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 HIERARCHY

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HIERARCHY

and good works, which are tlie fruit of grace. The hierarchy of order exercises its power over the Real Body of Christ in the Eucharist; that of jurisdiction over His Mystical Body, the Church (Catech. Cone. Trid., pt. II, c. vii, n. 6). Christ did not give to all the faithful power to administer His sacraments, except in the case of baptism and matrimony, or to offer public worship. This was reserved to those who, having received the sacrament of order, belong to the hier- archy of order. He entrusted the guidance of the faithful along the paths of duty and in the practice of good works to a religious authority, and for this pur- pose He established a hierarchy of jurisdiction. Moreover, He established His Church as a visible, external, and perfect society; hence He conferred on its hierarchy the right to legislate for the good of that society. For this double purpose, the sanctification of souls and the good or welfare of religious society, the hierarchy of jurisdiction is endowed with the following rights: (1) the right to frame and sanction laws which it considers useful or necessary, i. e. legis- lative power; (2) the right to judge how the faithful observe these laws, i. e. judicial power; (3) the right to enforce obedience, and to punish disobedience to its laws, i. e. coercive power; (4) the right to make all due provision for the proper celebration of worship, i. e. administrative power. Furthermore, with the power of jurisdiction there should be connected the right to exercise the power of order. The acts of the power or order are, it is true, always valid (except in the sacra- ment of Penance, which requires in addition a power of jurisdiction). However, in a well-ordered society like the Church, the right to exercise the power of order could never be a mere matter of choice. For its legitimate exercise the Church requires either jurisdic- tion, or at least permission, even of a general char- acter.

Ordinarily, also, the teaching power ( magisterium) is connected with the power of jurisdiction. It is possible, of course, to distinguish in the Church a threefold power: the potestas magisterii, or the right to teach in matters of faith and morals; the potestas mimsterii, or the right to administer the sacraments, and the potestas regimin is, or the power of jurisdiction. Christ, however, did not establish a special hierarchy for the "potestas magisterii", nor does the teaching power pertain to the power of order, as some have maintained, but rather to the power of jurisdiction. The Vatican Council, intleed, seems to connect the supreme magisterial power of the pope with his pri- macy of jurisdiction (Constitutio de Ecclesia Christi, cap. i and iv). Moreover, the power of jurisdiction implies the right of imposing on the faithful a real obligation to believe what the Church proposes. Fi- nally, in the Church, no one can teach without a missio canonica, or authorization from ecclesiastical superiors, which brings us back again to the power of jurisdiction. Nevertheless, as a general nde, the "potestas magisterii" belongs to those only who have also the power of order, i. e. to the pope and the bishops, and cannot be separated from the latter power; the same is equally true of the power of ju- risdiction (Schnell, "Die Gliederung der Kirchen- gewalten" in " Theologische Quartalschrift", LXXI 1889, .387 sq.). Jurisdiction is e-xercised in joro in- terno (potestas vicaria), and in joro externa. The latter aims directly at the welfare of religious society, indi- rectly at that of its individual members; the former deals directly with indivitluals, and only indirectly with the religious society as a whole.

Finally, jurisdiction is either ordinary or delegated ; the first is acquired by the acceptance of specified functions to which the law itself attaches this power, that the possessor must exercise in his own name ; the second is obtained by virtue of a special delegation from ecclesiastical authority, in whose name it is to be exercised.

A. Hierarchy o] Order. — The Council of Trent has defined the Divine institution of the first three grades of the hierarchy of order, i. e. the episcopate, priest- hood, and diaconate (Se.ss. XXIII, De sacramento ordinis, cap. iv, can. vi). The other orders, i. e. those of subdeacon, acolyte, exorcist, lector, and porter, are of ecclesiastical institution. There is some contro- versy about the subdiaconate. The Council of Trent did not decide the question, but only declared that Fathers and councils place the subdiaconate among the major orders (loc. cit., cap. ii). It is now pretty generally held that the subdiaconate is of ecclesias- tical institution, chiefly because of the lateness of its appearance in ecclesiastical discipline. Its introduc- tion wa.s due to the unwillingness of certain Churches to have more than seven deacons, conformably to Apostolic practice in the Church of Jerusalem (Acts, vi, 1-6). Furthermore, the ordination rite of sub- deacons does not seem sacramental, since it contains neither the imposition of hands nor the words " Re- ceive the Holy Ghost". Finally, in the Eastern l^niat Churches the subdiaconate is reckoned among the minor orders. For this opinion may be quoted Urban II in the Council of Benevento in 1091 (Har- douin, "Acta Cone", VI, ii, 1696, Paris, 1714), the "Decretum" of Gratian (pars I, dist. xxi, init.), Peter Lombard ("Sent.", Lib. IV, dist. xxiv), and others; .see Benedict XIV, "De SjTiodo Dicecesana", VIII, ix, n. 10). This hierarchy of ecclesiastical origin arose at the end of the second and the beginning of the third century, and appears definitely fixed at Rome imder Pope Cornelius (2.51-252), who tells us that in his day the Roman Church coimted 46 priests, 7 deacons, 7 subdeacons, 42 acolytes, and 52 clerics of lower grades, exorcists, lectors, and porters (Eusebius, " Hist. Eccl.", VI, 43). In the primitive Church there were also deaconesses, widows, and virgins, but these did not belong to the hierarchy properly so called, nor does Pope Cornelius include them in his list of the Roman clergy. Their principal fimctions were prayer, the practice of works of charity, and of hospi- tality; while they performed certain liturgical func- tions, as in the baptism of women and at the agape, they never took any part, except by imauthorized abuse, in the ministry of the altar strictly speaking (Duchesne, "Christian Worship", London, 1904). Finally, although abbots of monasteries may confer the four minor orders, they do not constitute a special order or grade in the hierarchy. It is not by virtue of the blessing they receive from the bishop that they may confer orders, but by virtue of a privilege which canon law grants to abbots who have received such solemn blessing from a bishop (Gasparri, "Tractatus Canonicus de sacra ordinatione", I, iv, Paris, 1893). The Latin Church, therefore, counts eight grades in the hierarchy of order, the episcopate being counted a separate order from that of the priesthood, and eccle- siastical tonsure not being an order.

This latter point, formerly controverted by canon- ists, is no longer in doubt : the tonsure is, in the pres- ent discipline, a simple rite by which a layman becomes an ecclesiastic, a necessary antecedent condi- tion for the lawful reception of orders proper, and not an order it.self, except in a very inaccurate way of speaking, since the ceremony conveys no "potestas ordinis". In the Middle Ages Scholastic theologians denied that the episcopate was a distinct order from priesthood, alleging that the former is only the com- plement and perfection of the latter. In respect of the offering of the Holy Sacrifice the bishop, it is true, has no more power than a priest; on the other hand, it is only a bishop who can ordain a priest; and this difference of power implies a distinction of order. Against this distinction it has been objected that an episcopal ordination would be invalid unless the subject had first of all received sacerdotal ordination. It is true that, according to the modern practice, one