College of Bishops
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In the Catholic Church, the College of Bishops, also known as the Ordo of Bishops, is the collection of those bishops who are in communion with the Pope (see Glossary of the Catholic Church). Under canon law, a college is a collection (Latin collegium) of persons united together for a common object so as to form one body. The Bishop of Rome (the Pope) is the head of the college.
Authority of the college of bishops
In Catholic teaching, the college of bishops is the successor to the college of the apostles.<ref>New Encyclopædia Britannica (Encyclopædia Britannica Educational 1983 Template:ISBN), vol. 1, p. 989</ref> While the individual members of the college of bishops are each directly responsible for pastoral care and governance in their own particular Church, the college as a whole has full supreme power over the entire Church:Template:Quote
The college exercises this supreme and full power in a solemn manner in an ecumenical council, but also through united action even when not gathered together in one place.<ref>Code of Canon Law, canon 337 §1–2</ref>
By present-day canon law it is for the Pope to select and promote the ways in which the bishops are to act collegially, such as in an ecumenical council, and it is for him to convoke, preside over (personally or by his delegates), transfer, suspend, or dissolve such a council, and approve its decrees.<ref>Code of Canon Law, canons 337 §3 and 338</ref> The Catholic Church teaches that the college of bishops, gathered in council or represented by the Pope, may teach some revealed truth as requiring to be held absolutely and definitively (infallibly).<ref>Alan Richardson, John Bowden (editors), The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology (Presbyterian Publishing 1983 Template:ISBN), p. 344</ref>
Enunciation of the teaching by the Second Vatican Council
The Second Vatican Council enunciated the doctrine of the collegiality of bishops as follows: Template:Quote
Unique relationship
The relationship between the college of bishops and the individual bishops and in particular the Bishop of Rome has no secular counterpart, and its practical consequences cannot be deduced from secular models such as the various forms of governance of a state or of a corporation.<ref>George Weigel, The Courage to Be Catholic (Basic Books 2004 Template:ISBN), p. 119</ref>
The doctrine of the collegiality of the bishops as a body was enunciated by the Second Vatican Council which "desired to integrate all the elements which make up the Church, both the mystical and the institutional, the primacy and the episcopate, the people of God and the hierarchy, striking new notes and establishing new balances which would have to be worked out and theologized upon in the lived experience of the Church."<ref>Charles M. Murphy, "Collegiality: An Essay Towards Better Understanding" in Theological Studies 46 (1985), p. 41</ref>
See also
- Collegiality in the Catholic Church
- Episcopal Conference
- Infallibility of the Church
- Lumen gentium
- Synod
- Synod of Bishops (Catholic)
- United Methodist Council of Bishops