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Ecclesial rights (and duties) (OSV Encyc. 1997)
The subject of ecclesial rights can be better understood if we first say a few words about a more familiar concept: human rights.
"Human rights" mean the various rights that pertain to each human being which, when freely exercised, enable him or her to live in a way that befits the dignity of human nature. They comprise the rights to think, choose and act - to live - in ways that help each one fulfill him or herself as man or woman: to grow in humanity.
One has the right to be human, not the right to be inhuman. One has the right to humanize oneself, not to dehumanize self. No one can claim the right to be what they like. One has the right to be a man, but not any sort of man.
For instance, one does not have the right to be a murderous man. One has the power to be a murderer, but not the right. One has the power to be a murderer, an adulterer, a liar, a thief, a slanderer... but not the right. And the reason is not only that these action harm others, but also that they harm oneself. They dehumanize one, as does any violation of human rights. Similarly, there is no right to turn oneself into a sex-obsessed or a drug-addicted individual. No one has the right to self-destruction; there is no such thing as a right to suicide. One has the power to take one's own life, just as to take the life of another, but not the right to do so.
The most basic human rights are not just those to food or work or housing. The most basic are the rights to seek and find truth and goodness. These are the first human values and if we do not find them, we gradually lose our humanity and our very freedom: "You will know truth, and the truth will make you free" (Jn 8:32).
Human rights are grounded in the simple fact of possessing human life; they are therefore not a concession of human authorities or governments. Since life itself is a gift from God through our parents, it is in the end from God that we possess our human rights just as our human dignity.
These considerations as a sort of preface may help the explanation and understanding of our ecclesial rights: our rights, that is, as Christians and members of Christ's Church.
Christian life begins constitutionally with Baptism, by which the person is made a child of God. The basic rights of a Christian could therefore be described as filial rights, those of a son or daughter of God, brother or sister to Jesus Christ, "the first born among many" (Rom 8:29).
Jesus Christ has called us to the Church to save and sanctify us; which means to become one with him by living his very life more and more, and one with others through and in him: a union and communion which are meant to reach their fulfillment after death, in unlimited joy forever in Heaven.
All of our ecclesial rights can be summed up in one; the right to meet Christ in his Church - in his Grace, Truth and Will; the right to be vivified (given life: supernatural life), to be sanctified by him, taught and led by Him: to come to him and to come back to him. The main right of each of the Faithful is to have access to Christ: to his saving grace, to his enlightening and enfreeing truth, and to his sanctifying will. And a main function of authority in the Church is precisely to protect people's rights to meet Christ.
The Second Vatican Council emphasized some of these rights (LG 37; AA 3-4, etc.). But it was left to the Code of Canon Law to spell out the basic and constitutional rights of the Christian. It is worth noting that, in doing so, the Code does not follow the error (frequent in secular history) of simply making a "Declaration of Rights", without any "Declaration of Duties". It does not overlook the relationship or correspondence between rights and duties and particularly the fact that, in the case of common rights, a right cannot exist without the existence of an equally common duty: the duty to respect others in their use of that same right. So, the renewed Law of the Church is careful to state people's obligations along with proclaiming their rights. Moreover, in each case it states these obligations before stating their rights. The tendency to overlook the fact that rights cannot exist without corresponding obligations is characteristic of a secular and self-centered individualism. Keeping this in mind can be important both for understanding ecclesial life and for the proper function of "communio".
A somehwat different but no less important point is the connection between the rights of some and the duties of others. When the Code speaks of 'Christian faithful' or 'Christ's faithful', it refers to all of the members of the People of God; clergy as well as lay people, all of whom share the same basic christian rights and duties (set out in cc. 208-223). The clergy have indeed certain "powers" which lay people do not possess, such as the power to celebrate (consecrate) the Eucharist, or to forgive sins in the Sacrament of Penance. However it would be a mistake to think of these powers in terms of rights or privileges. Much more than to rights they correspond to duties - the duty of serving the people (in these cases in the administration of the sacraments).
Certain categories of persons within the Church have a special calling and mission of service. These are the clergy, the sacred ministers (ministry means service). They have personally volunteered and freely pledged themselves to serve others according to the spirit of "diakonia" (which also means service) stressed by the Second Vatican Council. The consequence is that the clergy have duties which are not equally shared by the laity, but are meant rather to serve and safeguard the rights of the laity. If all within the People of God should try to maintain a keener consciousness of their duties than of their rights, this particularly befits the clergy in fulfillment of their special mission as ministers and servants of the people.
Title I of Book II of the Code (cc. 208-223) details "the obligations and rights" common to all Christians; Title II (cc. 224-231) those that are peculiar to lay people; and Chapter Three of Title III (cc. 273-289) those that accompany the clerical state.
While the first of these canons (c. 208) states the equal "dignity and action" among all the Christian faithful, the next canon expresses a fundamental obligation of each one "to preserve their communion with the Church at all times, even in their external actions" (c. 209). This is followed by another fundamental obligation: "to live a holy life" (c. 210).
Communion with Christ depends, along with personal prayer and the effort to keep the commandments, on growing in the Truth of Christ and in the Grace he offers through his Church. So canon 213 stresses: "Christ's faithful have the right to be assisted by their pastors from the spiritual riches of the Church, especially by the word of God and the sacraments". If the faithful have the right to this assistance, their pastors clearly have the obligation to provide it.
"The people of God are first united through the word of the living God, and are fully entitled to seek this word from their priests" (c. 762). To the right of each Christian to hear God's Word corresponds the clear obligation of those specially commissioned to teach it, who are bound to echo that Word (and not just their own ideas) in teaching and preaching, and to convey the actual message or doctrine of Christ as handed down by the Church and preserved by the Magisterium. This duty is set out in c. 768: "Those who announce the word of God to Christ's faithful are first and foremost to set out those things which it is necessary to believe and to practise for the glory of God and the salvation of all", which is to be read also in the light of c. 760: "The mystery of Christ is to be faithfully and fully presented in the ministry of the word, which must be founded upon sacred Scripture, Tradition, liturgy and the magisterium and life of the Church"
The faithful have a right to a saving and sanctifying participation in the liturgical worship and sacramental life of the Church. There is an ecclesial right that worship and the sacraments are offered or administered according to the directives of the Church. Therefore the Second Vatican Council lays down that, outside the proper authority, "no other person, not even a priest, may add, remove, or change anything in the liturgy on his personal initiative" (SC 22; cf. c. 846, §1).
A small but not unimportant illustration of how ministers in the Church are at the service of the rest of the faithful is to be found in the matter of clerical garb (c. 284). The duty of clerics to wear a distinctive dress corresponds to the right of the faithful to be able to identify those on whose services they can call, those whose vocation it is to minister to them.
"Since lay people, like all Christ's faithful, are deputed to the apostolate by baptism and confirmation, they are bound by the general obligation and they have the right, whether as individuals or in associations, to strive so that the divine message of salvation may be known and accepted by all people throughout the world" (c. 225, § 1; cf. c. 211). So, the christian apostolate is the obligation and right, not just of priests and religious, but of everyone in the Church. As St. Thomas Aquinas says: "To teach in order to lead others to faith is the task of every preacher and of each believer" (S. Th. III, 71,4 ad 3; cf. CCC 904). To do apostolate is an obligation that lay people should always be encouraged to fulfill, just as it is a right they can never be restrained from exercising, always with due regard for public order.
Parents have the first right and duty to care for the christian education of their children (c. 226, §2; cf. c. 793 §1). This of course begins with their Baptism. Canon 867 insists that parents are under the obligation to have their children baptized "within the first few weeks" after birth. This also means that they have the right, insofar as their pastors are concerned, that Baptism be conferred "shortly after birth" (CCC 1250).
Ecclesial rights are often neglected by those possessing them. It is also true that at times they are not duly respected by those in authority. Canon law provides for possible violations of rights, and for the processes by which a remedy is to be sought (cf. cc. 221, 57, 270, 1505, 1649, 1732-39, 1745, etc.), including people's right to appeal from diocesan to metropolitan or higher courts (cc. 1438-1439).
Ecclesial or christian rights can only be adequately exercised by those who receive and invoke them humbly. Faith and grace are free gifts of God, given to those he chooses; and this applies to ecclesial rights too. One has the rights God gives, not those one may wish to claim. The Church recognizes, proclaims and defends ecclesial rights, but does not originate them; and cannot modify, cancel those that are constitutional, or introduce new ones. This is a point to be borne in mind in relation to the question of the ordination of women. There are deeper theological issues to this matter that only the Church can decide. But one gets the whole question wrong from the outset if one thinks of it in terms of the "right to ordination". No one has the right to be ordained a priest; it is always a free gift from God.
A final word could be on what is at times called the "right to dissent". As explained elsewhere, if by "dissent" one simply means holding a different or minority view in matters which are not official church teaching, that is an exercise of legitimate pluralism, not of dissent. But if dissent is used in its proper sense of refusing to accept what is the teaching of the magisterium, then we are speaking of a "right" which no Catholic has or can have. Every Catholic has the power to reject the teaching of the magisterium, but not the ecclesial right to do so. And the reason is clear. Dissenting from the teaching of the Church in any important matter of faith or morals is to dissent from the Mind of Christ, as it comes down to us over the ages. It is therefore to separate oneself from Christ, to lose one's communion with him, to violate, nullify and lose one's Catholic identity. Echoing what we said above about human rights, one has the power - but not the right - to "take one's life as a Catholic", to commit "Catholic suicide".