[Question:]{.underline} What is collegiality?
[Answer:]{.underline} Collegiality is the application to the church of the principles of democracy, founded on the freemasonic revolutionary slogan of “liberty, equality, fraternity”. It is an alternate, brought about since Vatican II, to the monarchical and hierarchical structure instituted by Christ, based upon personal responsibility of priests, bishops and Popes standing in Christ’s place. In fact, at the present time two parallel authorities exist for the government of the Church. On the one hand is the divinely instituted hierarchical authority, expressed through the Pope and the Roman Congregations over the entire Church, the Bishops over their dioceses, and the priests in their parishes. On the other hand is the revolutionary and democratic authority, a human creation imposed since Vatican II, according to which the episcopal college also has the authority to govern the entire church, the episcopal conferences of each country also have the authority to tell the bishops how to govern their diocese, the presbyteral council also counterbalances and limits the authority of the bishop in his diocese, and the parish council makes the important decision in parish government. Needless to say, there is a direct contradiction between these two authorities, and any authoritative government of the Church, including condemnation of heresies, is entirely paralyzed.
The most dangerous aspect of collegiality is this theory as it applies to the supreme authority of the Church in matters of Faith and Morals. Previously it was taught that this authority was entirely in the person of the Sovereign Pontiff, Vicar of Christ, who can share this authority with the entire episcopate at the time of an Ecumenical Council. The Vatican II document on the Church, Lumen gentium, teaches the novelty that an episcopal college exists at all times, and that the bishops throughout the whole world make up that college, which together with the Pope, has the supreme authority. The college is consequently established as an alternate authority to that of the Pope alone, and this at all times, regardless of the Pope’s will. The Pope is consequently not able to go against the democratic majority of bishops, whose authority is equal to his, provided that these bishops are in communion with him. It is in these words that Lumen gentium states this: “The order of bishops is the successor to the college of apostles in their role as teachers and pastors, and in it the apostolic college is perpetuated. Together with their head, the Supreme Pontiff, and never part from him, they have supreme and full authority over the universal Church” (§22).
We thank God that this denial of the Primacy of the Pope is contradicted by the Nota Explicativa that the more traditional Fathers at Vatican II forced Pope Paul VI to add to Lumen gentium. However, the liberal theologians do not take this explanatory note into account, and all they retained is the new collegiality, and its paralysis of personal authority.
Romano Amerio in Iota Unum has this comment to make: “There is a conflict between a process of democratization and the divinely constituted nature of the Church…The Church…did not form itself, nor did it establish its own government; in its essentials it was established [in toto]{.underline} by Christ, who established its laws and laid down its constitution before summoning mankind to join it…The Church is therefore a unique kind of society, in which the head exists before the members and authority exists prior to the community. Any view that sees the Church as being based upon the people of God, conceived of in a democratic sense…is at odds with the reality of the Church.” (p. 522-523)
Answered by Father Peter Scott, SSPX.