The hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church consists in a large number of offices, which are frequently reported by the media as if they exist in a single consolidated continuum. Basic sources like Wikipedia are fairly accurate and informative about each office, but don't convey the relations or lack thereof between different offices. Both Wikipedia and Church sources convey few distinctions between essential attributes of offices and their transitory legal stipulations. So in short, like many of my blog entries, I've had this conversation enough times to write it down for posterity. I hope it's informative (please let me know if I've made any major errors) but it's not intended to be apologetic or complete. While I'll give some nods to history, it's also not intended to convey all of the variation in historical usages. Orthodox churches also frequently use the terms in slightly different ways, and Protestants have borrowed some of them for completely different purposes.
1. Bishops, priests, deacons, and pope.(collectively: clergy)
As the Nicene Creed says, the Church is one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. Apostolic means passed in legitimate succession from the Apostles, those twelve disciples of Jesus whom he sent out to preach the Gospel before his ascension, who founded churches in cities around the Mediterranean. Their successors as heads of these churches are the bishops. As the Church is catholic, called to universality, bishops are required also for those sees which are not apostolic. The Church brings its members (including the bishops) to holiness by means of the sacraments, so the bishops must have the authority to celebrate all seven sacraments (baptism, confirmation, reconciliation, Eucharist, marriage, holy orders, and anointing of the sick). Through the sacrament of holy orders, bishops ordain other bishops, passing along the apostolic succession. The unity of the Church, then, is the inter-communion of the bishops. The bishops are the fundamental officeholders of the Church.
Because Christian communities quickly grew too large for bishops to personally administer the sacraments in an expeditious fashion to all of the faithful in their dioceses, bishops ordained men who were not bishops to a lower level of holy orders, priesthood (bishops are thus also priests). They are called priests because, most fundamentally, they celebrate the holy sacrifice of the Mass (the source and summit of our Christian life) though they can celebrate all of the other sacraments as well other than holy orders, which is reserved to bishops. As delegates of the authority of bishops, they are only able to publicly celebrate sacraments in a diocese when approved by the bishop of that diocese. As the bishops are the preachers of the good news, even teaching in the form of a homily at Mass has not always been delegated to other priests, which is why historically the bishops' homilies from prior years were read (for a modern example, see the reading of the homily of St. John Chrysostom at an Eastern-rite Easter Vigil).
The further delegation of deacons is detailed clearly in Acts 6 as those concerned with leadership over the corporal works of mercy. As the recipients of holy orders, deacons are also clergy, and thus came to have a preferential role in the liturgy as performers of baptisms, ministers of the Eucharist, and proclaimers of the word, but were also subject to restrictions on clergy like the invalidity of marriage after holy orders (whether deacons and priests can receive holy orders after marriage is a matter of canon law, unlike bishops who cannot be ordained while married). Since one can only receive holy orders of a certain rank if he previously has received holy orders at the lower rank, all priests are ordained deacons before they become priests, just as all bishops must previously be priests.
The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, no more and no less. As Rome was the see of Peter, first among the apostles, the Pope is first among the bishops, and the visible sign of their unity. As such, bishops not in communion with Rome do not manifest the unity of the Church, and new bishops are not to be ordained without the Pope's consent. The degree of control the Pope has over the selection of those bishops and how they run their dioceses, however, is subject to dispute and has changed throughout history. He may also in his capacity as the sign of the unity of the bishops speak ex cathedra, that is from and as their unity, and thus teach infallibly with the authority of the Church itself. The Pope also has additional authority over the Latin Church in his capacity as its head, basically the Patriarch of the West, though this title is no longer used.
2. Canonical Authority: Patriarchs, Metropolitans, Ordinaries, Pastors, Rectors, and Vicars
In addition to the clergy, that is those raised to Holy Orders who administer the sacraments, the Church also requires legal authorities to promulgate and enforce its laws. Each sui iuris church, headed by a patriarch, has its own code of canon law, which is why, for instance, eastern bishops frequently ordain married men, while western bishops do not, and why confirmation is given immediately following baptism in the east, while in the west it is not. The Pope thus functions, even if he does not claim the title, as the patriarch of the Latin Church (observing the Roman Rite) and thus is able to issue its canon law and instructions for the celebration of the sacraments.
On the other end of the spectrum, each Catholic lives under the authority of an ordinary, usually the bishop of the diocese in which he lives, but sometimes not, as in the case of monks living under mitred abbots and former Anglicans living under a personal ordinariate with both priests and ordinary consisting of married former Anglican clergy (who thus could not be consecrated as bishops). It is the ordinary who has the authority to make and enforce particular laws over those in his jurisdiction, though these must be in accord with the general canon law of the church (think federalism).
Between patriarchs and lesser ordinaries are metropolitans, who are archbishops with care of neighboring dioceses under their suffragan bishops, as well as their own diocese (which may have auxiliary bishops). Metropolitans have very limited authority outside of their own diocese, but are probably necessary for governance and communication given the extremely large number of bishops in the Latin church. Their role is being somewhat eclipsed as national bishops' conferences are given increasing (though still limited and uncertain) canonical powers.
The ordinary bishop is of course the pastor of his diocese, but again given the large number of Catholic Christians in many dioceses, they are as a matter of course divided into geographical parishes, with priests delegated as pastors. Some of the private juridical authority of bishops is delegated to those pastors, but their public authority to promulgate laws is reserved. The geographical territory of a parish may contain several individual churches and schools, each of which is headed by a rector, though in the frequent case that there is only one church and one school in the parish, the pastor may also be the rector of each.
Most legal authority in the Church can be delegated (often only to persons of certain qualifications, or in certain limited times and places) and thus a vicar is one who has delegated rather than ordinary authority, whether of a parish church (a parochial vicar) or of an entire diocese (a vicar general).
3. Honors: Archbishop, Primate, Prelate, Monsignor, Minor Orders, and Cardinals
These titles are largely honorary, rather than sacramental or canonical, and as such are not always meted out in very consistent ways. Archbishops are the bishops of important dioceses, usually metropolitans, but also certain other bishops, Vatican officials, and ambassadors of the Holy See, lest they be outranked by the metropolitans. A primate is the bishop of the oldest or most important diocese in a nation, which sometimes has current importance (think Dublin in Ireland) and other times not (Baltimore in the United States). A primate is not a super-metropolitan (and if the old diocese has declined may not be a metropolitan at all) and has power from the bully pulpit, not canon law.
Monsignor technically means a priest of the papal household, someone to whom the Pope might go for confession or confidential advice. In practice it is given as an honorific for distinguished senior priests and (all?) bishops. Prelate is an even fuzzier title, but carrying a ceremonial rank nearer that of archbishop (and to which many or all archbishops might be entitled). Laity preparing for the clergy (or occasionally who have served with distinction in other ways) can be honored with minor orders, which also have some liturgical function, especially in the East. Deaconesses, unlike deacons, held minor orders, not Holy Orders.
Last are the Cardinals, variously understood historically as the Pope's kitchen cabinet or the major clergy of his diocese, Rome. Due to their role in electing the Pope, obviously one of great importance to the wider Church, they have tended to be selected increasingly from the metropolitan archbishops of that wider Church as communications have improved (though the college is still disproportionately Italian). It is still given occasionally as the highest honorific for priests who are over the age of 80 (and thus would not be eligible to vote for the Pope) and may refuse episcopal ordination. Thus while social protocol generally recognizes only the more prestigious office instead of the clunkier "Cardinal-Archbishop", sacramental and legal authority flows from the episcopal ordination and installation as metropolitan, not from election to the college of cardinals, which does not affect or effect either.
4. The religious
Technically these aren't part of the hierarchy of the Church, but they're so frequently confused with the above categories that it seems within the spirit of the post. First, it's probably worth mentioning that in the Catholic context religious comes directly from its Latin root, religio, living under a rule. That is, a specific rule, not the commandments of Jesus or general canon law. Only in the reformation, with the blurring of the ministerial priesthood and the priesthood of all believers, were the rules of Institutes of Consecrated Life and the commands of Jesus also conflated, making all believers into "religious." Similarly, the religious were historically contrasted with the secular clergy, from Latin saeculum, those living in the world--i.e. under the authority of a diocesan bishop and canon law, amongst the people they served. Only in the reformation was this good worldliness associated with the snares of the devil.
The oldest religious "orders" are those of hermits, widows, and virgins. These are consecrated forms of life, whose observers take vows of poverty, unmarried chastity, and obedience, but those vows are made directly to the local bishop, and don't involve any corporate constitutions. These orders consist in the personal taking up of the evangelical counsels and date to the earliest days of the Church.
In the wake of St. Anthony of the Desert, and codified in the Rule of St. Benedict, religious began to come together in corporate monastic life, praying the divine office together and taking vows of stability (remaining in a particular monastery for life) and obedience to an abbot. In the late medieval period, monks were supplemented by semi-monastic mendicant friars following St. Francis and St. Dominic. These religious took no vow of stability and supported no monastery, living in provinces among the people but in radical poverty and obedience, begging for their food. During the depopulation of Europe during the plagues, the Popes insisted that the mendicant orders find means of support rather than burdening the population, so their corporate poverty came to an end, though individual friars still hold no property and their houses do not generally have the grandeur of old monasteries. The friars carry into religious life some of the traditions of the older semi-religious canons, who were secular clergy typically assigned to recite the divine office together in the cathedral of the diocese. Some (relatively) newer institutes of religious life, like the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) do not say the office collectively at all, allowing a more flexible schedule for their missions in the world.
Many religious orders also have tertiaries (third order members--the first and second being the ordinary men's and women's communities) who live the charism and vows of the order as far as they can while still living in the world rather than in community, or at least without the obligation to live in community. Secular institutes, like Opus Dei and the Neocatechumenal Way, are set up similarly to tertiaries in traditional orders, except that their charism is not associated with first or second order monks, friars, or nuns living in community. Last are the societies of apostolic life, which are inverse of secular institutes, living in community but taking no permanent vows.
UPDATE: Because you stayed until the end, here is a highly entertaining video which satirizes the hierarchy as a career ladder, but explains more about how moves take place and correctly identifies the difference between clerical, canonical, and honorary hierarchies.
1. Bishops, priests, deacons, and pope.(collectively: clergy)
As the Nicene Creed says, the Church is one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. Apostolic means passed in legitimate succession from the Apostles, those twelve disciples of Jesus whom he sent out to preach the Gospel before his ascension, who founded churches in cities around the Mediterranean. Their successors as heads of these churches are the bishops. As the Church is catholic, called to universality, bishops are required also for those sees which are not apostolic. The Church brings its members (including the bishops) to holiness by means of the sacraments, so the bishops must have the authority to celebrate all seven sacraments (baptism, confirmation, reconciliation, Eucharist, marriage, holy orders, and anointing of the sick). Through the sacrament of holy orders, bishops ordain other bishops, passing along the apostolic succession. The unity of the Church, then, is the inter-communion of the bishops. The bishops are the fundamental officeholders of the Church.
Because Christian communities quickly grew too large for bishops to personally administer the sacraments in an expeditious fashion to all of the faithful in their dioceses, bishops ordained men who were not bishops to a lower level of holy orders, priesthood (bishops are thus also priests). They are called priests because, most fundamentally, they celebrate the holy sacrifice of the Mass (the source and summit of our Christian life) though they can celebrate all of the other sacraments as well other than holy orders, which is reserved to bishops. As delegates of the authority of bishops, they are only able to publicly celebrate sacraments in a diocese when approved by the bishop of that diocese. As the bishops are the preachers of the good news, even teaching in the form of a homily at Mass has not always been delegated to other priests, which is why historically the bishops' homilies from prior years were read (for a modern example, see the reading of the homily of St. John Chrysostom at an Eastern-rite Easter Vigil).
The further delegation of deacons is detailed clearly in Acts 6 as those concerned with leadership over the corporal works of mercy. As the recipients of holy orders, deacons are also clergy, and thus came to have a preferential role in the liturgy as performers of baptisms, ministers of the Eucharist, and proclaimers of the word, but were also subject to restrictions on clergy like the invalidity of marriage after holy orders (whether deacons and priests can receive holy orders after marriage is a matter of canon law, unlike bishops who cannot be ordained while married). Since one can only receive holy orders of a certain rank if he previously has received holy orders at the lower rank, all priests are ordained deacons before they become priests, just as all bishops must previously be priests.
The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, no more and no less. As Rome was the see of Peter, first among the apostles, the Pope is first among the bishops, and the visible sign of their unity. As such, bishops not in communion with Rome do not manifest the unity of the Church, and new bishops are not to be ordained without the Pope's consent. The degree of control the Pope has over the selection of those bishops and how they run their dioceses, however, is subject to dispute and has changed throughout history. He may also in his capacity as the sign of the unity of the bishops speak ex cathedra, that is from and as their unity, and thus teach infallibly with the authority of the Church itself. The Pope also has additional authority over the Latin Church in his capacity as its head, basically the Patriarch of the West, though this title is no longer used.
2. Canonical Authority: Patriarchs, Metropolitans, Ordinaries, Pastors, Rectors, and Vicars
In addition to the clergy, that is those raised to Holy Orders who administer the sacraments, the Church also requires legal authorities to promulgate and enforce its laws. Each sui iuris church, headed by a patriarch, has its own code of canon law, which is why, for instance, eastern bishops frequently ordain married men, while western bishops do not, and why confirmation is given immediately following baptism in the east, while in the west it is not. The Pope thus functions, even if he does not claim the title, as the patriarch of the Latin Church (observing the Roman Rite) and thus is able to issue its canon law and instructions for the celebration of the sacraments.
On the other end of the spectrum, each Catholic lives under the authority of an ordinary, usually the bishop of the diocese in which he lives, but sometimes not, as in the case of monks living under mitred abbots and former Anglicans living under a personal ordinariate with both priests and ordinary consisting of married former Anglican clergy (who thus could not be consecrated as bishops). It is the ordinary who has the authority to make and enforce particular laws over those in his jurisdiction, though these must be in accord with the general canon law of the church (think federalism).
Between patriarchs and lesser ordinaries are metropolitans, who are archbishops with care of neighboring dioceses under their suffragan bishops, as well as their own diocese (which may have auxiliary bishops). Metropolitans have very limited authority outside of their own diocese, but are probably necessary for governance and communication given the extremely large number of bishops in the Latin church. Their role is being somewhat eclipsed as national bishops' conferences are given increasing (though still limited and uncertain) canonical powers.
The ordinary bishop is of course the pastor of his diocese, but again given the large number of Catholic Christians in many dioceses, they are as a matter of course divided into geographical parishes, with priests delegated as pastors. Some of the private juridical authority of bishops is delegated to those pastors, but their public authority to promulgate laws is reserved. The geographical territory of a parish may contain several individual churches and schools, each of which is headed by a rector, though in the frequent case that there is only one church and one school in the parish, the pastor may also be the rector of each.
Most legal authority in the Church can be delegated (often only to persons of certain qualifications, or in certain limited times and places) and thus a vicar is one who has delegated rather than ordinary authority, whether of a parish church (a parochial vicar) or of an entire diocese (a vicar general).
3. Honors: Archbishop, Primate, Prelate, Monsignor, Minor Orders, and Cardinals
These titles are largely honorary, rather than sacramental or canonical, and as such are not always meted out in very consistent ways. Archbishops are the bishops of important dioceses, usually metropolitans, but also certain other bishops, Vatican officials, and ambassadors of the Holy See, lest they be outranked by the metropolitans. A primate is the bishop of the oldest or most important diocese in a nation, which sometimes has current importance (think Dublin in Ireland) and other times not (Baltimore in the United States). A primate is not a super-metropolitan (and if the old diocese has declined may not be a metropolitan at all) and has power from the bully pulpit, not canon law.
Monsignor technically means a priest of the papal household, someone to whom the Pope might go for confession or confidential advice. In practice it is given as an honorific for distinguished senior priests and (all?) bishops. Prelate is an even fuzzier title, but carrying a ceremonial rank nearer that of archbishop (and to which many or all archbishops might be entitled). Laity preparing for the clergy (or occasionally who have served with distinction in other ways) can be honored with minor orders, which also have some liturgical function, especially in the East. Deaconesses, unlike deacons, held minor orders, not Holy Orders.
Last are the Cardinals, variously understood historically as the Pope's kitchen cabinet or the major clergy of his diocese, Rome. Due to their role in electing the Pope, obviously one of great importance to the wider Church, they have tended to be selected increasingly from the metropolitan archbishops of that wider Church as communications have improved (though the college is still disproportionately Italian). It is still given occasionally as the highest honorific for priests who are over the age of 80 (and thus would not be eligible to vote for the Pope) and may refuse episcopal ordination. Thus while social protocol generally recognizes only the more prestigious office instead of the clunkier "Cardinal-Archbishop", sacramental and legal authority flows from the episcopal ordination and installation as metropolitan, not from election to the college of cardinals, which does not affect or effect either.
4. The religious
Technically these aren't part of the hierarchy of the Church, but they're so frequently confused with the above categories that it seems within the spirit of the post. First, it's probably worth mentioning that in the Catholic context religious comes directly from its Latin root, religio, living under a rule. That is, a specific rule, not the commandments of Jesus or general canon law. Only in the reformation, with the blurring of the ministerial priesthood and the priesthood of all believers, were the rules of Institutes of Consecrated Life and the commands of Jesus also conflated, making all believers into "religious." Similarly, the religious were historically contrasted with the secular clergy, from Latin saeculum, those living in the world--i.e. under the authority of a diocesan bishop and canon law, amongst the people they served. Only in the reformation was this good worldliness associated with the snares of the devil.
The oldest religious "orders" are those of hermits, widows, and virgins. These are consecrated forms of life, whose observers take vows of poverty, unmarried chastity, and obedience, but those vows are made directly to the local bishop, and don't involve any corporate constitutions. These orders consist in the personal taking up of the evangelical counsels and date to the earliest days of the Church.
In the wake of St. Anthony of the Desert, and codified in the Rule of St. Benedict, religious began to come together in corporate monastic life, praying the divine office together and taking vows of stability (remaining in a particular monastery for life) and obedience to an abbot. In the late medieval period, monks were supplemented by semi-monastic mendicant friars following St. Francis and St. Dominic. These religious took no vow of stability and supported no monastery, living in provinces among the people but in radical poverty and obedience, begging for their food. During the depopulation of Europe during the plagues, the Popes insisted that the mendicant orders find means of support rather than burdening the population, so their corporate poverty came to an end, though individual friars still hold no property and their houses do not generally have the grandeur of old monasteries. The friars carry into religious life some of the traditions of the older semi-religious canons, who were secular clergy typically assigned to recite the divine office together in the cathedral of the diocese. Some (relatively) newer institutes of religious life, like the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) do not say the office collectively at all, allowing a more flexible schedule for their missions in the world.
Many religious orders also have tertiaries (third order members--the first and second being the ordinary men's and women's communities) who live the charism and vows of the order as far as they can while still living in the world rather than in community, or at least without the obligation to live in community. Secular institutes, like Opus Dei and the Neocatechumenal Way, are set up similarly to tertiaries in traditional orders, except that their charism is not associated with first or second order monks, friars, or nuns living in community. Last are the societies of apostolic life, which are inverse of secular institutes, living in community but taking no permanent vows.
UPDATE: Because you stayed until the end, here is a highly entertaining video which satirizes the hierarchy as a career ladder, but explains more about how moves take place and correctly identifies the difference between clerical, canonical, and honorary hierarchies.
" Some (relatively) newer institutes of religious life, like the Society of Jesus (Jesuits)". Good to remind the Jesuits that they are recent arrivals - 1540.
ReplyDeleteTwo tidbits:
ReplyDelete1. Your etymology for "religio" is a bit off. Although "religio" does, fundamentally, mean a "binding", it is not from the same root as "regula" ("Rule").
2. Which leads me to a clarification about canons. In the early to mid Middle Ages, canons were essentially non-parochial clergy, either assigned to the cathedral chapter (because nominally, the cathedral is not actually a parish) or living a communal life similar to the monastic life (sometimes but not always governed by the Regula of Augustine). The latter had a counterpart in "canonesses", who were women vowed to community but not Benedictines; canoness communities were often refuges in the 8th-12th centuries for aristocratic women, who could easily have the vows abrogated should a suitable proposal of marriage come around.
In the reforms of the twelfth century, an effort was made to convert many of the so-called "secular canons", who had proliferated as teachers at the growing cathedral schools, to "regular canons", who lived a monastic life according to a rule ("regula"). These eventually issued in the Augustinian canons, who with the advent of the mendicant orders in the thirteenth century, effectively became friars. (You will recall that a certain Martin Luther was an Augustinian friar/canon.)
Because the cathedral schools were staffed by "secular canons", they also became the first faculty at the nascent universities in Paris and Bologna. Again, with the advent of the mendicants in the thirteenth century, many of those faculty posts came to be filled by Dominicans and Franciscans, though not without some serious battles over the mendicants' infringement upon the rights of the secular clergy.
Nathaniel,
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for both clarifications--I love having a good historian around!