ABSTRACT
Discussions about authority in the Roman Catholic Church revolve, for the most part, around two meanings of the word.1 The first involves ruling, governing, giving the orders and having power over others – albeit delegated power. The second meaning concerns the ability to teach. Thus we may talk about a certain person being an authority on a particular subject. We also encounter two rather different kinds of power in the two different kinds of authority to which we have referred. In the first case, as already noted, we have power over, or governing power. The second kind is quite different: it is the power (or ability) to teach. In what follows I shall endeavour to deal separately with these two different types of power. Within the Roman Catholic church, however, they are often intertwined – perhaps even rather confused at times. Some discussion of them together is therefore almost inevitable if a clear picture of some of the difficulties associated with the use of power within that Church is to be attained.
