ABSTRACT
The urgency of the point which we are making here becomes still clearer when we reflect upon the way in which the teaching office of the Church exercises its functions in the situation which prevails in the present day. Very many authorities whom we encounter in the world and in the course of human living have a certain power regardless of whether or not the legitimacy of their formal claims to power are recognized by the individual in his own conscience. For the most part these various kinds of authority (that of parents, of groups in secular society, of teachers or experts, or of the state) are reinforced with a certain degree of power, whether explicit or implicit, consciously adverted to or unconsciously taken for granted. So far as the conscious awareness of the individual is concerned moral authority and the power accompanying this are far from being clearly distinguishable from one another. When we recognize authority we are very largely, without actually noticing it, submitting ourselves to the power (which itself in turn may take many forms), and when authority is claimed by those in whom it is vested these likewise are aware of and rely upon this power which they take for granted without explicitly reflecting upon the fact. This is particularly true in those cases in which the parties involved take it for granted that their authority is accompanied by such power. In such cases authority imposes itself in virtue of the power attached to it and not in virtue of itself. Now right down to these present times in which we live the authority of the Church and of the churches has had power of this kind which extends to their teaching function as well. They have had this power in virtue of public opinion, many institutional factors, the extremely close connection which they have had with secular society, and all the opportunities they have enjoyed of influencing public awareness in general.
