The Interface of Authority and Charism in the Primitive Church: Lessons for the Church in Our Time

Authority and charism are not mutually exclusive. Though for most of Catholic Church history, more of the hierarchic nature was center stage, while charisms thrived on the fringes–in religious houses and monastic movements. This came to a head at Vatican II when Cardinal Ruffini objected to a draft on the charism of the faithful, maintaining that such gifts are extremely rare and all together exceptional, and would have no part to play in the modern Church. He would be eventually countered by Cardinal Suenens, whose ideas carried the day at the council. Suenens maintained that, “the Holy Spirit shows himself in the Church in the great number and richness of his spiritual gifts, gifts which Scripture calls pneumatika (1 Cor. 12:1; 14:1), or charisms (Rom. 12:6; 1 Cor. 12: 4, 9, 28, 30f; 1 Tim. 4:14; 2 Tim. 1:6; 1 Pet. 4:10).” He further added that, “to St. Paul the Church of the living Christ does not appear as some kind of administrative organization, but as a living web of gifts, of charisms, of ministries. The Spirit is given to every individual Christian, the Spirit who gives his gifts, his charisms to each and every one ‘different as they are allotted to us by God's grace’ (Rom. 12:6).” Primitive Church will be used in this work to refer to the Church of Ignatius of Antioch and Irenaeus of Lyons and their respective visions for the Church. Both of them are apostolic fathers and both left teachings that are relevant today. “The early Christian Church institutionalized charismatic authority by assimilating the charism of prophecy