MAKING SENSE OF THE MAGISTERIUM

The Church has a special term for the teaching authority it was given by Christ. 

This term, magisterium, is based on the Latin word for “teacher” (magister). It is used in a number of senses, two of which parallel the way the English word authority is used: It can refer to the power to make decisions (as in, “He has the authority to do this”) or it can refer to those who have this power (as in, “He is an authority”). Similarly, magisterium can refer to the authority to teach (“The pope exercised his magisterium”) and to those who have authority to teach (“The Magisterium teaches this”). A third use occurs when the word refers to a body of authoritative teachings (“This teaching is found in the magisterium of Paul VI”). 

One sometimes encounters references to the universal magisterium. This phrase refers to all the bishops of the world, teaching in union with the pope. It contrasts with the personal magisterium of an individual bishop or pope and the “particular magisterium” of a bishop, pope, or group of bishops. 

More commonly, one encounters references to the ordinary magisterium and the extraordinary magisterium. The former includes things like a bishop giving a homily or the pope writing an encyclical letter. These forms of teaching take place on a regular basis, making them ordinary. 

However, sometimes an extraordinary act of teaching occurs. This happens when a pope infallibly defines a teaching. Ecumenical councils can also make infallible definitions, and so both of these are referred to as acts of extraordinary magisterium. There is some ambiguity about the way this term is used. Some authors apply it only to cases where a teaching is infallibly defined. Others use it to refer to papal definitions and anything an ecumenical council teaches, whether infallible or not. 

Regardless of how extraordinary magisterium is understood, one should not assume an act of extraordinary magisterium is needed for a teaching to be infallible. As we will see, the Church’s ordinary and universal magisterium can teach infallibly. 

A final term we should mention is authentic magisterium. In Church documents, the word authentic is frequently used to mean “authoritative.” Something counts as authentic magisterium if it is an authoritative teaching or an authoritative act of teaching (§267). 

The classic phrase used to describe the subjects on which the Magisterium can teach authoritatively is “matters of faith and morals” (Latin, res fidei et morum; cf. Lumen Gentium, 25). Individual bishops have the responsibility to address both. The Congregation for Bishops states: 

The bishop has a personal obligation to preach often, proposing to the faithful, in the first instance, what they are to believe and do for the glory of God and for their eternal salvation. He proclaims the mystery of salvation accomplished in Christ, so as to demonstrate that our Lord is the one Savior and the center of the lives of the faithful and of all human history. 
It is also the bishop’s task to proclaim always and everywhere the moral principles of the social order, in this way announcing man’s authentic liberation, brought about through the Incarnation of the Word (Apostolorum Successores, 120).  

Though the bishop’s teaching authority comes from God, how much authority he can individually exercise has not been fully explored. In general, the Church has discerned two concrete levels of authority its teachings can have: They can be definitive (infallible) or non-definitive (non-infallible). The Church acknowledges that non-definitive teachings have different degrees of authority, but thus far it has not developed a way of objectively classifying these. 

Except for the bishop of Rome, individual bishops cannot issue definitive teachings on their own. However, when bishops teach in concert with each other, the results have greater weight, and when the whole body of bishops teaches in union, it can exercise infallibility.