HIERARCHY
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HIERARCHY
and good works, which are tlie fruit of grace. The
hierarchy of order exercises its power over the Real
Body of Christ in the Eucharist; that of jurisdiction
over His Mystical Body, the Church (Catech. Cone.
Trid., pt. II, c. vii, n. 6). Christ did not give to all the
faithful power to administer His sacraments, except in
the case of baptism and matrimony, or to offer public
worship. This was reserved to those who, having
received the sacrament of order, belong to the hier-
archy of order. He entrusted the guidance of the
faithful along the paths of duty and in the practice of
good works to a religious authority, and for this pur-
pose He established a hierarchy of jurisdiction.
Moreover, He established His Church as a visible,
external, and perfect society; hence He conferred on
its hierarchy the right to legislate for the good of that
society. For this double purpose, the sanctification
of souls and the good or welfare of religious society,
the hierarchy of jurisdiction is endowed with the
following rights: (1) the right to frame and sanction
laws which it considers useful or necessary, i. e. legis-
lative power; (2) the right to judge how the faithful
observe these laws, i. e. judicial power; (3) the right to
enforce obedience, and to punish disobedience to its
laws, i. e. coercive power; (4) the right to make all due
provision for the proper celebration of worship, i. e.
administrative power. Furthermore, with the power
of jurisdiction there should be connected the right to
exercise the power of order. The acts of the power or
order are, it is true, always valid (except in the sacra-
ment of Penance, which requires in addition a power of
jurisdiction). However, in a well-ordered society
like the Church, the right to exercise the power of
order could never be a mere matter of choice. For its
legitimate exercise the Church requires either jurisdic-
tion, or at least permission, even of a general char-
acter.
Ordinarily, also, the teaching power ( magisterium) is connected with the power of jurisdiction. It is possible, of course, to distinguish in the Church a threefold power: the potestas magisterii, or the right to teach in matters of faith and morals; the potestas mimsterii, or the right to administer the sacraments, and the potestas regimin is, or the power of jurisdiction. Christ, however, did not establish a special hierarchy for the "potestas magisterii", nor does the teaching power pertain to the power of order, as some have maintained, but rather to the power of jurisdiction. The Vatican Council, intleed, seems to connect the supreme magisterial power of the pope with his pri- macy of jurisdiction (Constitutio de Ecclesia Christi, cap. i and iv). Moreover, the power of jurisdiction implies the right of imposing on the faithful a real obligation to believe what the Church proposes. Fi- nally, in the Church, no one can teach without a missio canonica, or authorization from ecclesiastical superiors, which brings us back again to the power of jurisdiction. Nevertheless, as a general nde, the "potestas magisterii" belongs to those only who have also the power of order, i. e. to the pope and the bishops, and cannot be separated from the latter power; the same is equally true of the power of ju- risdiction (Schnell, "Die Gliederung der Kirchen- gewalten" in " Theologische Quartalschrift", LXXI 1889, .387 sq.). Jurisdiction is e-xercised in joro in- terno (potestas vicaria), and in joro externa. The latter aims directly at the welfare of religious society, indi- rectly at that of its individual members; the former deals directly with indivitluals, and only indirectly with the religious society as a whole.
Finally, jurisdiction is either ordinary or delegated ; the first is acquired by the acceptance of specified functions to which the law itself attaches this power, that the possessor must exercise in his own name ; the second is obtained by virtue of a special delegation from ecclesiastical authority, in whose name it is to be exercised.
A. Hierarchy o] Order. — The Council of Trent has
defined the Divine institution of the first three grades
of the hierarchy of order, i. e. the episcopate, priest-
hood, and diaconate (Se.ss. XXIII, De sacramento
ordinis, cap. iv, can. vi). The other orders, i. e. those
of subdeacon, acolyte, exorcist, lector, and porter, are
of ecclesiastical institution. There is some contro-
versy about the subdiaconate. The Council of Trent
did not decide the question, but only declared that
Fathers and councils place the subdiaconate among
the major orders (loc. cit., cap. ii). It is now pretty
generally held that the subdiaconate is of ecclesias-
tical institution, chiefly because of the lateness of its
appearance in ecclesiastical discipline. Its introduc-
tion wa.s due to the unwillingness of certain Churches
to have more than seven deacons, conformably to
Apostolic practice in the Church of Jerusalem (Acts,
vi, 1-6). Furthermore, the ordination rite of sub-
deacons does not seem sacramental, since it contains
neither the imposition of hands nor the words " Re-
ceive the Holy Ghost". Finally, in the Eastern
l^niat Churches the subdiaconate is reckoned among
the minor orders. For this opinion may be quoted
Urban II in the Council of Benevento in 1091 (Har-
douin, "Acta Cone", VI, ii, 1696, Paris, 1714), the
"Decretum" of Gratian (pars I, dist. xxi, init.), Peter
Lombard ("Sent.", Lib. IV, dist. xxiv), and others;
.see Benedict XIV, "De SjTiodo Dicecesana", VIII,
ix, n. 10). This hierarchy of ecclesiastical origin
arose at the end of the second and the beginning of the
third century, and appears definitely fixed at Rome
imder Pope Cornelius (2.51-252), who tells us that in
his day the Roman Church coimted 46 priests, 7
deacons, 7 subdeacons, 42 acolytes, and 52 clerics of
lower grades, exorcists, lectors, and porters (Eusebius,
" Hist. Eccl.", VI, 43). In the primitive Church there
were also deaconesses, widows, and virgins, but these
did not belong to the hierarchy properly so called,
nor does Pope Cornelius include them in his list of
the Roman clergy. Their principal fimctions were
prayer, the practice of works of charity, and of hospi-
tality; while they performed certain liturgical func-
tions, as in the baptism of women and at the agape,
they never took any part, except by imauthorized
abuse, in the ministry of the altar strictly speaking
(Duchesne, "Christian Worship", London, 1904).
Finally, although abbots of monasteries may confer
the four minor orders, they do not constitute a special
order or grade in the hierarchy. It is not by virtue of
the blessing they receive from the bishop that they
may confer orders, but by virtue of a privilege which
canon law grants to abbots who have received such
solemn blessing from a bishop (Gasparri, "Tractatus
Canonicus de sacra ordinatione", I, iv, Paris, 1893).
The Latin Church, therefore, counts eight grades in
the hierarchy of order, the episcopate being counted a
separate order from that of the priesthood, and eccle-
siastical tonsure not being an order.
This latter point, formerly controverted by canon- ists, is no longer in doubt : the tonsure is, in the pres- ent discipline, a simple rite by which a layman becomes an ecclesiastic, a necessary antecedent condi- tion for the lawful reception of orders proper, and not an order it.self, except in a very inaccurate way of speaking, since the ceremony conveys no "potestas ordinis". In the Middle Ages Scholastic theologians denied that the episcopate was a distinct order from priesthood, alleging that the former is only the com- plement and perfection of the latter. In respect of the offering of the Holy Sacrifice the bishop, it is true, has no more power than a priest; on the other hand, it is only a bishop who can ordain a priest; and this difference of power implies a distinction of order. Against this distinction it has been objected that an episcopal ordination would be invalid unless the subject had first of all received sacerdotal ordination. It is true that, according to the modern practice, one
