by Pope John Paul in his encyclical Ut Unum Sint, to research "new forms of exercising the primacy." The Holy Father had urged scholars to distinguish between the essential, unvarying principles of the papal role, and the accretions of custom which might be changed in the interests of promoting Christian unity.