This last year, the world watched as the cardinals gathered in Rome for the election of a new pope, the 267th bishop of Rome. New York recently received a new archbishop, and Denver is preparing for one as well.
We are witnessing apostolic succession in action, extending an unbroken chain of bishops back to the apostles, who were appointed directly by Our Lord. Jesus established the Church, literally the “assembly,” as a relational network to draw the nations to himself.
But his Church, founded on the rock of Peter, like a good family, must maintain order, with a father, dubbed an “overseer,” placed over each local church. The role of bishop, which is how the Greek word for “overseer,” episkopos, came into English, is not equivalent to a secular manager or corporate head, because it is a divinely appointed office, given a share in Christ’s own authority over his Church.
Jesus, who worked as a builder with his adoptive father Joseph, clearly built a Church with a visible structure and leadership. He formed twelve apostles as the heads of twelve tribes that would constitute a new Israel gathered from throughout the nations. He gave his own authority to the twelve, as we see in a number of passages from the Gospel:
“And he called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases” (Luke 9:1).
“The one who hears you hears me, and the one who rejects you rejects me, and the one who rejects me rejects him who sent me. … Behold, I have given you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing shall hurt you” (Luke 10:16, 19).
“As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you. … If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld” (John 20:21, 23).
Although a bishop needs skills for governance, the leadership of the Church depends first and foremost upon the grace of Christ poured out on those he has chosen to lead his Church.
It would make no sense for Jesus to establish order in his Church for one generation, only to let it slide into chaos later. If we pay attention, we can witness apostolic succession in action right within the New Testament.
In the first chapter of Acts of the Apostles, Peter, the head of the twelve, directs the raising up of a successor to take the place of Judas, saying that one who was with them from the beginning “must become with us a witness to his resurrection” (Acts 1:22). Although Jesus himself called Paul to become an apostle, he still “went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas,” that is Peter, and later had his mission to the Gentiles approved by the pillars of Peter, James and John (Galatians 1:18, 2:9).
Paul, in turn, shows us how he appointed Timothy as an overseer of Ephesus and Titus in Crete, a role which he describes as “God’s steward” (Titus 1:7). Paul writes to Timothy, reminding him “to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands,” which is the way one receives the authority to act as bishop (2 Timothy 1:6). He gave them instructions for appointing other overseers and elders (the Greek word used by the Church for “priest”), showing the Lord’s plan for continuing the governance of his Church.
As a link in the great chain stretching from Christ to today, the bishop, as steward, must receive all that has been handed down in the Church and pass it on faithfully. Paul states that “he must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it” (Titus 1:9). The bishop preserves order, ensuring that the faithful live in communion with Christ and do not go astray through erroneous beliefs or immoral actions.
One of the oldest Christian documents we possess, the Didache, bears witness to the dangers posed by false teachers and the need to maintain order within the Church, following the roles of bishop, priest, and deacon. Around the year 108, St. Ignatius of Antioch, a disciple of St. John the Apostle, offered a strong exposition of the necessity of the office of the overseer, repeatedly stating that Christians should do nothing apart from their bishop. The bishop is the bond of unity in faith and charity, who assures that the faithful of the “Catholic Church” adhere in communion with Christ.
Therefore, we must “run together in accordance with the will of [the] bishop” and “be careful, then, not to set ourselves in opposition to the bishop, in order that we may be subject to God,” he wrote.
The modern world bristles at such authority. Immanuel Kant, for instance, in his essay “What Is Enlightenment?”, accused believers of immaturely placing themselves under the care of guardians who prohibited them from the free use of reason. The modern world has created a counter-structure to the Church, not one unified by faith and charity but a democratic collection of individuals bent on fulfilling their own whims. The visible communion of the Church, the rock built on Peter, necessarily checks our freedom so that we cannot simply build our own church based on our own thoughts and desires, a church of one.
We do not obey the bishop because we like him, or because he’s always right in his decisions, but because he is the one who has received the care of the Church and acts on behalf of Christ in our diocese. To obey God, we must obey all those placed in lawful authority over us. The communion of the Church continues in the world because God has placed a head over it, maintaining its integrity through its teaching, sacraments, and governance.
To those who abide in this communion, who observe all that Christ has commanded, he gives the assurance: “Lo, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).
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#1. We ought to obey our bishops on matters of FAITH & MORALS. We are NOT OBLIGATED to obey bishops on matters of prudential judgment, including politics. Let’s rememeber that national politics and geopolitics is the bailiwick of the LAITY IN THE CHURCH – not the clergy.
#2. Let’s admit to the facts: we have a number of examples of some VERY BAD bishops.
A bishop is to guide the flock according to Jesus toward eternal life. When bishops get mired in earthly pursuits, the flock need Jesus’ direct guidance toward eternal life so as not to be drawn into a bishop’s personal opinions and distractions in order to stay on the path. A few distinctions need to be made in this article regarding obedience.
My view is that we respect bishops in a similar way that in the military we respect Colonels.
On the first level, we respect both because of the position, or rank, that they hold.
On the second level we respect them based on their performance.
We do not have to go back centuries to find bishop whose performance was not on a level to be respected.
The same can be said for today, and there is enough evidence to support that statement that I do not have to list present day examples.
And, there are other bishops who can be respected for their performance.
A distinction has to be made.
I agree with the three first comments and appreciate you brothers who provide them as a further fleshing out of an otherwise really good, simple and to the point apologetic article that lays out the Biblical connections well (important because…). Thank you, Dr. Staudt, for providing a very well written explanation which I pray (with addition of the clarifying points made by the first three commentators) God will bless be used effectively to inspire our Christian brethren chained to disunity by Reformation mis-teachings contrary to Christ’s express will in His High Priestly-Missionary Prayer (John 17:21) to seek reunion with the fullness of Christ’s Body. To add my own comment to what is yet missing from the article: before obedience there must be trust and love in the Holy Spirit, from all sides, for the sake of humbly (“blessed are the POOR IN SPIRIT”!!!) pursuing fullness of truth and life in Christ. That is in fact why the wound is so grievous when any man in the order of the episcopacy betrays the Church’s Apostolic Succession by pushing his personal or political agendas, or his own week failings, disguised by admixing with genuine Church teaching, rather than forthrightly admitting the limits of his own knowledge and ideas in disputed political/social questions (why St. Paul warns bishops and priest in his letter to Titus 3:9 to avoid “disputing questions of Law.” And warns all that “knowledge puffs us up, but love builds us up”-1 Cor 8:1!!!–let us not be too proud of any of our academic standing, for that is the devil’s trap!!!). Whatever does not flow directly from Christ’s Word through the words of His Prophets and Apostles with St. Peter (who, remember, had to be helped to remain true to his God-given office to UNITE the Church, even by St. Paul’s harsh rebuke [Galatians 2:11-14]) and of their earliest successors universally recognized, and handed on through the consistent re-articulation of the same Apostolic Tradition in new situations down the ages) falls into this category. Finally, before bishops are to be obeyed they are to be loved for Christ’s sake and prayed for, for God’s constant forgiveness and guarding guidance, for Satan targets them most of all!!! The fact of the matter is that we all–all who are Baptized into Christ–are responsible for the gift of His Presence in the Apostolic Succession of the Church. We all carry it by fact of our Baptism into Christ and anointing of His Spirit from the Father. Laymen who forget this about themselves betray their bishops just as much as Bishops who forget this betray their lay brethren. Let us grow up and take to heart more and more the incredible gift and responsibility of Christ’s ongoing extreme humility remaining God WITH us and IN us–us careless, self-indulging, overly fearful, prideful ingrates–and so stir each other up to greater and greater heights of love and zeal, which is our inheritance of THEOSIS in Christ, Who IS the very pierced Heart of God our Heavenly Father’s infinite Love outpoured in the Holy Spirit for us and within and so through us, for the life of the whole world!!!
The Church celebrates the laity who utterly rejected their wicked bishop Nestorius for his rejection of Theotokos in favor of Christotokos. Church history is littered with other wicked bishops whose clergy and laity ousted him from the throne whence they were leading souls away. Obedience implies listening. The late holy father called for a listening Church. That means laity listen and hear with the sensus fidei and speak up like a church mouse when something unpleasant is announced. No, not unpleasant as in simply imprudent. Unpleasant, as in wounds the body. Obedience is a virtue because it is active — not simply passive, robotic doing whatever one is told to do. Call and response is the way of God. Bishops call to their people seeking a response. Good sheep hear the voice of their shepherd and follow him. Our Lord warns us that there are false teachers, wolves in sheep’s clothing. The hireling will flee. We should not hope for danger from without that will lead a bishop to flee. But if there is danger within, such as heresy from the bishop, we should hope that a strong response from the laity will cause the hireling to flee from his false position and take up his cross and follow the Lord. Blind obedience leads to bishops going unchecked, such as we saw before and after the Dallas Charter. Of all things, Vatican II helps remind us that bishops are not regional managers and the laity are not called to blind obedience.
My bishop for 5 years was Theodore McCarrick.
I do not consider him to have been a successor of the Apostles. I instead consider him to have been an agent of spiritual enemies governed by the principalities and powers, along with many like-minded diabolical men inside the “clerisy elite.”
I consider his time as a priest and bishop was completely null, from the very moment of his ordination.
McCarrick was succeeded by Donald Wuerl, who is, to employ a term coined by our own US Bishops in their notorious Dallas Charter (hand-crafted by McCarrick for them), “credibly accused” of a decades-long series of covering up for “priest” friends and acquaintances guilty of sex abuse, including his friend Theodore McCarrick, for which instance he was forced to resign as Archbishop of Washington (against his will, and against the will of The Pontiff Francis). He is famously featured here in the pages of CWR, in an article in 2018 (I believe?), under the apt headline, in words very close to this : “Cardinal Wuerl Denies Denying He Denied Knowledge of McCarrick’s Sex Abuse.”
It is of supreme importance regarding “governance” in the Roman Catholic Church, to keep in mind that Donald Wuerl remains a powerful agent of the malign 5th column inside the clerisy elite, serving inside the Vatican Congregation for Bishops even now, after being appointed there in 2013 by The Pontiff Francis.
As a citizen of the Church, I find that the evidence indicates that none of these 3 men are/were faithful Bishops (or priests). I also believe that Jesus Our Lord is their Judge.
For all the good it has done our current crop of bishops, that grace may as well have been poured out on the floor. There is hardly a day that goes by without more evidence of our bishops’ ignorance of Scripture, Tradition, and basic Christian doctrine. I, for one, am thoroughly sick of the whole lot of them. Obey them? Forget it!