WHO'S AFRAID OF HIERARCHY? The people of God have to be organized. Here's how.

For many today, "hierarchy" connotes oppressive social or ecclesial control. Authors such as Leonardo Boff, Sallie McFague, Rosemary Radford Reuther, Elisabeth Schssler Fiorenza, Riane Eisler, and others explicitly or implicitly equate hierarchy with authoritarianism, domination, patriarchy, and rigidity. A "hierarchical" church, based on centralized control, is said to oppose a "democratic" church, based on equality and participation. Indeed, some New Testament scholars, such as Fiorenza (A Discipleship of Equals) and John Dominic Crossan (The Historical Jesus) have argued that the original Jesus movement was radically egalitarian, and this utopian society was supplanted by a hierarchical church which deformed its founder's intentions. The recent controversy concerning John Cornwell's Hitler's Pope (see Commonweal, November 5, 1999) has again focused attention on the problem of hierarchy and authoritarianism in the Catholic church. Here I will argue that hierarchy and participation are not antithetical but complementary, and that the Christian church is meant to be not egalitarian, but rather a participatory hierarchy.

It is, however, true that many hierarchical structures are patriarchal and authoritarian. Such arrangements, which might be called command hierarchies, are based on force and found in animal societies (the "pecking order") as well as human societies. In emergency situations, where survival demands swift decisions, such exclusively top-down structures can be justified. But as a long-term prescription for society they tend toward tyranny.

On the other hand, any sizable society needs some kind of hierarchical structure if it is to function as a unified whole. In a family, a high school or college class, a university, a team, an orchestra, a corporation, or a church, the alternative to hierarchy would seem to be disintegration and paralysis. Families without parents or classrooms without teachers don't work. A hierarchy of expertise and competence is recognized in most human activities.

Conversely, a consistent egalitarianism, that is, the denial of all hierarchical roles, is not workable in large groups. To conduct a class, but allow the opinions of the most ignorant to count the same as those of the learned, would destroy teaching and learning. To govern a family by allowing children an equal vote on every issue would probably destroy the children and the family itself. Nor could an orchestra successfully perform if at least one person did not have the authority to unify the participants. The same principles could be applied to governments, corporations, fire and police units, universities, and churches. Without some form of recognized leadership and authority, social units are incapable of concerted action. Egalitarians are right in stressing the basic equality of persons before God and the law. They err, however, in excluding the possibility of hierarchical roles within a society or a church.

In fact all Christian denominations confess the Lordship (that is, hierarchical authority) of God and Christ, and virtually all evince some kind of hierarchical ecclesial structure. This is especially true of episcopal churches (Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Anglican, some Lutherans), which have traditionally justified hierarchy from the authority of the apostolic college, itself rooted in the authority of Christ. It is true to a lesser degree of evangelical and independent Protestant groups as well. Vatican II insists that the church is a hierarchically structured society (Lumen gentium, chapter 3), and in this it follows two thousand years of tradition.

In short, whether or not the church should be a hierarchy is not the question. Rather, we should ask, What kind of hierarchy should there be? It is a mistake to identify all hierarchy with authoritarian command. There is an alternative hierarchical model, one based on participation, inclusion, integration, and subsidiarity, in which members are empowered by participation in a greater whole and influence flows both from the leader to the members and from the members to the leaders. This I call participatory hierarchy. It recognizes a fundamental equality of persons but a hierarchy of roles and office; its leaders govern not by an authority based on force, but by an authority based on expertise, competence, and (in the widest sense of the term) "virtue." This is the authority of the craftsperson, the guide, the doctor, the teacher, the expert, and the saint.

Anthropologists, of course, have written extensively on how hierarchical social systems work. However, my hierarchical model is drawn from the natural sciences. In nature, any complex system is not homogeneous; rather it is composed of subsystems, which are themselves composed of subsystems, which are in turn composed of subsystems, etc. Thus the human body is composed of organs and tissues, which are composed of cells, which are composed of cellular organelles and macromolecules, which are composed of smaller molecules, which are composed of atoms. Each higher system organizes and regulates lower systems, without interfering with their principles of operation. Lower systems thus have their own autonomy. The human heart, for example, will survive and beat erratically outside the body in vitro, but within the body its beating is regulated by the larger system. Similarly, a cell can survive in vitro, and even grow and reproduce, but within an organ or body its activity and direction of growth are regulated by the organ or body. The same is true for molecules and atoms, which, within a larger system, obey their characteristic laws but are partially regulated by the encompassing system.

A complex system made up of subsystems is known in science as a hierarchy of complexity. In such a system, the parts (subsystems) affect the whole, but the whole also regulates and constrains the operations of the parts. In other words, there is dual causality.

Arthur Koestler has proposed the term "holon" for a system which is a whole with respect to its subsystems, but is itself a part of a larger system. Such a system of systems of systems (that is, a hierarchy of complexity) Koestler calls a holarchy. It can be represented as a circle which encloses smaller circles, each of which encloses smaller circles, etc. Koestler argues that the principle of the holon applies to virtually all natural systems: organisms, ecosystems, languages, societies, institutions, etc. Though the nature of the relation between the whole and its parts will vary from case to case, the principle of the holon seems to be virtually ubiquitous. Everything in nature seems to be some sort of holon.

I think this model of hierarchy or holarchy, which is a hierarchy of inclusion and participation, is appropriate for the church. It is of course analogous: one cannot directly apply a model based on natural systems to ecclesial hierarchy. But there is precedent: Saint Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians, also uses the body as an analogy for the church, and to similar purpose.

What would such a model of ecclesial hierarchy look like? Most important, the autonomy of subsidiary systems would be preserved, though there would be some regulation of the subsidiary units due to their participation in a larger whole (this is similar to the Catholic principle of subsidiarity). As in a holarchy, there will be multiple subsidiary holons, each regulated by an appropriate body of persons (for example, national regions served by a body of bishops, a diocese served by a bishop, a parish served by a priest). There would be allowance for influence both from the whole to the parts and from the parts to the whole.

Both command hierarchy and egalitarianism would deform this model of hierarchy. Egalitarianism would reduce the holarchy to its simplest elements-perhaps individual parishes or even individual persons; there would be no means of integrating these into any larger whole. Excessive command, on the other hand, would stifle the legitimate autonomy of the subsidiary wholes, destroy any influence of the parts on the whole, and reduce the church to a tyranny. Either egalitarianism or command hierarchy would vitiate the balanced, integrated diversity which we find in holarchy.

This model of participatory hierarchy is consistent with the kind of authority found in the Jesus movement, with that practiced in the early church, the religious orders, with the ontological hierarchy of the church, and with Vatican II. Scholars as varied as Rudolf Bultmann, Joachim Jeremias, Norman Perrin, Ben Meyer, E.P. Sanders, and John Meier consider the proclamation of the kingdom of God to be at the core of Jesus' message. "Kingdom" here means the rule or reign of God over a renewed Israel. Because the message was meant for the whole people of Israel, Jesus particularly sought out the lost, the sinners, and the marginalized. Thus he flouted the social hierarchies of his time by eating and associating with outcasts. Nonetheless, his conception of the kingdom certainly involved submission to God's will and rule-he addressed God as "Abba," "Father." But the aim of his preaching was not to bring about God's domination, but to draw all into participation in the greater whole of God's kingdom-in a word, into a participatory hierarchy. Moreover, within his own movement Jesus exercised both moral and spiritual authority (he was addressed as teacher). His aim, however, was not command over his followers, but to draw them into the closeness with the Father that he himself experienced.

Within his movement he appointed the Twelve as an inner core of leaders, and his promise to them was that they would rule over the twelve tribes of Israel (Luke 22:30), hardly an egalitarian message! His admonition to the Twelve, that "Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all" (Mark 9:35), which some interpret as evidence of an egalitarian community, I think, indicates the manner in which leadership was to be exercised: as service, whose aim is to foster participation, not domination.

A later and perhaps the best example of this pattern can be seen in Acts 15, when the nascent Christian community had to decide whether to require Gentile converts to be circumcised. The decision is portrayed as being made after extensive discussion among the members, including the Apostles and elders. The final decision, delivered by James (not Peter) carried the consensus of the whole community (Acts 15:22), and that consensus was seen as representing the will of the Spirit (Acts 15:28). This is certainly an idealized account; there remained a procircumcision faction (Gal. 2:12). But Acts 15 can be seen as representing a kind of narrative charter, an inspired model, for decision making in the church. Here is leadership, but also extensive participation.

This pattern continued in the early ecumenical councils, especially Nicaea. The aim of the bishops was not to impose the will of a majority faction on a minority, but to reach a consensus which would indicate the will of the Spirit. The Second Council of Constantinople went so far as to affirm that it was only through debate in common that the truth could be made clear:

The holy fathers, who have gathered at intervals in the four holy councils,...dealt with heresies and current problems by debate in common, since it was established as certain that when the disputed question is set out by each side...the light of truth drives out the shadow of lying. The truth cannot be made clear in any other way when there are debates about questions of faith, since everyone requires the assistance of his neighbor.

In this way the normative Christian creeds were established. The process was hierarchical, not egalitarian. The bishops, as the heirs in authority to the Apostles and as the representatives of their respective communities, were recognized as possessing the authority to make normative decisions. But equally, no one, not the emperor nor the bishop of Rome, could impose a decision on the whole church; consultation and participation were imperative. This is reflected in the dictum of Pope Leo the Great [d. 461]: "Let whoever is to be set over all be elected by all."

Similarly, Vatican II was a good, though not perfect, example of participatory hierarchy. Certainly it was hierarchical-the bishops were teaching concerning matters of the faith. But unlike some councils, Vatican II was not controlled by the popes or the curia; the bishops rejected the initial documents drafted by the curia and drafted their own. They also consulted widely with non-Catholic observers and theological experts (periti), many of whom were also active in drafting council documents.

Can participatory hierarchy incorporate dissent? It is important that dissenting voices be heard, even though the resulting decision may go against them (consensus will never be 100 percent, though that is the ideal). Here I agree with Cardinal Wojtyla (now Pope John Paul II), who wrote in The Acting Person: "More precisely, in order for opposition to be constructive, the structure, and beyond it the system of communities of a given society must be such as to allow the opposition that emerges from the soil of solidarity not only to express itself within the framework of the given community, but also to operate for its benefit."

What is the role of the papacy in a participatory hierarchy? Vatican I seems to give the pope absolute jurisdiction over the church. Vatican II, however, situates the pope's authority within that of the episcopal college. John Paul II also makes this point in Ut unum sint: "When the Catholic church affirms that the office of the bishop of Rome corresponds to the will of Christ, she does not separate this office from the mission entrusted to the whole body of bishops, who are also 'vicars and ambassadors of Christ.' The bishop of Rome is a member of the 'college,' and the bishops are his brothers in the ministry." Thus the matter is complex. I follow Karl Rahner and others in interpreting Vatican II to mean that there is only one supreme subject of authority: the college of bishops conjoined with the bishop of Rome. This means that the pope's decisions ought to be made in communion with his brother bishops and not over against them. The charism of the papacy, then, is to facilitate consensus among the bishops and to proclaim that consensus. The papacy should not dominate the bishops or impose decisions on them, as seems to have been the case in the recent decision on women's ordination.

A hierarchy based on participation and the search for consensus will not work if all the bishops are appointed by the pope. It requires that the bishops truly be representatives of their communities, and therefore that the local clergy and laity have a central voice in their election. Walter Kasper has proposed that bishops be appointed by a "joint act of the relevant local church, the fellow bishops in the district...and the universal church, that is, the pope as head of the college of bishops." For participatory hierarchy to be effective, there must be some way for the sensus fidelium, the sense of the faithful (both laity and clergy), to balance the "authority from above" represented by the pope and the bishops. One way to do this is through the election of bishops. According to Archbishop John Quinn (The Reform of the Papacy, Crossroad), this was the norm in the church until the early 1800s.

The crucial theological principle guiding the idea of participatory hierarchy is that the Spirit is given to the whole church, not just to the pope or to the bishops and the pope. For the Spirit to be heard in its fullness, the people, the theological community, the clergy and religious orders, and the magisterium must each have a voice in governing the church. At present, the Roman Catholic church is being torn asunder by the problem of authority and hierarchy. The model of inclusive hierarchy sketched above may capture what is legitimate in both sides of this conflict. To reduce the church to an egalitarian congregationalist model would muffle the voice of the Spirit as it speaks through anointed bishops; to reduce it to a papal or episcopal command hierarchy is to stifle the Spirit as it speaks through the people, the clergy and religious, and the community of theologians. Either deforms the catholicity of the church.

Terence L. Nichols is associate professor of theology at the University of Saint Thomas in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He is the author of That All May Be One: Hierarchy and Participation in the Church (Liturgical Press).