The Magisterium

A reader writes:

Hello, I hate to be so ignorant, but what exactly is the magisterium?  I hear about it all the time and have run search engines on it, but the articles just refer to it, without an explanation.  Is it a group of writings?

First, no need to be embarrassed about the question. Asking questions is how we learn.

Second, the Magisterium is not a collecting of writings, but it’s quite understandable why you might think that. The Magisterium tends to express itself through writings much of the time, and that’s what you’re running into.

In actuality, the Magisterium is the teaching authority of the Church. It’s name comes from the Latin word magister, which means "teacher."

The Magisterium is composed of the bishops of the Church teaching in union with the pope. The pope can himself exercise the teaching authority of the Church, or the bishops can do it when they teach in union with him.

If a bishop goes rogue, though, and starts teaching contrary to the pope then he isn’t exercising the Church’s teaching authority. He’s speaking on his own and not in his capacity to represent the Magisterium.

Ordinary theologians (unless they are also bishops) are not members of the Magisterium.

Neither are apologists (again, unless they are also bishops).

Not even the ones who write blogs.

 

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

4 thoughts on “The Magisterium”

  2. Jimmy, haven’t you got a river nearby where you can go be ordained bishop? (if you’re feeling ambitious maybe you could even be ordained ‘auxiliary pope’ or something;)

  3. Okay – question from an ignorant Prod. Your definition seems to leave the possibility that the Magesterium, i.e. living bishops in conjunction w/ the pope, can redefine church teaching. I.e. if the pope and all the bishops agree that selling children into slavery is no longer sinful, then it is so according to the Magisterium of the church, even though last week it would have been contrary to the Magisterium. Don’t the dead get a vote in this, too – i.e. the teachings of the apostles, the fathers, etc? I know there is something false in the situation I just posited, or in a basic assumption somewhere. Obviously, I am missing something in the equation here. Can you enlighten?

  4. Jesus said to him in reply, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.
    And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.
    I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
    The Catholic interpretation of this is papal infallibility: the Holy Ghost will prevent the Pope from definitively teaching error.

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