INTERNATIONAL
THEOLOGICAL COMMISSION
CONTENTS
a) Faith as response to the Word of God
b) The personal and ecclesial dimensions of faith
c) The capacity of believers to know and witness to the truth
b) The personal and ecclesial dimensions of faith
c) The capacity of believers to know and witness to the truth
a) Patristic period
b) Medieval period
c) Reformation and post-Reformation period
d) 19th century
e) 20th century
b) Medieval period
c) Reformation and post-Reformation period
d) 19th century
e) 20th century
a) Retrospective and prospective aspects of the sensus
fidei
b) The contribution of the laity to the sensus fidelium
b) The contribution of the laity to the sensus fidelium
a) The magisterium listens to the sensus
fidelium
b) The magisterium nurtures, discerns and judges the sensus fidelium
c) Reception
b) The magisterium nurtures, discerns and judges the sensus fidelium
c) Reception
a) Theologians depend on the sensus
fidelium
b) Theologians reflect on the sensus fidelium
b) Theologians reflect on the sensus fidelium
a) Participation in the life of the Church
b) Listening to the word of God
c) Openness to reason
d) Adherence to the magisterium
e) Holiness – humility, freedom and joy
f) Seeking the edification of the Church
b) Listening to the word of God
c) Openness to reason
d) Adherence to the magisterium
e) Holiness – humility, freedom and joy
f) Seeking the edification of the Church
a) The sensus fidei and popular
religiosity
b) The sensus fidei and public opinion
c) Ways of consulting the faithful
b) The sensus fidei and public opinion
c) Ways of consulting the faithful
In its quinquennium of 2009-2014, the
International Theological Commission studied the nature ofsensus fidei and
its place in the life of the Church. The work took place in a subcommission
presided by Msgr. Paul McPartlan and composed of the following members: Fr.
Serge Thomas Bonino, O.P. (Secretary General); Sr. Sara Butler, M.S.B.T.; Rev.
Antonio Castellano, S.D.B.; Rev. Adelbert Denaux; Msgr. Tomislav Ivanĉić;
Bishop Jan Liesen; Rev. Leonard Santedi Kinkupu, Doctor Thomas Söding, and
Msgr. Jerzy Szymik.
The general discussions of this theme were held
in numerous meetings of the subcommission and during the Plenary Sessions of
the same International Theological Commission held in Rome between 2011 and
2014. The text “Sensus fidei in the Life of the Church” was
approved in forma specifica by the majority of members of
commission, by a written vote, and was then submitted to its President,
Cardinal Gerhard L. Müller, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith, who authorized its publication.
1. By the gift of the Holy Spirit, ‘the Spirit
of truth who comes from the Father’ and bears witness to the Son (Jn 15:26),
all of the baptised participate in the prophetic office of Jesus Christ, ‘the
faithful and true witness’ (Rev 3:14). They are to bear witness to the Gospel
and to the apostolic faith in the Church and in the world. The Holy Spirit
anoints them and equips them for that high calling, conferring on them a very
personal and intimate knowledge of the faith of the Church. In the first letter
of St John, the faithful are told: ‘you have been anointed by the Holy One, and
all of you have knowledge’, ‘the anointing that you received from [Christ]
abides in you, and so you do not need anyone to teach you’, ‘his anointing
teaches you about all things’ (1Jn 2:20, 27).
2. As a result, the faithful have an instinct
for the truth of the Gospel, which enables them to recognise and endorse
authentic Christian doctrine and practice, and to reject what is false. That
supernatural instinct, intrinsically linked to the gift of faith received in
the communion of the Church, is called the sensus fidei, and it
enables Christians to fulfil their prophetic calling. In his first Angelus
address, Pope Francis quoted the words of a humble, elderly woman he once met:
‘If the Lord did not forgive everything, the world would not exist’; and he
commented with admiration: ‘that is the wisdom which the Holy Spirit gives’.[1] The
woman’s insight is a striking manifestation of thesensus fidei, which,
as well as enabling a certain discernment with regard to the things of faith,
fosters true wisdom and gives rise, as here, to proclamation of the truth. It
is clear, therefore, that the sensus fidei is a vital resource
for the new evangelisation to which the Church is strongly committed in our
time.[2]
3. As a theological concept, the sensus
fidei refers to two realities which are distinct though closely
connected, the proper subject of one being the Church, ‘pillar and bulwark of
the truth’ (1Tim 3:15),[3] while the
subject of the other is the individual believer, who belongs to the Church
through the sacraments of initiation, and who, by means of regular celebration
of the Eucharist, in particular, participates in her faith and life. On the one
hand, the sensus fidei refers to the personal capacity of the
believer, within the communion of the Church, to discern the truth of faith. On
the other hand, the sensus fidei refers to a communal and
ecclesial reality: the instinct of faith of the Church herself, by which she
recognises her Lord and proclaims his word. The sensus fidei in
this sense is reflected in the convergence of the baptised in a lived adhesion
to a doctrine of faith or to an element of Christian praxis. This
convergence (consensus) plays a vital role in the Church:
the consensus fidelium is a sure criterion for determining
whether a particular doctrine or practice belongs to the apostolic faith.[4]In the present
document, we use the term, sensus fidei fidelis, to refer to the
personal aptitude of the believer to make an accurate discernment in matters of
faith, and sensus fidei fidelium to refer to the Church’s own
instinct of faith. According to the context, sensus fideirefers to
either the former or the latter, and in the latter case the term, sensus
fidelium, is also used.
4. The importance of the sensus fidei in
the life of the Church was strongly emphasised by the Second Vatican Council.
Banishing the caricature of an active hierarchy and a passive laity, and in
particular the notion of a strict separation between the teaching Church (Ecclesia
docens) and the learning Church (Ecclesia discens), the council
taught that all the baptised participate in their own proper way in the three
offices of Christ as prophet, priest and king. In particular, it taught that
Christ fulfills his prophetic office not only by means of the hierarchy but
also via the laity.
5. In the reception and application of the
council’s teaching on this topic, however, many questions arise, especially in
relation to controversies regarding various doctrinal or moral issues. What
exactly is the sensus fidei and how can it be identified? What
are the biblical sources for this idea and how does the sensus fidei function
in the tradition of the faith? How does the sensus fideirelate to
the ecclesiastical magisterium of the pope and the bishops, and to theology?[5] What are
the conditions for an authentic exercise of the sensus fidei? Is
the sensus fidei something different from the majority opinion
of the faithful in a given time or place, and if so how does it differ from the
latter? All of these questions require answers if the idea of the sensus
fidei is to be understood more fully and used more confidently in the Church
today.
6. The purpose of the present text is not to
give an exhaustive account of the sensus fidei, but simply to
clarify and deepen some important aspects of this vital notion in order to
respond to certain issues, particularly regarding how to identify the authentic sensus
fidei in situations of controversy, when for example there are
tensions between the teaching of the magisterium and views claiming to express
the sensus fidei. Accordingly, it will first consider the biblical
sources for the idea of the sensus fidei and the way in which
this idea has developed and functioned in the history and tradition of the
Church (chapter one). The nature of the sensus fidei fidelis will
then be considered, together with the manifestations of the latter in the
personal life of the believer (chapter two). The document will then reflect on
the sensus fidei fidelium, that is, the sensus fidei in
its ecclesial form, considering first its role in the development of Christian
doctrine and practice, then its relationship to the magisterium and to
theology, respectively, and then also its importance for ecumenical dialogue
(chapter three). Finally, it will seek to identify dispositions needed for an
authentic participation in the sensus fidei - they constitute
criteria for a discernment of the authenticsensus fidei - and will
reflect on some applications of its findings to the concrete life of the Church
(chapter four).
7. The phrase, sensus fidei, is
found neither in the Scriptures nor in the formal teaching of the Church until
Vatican II. However, the idea that the Church as a whole is infallible in her
belief, since she is the body and bride of Christ (cf. 1Cor 12:27; Eph 4:12;
5:21-32; Rev 21:9), and that all of her members have an anointing that teaches
them (cf. 1Jn 2:20, 27), being endowed with the Spirit of truth (cf. Jn 16:13),
is everywhere apparent from the very beginnings of Christianity. The present
chapter will trace the main lines of the development of this idea, first in
Scripture and then in the subsequent history of the Church.
a) Faith as response to the Word of God
8. Throughout the New Testament, faith is the
fundamental and decisive response of human persons to the Gospel. Jesus
proclaims the Gospel in order to bring people to faith: ‘The time is fulfilled,
and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news’ (Mk
1:15). Paul reminds the early Christians of his apostolic proclamation of the
death and resurrection of Jesus Christ in order to renew and deepen their
faith: ‘Now I would remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I
proclaimed to you, which you in turn received, in which also you stand, through
which also you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message that I
proclaimed to you - unless you have come to believe in vain’ (1Cor 15:1-2). The
understanding of faith in the New Testament is rooted in the Old Testament, and
especially in the faith of Abram, who trusted completely in God’s promises (Gen
15:6; cf. Rom 4:11,17). This faith is a free answer to the proclamation of the
word of God, and as such it is a gift of the Holy Spirit to be received by
those who truly believe (cf. 1Cor 12:3). The ‘obedience of faith’ (Rom 1:5) is
the result of God’s grace, who frees human beings and gives them membership in
the Church (Gal 5:1,13).
9. The Gospel calls forth faith because it is
not simply the conveying of religious information but the proclamation of the
word of God, and ‘the power of God for salvation’, which is truly to be
received (Rom 1:16-17; cf. Mt 11:15; Lk 7:22 [Is 26:19; 29:18; 35:5-6;
61:1-11]). It is the Gospel of God’s grace (Acts 20:24), the ‘revelation of the
mystery’ of God (Rom 16:25), and the ‘word of truth’ (Eph 1:13). The Gospel has
a substantial content: the coming of God’s Kingdom, the resurrection and
exaltation of the crucified Jesus Christ, the mystery of salvation and
glorification by God in the Holy Spirit. The Gospel has a strong subject: Jesus
himself, the Word of God, who sends out his apostles and their followers, and
it takes the direct form of inspired and authorised proclamation by words and
deeds. To receive the Gospel requires a response of the whole person ‘with all
your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your
strength’ (Mk 12:31). This is the response of faith, which is ‘the assurance of
things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen’ (Heb 11:1).
10. ‘“Faith” is both an act of belief or trust
and also that which is believed or confessed, fides quaand fides
quae, respectively. Both aspects work together inseparably, since trust is
adhesion to a message with intelligible content, and confession cannot be
reduced to mere lip service, it must come from the heart.’[6] The Old
and New Testaments clearly show that the form and content of faith belong
together.
b) The personal and ecclesial dimensions of
faith
11. The scriptures show that the personal
dimension of faith is integrated into the ecclesial dimension; both singular
and plural forms of the first person are found: ‘we believe’ (cf. Gal 2:16) and
‘I believe’ (cf. Gal 2:19-20). In his letters, Paul recognises the faith of
believers as both a personal and an ecclesial reality. He teaches that everyone
who confesses that ‘Jesus is Lord’ is inspired by the Holy Spirit (1Cor 12:3).
The Spirit incorporates every believer into the body of Christ and gives him or
her a special role in order to build up the Church (cf. 1Cor 12:4-27). In the
letter to the Ephesians, confession of the one and only God is connected with
the reality of a life of faith in the Church: ‘There is one body and one
Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one
faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all
and in all’ (Eph 4:4-6).
12. In its personal and ecclesial dimensions,
faith has the following essential aspects:
i) Faith requires repentance. In the
proclamation of the prophets of Israel and of John the Baptist (cf. Mk 1:4), as
well as in the preaching of the Good News by Jesus himself (Mk 1:14f.) and in
the mission of the Apostles (Acts 2:38-42; 1Thess 1:9f.), repentance means the
confession of one’s sins and the beginning of a new life lived within the
community of the covenant of God (cf. Rom 12:1f.).
ii) Faith is both expressed in and nourished by
prayer and worship (leiturgia). Prayer can take various forms - begging,
imploring, praising, thanksgiving - and the confession of faith is a special
form of prayer. Liturgical prayer, and pre-eminently the celebration of the
Eucharist, has from the very beginning been essential to the life of the
Christian community (cf. Acts 2:42). Prayer takes place both in public (cf.
1Cor 14) and in private (cf. Mt 6:5). For Jesus, the Our Father (Mt 6:9-13; Lk
11:1-4) expresses the essence of faith. It is a ‘summary of the whole Gospel’.[7] Significantly,
its language is that of ‘we’, ‘us’ and ‘our’.
iii) Faith brings knowledge. The one who
believes is able to recognise the truth of God (cf. Phil 3:10f.). Such
knowledge springs from reflection on the experience of God, based on revelation
and shared in the community of believers. This is the witness of both Old and
New Testament Wisdom theology (Ps 111:10; cf. Prov 1:7; 9:10; Mt 11:27; Lk
10:22).
iv) Faith leads to confession (marturia).
Inspired by the Holy Spirit, believers know the one in whom they have placed
their trust (cf. 2Tim 1:12), and are able to give an account of the hope that
is in them (cf. 1Pet 3:15), thanks to the prophetic and apostolic proclamation
of the Gospel (cf. Rom 10:9f.). They do that in their own name; but they do it
from within the communion of believers.
v) Faith involves confidence. To trust in God
means to base one’s whole life on the promise of God. In Heb 11, many Old
Testament believers are mentioned as members of a great procession through time
and space to God in heaven, guided by Jesus the ‘the pioneer and perfecter of
our faith’ (Heb 12:3). Christians are part of this procession, sharing the same
hope and conviction (Heb 11:1), and already ‘surrounded by so great a cloud of
witnesses’ (Heb 12:1).
vi) Faith entails responsibility, and especially
charity and service (diakonia). The disciples will be known ‘by their
fruits’ (Mt 7:20). The fruits belong essentially to faith, because faith, which
comes from listening to the word of God, requires obedience to his will. The
faith which justifies (Gal 2:16) is ‘faith working through love’ (Gal 5:6; cf.
Jas 2:21-24). Love for one’s brother and sister is in fact the criterion for
love of God (1Jn 4:20).
c) The capacity of believers to know and witness
to the truth
13. In Jeremiah, a ‘new covenant’ is promised,
one which will involve the internalisation of God’s word: ‘I will put my law
within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and
they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each
other, “Know the Lord”, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to
the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember
their sin no more’ (Jer 31:33-34). The people of God is to be created anew,
receiving ‘a new spirit’, so as to be able to recognise the law and to follow
it (Ez 11:19-20). This promise is fulfilled in the ministry of Jesus and the
life of the Church by the gift of the Holy Spirit. It is especially fulfilled
in the celebration of the Eucharist, where the faithful receive the cup that is
‘the new covenant’ in the Lord’s blood (Lk 22:20; 1Cor 11:25; cf. Rom 11:27;
Heb 8:6-12; 10:14-17).
14. In his farewell discourse, in the context of
the Last Supper, Jesus promised his disciples the ‘Advocate’, the Spirit of
truth (Jn 14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7-14). The Spirit will remind them of the words
of Jesus (Jn 14:26), enable them to testify to the word of God (Jn 15:26-27),
‘prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment’ (Jn 16:8), and
‘guide’ the disciples ‘into all the truth’ (Jn 16:13). All of this happens
thanks to the gift of the Spirit through the paschal mystery, celebrated in the
life of the Christian community, particularly in the Eucharist, until the Lord
comes (cf. 1Cor 11:26). The disciples have an inspired sense for the
ever-actual truth of God’s word incarnate in Jesus and of its meaning for today
(cf. 2Cor 6:2), and that is what drives the people of God, guided by the Holy
Spirit, to bear witness to their faith in the Church and in the world.
15. Moses wished that all of the people might be
prophets by receiving the spirit of the Lord (Num 11:29). That wish became an
eschatological promise through the prophet, Joel, and at Pentecost Peter
proclaims the fulfillment of the promise: ‘In the last days it will be, God
declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your
daughters shall prophesy’ (Acts 2:17; cf. Joel 3:1). The Spirit who was
promised (cf. Acts 1:8) is poured out, enabling the faithful to speak ‘about
God's deeds of power’ (Acts 2:11).
16. The first description of the community of
believers in Jerusalem combines four elements: ‘They devoted themselves to the
apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers’
(Acts 2:42). Devotion to these four elements powerfully manifests apostolic
faith. Faith clings to the authentic teaching of the Apostles,
which remembers the teaching of Jesus (cf. Lk 1:1-4); it draws believers into
fellowship with one another; it is renewed through the encounter with the Lord
in the breaking of bread; and it is nourished in prayer.
17. When in the church of Jerusalem a conflict
arose between the Hellenists and the Hebrews about the daily distribution, the
twelve apostles summoned ‘the whole community of the disciples’ and took a
decision that ‘pleased the whole community’. The whole community chose ‘seven
men of good standing, full of the Spirit and of wisdom’, and set them before
the apostles who then prayed and laid their hands upon them (Acts 6:1-6). When
problems arose in the church of Antioch concerning circumcision and the
practice of the Torah, the case was submitted to the judgment of the mother
church of Jerusalem. The resulting apostolic council was of the greatest
importance for the future of the Church. Luke describes the sequence of events
carefully. The ‘apostles and the elders met together to consider this matter’
(Acts 15:6). Peter told the story of his being inspired by the Holy Spirit to
baptise Cornelius and his house even though they were uncircumcised (Acts
15:7-11). Paul and Barnabas told of their missionary experience in the local
church of Antioch (Acts 15:12; cf. 15:1-5). James reflected on those
experiences in the light of the Scriptures (Acts 15:13-18), and proposed a
decision that favoured the unity of the Church (Acts 15:19-21). ‘Then the
apostles and the elders, with the consent of the whole church, decided to
choose men from among their members and to send them to Antioch with Paul and
Barnabas’ (Acts 15:22). The letter which communicated the decision was received
by the community with the joy of faith (Acts 15:23-33). For Luke, these events
demonstrated proper ecclesial action, involving both the pastoral service of
the apostles and elders and also the participation of the community, qualified
to participate by their faith.
18. Writing to the Corinthians, Paul identifies
the foolishness of the cross as the wisdom of God (1Cor 1:18-25). Explaining
how this paradox is comprehensible, he says: ‘we have the mind of Christ’ (1Cor
2:16; ἡμεῖς δὲ νοῦν Χριστοῦ ἔχομεν; nos autem sensum Christi habemus,
in the Vulgate). ‘We’ here refers to the church of Corinth in
communion with her Apostle as part of the whole community of believers (1Cor
1:1-2). The capacity to recognise the crucified Messiah as the wisdom of God is
given by the Holy Spirit; it is not a privilege of the wise and the scribes
(cf. 1Cor 1:20), but is given to the poor, the marginalised, and to those who
are ‘foolish’ in the eyes of the world (1Cor 1:26-29). Even so, Paul criticises
the Corinthians for being ‘still of the flesh’, still not ready for ‘solid food’
(1Cor 3:1-4). Their faith needs to mature and to find better expression in
their words and deeds.
19. In his own ministry, Paul shows respect for,
and a desire to deepen, the faith of his communities.In 2Cor 1:24, he
describes his mission as an apostle in the following terms: ‘I do not mean to
imply that we lord it over your faith; rather, we are workers with you for your
joy, because you stand firm in the faith’, and he encourages the Corinthians:
‘Stand firm in your faith’ (1Cor 16:14). To the Thessalonians, he writes a
letter ‘to strengthen and encourage you for the sake of your faith’ (1Thess
3:2), and he prays for the faith of other communities likewise (cf. Col 1:9;
Eph 1:17-19). The apostle not only works for an increase in the faith of
others, he knows his own faith to be strengthened thereby in a sort of dialogue
of faith: ‘… that we may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith, both
yours and mine’ (Rom 1:17). The faith of the community is a reference point for
Paul’s teaching and a focus for his pastoral service, giving rise to a mutually
beneficial interchange between him and his communities.
20. In the first letter of John, the apostolic
Tradition is mentioned (1Jn 1:1-4), and the readers are reminded of their
baptism: ‘You have been anointed by the Holy One, and all of you have
knowledge’ (1Jn 2:20). The letter continues: ‘As for you, the anointing that
you received from him abides in you, and so you do not need anyone to teach
you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not
a lie, and just as it has taught you, abide in him’ (1Jn 2:27).
21. Finally, in the Book of Revelation, John the
prophet repeats in all of his letters to the churches (cf. Rev 2-3) the
formula: ‘Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the
churches’ (Rev 2:7, et al.). The members of the churches are charged to heed
the living word of the Spirit, to receive it, and to give glory to God. It is
by the obedience of faith, itself a gift of the Spirit, that the faithful are
able to recognise the teaching they are receiving truly as the teaching of the
same Spirit, and to respond to the instructions they are given.
22. The concept of the sensus fidelium began
to be elaborated and used in a more systematic way at the time of the
Reformation, though the decisive role of the consensus fidelium in
the discernment and development of doctrine concerning faith and morals was
already recognised in the patristic and medieval periods. What was still
needed, however, was more attention to the specific role of the laity in this
regard. That issue received attention particularly from the nineteenth century
onwards.
a) Patristic period
23. The Fathers and theologians of the first few
centuries considered the faith of the whole Church to be a sure point of
reference for discerning the content of the apostolic Tradition. Their
conviction about the solidity and even the infallibility of the discernment of
the whole Church on matters of faith and morals was expressed in the context of
controversy. They refuted the dangerous novelties introduced by heretics by
comparing them with what was held and done in all the churches.[8] For
Tertullian (c.160-c.225), the fact that all the churches have substantially the
same faith testifies to Christ’s presence and the guidance of the Holy Spirit;
those go astray who abandon the faith of the whole Church.[9] For
Augustine (354-430), the whole Church, ‘from the bishops to the least of the
faithful’, bears witness to the truth.[10] The
general consent of Christians functions as a sure norm for determining the
apostolic faith: ‘Securus judicat orbis terrarum [the
judgement of the whole world is sure]’.[11] John
Cassian (c.360-435) held that the universal consent of the faithful is a
sufficient argument to confute heretics,[12] and
Vincent of Lérins (died c.445) proposed as a norm the faith that was held
everywhere, always, and by everyone (quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab
omnibus creditum est).[13]
24. To resolve disputes among the faithful, the
Church Fathers appealed not only to common belief but also to the constant
tradition of practice. Jerome (c.345-420), for example, found justification for
the veneration of relics by pointing to the practice of the bishops and of the
faithful,[14] and
Epiphanius (c.315-403), in defense of Mary’s perpetual virginity, asked whether
anyone had ever dared to utter her name without adding ‘the Virgin’.[15]
25. The testimony of the patristic period
chiefly concerns the prophetic witness of the people of God as a whole,
something that has a certain objective character. The believing people as a
whole cannot err in matters of faith, it was claimed, because they have
received an anointing from Christ, the promised Holy Spirit, which equips them
to discern the truth. Some Fathers of the Church also reflected on the
subjective capacity of Christians animated by faith and indwelt by the Holy
Spirit to maintain true doctrine in the Church and to reject error. Augustine,
for example, called attention to this when he asserted that Christ ‘the
interior Teacher’ enables the laity as well as their pastors not only to
receive the truth of revelation but also to approve and transmit it.[16]
26. In the first five centuries, the faith of
the Church as a whole proved decisive in determining the canon of Scripture and
in defining major doctrines concerning, for example, the divinity of Christ,
the perpetual virginity and divine motherhood of Mary, and the veneration and
invocation of the saints. In some cases, as Blessed John Henry Newman (1801-90)
remarked, the faith of the laity, in particular, played a crucial role. The
most striking example was in the famous controversy in the fourth century with
the Arians, who were condemned at the Council of Nicaea (325 AD), where the
divinity of Jesus Christ was defined. From then until the Council of
Constantinople (381 AD), however, there continued to be uncertainty among the
bishops. During that period, ‘the divine tradition committed to the infallible
Church was proclaimed and maintained far more by the faithful than by the
Episcopate’. ‘[T]here was a temporary suspense of the functions of the
“Ecclesia docens”. The body of Bishops failed in their confession of the faith.
They spoke variously, one against another; there was nothing, after Nicaea, of
firm, unvarying, consistent testimony, for nearly sixty years.’[17]
b) Medieval period
27. Newman also commented that ‘in a later age,
when the learned Benedictines of Germany [cf. Rabanus Maurus, c.780-856] and
France [cf. Ratramnus, died c.870] were perplexed in their enunciation of the
doctrine of the Real Presence, Paschasius [c.790 - c.860] was supported by the
faithful in his maintenance of it.’[18] Something
similar happened with respect to the dogma, defined by Pope Benedict XII in the
constitution, Benedictus Deus (1336), regarding the beatific
vision, enjoyed already by souls after purgatory and before the day of
judgement:[19] ‘the
tradition, on which the definition was made, was manifested in the consensus
fidelium, with a luminousness which the succession of Bishops, though many
of them were “Sancti Patres ab ipsis Apostolorum temporibus”, did
not furnish’. ‘[M]ost considerable deference was paid to the “sensus fidelium”;
their opinion and advice indeed was not asked, but their testimony was taken,
their feelings consulted, their impatience, I had almost said, feared.’[20] The
continuing development, among the faithful, of belief in, and devotion to, the
Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in spite of opposition to the
doctrine by certain theologians, is another major example of the role played in
the Middle Ages by the sensus fidelium.
28. The Scholastic doctors acknowledged that the
Church, the congregatio fidelium, cannot err in matters of faith
because she is taught by God, united with Christ her Head, and indwelt by the
Holy Spirit. Thomas Aquinas, for example, takes this as a premise on the
grounds that the universal Church is governed by the Holy Spirit who, as the
Lord Jesus promised, would teach her ‘all truth’ (Jn 16:13).[21] He
knew that the faith of the universal Church is authoritatively expressed by her
prelates,[22] but
he was also particularly interested in each believer’s personal instinct of
faith, which he explored in relation to the theological virtue of
faith.
c) Reformation and post-Reformation period
29. The challenge posed by the 16th century
Reformers required renewed attention to the sensus fidei fidelium,
and the first systematic treatment of it was worked out as a result. The
Reformers emphasised the primacy of the word of God in Sacred Scripture (Scriptura
sola) and the priesthood of the faithful. In their view, the internal
testimony of the Holy Spirit gives all of the baptised the ability to
interpret, by themselves, God’s word; this conviction did not discourage them,
however, from teaching in synods and producing catechisms for the instruction
of the faithful. Their doctrines called into question, among other things, the
role and status of Tradition, the authority of the pope and the bishops to
teach, and the inerrancy of councils. In response to their claim that the
promise of Christ’s presence and the guidance of the Holy Spirit was given to
the whole Church, not only to the Twelve but also to every believer,[23] Catholic
theologians were led to explain more fully how the pastors serve the faith of
the people. In the process, they gave increasing attention to the teaching
authority of the hierarchy.
30. Theologians of the Catholic Reformation,
building on previous efforts to develop a systematic ecclesiology, took up the
question of revelation, its sources, and their authority. At first, they
responded to the Reformers’ critique of certain doctrines by appealing to the
infallibility of the whole Church, laity and clergy together, in
credendo.[24] The
Council of Trent, in fact, repeatedly appealed to the judgment of the whole
Church in its defence of disputed articles of Catholic doctrine. Its Decree on
the Sacrament of the Eucharist (1551), for example, specifically invoked ‘the
universal understanding of the Church [universum Ecclesiae sensum]’.[25]
31. Melchior Cano (1509-1560), who attended the
council, provided the first extended treatment of the sensus fidei
fidelium in his defence of Catholic esteem for the probative force of
Tradition in theological argument. In his treatise, De locis theologicis (1564),[26] he
identified the present common consent of the faithful as one of four criteria
for determining whether a doctrine or practice belongs to the apostolic
tradition.[27] In
a chapter on the Church’s authority with respect to doctrine, he argued that
the faith of the Church cannot fail because she is the Spouse (Hos 2; 1Cor
11:2) and Body of Christ (Eph 5), and because the Holy Spirit guides her (Jn
14:16, 26).[28] Cano
also noted that the word ‘Church’ sometimes designates all of the faithful,
including the pastors, and sometimes designates her leaders and pastors (principes
et pastores), for they too possess the Holy Spirit.[29] He
used the word in the first sense when he asserted that the Church’s faith
cannot fail, that the Church cannot be deceived in believing, and that
infallibility belongs not only to the Church of past ages but also to the
Church as it is presently constituted. He used ‘Church’ in the second sense
when he taught that her pastors are infallible in giving authoritative
doctrinal judgments, for they are assisted in this task by the Holy Spirit (Eph
4; 1 Tim 3).[30]
32. Robert Bellarmine (1542-1621), defending the
Catholic faith against its Reformation critics, took the visible Church, the
‘universality of all believers’, as his starting point. For him, all that the
faithful hold as de fide, and all that the bishops teach as
pertaining to the faith, is necessarily true and to be believed.[31] He
maintained that the councils of the Church cannot fail because they possess
this consensus Ecclesiae universalis.[32]
33. Other theologians of the post-Tridentine era
continued to affirm the infallibility of the Ecclesia(by which they
meant the entire Church, inclusive of her pastors) in credendo, but
began to distinguish the roles of the ‘teaching Church’ and the ‘learning
Church’ rather sharply. The earlier emphasis on the ‘active’ infallibility of
the Ecclesia in credendo was gradually replaced by an emphasis
on the active role of the Ecclesia docens. It became common to say
that the Ecclesia discens had only a ‘passive’ infallibility.
d) 19th Century
34. The 19th century was a decisive period for
the doctrine of the sensus fidei fidelium. It saw, in the Catholic
Church, partly in response to criticism from representatives of modern culture
and from Christians of other traditions, and partly from an inner maturation,
the rise of historical consciousness, a revival of interest in the Fathers of
the Church and in medieval theologians, and a renewed exploration of the
mystery of the Church. In this context, Catholic theologians such as Johann
Adam Möhler (1796-1838), Giovanni Perrone (1794-1876), and John Henry Newman
gave new attention to the sensus fidei fidelium as a locus
theologicus in order to explain how the Holy Spirit maintains the
whole Church in truth and to justify developments in the Church’s doctrine.
Theologians highlighted the active role of the whole Church, especially the
contribution of the lay faithful, in preserving and transmitting the Church’s
faith; and the magisterium implicitly confirmed this insight in the process
leading to the definition of the Immaculate Conception (1854).
35. To defend the Catholic faith against Rationalism,
the Tübingen scholar, Johann Adam Möhler, sought to portray the Church as a
living organism and to grasp the principles that governed the development of
doctrine. In his view, it is the Holy Spirit who animates, guides, and unites
the faithful as a community in Christ, bringing about in them an ecclesial
‘consciousness’ of the faith (Gemeingeist or Gesamtsinn),
something akin to a Volksgeist or national spirit.[33] This sensus
fidei, which is the subjective dimension of Tradition, necessarily includes
an objective element, the Church’s teaching, for the Christian ‘sense’ of the
faithful, which lives in their hearts and is virtually equivalent to Tradition,
is never divorced from its content.[34]
36. John Henry Newman initially investigated the sensus
fidei fidelium to resolve his difficulty concerning the development of
doctrine. He was the first to publish an entire treatise on the latter topic, An
Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (1845), and to spell
out the characteristics of faithful development. To distinguish between true
and false developments, he adopted Augustine’s norm - the general consent of
the whole Church, ‘Securus judicat orbis terrarum’ – but he
saw that an infallible authority is necessary to maintain the Church in the
truth.
37. Using insights from Möhler and Newman,[35] Perrone
retrieved the patristic understanding of the sensus fidelium in
order to respond to a widespread desire for a papal definition of Mary’s
Immaculate Conception; he found in the unanimous consent, or conspiratio,
of the faithful and their pastors a warrant for the apostolic origin of this
doctrine. He maintained that the most distinguished theologians attributed
probative force to the sensus fidelium, and that the strength of
one ‘instrument of tradition’ can make up for the deficit of another, e.g.,
‘the silence of the Fathers’.[36]
38. The influence of Perrone’s research on Pope
Pius IX’s decision to proceed with the definition of the Immaculate Conception
is evident from the fact that before he defined it the Pope asked the bishops
of the world to report to him in writing regarding the devotion of their clergy
and faithful people to the conception of the Immaculate Virgin.[37] In
the apostolic constitution containing the definition, Ineffabilis Deus (1854),
Pope Pius IX said that although he already knew the mind of the bishops on this
matter, he had particularly asked the bishops to inform him of the piety and
devotion of their faithful in this regard, and he concluded that ‘Holy
Scripture, venerable Tradition, the constant mind of the Church [perpetuus
Ecclesiae sensus], the remarkable agreement of Catholic bishops and the
faithful [singularis catholicorum Antistitum ac fidelium conspiratio],
and the memorable Acts and Constitutions of our predecessors’ all wonderfully
illustrated and proclaimed the doctrine.[38] He
thus used the language of Perrone’s treatise to describe the combined testimony
of the bishops and the faithful. Newman highlighted the word, conspiratio,
and commented: ‘the two, the Church teaching and the Church taught, are put
together, as one twofold testimony, illustrating each other, and never to be
divided’.[39]
39. When Newman later wrote On
Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine (1859), it was to
demonstrate that the faithful (as distinct from their pastors) have their own,
active role to play in conserving and transmitting the faith. ‘[T]he tradition
of the Apostles’ is ‘committed to the whole Church in its various constituents
and functions per modum unius’, but the bishops and the lay
faithful bear witness to it in diverse ways. The tradition, he says, ‘manifests
itself variously at various times: sometimes by the mouth of the episcopacy,
sometimes by the doctors, sometimes by the people, sometimes by liturgies,
rites, ceremonies, and customs, by events, disputes, movements, and all those
other phenomena which are comprised under the name of history’.[40] For
Newman, ‘there is something in the “pastorum et fidelium conspiratio”
which is not in the pastors alone’.[41] In
this work, Newman quoted at length from the arguments proposed over a decade
earlier by Giovanni Perrone in favor of the definition of the Immaculate
Conception.[42]
40. The First Vatican Council’s dogmatic
constitution, Pastor Aeternus, in which the infallible magisterium
of the pope was defined, by no means ignored the sensus fidei fidelium;
on the contrary, it presupposed it. The original draft constitution, Supremi
Pastoris, from which it developed, had a chapter on the infallibility of
the Church (chapter nine).[43] When
the order of business was changed in order to resolve the question of papal
infallibility, however, discussion of that foundation was deferred and never
taken up. In his relatio on the definition of papal
infallibility, Bishop Vincent Gasser nevertheless explained that the special
assistance given to the pope does not set him apart from the Church and does
not exclude consultation and cooperation.[44] The
definition of the Immaculate Conception was an example, he said, of a case ‘so
difficult that the Pope deems it necessary for his information to inquire from
the bishops, as the ordinary means, what is the mind of the churches’.[45] In
a phrase intended to exclude Gallicanism, Pastor Aeternus asserted
that ex cathedra doctrinal definitions of the pope concerning
faith and morals are irreformable ‘of themselves and not from the consent of
the Church [ex sese non autem ex consensu ecclesiae]’,[46] but
that does not make the consensus Ecclesiae superfluous. What
it excludes is the theory that such a definition requires this consent,
antecedent or consequent, as a condition for its authoritative status.[47] In
response to the Modernist crisis, a decree from the Holy Office, Lamentabili (1907),
confirmed the freedom of the Ecclesia docens vis-à-vis the Ecclesia
discens. The decree censured a proposition that would allow the pastors to
teach only what the faithful already believed.[48]
e) 20th Century
41. Catholic theologians in the 20th century
explored the doctrine of the sensus fidei fidelium in the
context of a theology of Tradition, a renewed ecclesiology, and a theology of
the laity. They emphasised that ‘the Church’ is not identical with her pastors;
that the whole Church, by the action of the Holy Spirit, is the subject or
‘organ’ of Tradition; and that lay people have an active role in the
transmission of the apostolic faith. The magisterium endorsed these
developments both in the consultation leading to the definition of the glorious
Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and in the Second Vatican Council’s
retrieval and confirmation of the doctrine of the sensus fidei.
42. In 1946, following the pattern of his
predecessor, Pope Pius XII sent an encyclical letter,Deiparae Virginis
Mariae, to all the bishops of the world asking them to inform him ‘about
the devotion of your clergy and people (taking into account their faith and
piety) toward the Assumption of the most Blessed Virgin Mary’. He thus
reaffirmed the practice of consulting the faithful in advance of making a
dogmatic definition, and, in the apostolic constitution, Munificentissimus
Deus (1950), he reported the ‘almost unanimous response’ he had
received.[49] Belief
in Mary’s Assumption was, indeed, ‘thoroughly rooted in the minds of the
faithful’.[50] Pope
Pius XII referred to ‘the concordant teaching of the Church’s ordinary
doctrinal authority and the concordant faith of the Christian people’, and
said, with regard now to belief in Mary’s Assumption, as Pope Pius IX had said
with regard to belief in her Immaculate Conception, that there was a ‘singularis
catholicorum Antistitum et fidelium conspiratio’. He added that the conspiratio showed
‘in an entirely certain and infallible way’ that Mary’s Assumption was ‘a truth
revealed by God and contained in that divine deposit which Christ delivered to
his Spouse to be guarded faithfully and to be taught infallibly’.[51] In
both cases, then, the papal definitions confirmed and celebrated the
deeply-held beliefs of the faithful.
43. Yves M.-J. Congar (1904-1995) contributed
significantly to the development of the doctrine of the sensus fidei
fidelis and the sensus fidei fidelium. In Jalons
pour une Théologie du Laïcat(orig. 1953), he explored this doctrine in
terms of the participation of the laity in the Church’s prophetical function.
Congar was acquainted with Newman’s work and adopted the same scheme (i.e. the
threefold office of the Church, and the sensus fidelium as an
expression of the prophetic office) without, however, tracing it directly to
Newman.[52] He
described the sensus fidelium as a gift of the Holy Spirit
‘given to the hierarchy and the whole body of the faithful together’, and he
distinguished the objective reality of faith (which constitutes the tradition)
from the subjective aspect, the grace of faith.[53] Where
earlier authors had underlined the distinction between the Ecclesia
docens and the Ecclesia discens, Congar was concerned to
show their organic unity. ‘The Church loving and believing, that is, the body
of the faithful, is infallible in the living possession of the faith, not in a
particular act or judgment’, he wrote.[54] The
teaching of the hierarchy is at the service of communion.
44. In many ways, the Second Vatican Council’s
teaching reflects Congar’s contribution. Chapter one of Lumen Gentium,
on ‘The Mystery of the Church’, teaches that the Holy Spirit ‘dwells in the
Church and in the hearts of the faithful, as in a temple’. ‘Guiding the Church
in the way of all truth (cf. Jn 16:13) and unifying her in communion and in the
works of ministry, he bestows upon her varied hierarchic and charismatic gifts,
and in this way directs her; and he adorns her with his fruits (cf. Eph
4:11-12; 1Cor 12:4; Gal 5:22)’.[55] Chapter
two then continues to deal with the Church as a whole, as the ‘People of God’,
prior to distinctions between lay and ordained. The article (LG 12) which
mentions the sensus fidei teaches that, having ‘an anointing
that comes from the holy one (cf. 1Jn 2:20, 27)’, the ‘whole body of the
faithful … cannot err in matters of belief’. The ‘Spirit of truth’ arouses and
sustains a ‘supernatural appreciation of the faith [supernaturali sensu
fidei]’, shown when ‘the whole people, … “from the bishops to the last of
the faithful” … manifest a universal consent in matters of faith and morals’.
By means of the sensus fidei, ‘the People of God, guided by the
sacred teaching authority (magisterium), and obeying it, receives not
the mere word of men, but truly the word of God (cf. 1Thess 2:13)’. According
to this description, the sensus fideiis an active capacity or
sensibility by which they are able to receive and understand the ‘faith once
for all delivered to the saints (cf. Jude 3)’. Indeed, by means of it, the
people not only ‘unfailingly adheres to this faith’, but also ‘penetrates it
more deeply with right judgment, and applies it more fully in daily life’. It
is the means by which the people shares in ‘Christ’s prophetic office’.[56]
45. Lumen Gentium subsequently
describes, in chapters three and four, respectively, how Christ exercises his
prophetic office not only through the Church’s pastors, but also through the
lay faithful. It teaches that, ‘until the full manifestation of his glory’, the
Lord fulfills this office ‘not only by the hierarchy who teach in his name and
by his power, but also by the laity’. With regard to the latter, it continues:
‘He accordingly both establishes them as witnesses and provides them with the
appreciation of the faith and the grace of the word [sensu fidei et gratia
verbi instruit] (cf. Acts 2:17-18; Apoc 19:10) so that the power of the
Gospel may shine out in daily family and social life.’ Strengthened by the
sacraments, ‘the laity become powerful heralds of the faith in things to be
hoped for (cf. Heb 11:1)’; ‘the laity can, and must, do valuable work for the
evangelisation of the world’.[57] Here,
the sensus fidei is presented as Christ’s gift to the
faithful, and once again is described as an active capacity by which the
faithful are able to understand, live and proclaim the truths of divine
revelation. It is the basis for their work of evangelisation.
46. The sensus fidei is also
evoked in the council’s teaching on the development of doctrine, in the context
of the transmission of the apostolic faith. Dei Verbum says
that the apostolic Tradition ‘makes progress in the Church, with the help of
the Holy Spirit’. ‘There is a growth in insight into the realities and words
that are being passed on’, and the council identifies three ways in which this
happens: ‘through the contemplation and study of believers who ponder these
things in their hearts (cf. Lk 2:19 and 51)’; ‘from the intimate sense of
spiritual realities which they experience [ex intima spiritualium rerum quam
experiuntur intelligentia]’; and ‘from the preaching of those [the bishops]
who have received … the sure charism of truth’.[58] Although
this passage does not name the sensus fidei, the contemplation,
study, and experience of believers to which it refers are all clearly
associated with the sensus fidei, and most commentators agree that
the council fathers were consciously invoking Newman’s theory of the
development of doctrine. When this text is read in light of the description of
the sensus fidei in Lumen Gentium 12 as a
supernatural appreciation of the faith, aroused by the Holy Spirit, by which
people guided by their pastors adhere unfailingly to the faith, it is readily
seen to express the same idea. When referring to ‘the remarkable harmony’ that
should exist between the bishops and the faithful in the practice and
profession of the faith handed on by the apostles, Dei Verbum actually
uses the very expression found in the definitions of both Marian dogmas, ‘singularis
fiat Antistitum et fidelium conspiratio’.[59]
47. Since the council, the magisterium has
reiterated key points from the council’s teaching on thesensus fidei,[60] and
also addressed a new issue, namely, the importance of not presuming that public
opinion inside (or outside) the Church is necessarily the same thing as the sensus
fidei (fidelium). In the post-synodal apostolic exhortation, Familiaris
Consortio (1981), Pope John Paul II considered the question as to how
the ‘supernatural sense of faith’ may be related to the ‘consensus of the
faithful’ and to majority opinion as determined by sociological and statistical
research. The sensus fidei, he wrote, ‘does not consist solely or
necessarily in the consensus of the faithful’. It is the task of the Church’s
pastors to ‘promote the sense of the faith in all the faithful, examine and
authoritatively judge the genuineness of its expressions, and educate the
faithful in an ever more mature evangelical discernment’.[61]
48. This second chapter concentrates on the
nature of the sensus fidei fidelis. It utilises, in particular, the
framework of arguments and categories offered by classical theology in order to
reflect how faith is operative in individual believers. Although the Biblical
vision of faith is larger, the classical understanding highlights an essential
aspect: the adherence of the intellect, through love, to revealed truth. This
conceptualisation of faith serves still today to clarify the understanding of
thesensus fidei fidelis. In these terms, the chapter also considers some
manifestations of the sensus fidei fidelis in the personal
lives of believers, it being clear that the personal and ecclesial aspects of
the sensus fidei are inseparable.
49. The sensus fidei fidelis is
a sort of spiritual instinct that enables the believer to judge spontaneously
whether a particular teaching or practice is or is not in conformity with the
Gospel and with apostolic faith. It is intrinsically linked to the virtue of
faith itself; it flows from, and is a property of, faith.[62] It
is compared to an instinct because it is not primarily the result of rational
deliberation, but is rather a form of spontaneous and natural knowledge, a sort
of perception (aisthesis).
50. The sensus fidei fidelis arises,
first and foremost, from the connaturality that the virtue of faith establishes
between the believing subject and the authentic object of faith, namely the
truth of God revealed in Christ Jesus. Generally speaking, connaturality refers
to a situation in which an entity A has a relationship with another entity B so
intimate that A shares in the natural dispositions of B as if they were its
own. Connaturality permits a particular and profound form of knowledge. For
example, to the extent that one friend is united to another, he or she becomes
capable of judging spontaneously what suits the other because he or she shares
the very inclinations of the other and so understands by connaturality what is
good or bad for the other. This is a knowledge, in other words, of a different
order than objective knowledge, which proceeds by way of conceptualisation and
reasoning. It is a knowledge by empathy, or a knowledge of the heart.
51. Every virtue connaturalises its subject, in
other words the one who possesses it, to its object, that is, to a certain type
of action. What is meant by virtue here is the stable disposition (or habitus)
of a person to behave in a certain way either intellectually or morally. Virtue
is a kind of ‘second nature’, by which the human person constructs himself or
herself by actualising freely and in accord with right reason the dynamisms
inscribed in human nature. It thereby gives a definite, stable orientation to
the activity of the natural faculties; it directs the latter to behaviours
which the virtuous person henceforth accomplishes ‘naturally’, with ‘ease,
self-mastery and joy’.[63]
52. Every virtue has a double effect: first, it
naturally inclines the person who possesses it towards an object (a certain
kind of action), and second, it spontaneously distances him or her from
whatever is contrary to that object. For example, a person who has developed
the virtue of chastity possesses a sort of ‘sixth sense’, ‘a kind of spiritual
instinct’,[64] which
enables him or her to discern the right way to behave even in the most complex
situations, spontaneously perceiving what it is appropriate to do and what to
avoid. A chaste person thereby instinctively adopts the right attitude, where
the conceptual reasoning of the moralist might lead to perplexity and
indecision.[65]
53. The sensus fidei is the
form that the instinct which accompanies every virtue takes in the
case of the virtue of faith. ‘Just as, by the habits of the other virtues, one
sees what is becoming in respect of that habit, so, by the habit of faith, the
human mind is directed to assent to such things as are becoming to a right
faith, and not to assent to others.’[66]Faith,
as a theological virtue, enables the believer to participate in the knowledge that
God has of himself and of all things. In the believer, it takes the form of a
‘second nature’.[67]By
means of grace and the theological virtues, believers become ‘participants of
the divine nature’ (2Pet 1:4), and are in a way connaturalised to God. As a
result, they react spontaneously on the basis of that participated divine
nature, in the same way that living beings react instinctively to what does or
does not suit their nature.
54. Unlike theology, which can be described as scientia
fidei, the sensus fidei fidelis is not a reflective
knowledge of the mysteries of faith which deploys concepts and uses rational
procedures to reach its conclusions. As its name (sensus) indicates, it
is akin rather to a natural, immediate and spontaneous reaction, and comparable
to a vital instinct or a sort of ‘flair’ by which the believer clings
spontaneously to what conforms to the truth of faith and shuns what is contrary
to it.[68]
55. The sensus fidei fidelis is
infallible in itself with regard to its object: the true faith.[69] However,
in the actual mental universe of the believer, the correct intuitions of the sensus
fidei can be mixed up with various purely human opinions, or even with
errors linked to the narrow confines of a particular cultural context.[70]‘Although
theological faith as such cannot err, the believer can still have erroneous
opinions since all his thoughts do not spring from faith. Not all the ideas
which circulate among the People of God are compatible with the faith.’[71]
56. The sensus fidei fidelis flows
from the theological virtue of faith. That virtue is an interior disposition,
prompted by love, to adhere without reserve to the whole truth revealed by God
as soon as it is perceived as such. Faith does not therefore necessarily imply
an explicit knowledge of the whole of revealed truth.[72]It
follows that a certain type of sensus fidei can exist in ‘the
baptised who are honoured by the name of Christian, but who do not however
profess the Catholic faith in its entirety’.[73]The
Catholic Church therefore needs to be attentive to what the Spirit may be
saying to her by means of believers in the churches and ecclesial communities
not fully in communion with her.
57. Since it is a property of the theological
virtue of faith, the sensus fidei fidelis develops in
proportion to the development of the virtue of faith. The more the virtue of
faith takes root in the heart and spirit of believers and informs their daily life,
the more the sensus fidei fidelis develops and strengthens in
them. Now, since faith, understood as a form of knowledge, is based on love,
charity is needed in order to animate it and to inform it, so as to make it a
living and lived faith (fides formata). Thus, the intensifying of faith
within the believer particularly depends on the growth within him or her of
charity, and the sensus fidei fidelis is therefore
proportional to the holiness of one’s life. St Paul teaches that ‘God’s love
has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to
us’ (Rom 5:5), and it follows that the development of the sensus fidei in
the spirit of the believer is particularly due to the action of the Holy
Spirit. As the Spirit of love, who instils love in human hearts, the Holy
Spirit opens to believers the possibility of a deeper and more intimate
knowledge of Christ the Truth, on the basis of a union of charity: ‘Showing the
truth is a property of the Holy Spirit, because it is love which brings about
the revelation of secrets’.[74]
58. Charity enables the flourishing in believers
of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, who leads them to a higher understanding of
the things of faith ‘in all spiritual wisdom and understanding’ (Col 1:9).[75]In
fact, the theological virtues attain their full measure in the believer’s life
only when the believer allows the Holy Spirit to guide him or her (cf. Rom
8:14). The gifts of the Spirit are precisely the gratuitous and infused
interior dispositions which serve as a basis for the activity of the Spirit in
the life of the believer. By means of these gifts of the Spirit, especially the
gifts of understanding and knowledge, believers are made capable of
understanding intimately the ‘spiritual realities which they experience’,[76]and
rejecting any interpretation contrary to the faith.
59. There is a vital interaction in each
believer between the sensus fidei and the living of faith in
the various contexts of his or her personal life. On one hand, the sensus
fidei enlightens and guides the way in which the believer puts his or
her faith into practice. On the other hand, by keeping the commandments and
putting faith into practice, the believer gains a deeper understanding of
faith: ‘those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly
seen that their deeds have been done in God’ (Jn 3:21). Putting faith into
practice in the concrete reality of the existential situations in which he or
she is placed by family, professional and cultural relations enriches the
personal experience of the believer. It enables him or her to see more
precisely the value and the limits of a given doctrine, and to propose ways of
refining its formulation. That is why those who teach in the name of the Church
should give full attention to the experience of believers, especially lay
people, who strive to put the Church’s teaching into practice in the areas of
their own specific experience and competence.
60. Three principal manifestations of the sensus
fidei fidelis in the personal life of the believer can be highlighted.
The sensus fidei fidelis enables individual believers: 1) to
discern whether or not a particular teaching or practice that they actually
encounter in the Church is coherent with the true faith by which they live in
the communion of the Church (see below, §§61-63); 2) to distinguish in what is
preached between the essential and the secondary (§64); and 3) to determine and
put into practice the witness to Jesus Christ that they should give in the particular
historical and cultural context in which they live (§65).
61. ‘Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but
test the spirits to see whether they are from God ; for many false prophets
have gone out into the world’ (1Jn 4:1). The sensus fidei fidelis confers
on the believer the capacity to discern whether or not a teaching or practice
is coherent with the true faith by which he or she already lives. If individual
believers perceive or ‘sense’ that coherence, they spontaneously give their
interior adherence to those teachings or engage personally in the practices,
whether it is a matter of truths already explicitly taught or of truths not yet
explicitly taught.
62. The sensus fidei fidelis also
enables individual believers to perceive any disharmony, incoherence, or
contradiction between a teaching or practice and the authentic Christian faith
by which they live. They react as a music lover does to false notes in the
performance of a piece of music. In such cases, believers interiorly resist the
teachings or practices concerned and do not accept them or participate in them.
‘The habitus of faith possesses a capacity whereby, thanks to
it, the believer is prevented from giving assent to what is contrary to the
faith, just as chastity gives protection with regard to whatever is contrary to
chastity.’[77]
63. Alerted by their sensus fidei,
individual believers may deny assent even to the teaching of legitimate pastors
if they do not recognise in that teaching the voice of Christ, the Good
Shepherd. ‘The sheep follow [the Good Shepherd] because they know his voice.
They will not follow a stranger, but they will run away from him because they
do not know the voice of strangers’ (Jn 10:4-5). For St Thomas, a believer,
even without theological competence, can and even must resist, by virtue of the sensus
fidei, his or her bishop if the latter preaches heterodoxy.[78]In
such a case, the believer does not treat himself or herself as the ultimate
criterion of the truth of faith, but rather, faced with materially ‘authorised’
preaching which he or she finds troubling, without being able to explain
exactly why, defers assent and appeals interiorly to the superior authority of
the universal Church.[79]
64. The sensus fidei fidelis also
enables the believer to distinguish in what is preached between what is
essential for an authentic Catholic faith and what, without being formally
against the faith, is only accidental or even indifferent with regard to the
core of the faith. For example, by virtue of theirsensus fidei,
individual believers may relativise certain particular forms of Marian devotion
precisely out of adherence to an authentic cult of the Virgin Mary. They might
also distance themselves from preaching which unduly mixes together Christian
faith and partisan political choices. By keeping the spirit of the believer
focused in this way on what is essential to the faith, the sensus
fidei fidelisguarantees an authentic Christian liberty (cf. Col 2:16-23),
and contributes to a purification of faith.
65. Thanks to the sensus fidei fidelis and
sustained by the supernatural prudence that the Spirit confers, the believer is
able to sense, in new historical and cultural contexts, what might be the most
appropriate ways in which to give an authentic witness to the truth of Jesus
Christ, and moreover to act accordingly. The sensus fidei fidelis thus
acquires a prospective dimension to the extent that, on the basis of the faith
already lived, it enables the believer to anticipate a development or an
explanation of Christian practice. Because of the reciprocal link between the
practice of the faith and the understanding of its content, the sensus
fidei fidelis contributes in this way to the emergence and
illumination of aspects of the Catholic faith that were previously implicit;
and because of the reciprocal link between the sensus fidei of
the individual believer and the sensus fidei of the Church as
such, that is the sensus fidei fidelium, such developments are
never purely private, but always ecclesial. The faithful are always in
relationship with one another, and with the magisterium and theologians, in the
communion of the Church.
66. As the faith of the individual believer
participates in the faith of the Church as a believing subject, so the sensus
fidei (fidelis) of individual believers cannot be separated from the sensus
fidei (fidelium) or ‘sensus Ecclesiae’[80] of
the Church herself, endowed and sustained by the Holy Spirit,[81] and
the consensus fidelium constitutes a sure criterion for recognising
a particular teaching or practice as in accord with the apostolic Tradition.[82] The
present chapter, therefore, turns to consider various aspects of the sensus
fidei fidelium. It reflects, first of all, on the role of the latter in the
development of Christian doctrine and practice; then on two relationships of
great importance for the life and health of the Church, namely the relationship
between the sensus fideiand the magisterium, and the relationship
between the sensus fidei and theology; then, finally, on some
ecumenical aspects of the sensus fidei.
67. The whole Church, laity and hierarchy
together, bears responsibility for and mediates in history the revelation which
is contained in the holy Scriptures and in the living apostolic Tradition. The Second
Vatican Council stated that the latter form ‘a single sacred deposit of the
word of God’ which is ‘entrusted to the Church’, that is, ‘the entire holy
people, united to its pastors’.[83] The
council clearly taught that the faithful are not merely passive recipients of
what the hierarchy teaches and theologians explain; rather, they are living and
active subjects within the Church. In this context, it underscored the vital
role played by all believers in the articulation and development of the faith:
‘the Tradition that comes from the apostles makes progress in the Church, with
the help of the Holy Spirit’.[84]
a) Retrospective and prospective aspects of the sensus
fidei
68. In order to understand how it functions and
manifests itself in the life of the Church, the sensus fidei needs
to be viewed within the context of history, a history in which the Holy Spirit
makes each day a day to hear the voice of the Lord afresh (cf. Heb 3:7-15). The
Good News of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is transmitted to
the Church as a whole through the living apostolic Tradition, of which the
Scriptures are the authoritative written witness. Hence, by the grace of the
Holy Spirit, who reminds the Church of all that Jesus said and did (cf. Jn
14:26), believers rely on the Scriptures and on the continuing apostolic
Tradition in their life of faith and in the exercise of thesensus fidei.
69. However, faith and the sensus fidei are
not only anchored in the past; they are also orientated towards the future. The
communion of believers is a historical reality: ‘built upon the foundation of
the apostles and the prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone’,
it ‘grows into a holy temple in the Lord’ (Eph 2:20-21), in the power of the
Holy Spirit, who guides the Church ‘into all the truth’ and declares to
believers already now ‘the things that are to come’ (Jn 16:13), so that,
especially in the Eucharist, the Church anticipates the return of the Lord and
the coming of his kingdom (cf. 1Cor 11:26).
70. As she awaits the return of her Lord, the
Church and her members are constantly confronted with new circumstances, with
the progress of knowledge and culture, and with the challenges of human
history, and they have to read the signs of the times, ‘to interpret them in
the light of the divine Word’, and to discern how they may enable revealed
truth itself to be ‘more deeply penetrated, better understood and more deeply
presented’.[85] In
this process, the sensus fidei fidelium has an essential role
to play. It is not only reactive but also proactive and interactive, as the
Church and all of its members make their pilgrim way in history. The sensus
fidei is therefore not only retrospective but also prospective, and,
though less familiar, the prospective and proactive aspects of the sensus
fidei are highly important. The sensus fidei gives an
intuition as to the right way forward amid the uncertainties and ambiguities of
history, and a capacity to listen discerningly to what human culture and the
progress of the sciences are saying. It animates the life of faith and guides
authentic Christian action.
71. It can take a long time before this process
of discernment comes to a conclusion. In the face of new circumstances, the
faithful at large, pastors and theologians all have their respective roles to
play, and patience and respect are needed in their mutual interactions if the sensus
fidei is to be clarified and a true consensus fidelium, a conspiratio
pastorum et fidelium, is to be achieved.
b) The contribution of the laity to the sensus
fidelium
72. From the beginning of Christianity, all the
faithful played an active role in the development of Christian belief. The
whole community bore witness to the apostolic faith, and history shows that,
when decisions about the faith needed to be taken, the witness of the laity was
taken into consideration by the pastors. As has been seen in the historical
survey above,[86] there
is evidence that the laity played a major role in the coming into existence of
various doctrinal definitions. Sometimes the people of God, and in particular
the laity, intuitively felt in which direction the development of doctrine
would go, even when theologians and bishops were divided on the issue.
Sometimes there was a clear conspiratio pastorum et fidelium.
Sometimes, when the Church came to a definition, the Ecclesia docens had
clearly ‘consulted’ the faithful, and it pointed to theconsensus fidelium as
one of the arguments which legitimated the definition.
73. What is less well known, and generally
receives less attention, is the role played by the laity with regard to the
development of the moral teaching of the Church. It is therefore important to
reflect also on the function played by the laity in discerning the Christian
understanding of appropriate human behaviour in accordance with the Gospel. In
certain areas, the teaching of the Church has developed as a result of lay
people discovering the imperatives arising from new situations. The reflection
of theologians, and then the judgment of the episcopal magisterium, was based
on the Christian experience already clarified by the faithful intuition of lay
people. Some examples might illustrate the role of the sensus fidelium in
the development of moral doctrine:
i) Between canon 20 of the Council of Elvira (c.
306 AD), which forbade clerics and lay people to receive interest, and the
response, Non esse inquietandos, of Pope Pius VIII to the bishop of
Rennes (1830),[87] there
is a clear development of teaching, due to both the emergence of a new
awareness among lay people involved in business as well as new reflection on
the part of theologians with regard to the nature of money.
ii) The openness of the Church towards social
problems, especially manifest in Pope Leo XIII’s Encyclical Letter, Rerum
Novarum (1896), was the fruit of a slow preparation in which lay
‘social pioneers’, activists as well as thinkers, played a major role.
iii) The striking albeit homogeneous development
from the condemnation of ‘liberal’ theses in part 10 of the Syllabus of Errors
(1864) of Pope Pius IX to the declaration on religious liberty, Dignitatis
Humanae (1965), of Vatican II would not have been possible without the
commitment of many Christians in the struggle for human rights.
The difficulty of discerning the authentic sensus
fidelium in cases such as those above particularly indicates the need
to identify dispositions required for authentic participation in the sensus
fidei, dispositions which may serve, in turn, as criteria for discerning
the authentic sensus fidei.[88]
a) The magisterium listens to the sensus
fidelium
74. In matters of faith the baptised cannot be
passive. They have received the Spirit and are endowed as members of the body
of the Lord with gifts and charisms ‘for the renewal and building up of the
Church’,[89] so
the magisterium has to be attentive to the sensus fidelium, the
living voice of the people of God. Not only do they have the right to be heard,
but their reaction to what is proposed as belonging to the faith of the
Apostles must be taken very seriously, because it is by the Church as a whole
that the apostolic faith is borne in the power of the Spirit. The magisterium
does not have sole responsibility for it. The magisterium should therefore
refer to the sense of faith of the Church as a whole. The sensus
fidelium can be an important factor in the development of doctrine,
and it follows that the magisterium needs means by which to consult the
faithful.
75. The connection between the sensus
fidelium and the magisterium is particularly to be found in the
liturgy. The faithful are baptised into a royal priesthood, exercised
principally in the Eucharist,[90] and
the bishops are the ‘high priests’ who preside at the Eucharist,[91] regularly
exercising there their teaching office, also. The Eucharist is the source and
summit of the life of the Church;[92]it
is there especially that the faithful and their pastors interact, as one body
for one purpose, namely to give praise and glory to God. The Eucharist shapes
and forms the sensus fidelium and contributes greatly to the
formulation and refinement of verbal expressions of the faith, because it is
there that the teaching of bishops and councils is ultimately ‘received’ by the
faithful. From early Christian times, the Eucharist underpinned the formulation
of the Church’s doctrine because there most of all was the mystery of faith
encountered and celebrated, and the bishops who presided at the Eucharist of
their local churches among their faithful people were those who gathered in
councils to determine how best to express the faith in words and formulas: lex
orandi, lex credendi.[93]
b) The magisterium nurtures, discerns and judges
the sensus fidelium
76. The magisterium of those ‘who have received,
along with their right of succession in the episcopate, the sure charism of
truth’[94] is
a ministry of truth exercised in and for the Church, all of whose members have
been anointed by the Spirit of truth (Jn 14:17; 15:26; 16:13; 1Jn 2:20, 27),
and endowed with the sensus fidei, an instinct for the truth of the
Gospel. Being responsible for ensuring the fidelity of the Church as a whole to
the word of God, and for keeping the people of God faithful to the Gospel, the
magisterium is responsible for nurturing and educating the sensus
fidelium. Of course, those who exercise the magisterium, namely the pope
and the bishops, are themselves, first of all, baptised members of the people
of God, who participate by that very fact in the sensus fidelium.
77. The magisterium also judges with authority
whether opinions which are present among the people of God, and which may seem
to be the sensus fidelium, actually correspond to the truth of the
Tradition received from the Apostles. As Newman said: ‘the gift of discerning,
discriminating, defining, promulgating, and enforcing any portion of that
tradition resides solely in the Ecclesia docens’.[95] Thus,
judgement regarding the authenticity of the sensus fidelium belongs
ultimately not to the faithful themselves nor to theology but to the
magisterium. Nevertheless, as already emphasised, the faith which it serves is
the faith of the Church, which lives in all of the faithful, so it is always
within the communion life of the Church that the magisterium exercises its
essential ministry of oversight.
c) Reception
78. ‘Reception’ may be described as a process by
which, guided by the Spirit, the people of God recognises intuitions or
insights and integrates them into the patterns and structures of its life and
worship, accepting a new witness to the truth and corresponding forms of its
expression, because it perceives them to be in accord with the apostolic Tradition.
The process of reception is fundamental for the life and health of the Church
as a pilgrim people journeying in history towards the fulness of God’s Kingdom.
79. All of the gifts of the Spirit, and in a
special way the gift of primacy in the Church, are given so as to foster the
unity of the Church in faith and communion,[96] and
the reception of magisterial teaching by the faithful is itself prompted by the
Spirit, as the faithful, by means of the sensus fideithat they
possess, recognise the truth of what is taught and cling to it. As was
explained above, the teaching of Vatican I that infallible definitions of the
pope are irreformable ‘of themselves and not from the consent of the Church [ex
sese non autem ex consensu ecclesiae]’[97] does
not mean that the pope is cut off from the Church or that his teaching is
independent of the faith of the Church.[98] The
fact that prior to the infallible definitions both of the Immaculate Conception
of the Blessed Virgin Mary and of her bodily Assumption into heaven an
extensive consultation of the faithful was carried out at the express wish of
the pope at that time amply proves the point.[99] What
is meant, rather, is that such teaching of the pope, and by extension all
teaching of the pope and of the bishops, is authoritative in itself because of
the gift of the Holy Spirit, the charisma veritatis certum, that
they possess.
80. There are occasions, however, when the
reception of magisterial teaching by the faithful meets with difficulty and
resistance, and appropriate action on both sides is required in such
situations. The faithful must reflect on the teaching that has been given,
making every effort to understand and accept it. Resistance, as a matter of
principle, to the teaching of the magisterium is incompatible with the
authentic sensus fidei. The magisterium must likewise reflect on
the teaching that has been given and consider whether it needs clarification or
reformulation in order to communicate more effectively the essential message.
These mutual efforts in times of difficulty themselves express the communion
that is essential to the life of the Church, and likewise a yearning for the
grace of the Spirit who guides the Church ‘into all the truth’ (Jn 16:13).
81. As a service towards the understanding of
faith, theology endeavours, amid the conspiratio of all the
charisms and functions in the Church, to provide the Church with objective
precision regarding the content of its faith, and it necessarily relies on the
existence and correct exercise of thesensus fidelium. The latter is
not just an object of attention for theologians, it constitutes a foundation
and a locus for their work.[100] Theology
itself, therefore, has a two-fold relationship to the sensus fidelium.
On the one hand, theologians depend on the sensus fidei because
the faith that they study and articulate lives in the people of God. In this
sense, theology must place itself in the school of the sensus fidelium so
as to discover there the profound resonances of the word of God. On the other
hand, theologians help the faithful to express the authentic sensus
fidelium by reminding them of the essential lines of faith, and
helping them to avoid deviations and confusion caused by the influence of
imaginative elements from elsewhere. This two-fold relationship needs some
clarification, as in the following sections (a) and (b).
a) Theologians depend on the sensus
fidelium
82. By placing itself in the school of the sensus
fidelium, theology steeps itself in the reality of the
apostolic Tradition which underlies and overflows the strict bounds of the
statements in which the teaching of the Church is formulated, because it
comprises ‘all that she herself is, all that she believes’.[101] In
this regard, three particular considerations arise:
i) Theology should strive to detect the word
which is growing like a seed in the earth of the lives of the people of God,
and, having determined that a particular accent, desire or attitude does indeed
come from the Spirit, and so corresponds to the sensus fidelium, it
should integrate it into its research.
ii) By means of the sensus fidelium,
the people of God intuitively senses what in a multitude of ideas and doctrines
presented to it actually corresponds to the Gospel, and can therefore be
received. Theology should apply itself carefully to investigating the various
levels of reception that occur in the life of the people of God.
iii) The sensus fidelium both
gives rise to and recognises the authenticity of the symbolic or mystical
language often found in the liturgy and in popular religiosity. Aware of the
manifestations of popular religiosity,[102] the
theologian needs actually to participate in the life and liturgy of the local
church, so as to be able to grasp in a deep way, not only with the head but
also with the heart, the real context, historical and cultural, within which
the Church and her members are striving to live their faith and bear witness to
Christ in the world of today.
b) Theologians reflect on the sensus
fidelium
83. Because the sensus fidelium is
not simply identical to the opinion of the majority of the baptised at a given
time, theology needs to provide principles and criteria for its discernment,
particularly by the magisterium.[103] By
critical means, theologians help to reveal and to clarify the content of thesensus
fidelium, ‘recognising and demonstrating that issues relating to the truth
of faith can be complex, and that investigation of them must be precise’.[104]In
this perspective, theologians should also critically examine expressions of
popular piety, new currents of thought and also new movements in the Church,
for the sake of fidelity to the apostolic Tradition.[105] By
so doing, theologians will help the discernment of whether, in a particular
case, the Church is dealing with: a deviation caused by a crisis or a
misunderstanding of the faith, an opinion which has a proper place in the
pluralism of the Christian community without necessarily affecting others, or
something so attuned to the faith that it ought to be recognised as an
inspiration or a prompting of the Spirit.
84. Theology assists the sensus fidelium in
another way, too. It helps the faithful to know with greater clarity and
precision the authentic meaning of Scripture, the true significance of
conciliar definitions, the proper contents of the Tradition, and also which
questions remain open - for example, because of ambiguities in current
affirmations, or because of cultural factors having left their mark on what has
been handed on - and in which areas a revision of previous positions is needed.
The sensus fidelium relies on a strong and sure understanding
of the faith, such as theology seeks to promote.
85. The notions, sensus fidei, sensus
fidelium, and consensus fidelium, have all been treated, or at
least mentioned, in various international dialogues between the Catholic Church
and other churches and ecclesial communities. Broadly speaking, there has been
agreement in these dialogues that the whole body of the faithful, lay as well
as ordained, bears responsibility for maintaining the Church’s apostolic faith
and witness, and that each of the baptised, by reason of a divine anointing
(1Jn 2:20, 27), has the capacity to discern the truth in matters of faith.
There is also general agreement that certain members of the Church exercise a
special responsibility of teaching and oversight, but always in collaboration
with the rest of the faithful.[106]
86. Two particular questions related to the sensus
fidelium arise in the context of the ecumenical dialogue to which the
Catholic Church is irrevocably committed:[107]
i) Should only those doctrines which gain the
common consent of all Christians be regarded as expressing the sensus
fidelium and therefore as true and binding? This proposal goes counter
to the Catholic Church’s faith and practice. By means of dialogue, Catholic
theologians and those of other traditions seek to secure agreement on
Church-dividing questions, but the Catholic participants cannot suspend their
commitment to the Catholic Church’s own established doctrines.
ii) Should separated Christians be understood as
participating in and contributing to the sensus fidelium in
some manner? The answer here is undoubtedly in the affirmative.[108] The
Catholic Church acknowledges that ‘many elements of sanctification and truth’
are to be found outside her own visible bounds,[109] that
‘certain features of the Christian mystery have at times been more effectively
emphasised’ in other communities,[110] and
that ecumenical dialogue helps her to deepen and clarify her own understanding
of the Gospel.
87. The sensus fidei is
essential to the life of the Church, and it is necessary now to consider how to
discern and identify authentic manifestations of the sensus fidei.
Such a discernment is particularly required in situations of tension when the
authentic sensus fidei needs to be distinguished from
expressions simply of popular opinion, particular interests or the spirit of
the age. Recognising that the sensus fidei is an ecclesial
reality in which individual believers participate, the first part of this
chapter seeks to identify those characteristics which are required of the
baptised if they are truly to be subjects of the sensus fidei, in
other words, the dispositions necessary for believers to participate
authentically in the sensus fidelium. The criteriology offered in
the first part is then supplemented by consideration of the practical
application of criteria with regard to thesensus fidei in the
second part of the chapter. Part two considers three important topics: first,
the close relationship between the sensus fidei and popular
religiosity; then, the necessary distinction between the sensus fidei and
public opinion inside or outside the Church; and, finally, the question of how
to consult the faithful in matters of faith and morals.
88. There is not one simple disposition, but
rather a set of dispositions, influenced by ecclesial, spiritual, and ethical
factors. No single one can be discussed in an isolated manner; its relationship
to each and all of the others has to be taken into account. Only the most
important dispositions for authentic participation in the sensus fidei are
indicated below, drawn from biblical, historical and systematic investigation,
and formulated so as to be useful in practical situations of discernment.
a) Participation in the life of the Church
89. The first and most fundamental disposition
is active participation in the life of the Church. Formal membership of the
Church is not enough. Participation in the life of the Church means constant
prayer (cf. 1Thess 5:17), active participation in the liturgy, especially the
Eucharist, regular reception of the sacrament of reconciliation, discernment
and exercise of gifts and charisms received from the Holy Spirit, and active
engagement in the Church’s mission and in her diakonia. It presumes
an acceptance of the Church’s teaching on matters of faith and morals, a
willingness to follow the commands of God, and courage both to correct one’s
brothers and sisters, and also to accept correction oneself.
90. There are countless ways in which such
participation may occur, but what is common in all cases is an active
solidarity with the Church, coming from the heart, a feeling of fellowship with
other members of the faithful and with the Church as a whole, and an instinct
thereby for what the needs of and dangers to the Church are. The necessary
attitude is conveyed by the expression,sentire cum ecclesia, to feel,
sense and perceive in harmony with the Church. This is required not just of
theologians, but of all the faithful; it unites all the members of the people
of God as they make their pilgrim journey. It is the key to their ‘walking
together’.
91. The subjects of the sensus fidei are
members of the Church who participate in the life of the Church, knowing that
‘we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one
of another’ (Rom 12:5).
b) Listening to the word of God
92. Authentic participation in the sensus
fidei relies necessarily on a profound and attentive listening to the
word of God. Because the Bible is the original testimony of the word of God,
which is handed down from generation to generation in the community of faith,[111] coherence
to Scripture and Tradition is the main indicator of such listening. The sensus
fidei is the appreciation of the faith by which the people of God
‘receives not the mere word of men, but truly the word of God’.[112]
93. It is not at all required that all members
of the people of God should study the Bible and the witnesses of Tradition in a
scientific way. Rather, what is required is an attentive and receptive listening
to the Scriptures in the liturgy, and a heartfelt response, ‘Thanks be to God’
and ‘Glory to you, Lord Jesus Christ’, an eager confession of the mystery of
faith, and an ‘Amen’ which responds to the ‘Yes’ God has said to his people in
Jesus Christ (2Cor 1:20). Participation in the liturgy is the key to
participation in the living Tradition of the Church, and solidarity with the
poor and needy opens the heart to recognise the presence and the voice of
Christ (cf. Mt 25:31-46).
94. The subjects of the sensus fidei are
members of the Church who have ‘received the word with joy inspired by the Holy
Spirit’ (1Thess 1:6).
c) Openness to reason
95. A fundamental disposition required for
authentic participation in the sensus fidei is acceptance of
the proper role of reason in relation to faith. Faith and reason belong
together.[113] Jesus
taught that God is to be loved not only ‘with all your heart, and with all your
soul, … and with all your strength’, but also ‘with all your mind [nous]’
(Mk 12:30). Because there is only one God, there is only one truth, recognised
from different points of view and in different ways by faith and by reason,
respectively. Faith purifies reason and widens its scope, and reason purifies
faith and clarifies its coherence.[114]
96. The subjects of the sensus fidei are
members of the Church who celebrate ‘reasonable worship’ and accept the proper
role of reason illuminated by faith in their beliefs and practices. All the
faithful are called to be ‘transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that
you may discern what is the will of God - what is good and acceptable and
perfect’ (Rom 12:1-2).
d) Adherence to the magisterium
97. A further disposition necessary for
authentic participation in the sensus fidei is attentiveness
to the magisterium of the Church, and a willingness to listen to the teaching
of the pastors of the Church, as an act of freedom and deeply held conviction.[115] The
magisterium is rooted in the mission of Jesus, and especially in his own
teaching authority (cf. Mt 7:29). It is intrinsically related both to Scripture
and Tradition; none of these three can ‘stand without the others’.[116]
98. The subjects of the sensus fidei are
members of the Church who heed the words of Jesus to the envoys he sends:
‘Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and
whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me’ (Lk 10:16).
e) Holiness - humility, freedom and joy
99. Authentic participation in the sensus
fidei requires holiness. Holiness is the vocation of the whole Church
and of every believer.[117] To
be holy fundamentally means to belong to God in Jesus Christ and in his Church,
to be baptised and to live the faith in the power of the Holy Spirit. Holiness
is, indeed, participation in the life of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and
it holds together love of God and love of neighbour, obedience to the will of
God and engagement in favour of one’s fellow human beings. Such a life is
sustained by the Holy Spirit, who is repeatedly invoked and received by
Christians (cf. Rom 1:7-8, 11), particularly in the liturgy.
100. In the history of the Church, the saints
are the light-bearers of the sensus fidei. Mary, Mother of God, the
All-Holy (Panaghia), in her total acceptance of the word of God is the
very model of faith and Mother of the Church.[118] Treasuring
the words of Christ in her heart (Lk 2:51) and singing the praises of God’s
work of salvation (Lk 1:46-55), she perfectly exemplifies the delight in God’s
word and eagerness to proclaim the good news that the sensus fidei produces
in the hearts of believers. In all succeeding generations, the gift of the
Spirit to the Church has produced a rich harvest of holiness, and the full
number of the saints is known only to God.[119] Those
who are beatified and canonised stand as visible models of Christian faith and
life. For the Church, Mary and all holy persons, with their prayer and their
passion, are outstanding witnesses of the sensus fidei in
their own time and for all times, in their own place and for all places.
101. Because it fundamentally requires an imitatio
Christi (cf. Phil 2:5-8), holiness essentially involves humility. Such
humility is the very opposite of uncertainty or timidity; it is an act of
spiritual freedom. Therefore openness (parrhesia) after the pattern of
Christ himself (cf. Jn 18:20) is connected with humility and a characteristic
of the sensus fidei as well. The first place to practice
humility is within the Church itself. It is not only a virtue of lay people in
relation to their pastors, but also a duty of pastors themselves in the
exercise of their ministry for the Church. Jesus taught the twelve: ‘Whoever
wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all’ (Mk 9:35). Humility
is lived by habitually acknowledging the truth of faith, the ministry of
pastors, and the needs of the faithful, especially the weakest.
102. A true indicator of holiness is ‘peace and
joy in the Holy Spirit’ (Rom 14:17; cf. 1Thess 1:6). These are gifts manifested
primarily on a spiritual, not a psychological or emotional, level, namely, the
peace of heart and quiet joy of the person who has found the treasure of
salvation, the pearl of great price (cf. Mt 13:44-46). Peace and joy are,
indeed, two of the most characteristic fruits of the Holy Spirit (cf. Gal
5:22). It is the Holy Spirit who moves the heart and turns it to God, ‘opening
the eyes of the mind and giving “joy and ease to everyone in assenting to the
truth and believing it [omnibus suavitatem in consentiendo et credendo
veritati]”’.[120] Joy
is the opposite of the bitterness and wrath that grieve the Holy Spirit (cf.
Eph 4:31), and is the hallmark of salvation.[121]St
Peter urges Christians to rejoice in sharing Christ’s sufferings, ‘so that you
may also be glad and shout for joy when his glory is revealed’ (1Pet 4:13).
103. The subjects of the sensus fidei are
members of the Church who hear and respond to the urging of St Paul: ‘make my
joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord
and of one mind’. ‘Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility
regard others as better than yourselves’ (Phil 2:2-3).
f) Seeking the edification of the Church
104. An authentic manifestation of the sensus
fidei contributes to the edification of the Church as one body, and
does not foster division and particularism within her. In the first letter to
the Corinthians, the very essence of participation in the life and mission of
the Church is such edification (cf. 1Cor 14). Edification means building up the
Church both in the inner consciousness of its faith and in terms of new
members, who want to be baptised into the faith of the Church. The Church is
the house of God, a holy temple, made up of the faithful who have received the
Holy Spirit (cf. 1Cor 3:10-17). To build the Church means seeking to discover
and develop one’s own gifts and helping others to discover and develop their
charisms, too, correcting their failures, and accepting correction oneself, in
a spirit of Christian charity, working with others and praying with them,
sharing their joys and sorrows (cf. 1Cor 12:12, 26).
105. The subjects of the sensus fidei are
members of the Church who reflect what St Paul says to the Corinthians: ‘To
each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good’ (1Cor 12:7).
106. Discussion of dispositions appropriate to
the sensus fidei needs to be supplemented with consideration
of some important practical and pastoral questions, regarding, in particular,
the relationship between the sensus fidei and popular
religiosity; the necessary distinction between thesensus fidei, on the
one hand, and public or majority opinion, on the other; and how to consult the
faithful in matters of faith and morals. These points will now be considered in
turn.
a) The sensus fidei and popular
religiosity
107. There is a ‘religiosity’ that is natural
for human beings; religious questions naturally arise in every human life,
prompting a vast diversity of religious beliefs and popular practices, and the
phenomenon of popular religiosity has been the object of much attention and
study in recent times.[122]
108. ‘Popular religiosity’ also has a more
specific usage, namely in reference to the great variety of manifestations of
Christian belief found among the people of God in the Church, or, rather, to
refer to ‘the Catholic wisdom of the people’ that finds expression in such a
multitude of ways. That wisdom ‘creatively combines the divine and the human,
Christ and Mary, spirit and body, communion and institution, person and
community, faith and homeland, intelligence and emotion’, and is also for the
people ‘a principle of discernment and an evangelical instinct through which
they spontaneously sense when the Gospel is served in the Church and when it is
emptied of its content and stifled by other interests’.[123] As
such a wisdom, principle and instinct, popular religiosity is clearly very
closely related to the sensus fidei, and needs to be considered
carefully within the framework of the present study.
109. The words of Jesus, ‘I thank you, Father,
Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise
and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants’ (Mt 11:25; Lk 10:21),
are highly relevant in this context. They indicate the wisdom and insight into
the things of God that is given to those of humble faith. Vast multitudes of
humble Christian believers (and indeed of people beyond the visible bounds of
the Church) have privileged access, at least potentially, to the deep truths of
God. Popular religiosity arises in particular from the knowledge of God
vouchsafed to such people. It is ‘the manifestation of a theological life
nourished by the working of the Holy Spirit who has been poured into our hearts
(cf. Rom 5:5)’.[124]
110. Both as a principle or instinct and as a
rich abundance of Christian practice, especially in the form of cultic
activities, e.g. devotions, pilgrimages and processions, popular religiosity
springs from and makes manifest the sensus fidei, and is to be
respected and fostered. It needs to be recognised that popular piety, in
particular, is ‘the first and most fundamental form of faith’s
“inculturation”’.[125] Such
piety is ‘an ecclesial reality prompted and guided by the Holy Spirit’,[126] by
whom the people of God are indeed anointed as a ‘holy priesthood’. It is
natural for the priesthood of the people to find expression in a multitude of
ways.
111. The priestly activity of the people rightly
has its high point in the liturgy, and care must be taken to ensure that
popular devotions ‘accord with the sacred liturgy’.[127] More
generally, as Pope Paul VI taught, since it is in danger of being penetrated
‘by many distortions of religion and even superstitions’, popular religiosity
needs to be evangelised.[128] However,
when carefully tended in this way, and ‘well oriented’, it is, he said, ‘rich
in values’. ‘It manifests a thirst for God which only the simple and poor can
know. It makes people capable of generosity and sacrifice even to the point of
heroism, when it is a question of manifesting belief. It involves an acute
awareness of profound attributes of God: fatherhood, providence, living and
constant presence. It engenders interior attitudes rarely observed to the same
degree elsewhere: patience, the sense of the Cross in daily life, detachment,
openness to others, devotion…. When it is well oriented, this popular
religiosity can be more and more for multitudes of our people a true encounter
with God in Jesus Christ.’[129] In
admiring the elderly woman’s statement,[130] Pope
Francis was echoing the esteem expressed here by Pope Paul. Once again, well
oriented popular religiosity, both in its insight into the deep mysteries of
the Gospel and in its courageous witness of faith, can be seen as a
manifestation and expression of the sensus fidei.
112. It may be said that popular religiosity is
‘well oriented’ when it is truly ‘ecclesial’. Pope Paul indicated in the same
text certain criteria for ecclesiality. Being ecclesial means being nourished
by the Word of God, not being politicised or trapped by ideologies, remaining
strongly in communion with both the local church and the universal Church, with
the Church’s pastors and with the magisterium, and being fervently missionary.[131] These
criteria indicate conditions required for the authenticity both of popular
religiosity and of the sensus fidei that underlies it. In
their authentic form, as the final criterion indicates, both are great
resources for the Church’s mission. Pope Francis highlights the ‘missionary
power’ of popular piety, and in what can be seen as a reference to the sensus
fidei, states that ‘underlying popular piety’ there is likewise ‘an active
evangelising power which we must not underestimate: to do so would be to fail
to recognise the work of the Holy Spirit’.[132]
b) The sensus fidei and public
opinion
113. One of the most delicate topics is the
relationship between the sensus fidei and public or majority
opinion both inside and outside the Church. Public opinion is a sociological
concept, which applies first of all to political societies. The emergence of
public opinion is linked to the birth and development of the political model of
representative democracy. In so far as political power gains its legitimacy
from the people, the latter must make known their thoughts, and political power
must take account of them in the exercise of government. Public opinion is
therefore essential to the healthy functioning of democratic life, and it is
important that it be enlightened and informed in a competent and honest manner.
That is the role of the mass media, which thus contribute greatly to the common
good of society, as long as they do not seek to manipulate opinion in favour of
particular interests.
114. The Church appreciates the high human and
moral values espoused by democracy, but she herself is not structured according
to the principles of a secular political society. The Church, the mystery of
the communion of humanity with God, receives her constitution from Christ. It
is from him that she receives her internal structure and her principles of government.
Public opinion cannot, therefore, play in the Church the determinative role
that it legitimately plays in the political societies that rely on the
principle of popular sovereignty, though it does have a proper role in the
Church, as we shall seek to clarify below.
115. The mass media comment frequently on
religious affairs. Public interest in matters of faith is a good sign, and the
freedom of the press is a basic human right. The Catholic Church is not afraid
of discussion or controversy regarding her teaching. On the contrary, she
welcomes debate as a manifestation of religious freedom. Everyone is free
either to criticise or to support her. Indeed, she recognises that fair and
constructive critique can help her to see problems more clearly and to find
better solutions. She herself, in turn, is free to criticise unfair attacks,
and needs access to the media in order to defend the faith if necessary. She
values invitations from independent media to contribute to public debates. She
does not want a monopoly of information, but appreciates the plurality and
interchange of opinions. She also, however, knows the importance of informing
society about the true meaning and content both of her faith and of her moral
teaching.
116. The voices of lay people are heard much
more frequently now in the Church, sometimes with conservative and sometimes
with progressive positions, but generally participating constructively in the
life and the mission of the Church. The huge development of society by
education has had considerable impact on relations within the Church. The
Church herself is engaged worldwide in educational programmes aimed at giving
people their own voice and their own rights. It is therefore a good sign if
many people today are interested in the teaching, the liturgy and the service
of the Church. Many members of the Church want to exercise their own
competence, and to participate in their own proper way in the life of the
Church. They organise themselves within parishes and in various groups and movements
to build up the Church and to influence society at large, and they seek contact
via social media with other believers and with people of good will.
117. The new networks of communication both
inside and outside the Church call for new forms of attention and critique, and
the renewal of skills of discernment. There are influences from special
interest groups which are not compatible, or not fully so, with the Catholic
faith; there are convictions which are only applicable to a certain place or
time; and there are pressures to lessen the role of faith in public debate or
to accommodate traditional Christian doctrine to modern concerns and opinions.
118. It is clear that there can be no simple
identification between the sensus fidei and public or majority
opinion. These are by no means the same thing.
i) First of all, the sensus fidei is
obviously related to faith, and faith is a gift not necessarily possessed by
all people, so the sensus fidei can certainly not be likened
to public opinion in society at large. Then also, while Christian faith is, of
course, the primary factor uniting members of the Church, many different
influences combine to shape the views of Christians living in the modern world.
As the above discussion of dispositions implicitly shows, the sensus
fidei cannot simply be identified, therefore, with public or majority
opinion in the Church, either. Faith, not opinion, is the necessary focus of
attention. Opinion is often just an expression, frequently changeable and
transient, of the mood or desires of a certain group or culture, whereas faith
is the echo of the one Gospel which is valid for all places and times.
ii) In the history of the people of God, it has
often been not the majority but rather a minority which has truly lived and
witnessed to the faith. The Old Testament knew the ‘holy remnant’ of believers,
sometimes very few in number, over against the kings and priests and most of
the Israelites. Christianity itself started as a small minority, blamed and
persecuted by public authorities. In the history of the Church, evangelical
movements such as the Franciscans and Dominicans, or later the Jesuits, started
as small groups treated with suspicion by various bishops and theologians. In
many countries today, Christians are under strong pressure from other religions
or secular ideologies to neglect the truth of faith and weaken the boundaries
of ecclesial community. It is therefore particularly important to discern and
listen to the voices of the ‘little ones who believe’ (Mk 9:42).
119. It is undoubtedly necessary to distinguish
between the sensus fidei and public or majority opinion, hence
the need to identify dispositions necessary for participation in the sensus
fidei, such as those elaborated above. Nevertheless, it is the whole people
of God which, in its inner unity, confesses and lives the true faith. The
magisterium and theology must work constantly to renew the presentation of the
faith in different situations, confronting if necessary dominant notions of
Christian truth with the actual truth of the Gospel, but it must be recalled
that the experience of the Church shows that sometimes the truth of the faith
has been conserved not by the efforts of theologians or the teaching of the
majority of bishops but in the hearts of believers.
c) Ways of consulting the faithful
120. There is a genuine equality of dignity
among all the faithful, because through their baptism they are all reborn in
Christ. ‘Because of this equality they all contribute, each according to his or
her own condition and office, to the building up of the Body of Christ.’[133] Therefore,
all the faithful ‘have the right, indeed at times the duty, in keeping with
their knowledge, competence and position, to manifest to the sacred Pastors
their views on matters which concern the good of the Church’. ‘They have the
right to make their views known to others of Christ’s faithful, but in doing so
they must always respect the integrity of faith and morals, show due reference
to the Pastors and take into account both the common good and the dignity of
individuals.’[134] Accordingly,
the faithful, and specifically the lay people, should be treated by the
Church’s pastors with respect and consideration, and consulted in an
appropriate way for the good of the Church.
121. The word ‘consult’ includes the idea of
seeking a judgment or advice as well as inquiring into a matter of fact. On the
one hand, in matters of governance and pastoral issues, the pastors of the
Church can and should consult the faithful in certain cases in the sense of
asking for their advice or their judgment. On the other hand, when the
magisterium is defining a doctrine, it is appropriate to consult the faithful
in the sense of inquiring into a matter of fact, ‘because the body of the
faithful is one of the witnesses to the fact of the tradition of revealed
doctrine, and because their consensus through Christendom is the voice of the
Infallible Church’.[135]
122. The practice of consulting the faithful is
not new in the life of the Church. In the medieval Church a principle of Roman
law was used: Quod omnes tangit, ab omnibus tractari et approbari debet (what
affects everyone, should be discussed and approved by all). In the three
domains of the life of the Church (faith, sacraments, governance), ‘tradition
combined a hierarchical structure with a concrete regime of association and
agreement’, and this was considered to be an ‘apostolic practice’ or an
‘apostolic tradition’.[136]
123. Problems arise when the majority of the
faithful remain indifferent to doctrinal or moral decisions taken by the
magisterium or when they positively reject them. This lack of reception may
indicate a weakness or a lack of faith on the part of the people of God, caused
by an insufficiently critical embrace of contemporary culture. But in some
cases it may indicate that certain decisions have been taken by those in
authority without due consideration of the experience and the sensus
fidei of the faithful, or without sufficient consultation of the
faithful by the magisterium.[137]
124. It is only natural that there should be a
constant communication and regular dialogue on practical issues and matters of
faith and morals between members of the Church. Public opinion is an important
form of that communication in the Church. ‘Since the Church is a living body,
she needs public opinion in order to sustain a giving and taking between her
members. Without this, she cannot advance in thought and action.’[138] This
endorsement of a public exchange of thought and opinions in the Church was
given soon after Vatican II, precisely on the basis of the council’s teaching
on the sensus fidei and on Christian love, and the faithful
were strongly encouraged to take an active part in that public exchange.
‘Catholics should be fully aware of the real freedom to speak their minds which
stems from a “feeling for the faith” [i.e. the sensus fidei] and
from love. It stems from that feeling for the faith which is aroused and
nourished by the spirit of truth in order that, under the guidance of the
teaching Church which they accept with reverence, the People of God may cling
unswervingly to the faith given to the early Church, with true judgement
penetrate its meaning more deeply, and apply it more fully in their lives [Lumen
Gentium, 12]. This freedom also stems from love. For it is with love that …
the People of God are raised to an intimate sharing in the freedom of Christ
Himself, who cleansed us from our sins, in order that we might be able freely
to make judgements in accordance with the will of God. Those who exercise
authority in the Church will take care to ensure that there is responsible
exchange of freely held and expressed opinion among the People of God. More
than this, they will set up norms and conditions for this to take place.’[139]
125. Such public exchange of opinion is a prime
means by which, in a normal way, the sensus fidelium can be
gauged. Since the Second Vatican Council, however, various
institutional instruments by which the faithful may more formally be heard and
consulted have been established, such as particular councils, to which priests
and others of Christ’s faithful may be invited,[140]diocesan
synods, to which the diocesan bishop may also invite lay people as members,[141] the
pastoral council of each diocese, which is ‘composed of members of Christ’s
faithful who are in full communion with the Catholic Church: clerics, members
of institutes of consecrated life, and especially lay people’,[142] and
pastoral councils in parishes, in which ‘Christ’s faithful, together with those
who by virtue of their office are engaged in pastoral care in the parish, give
their help in fostering pastoral action’.[143]
126. Structures of consultation such as those
mentioned above can be greatly beneficial to the Church, but only if pastors
and lay people are mutually respectful of one another’s charisms and if they
carefully and continually listen to one another’s experiences and concerns.
Humble listening at all levels and proper consultation of those concerned are
integral aspects of a living and lively Church.
127. Vatican II was a new Pentecost,[144] equipping
the Church for the new evangelisation that popes since the council have called
for. The council gave a renewed emphasis to the traditional idea that all of
the baptised have a sensus fidei, and the sensus fidei constitutes
a most important resource for the new evangelisation.[145] By
means of the sensus fidei, the faithful are able not only to
recognise what is in accordance with the Gospel and to reject what is contrary
to it, but also to sense what Pope Francis has called ‘new ways for the
journey’ in faith of the whole pilgrim people. One of the reasons
why bishops and priests need to be close to their people on the journey and to
walk with them is precisely so as to recognise ‘new ways’ as they are sensed by
the people.[146] The
discernment of such new ways, opened up and illumined by the Holy Spirit, will
be vital for the new evangelisation.
128. The sensus fidei is
closely related to the ‘infallibilitas in credendo’ that the
Church as a whole has as a believing ‘subject’ making its pilgrim way in
history.[147] Sustained
by the Holy Spirit, it enables the witness that the Church gives and the
discernment that the members of the Church must constantly make, both as
individuals and as a community, of how best to live and act and speak in
fidelity to the Lord. It is the instinct by which each and all ‘think with the
Church’,[148] sharing
one faith and one purpose. It is what unites pastors and people, and makes
dialogue between them, based on their respective gifts and callings, both essential
and fruitful for the Church.
[3] Biblical quotations are from the New
Revised Standard Version. Unless otherwise indicated, quotations from the
documents of the Second Vatican Council are taken from Austin Flannery, ed.,Vatican
Council II, new revised edition (Northport, NY/Dublin: Costello Publishing
Company/Dominican Publications, 1996). The following council documents will be
identified as shown: Apostolicam Actuositatem (AA), Ad
Gentes (AG), Dei Verbum (DV), Gaudium et Spes (GS), Lumen
Gentium (LG), Perfectae Caritatis (PC), Sacrosanctum
Concilium (SC). References to Heinrich Denzinger, Enchiridion
symbolorum definitionum et declarationum de rebus fidei et morum, 38th ed.,
edited by Peter Hünermann (1999), are indicated by DH together with the
paragraph number; references to the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992)
are indicated by CCC together with the paragraph number; and references to J.
P. Migne, ed.,Patrologia Latina (1844-1864) are indicated by PL
together with the volume and column numbers.
[4] In its document on The
Interpretation of Dogma (1989), the International Theological
Commission (ITC) spoke of the ‘sensus fidelium’ as an ‘inner
sense’ by means of which the people of God ‘recognise in preaching that the
words are God’s not man's and accept and guard them with unbreakable fidelity’
(C, II, 1). The document also highlighted the role played by theconsensus
fidelium in the interpretation of dogma (C, II, 4).
[5] In its recent document entitled Theology
Today: Perspectives, Principles and Criteria(2012), the ITC identified the sensus
fidei as a fundamental locus or reference point for
theology (n.35).
[8] Yves M.-J. Congar identifies various
doctrinal questions in which the sensus fidelium was used in Jalons
pour une Théologie du Laïcat (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1953), 450-53;
ET: Lay People in the Church: A Study for a Theology of Lay People (London:
Chapman, 1965), Appendix II: The ‘Sensus Fidelium’ in the Fathers, 465-67.
[10] Augustine, De praedestinatione
sanctorum, XIV, 27 (PL 44, 980). He says this with reference to the
canonicity of the book of Wisdom.
[11] Augustine, Contra epistolam
Parmeniani, III, 24 (PL 43, 101). Cf. De baptismo, IV, xxiv, 31
(PL 43, 174) (with regard to the baptism of infants): ‘Quod universa tenet
Ecclesia, nec conciliis institutum, sed semper retentum est, nonnisi
auctoritate apostolica traditum rectissime creditur’.
[12] Cassian, De incarnatione Christi,
I, 6 (PL 50, 29-30): ‘Sufficere ergo solus nunc ad confutandum haeresim deberet
consensus omnium, quia indubitatae veritatis manifestatio est auctoritas
universorum’.
[15] Epiphanius of Salamis, Panarion
haereticorum, 78, 6; Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der
ersten Jahrhunderte, Epiphanius, Bd 3, p.456.
[16] Augustine, In Iohannis Evangelium
tractatus, XX, 3 (CCSL 36, p.204); Ennaratio in psalmum 120, 7
(PL 37, 1611).
[17] John Henry Newman, On Consulting
the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine, edited with an introduction by John
Coulson (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1961), pp.75-101; at 75 and 77. See also his The
Arians of the Fourth Century (1833; 3rd ed. 1871). Congar expresses
some caution with regard to the use of Newman’s analysis of this matter; see,
Congar, Jalons pour une Théologie du Laïcat, p.395; ET: Lay
People in the Church, pp.285-6.
[21] Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae,
IIa-IIae, q.1, a.9, s.c.; IIIa, q.83, a.5, s.c. (with regard to the liturgy of
the Mass); Quodl. IX, q.8 (with regard to canonisation). Cf. also
Bonaventure,Commentaria in IV librum Sententiarum, d.4, p.2, dub. 2
(Opera omnia, vol.4, Quaracchi, 1889, p.105): ‘[Fides Ecclesiae militantis]
quamvis possit deficere in aliquibus personis specialiter, generaliter tamen
numquam deficit nec deficiet, iuxta illud Matthaei ultimo: “Ecce ego vobiscum
sum usque ad consumationem saeculi”’; d.18, p.2, a. un. q.4 (p.490). In Summa
theologiae, IIa-IIae, q.2, a.6, ad 3, St Thomas links this indefectibility
of the universal Church to Jesus’ promise to Peter that his faith would not
fail (Lk 22:32).
[23] See Martin Luther, De captivitate
Babylonica ecclesiae praecludium, WA 6, 566-567, and John Calvin, Institutio
christianae religionis, IV, 8, 11; the promises of Christ are found in Mt
28:19 and Jn 14: 16, 17.
[24] See Gustav Thils, L’Infaillibilité
du Peuple chrétien ‘in credendo’: Notes de théologie post-tridentine (Paris:
Desclée de Brouwer, 1963).
[25] DH 1637; see also, DH 1726. For equivalent
expressions, see Yves M.-J. Congar, La Tradition et les traditions,
II. Essai théologique (Paris: Fayard, 1963), pp.82-83; ET, Tradition
and Traditions (London: Burns & Oates, 1966), 315-17.
[26] De locis theologicis, ed. Juan
Belda Plans (Madrid, 2006). Cano lists ten loci: Sacra Scriptura, traditiones
Christi et apostolorum, Ecclesia Catholica, Concilia, Ecclesia Romana, sancti
veteres, theologi scholastici, ratio naturalis, philosophi, humana historia.
[27] De locis theol., Bk. IV, ch. 3
(Plans ed., p.117). ‘Si quidquam est nunc in Ecclesia communi fidelium consensione
probatum, quod tamen humana potestas efficere non potuit, id ex apostolorum
traditione necessario derivatum est.’
[29] De locis theol., Bk. I, ch. 4
(p.149): ‘Non solum Ecclesia universalis, id est, collectio omnium fidelium
hunc veritatis spiritum semper habet, sed eundem habent etiam Ecclesiae
principes et pastores’. In Book VI, Cano affirms the authority of the Roman
pontiff when he defines a doctrineex cathedra.
[30] De locis theol., Bk. I, ch. 4
(pp.150-51): ‘Priores itaque conclusiones illud astruebant, quicquid ecclesia,
hoc est, omnium fidelium concio teneret, id verum esse. Haec autem illud
affirmat pastores ecclesiae doctores in fide errare non posse, sed quicquid
fidelem populum docent, quod ad Christi fidem attineat, esse verissimum.’
[31] Robert Bellarmine, De
controversiis christianae fidei (Venice, 1721), II, I, lib.3, cap.14:
‘Et cum dicimus Ecclesiam non posse errare, id intelligimus tam de universitate
fidelium quam de universitate Episcoporum, ita ut sensus sit eius
propositionis, ecclesia non potest errare, idest, id quod tenent omnes fideles
tanquam de fide, necessario est verum et de fide; et similiter id quod docent
omnes Episcopi tanquam ad fidem pertinens, necessario est verum et de fide’
(p.73).
[32] De controversiis II, I, lib.2,
cap.2: ‘Concilium generale repraesentat Ecclesiam universam, et proinde
consensum habet Ecclesiae universalis; quare si Ecclesia non potest errare,
neque Concilium oecumenicum, legitimum et approbatum, potest errare’ (p.28).
[33] J. A. Möhler, Die Einheit in der
Kirche oder das Prinzip des Katholizismus [1825], ed. J. R. Geiselmann
(Cologne and Olten: Jakob Hegner, 1957), 8ff., 50ff.
[34] J. A. Möhler, Symbolik oder
Darstellung der dogmatischen Gegensätze der Katholiken und Protestanten, nach
ihren öffentlichen Bekenntnisschriften [1832], ed. J.R. Geiselmann
(Cologne and Olten: Jakob Hegner, 1958), §38. Against the Protestant principle
of private interpretation, he reasserted the significance of the judgment of
the whole Church.
[35] In 1847, Newman met Perrone and they
discussed Newman’s ideas about the development of doctrine. Newman used the
notion of the sensus ecclesiae in this context. Cf. T. Lynch,
ed., ‘The Newman-Perrone Paper on Development’, Gregorianum 16
(1935), pp.402-447, esp. ch.3, nn.2, 5.
[36] Ioannis Perrone, De Immaculato B.
V. Mariae Conceptu an Dogmatico Decreto definiri possit (Romae, 1847),
139, 143-145. Perrone concluded that the Christian faithful would be ‘deeply
scandalised’ if Mary’s Immaculate Conception were ‘even mildly questioned’
(p.156). He found other instances in which the magisterium relied on the sensus
fidelium for its doctrinal definitions, e.g. the doctrine that the
souls of the just enjoy the beatific vision already prior to the resurrection
of the dead (pp.147-148).
[40] Newman, On Consulting the Faithful,
p.63, cf. p.65. Newman usually distinguishes the ‘pastors’ and the ‘faithful’.
Sometimes he adds the ‘doctors’ (theologians) as a distinct class of witnesses,
and he includes the lower clergy among the ‘faithful’ unless he specifies the
‘lay faithful’.
[43] Mansi, III (51), 542-543. It asserts that
the Church’s infallibility extends to all revealed truth, in Scripture and in
Tradition - i.e., to the Deposit of Faith - and to whatever is necessary for
defending and preserving it, even though not revealed.
[46] DH 3074. One of the ‘Four Articles’ of the
Gallican position asserted that the Pope’s judgment ‘is not irreformable unless
the consent of the Church be given to it’.
[48] The condemned proposition reads: ‘The
“Church learning” and the “Church teaching” collaborate in such a way in
defining truths that it only remains for the “Church teaching” to sanction the
opinions of the “Church learning”’ (DH 3406).
[52] See Congar, Jalons pour une
Théologie du Laïcat, chapter 6. The scheme is found in the Preface of the
third edition of Newman’s Via Media (1877).
[56] LG 12. In several other places, the
council refers to the ‘sense’ of believers or of the Church in a way analogous
to the sensus fidei of LG 12. It refers to the sensus
Ecclesiae (DV 23), sensus apostolicus (AA 25), sensus
catholicus (AA 30), sensus Christi et Ecclesiae and sensus
communionis cum Ecclesia (AG 19), sensus christianus fidelium (GS
52), and to an integer christianus sensus (GS 62).
[60] See, e.g., Pope John Paul II’s teaching in
his Apostolic Exhortation, Christifideles Laici(1988), that all the
faithful share in Christ’s threefold office, and his reference to the laity
being ‘sharers in the appreciation of the Church’s supernatural faith (sensum
fidei supernaturalis Ecclesiae) that “cannot err in matters of belief” [LG
12]’ (n.14); also, with reference to the teaching of LG 12, 35, and DV 8, the
declaration of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF),Mysterium
Ecclesiae (1973), n.2.
[61] Pope John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation, Familiaris
Consortio (1981), n.5. In its Instruction on the Ecclesial Vocation of
the Theologian, Donum Veritatis (1990), the CDF cautioned
against identifying ‘the opinion of a large number of Christians’ with the sensus
fidei: the sensus fidei is ‘a property of theological
faith’ and a gift of God which enables a Christian ‘to adhere personally to the
Truth’, so that what he or she believes is what the Church believes. Since not
all the opinions held by believers spring from faith, and since many people are
swayed by public opinion, it is necessary to emphasise, as the council did, the
‘indissoluble bond between the “sensus fidei” and the guidance
of God’s People by the Magisterium of the Pastors’ (n.35).
[62] The sensus fidei fidelis presupposes
in the believer the virtue of faith. In fact, it is the lived experience of
faith which enables the believer to discern whether a doctrine belongs to the
deposit of faith or not. It is therefore only rather broadly and derivatively
that the discernment necessary for the initial act of faith can be attributed
to the sensus fidei fidelis.
[67] Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Scriptum,
III, d.23, q.3, a.3, qla 2, ad 2: ‘Habitus fidei cum non rationi innitatur,
inclinat per modum naturae, sicut et habitus moralium virtutum, et sicut
habitus principiorum; et ideo quamdiu manet, nihil contra fidem credit.’
[68] Cf. J. A. Möhler, Symbolik,
§38: ‘Der göttliche Geist, welchem die Leitung und Belebung der Kirche anvertraut
ist, wird in seiner Vereinigung mit dem menschlichen ein eigenthümlich
christlicher Tact, ein tiefes, sicher führendes Gefühl, das, wie er in der
Wahrheit steht, auch aller Wahrheit entgegenleitet.’
[69] Because of its immediate relationship to
its object, instinct does not err. In itself, it is infallible. However, animal
instinct is infallible only within the context of a determined environment.
When the context changes, animal instinct can show itself to be maladjusted.
Spiritual instinct, on the other hand, has more scope and subtlety.
[76] DV 8. In the theology of the gifts of the
Spirit that St Thomas developed, it is particularly the gift of knowledge that
perfects the sensus fidei fidelis as an aptitude to discern
what is to be believed. Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae,
IIa-IIae, q.9, a.1 co. et ad 2.
[77] Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones
disputatae de veritate, q.14, a.10, ad 10; cf. Scriptum, III,
d.25, q.2, a.1, qla 2, ad 3.
[78] Thomas Aquinas, Scriptum, III,
d.25, q.2, a.1, qla 4, ad 3: ‘[The believer] must not give assent to a prelate
who preaches against the faith…. The subordinate is not totally excused by his
ignorance. In fact, the habitus of faith inclines him against such preaching
because that habitus necessarily teaches whatever leads to salvation. Also,
because one must not give credence too easily to every spirit, one should not
give assent to strange preaching but should seek further information or simply
entrust oneself to God without seeking to venture into the secrets of God
beyond one’s capacities.’
[79] Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Scriptum,
III, d.25, q.2, a.1, qla 2, ad 3; Quaestiones disputatae de veritate,
q.14, a.11, ad 2.
[81] See Congar, La Tradition et les
traditions, II, pp.81-101, on ‘L’“Ecclesia”, sujet de la Tradition’, and
pp.101-108, on ‘Le Saint-Esprit, Sujet transcendant de la Tradition’; ET, Tradition
and Traditions, pp.314-338, on ‘The “Ecclesia” as the Subject of
Tradition’, and pp.338-346, on ‘The Holy Spirit, the Transcendent Subject of
Tradition’.
[93] CCC 1124. Cf. Irenaeus, Adv.Haer.,
IV, 18, 5 (Sources chrétiennes, vol.100, p.610): ‘Our way of thinking is
attuned to the Eucharist, and the Eucharist in turn confirms our way of
thinking’ (see also CCC, n.1327).
[104] ITC, Theology Today, §35; cf.
CDF, Instruction on the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian, Donum
Veritatis (1990), nn.2-5, 6-7.
[106] Particularly notable in this regard are
the indicated sections of the following agreed statements: Joint International
Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the
Orthodox Church, Ecclesiological and Canonical Consequences of the
Sacramental Nature of the Church: Ecclesial Communion, Conciliarity and
Authority (2007; the Ravenna Statement), n.7; Anglican-Roman Catholic
International Commission, The Gift of Authority (1999), n.29;
Evangelical-Roman Catholic Dialogue on Mission, 1977-1984, Report,
chapter 1.3; Disciples of Christ-Roman Catholic International Commission for
Dialogue, The Church as Communion in Christ (1992), nn.40, 45;
International Commission for Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the
World Methodist Council, The Word of Life (1995), nn.56, 58.
[110] Ut Unum Sint, n.14; cf. nn.28, 57,
where Pope John Paul refers to the ‘exchange of gifts’ that occurs in
ecumenical dialogue. In its Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on
Some Aspects of the Church Understood as Communion, Communionis Notio (1992),
the CDF similarly acknowledges that the Catholic Church is herself ‘injured’ by
the loss of communion with the other Christian Churches and ecclesial
communities (n.17).
[122] Cf. Congregation for Divine Worship and
the Discipline of the Sacraments (CDWDS),Directory on Popular Piety and the
Liturgy: Principles and Guidelines (2001), n.10: ‘“Popular
religiosity” refers to a universal experience: there is always a religious
dimension in the hearts of people, nations, and their collective expressions.
All peoples tend to give expression to their totalising view of the
transcendent, their concept of nature, society, and history through cultic
means. Such characteristic syntheses are of major spiritual and human
importance.’
[125] Joseph Ratzinger, Commento
teologico, in Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Il
messaggio di Fatima (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Città del Vaticano,
2000), p.35; as quoted in CDWDS, Directory, n.91.
[128] Pope Paul VI, Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii
Nuntiandi (1975), n.48. Congar referred to ‘engouements douteux et
dévotions aberrantes’, and cautioned: ‘On se gardera de trop attribuer ausensus
fidelium: non seulement au regard des prérogatives de la hiérarchie …, mais
en soi’ (Jalons pour une théologie du laïcat, p.399; ET, Lay
People in the Church, p.288).
[129] Pope Paul VI, Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii
Nuntiandi (1975), n.48. In his discourse at the opening of CELAM’s
fourth general conference (Santo Domingo, 12 October 1992), Pope John Paul said
that, with its ‘essentially catholic roots’, popular religiosity in Latin
America was ‘an antidote against the sects and a guarantee of fidelity to the
message of salvation’ (n.12). With reference to the Final Document of the Third
General Conference of CELAM, Pope Francis states that, when the Christian faith
is truly inculturated, ‘popular piety’ is an important part of the process by
which ‘a people continuously evangelises itself’ (Evangelii Gaudium,
n.122).
[131] Cf. Pope Paul VI, Evangelii
Nuntiandi, n.58; with reference to the need to ensure thatcommunautés de
base were truly ecclesial.
[135] Newman, On Consulting the Faithful,
p.63; for the double meaning of the word ‘consult’, see pp.54-55.
[136] Y. Congar, ‘Quod omnes tangit, ab omnibus
tractari et approbari debet’, in Revue historique de droit français et
étranger 36(1958), pp.210-259, ptic. pp.224-228.
[138] Pastoral Instruction on the Means of
Social Communication written by Order of the Second Vatican Council, ‘Communio
et Progressio’ (1971), n.115, which also cites Pope Pius XII:
‘Something would be lacking in [the Church’s] life if she had no public
opinion. Both pastors of souls and lay people would be to blame for this’
(Allocution, 17 February 1950, AAS XVIII[1950], p.256).
[144] This was a phrase repeatedly used by Pope
John XXIII when he expressed his hopes and prayers for the coming council; see,
e.g., Apostolic Constitution, Humanae Salutis (1961), n.23.
[146] Cf. Pope Francis, Address to clergy,
persons in consecrated life and members of pastoral councils, San Rufino,
Assisi, 4 October 2013. The pope added that diocesan synods, particular
celebrations of ‘walking together’ as disciples of the Lord, need to take
account of ‘what the Holy Spirit is saying to the laity, to the people of God,
[and] to all’.
[147] Interview with Pope Francis by Fr Antonio
Spadaro, 21 September 2013; cf. Pope Francis,Evangelii Gaudium, n.119.
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