The Workings of Authority in the Church

Catholicism orders the world by subjecting it to God’s authority through a hierarchical structure of society called the Church. Ordained ministers, for example, called to serve this scaffolding of authority, receive from God the Sacrament called Holy Orders to allow God to order our days according to his peace.

A priest’s authority over his people is entrusted to him by his bishop, to whom he is subject, while that bishop serves under the authority of the Papal Nuncio whose own authority is subject to the Holy Father, the Vicar of Christ himself. 

Through these ordained men, God’s own authority is poured out first into the family. A husband has God’s authority over his wife. He is the head of the family, the priest of the household. It was not he who was walked down the aisle and given to her, but she to him. And together with her, they have authority over their children. 

So what does a Feast Day in honor of two Apostles, Simon and Jude, about whom we know very little, offer to us if not the invitation to consider the apostolic authority of the Church. It should be more than merely interesting to us that Christ gave God’s divine authority to the Apostles. It should be an instruction to us.

The demons, for example, according to the accounts of experienced exorcists, respond only to authority. In some extreme cases of possession, the personal holiness of the priest determines the effectiveness of the ritual, but more often demons are successfully rebuked by the minister’s rightful authority over the oppressed person - a mother’s prayers for her child, a husband’s for his wife, a priest’s for his parishioner.

But all of this is to give every Christian the privilege of sharing in Christ’s own life. He is the one who said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. And know that I am with you always, even to the end of the age." He spoke these words to all of his disciples, not only to the Apostles.

So, Christ receives his authority from the Father and then shares that authority with us; he is both Son and sent. And we see this relational communion, even now, in the Catholic Church, where the ordained, who receive their authority from the Apostles as sons, remain disciples themselves, even as they empower the disciples of Christ to share also in the apostolic succession of the Church. All Christians are sons, like Christ. And all Christians in communion with the Apostles, like Christ, are sent. +