Prymat papieża i rządzenie całym Kościołem

Abstract

The primacy of the pope’s ecclesial function is to ensure the essential unity of the Church in faith and communion, keeping the faithful from heresy and the schism, while it is not in the field of papal duties to coordinate and manage of all of the Church activities. Depriving, in fact, the bishops of appropriate for their service liberty, through this type of coordinating and governing would lead to some excessive centralism or absolute uniformity, reducing the Church in its diversity that is not only entitled, but also belongs to its nature and as such is its special way of expressing itself in history. Presented in this article analysis of the teaching of the first and the second Vatican Council concerns the nature and range of papal authority as well as its relation with the authority of the bishops in communion with the Pope. The teaching of these two councils has contributed to the clarification of the doctrine on power in the Church and to its obvious development, especially when it comes to the authority of bishops. But there is a need for further deepening of this theological issue, with a view to its authentic reception within the Church, all the more that there are many misconceptions regarding in particular relations between the authorities of the Pope and bishops.