THE SERVANT CHURCH

My favorite writers on the Church are Adrian Dulles and Edmund Schillebeeckx, neither of whom were notable liberals. Both have significantly influenced my concept of the Church as well as that expressed by the Bishops at Vatican II: Dulles in delineating various models of Church, Schillebeeckx in forming my vision of the Church as the Body of Christ who acts and speaks through it in the world today. Richard P. McBrien’s “The Church” is probably the best and most readable book on the subject in fifty years. When I started to formulate my vision for the Church of the future, not the heavenly New Jerusalem, but the church down and dirty in its members, I tried to put that vision in words in the context of the world today. I think it is the same vision as that expressed by Vatican II in the document De Ecclesia ("About the Church".)

My vision harks back to the early church we find in the Acts of the Apostles. It is the church described by Paul who wrote, “Have that mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross” (Phil 2:5-8.) It is the church of the ghetto and the catacombs, the weak and the voiceless, the Church of the Servant Christ who told His Apostles at the Last Supper, “I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do…no slave is greater that his master nor any messenger greater than the one who sent him” (John 13:35-36).

My vision is of a servant church, not an authoritarian structure, where service not power is the keyword. Peter was appointed to serve his fellow Apostles and the Church; the Apostles were to serve the Church, not Peter. This is the role of the Pope in the Church, preserving its fidelity to the teaching of Christ. The Pope is “servus servorum Dei”, (servant of the servants of God,) and his primacy is rooted and expressed in that role. In like manner the role of patriarchs and bishops is also rooted in the same service to their flocks. Statements by the Pope that express the teaching of the universal church are truly guided by the Holy Spirit, but his personal opinions are not infallible.

In a Church that seems to be gradually eroding the spirit of Vatican II and reversing its teachings, it is important to remember and defend this principle. Unity in faith refers to formal teachings of the Universal Church, not personal opinions. And nowhere is there any basis for authoritarian edicts or legal decisions affecting the life of the faithful, only teaching and guidance in the way of the Lord.