Book clarifies the nature and purpose of Church councils

Some Protestants know they have an authority problem. They know that exclusive reliance on a book (the Bible) as the sole manifestation of infallible teaching fosters a scenario in which there is no authoritative means to adjudicate divergent interpretations of that book. And yet, they wonder, is there not some way to retain one’s Protestant convictions without swimming the Tiber to Rome, or becoming Orthodox? Yes, they often decide, there is: Anglicanism, and particularly the “branch theory,” held by many Anglicans, which posits that various churches that claim apostolic succession—Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican—are all “branches” of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church.

I’ve often encountered this line of reasoning when dialoguing with Protestants struggling with the tensions and contradictions within their own (very diverse) ecclesial tradition. One such person (whom I cite anonymously in respect for his privacy) recently argued that “Anglo-Catholicism provides the most effective framework for ecumenical efforts,” because it “allows for the diversity of English, Eastern, & Roman expressions of Catholicism while maintaining episcopal unity via apostolic succession.” It seems, at least in one sense, a tidy solution: one gets to preserve his or her Protestant opinions on salvation, the Eucharist, or Marian devotion, while believing oneself in full communion with the apostolic Church.

Paul Senz’s recent book Church Councils: 100 Questions and Answers, though not principally written to address this Protestant challenge to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church, offers a helpful corrective to the “Anglican Solution,” as it were. Church Councils, given the title, is much broader in scope than a rejoinder to Protestant objections to Catholic teaching. There are sections answering general questions such as “what is a council?” and “who calls a council?” and historical questions such as “Why is the Council of Jerusalem not an ecumenical council?” and “What is the ‘Spirit of Vatican II’?” But for me (and perhaps this betrays my former Presbyterianism) the most interesting chapters were those addressing various Protestant arguments and objections.

Consider first the aforementioned “branch theory,” whose adherents reject the idea that the Catholic Church is the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church, but rather one among equals. Typically this goes hand-in-hand with a conciliarist view that ecumenical councils are superior to the papacy—thus one subscribes to the teachings of councils not because they are affirmed by the papacy, but because they are taught by the bishops acting in unison.

There are a few problems with this thinking. The first is historical—ecumenical councils have always been ecumenical not only because they reflect the agreement of bishops who possess apostolic succession, but because they are ratified by the bishop of Rome. The First Council of Nicaea (325 A.D.), for example, though convened by the emperor Constantine, was attended by two papal legates who assisted Ossius of Cordoba in presiding at the Council of Nicaea. Ossius and the legates were the first to sign the decrees of the Council, and even the Graeco-Russian liturgy, in the office for Pope Sylvester, describes him as the “supreme one of the Sacred Council,” referring to Nicaea. And, as Senz ably demonstrates, that tradition of papal ratification is visible across the early ecumenical councils, seven of which the Orthodox recognize (the Anglican Communion has never officially decreed an exact number of ecumenical councils).

This lack of consensus over what even constitutes an ecumenical council is another concern. A 2022 statement signed by representatives of the Anglican Communion notes that there is a broad Anglican consensus in favor of the first four councils, and “a respect for six and sometimes even seven.” Thus even the Anglican Communion, while acknowledging the authority of councils, has refrained from declaring which ones are legitimate. That certainly presents a problem if we are trying to determine what constitutes orthodoxy and heresy.

Moreover, Article XXI of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion of 1662 reads:

General Councils may not be gathered together without the commandment and will of Princes. And when they be gathered together, (forasmuch as they be an assembly of men, whereof all be not governed with the Spirit and Word of God,) they may err, and sometimes have erred, even in things pertaining unto God. Wherefore things ordained by them as necessary to salvation have neither strength nor authority, unless it may be declared that they be taken out of holy Scripture.

In sum, according to the Anglican position, a disputed number of ecumenical councils have some level of authority, but not a kind that is truly binding on Christians, because they may err, and must be tested against the individual Christian’s reading of Scripture. Ecumenical councils, even in the high-church Anglican view, only have as much authority as individuals grant them. Such a position, as I argue in The Obscurity of Scripture, is no different from that of the “Me and my Bible” paradigm of the low-church evangelical, because it is ultimately the autonomous individual Christian who must act as his own personal magisterium in determining the authentic meaning of Scripture.

Finally, there are practical problems with the conciliarist position. For, as Senz explains, “councils are always called in response to a particular need.” Whether one believes the last ecumenical council was Chalcedon (451 A.D.) or Nicaea II (787 A.D.), there have been no shortage of crises in Christian history since the end of the eighth century. The First Lateran Council (1123 A.D.) addressed the investiture controversy, which threatened to solidify a form of caesaropapism in the West; the Third and Fourth Lateran Councils (1179 and 1215 A.D.) condemned the anti-human Albigensian heresy spreading across southern Europe; and the Council of Trent (1545-1563 A.D.) responded to the teachings of the Reformation.

To subscribe to the conciliarist position, especially as it is typically articulated by high-church Protestants, is to believe there has been no need for an ecumenical council in more than a millennium. Moreover, even if there was such a need, who would call such a council and ratify its documents, given the great divergence of churches in the East and West claiming apostolic succession? From a purely practical level, this is precisely the role served by the Roman see, whose affirmation of ecclesial councils brings clarity to a world marred by schism and heresy.

The Catholic Church’s understanding of ecumenical councils clarifies, rather than obscures. There is a clear number of them: twenty-one, the last being the Second Vatican Council which ended in 1965. There is a clear means of determining which are legitimate: according to canon law, they must be called by the pope, and the bishops of the world must teach in union with the pope. And there is a clear means of determining what elements of an ecumenical council are infallible: when the council speaks on matters of faith and morals.

That’s not to say there haven’t been debates among Catholics over Church councils. The final section of Senz’s book, though titled “Controversies,” deals almost exclusively with Vatican II, which remains a deeply contentious council almost sixty years removed from its completion. Senz handles this topic well, navigating questions on whether Vatican II “changed” Catholic dogma on ecumenism (it did not); if its status as a “pastoral council” makes its teachings any less binding (no); or promulgated new doctrine (also no).

It is true, however, that the belief that ecumenical councils are what the Catholic Church claims them to be—namely, institutional, ecclesial events preserved from error on faith and morals via a charism granted to them by the Holy Spirit—requires faith. One must make an act of faith to believe in the Catholic Church and that she, under specific circumstances, is able to teach infallibly on faith and morals. Because of the motives of credibility, such an act of faith is a reasonable and defensible one (indeed, to do otherwise is less intellectually defensible).

And, as Senz’s book helps us appreciate, to believe otherwise is to believe that there exists no Christian ecclesial institution in which we can place our trust as being guided and protected by the Holy Spirit, able to help us address not only theological dilemmas, but moral ones that threaten to endanger our souls or wreck our lives. We would be, even if dressed up in the clothes of tradition and authority proffered by Anglicanism, left to our own devices.

It’s little wonder St. John Henry Newman, once a prominent proponent of the “branch theory,” ultimately abandoned it for Catholicism, accusing the Church of England of preserving a “hollow uniformity,” and calling Anglicanism a mere “halfway house” between Catholicism and atheism. (Sadly, more Englishmen today have chosen closer to the latter than the former.) Better, Newman urged one of his many Protestant correspondents, to submit to the “true fold of Christ,” the Catholic Church. As he told that anonymous woman: “You cannot do this without God’s grace and therefore you ought to pray Him continually for it. All is well if God is on our side.”

Church Councils: 100 Questions and Answers
By Paul Senz
Ignatius Press, 2023
Paperback, 150 pages