PART TWO

MAN OF THE CHURCH

AND FOR THE CHURCH

Scalabrini's ecclesiology must be understood in light of the theology of his times.  This theology was enshrined in the two constitutions of Vatican Council I, which in embryo already contained many of the ideas of Vatican Council II.  But these ideas had not been adequately expressed in Vatican Council I because of its forced interruption.

From the many pages Bishop Scalabrini dedicated to the Church we will choose the points he took from the ecclesiology of his day as guiding principles for his own life and work as a bishop.  In his basically vertical ecclesiology, the following points clearly stand out: his idea of the Church as the extension of Christ's Incarnation, as a continuation of Christ's earthly life, as Christ's permanent revelation among men, as the family of God, as the body of Christ, and as the Communion of Saints.

These elements shed light on Scalabrini's "passion" for the Church, for the Church Universal ‑- for which he feels an all-embracing solicitude ‑- and for the local Church, which he loves as a spouse, jealously defending her from external ("extra-hierarchical") interference.  This ecclesial "passion" is predicated on a concept of episcopacy that is theological rather than juridical: the bishop is the mediator of grace.

In line with the teaching of Vatican Council I, Scalabrini focuses on the Pope's "prerogatives" ‑- his primacy and his infallibility ‑- with the love and pride of a son who feels his father's glory as his own and with the faith of the Christian who, in the person of the Pope, glorifies Christ.  This faith and love translate into a filial love that is neither servile nor obsequious.  

Scalabrini "is conscious of being a bishop" and claims the divine authority of this office, an authority that takes the "Bishop of our souls" as the model.  This authority is service, fatherhood, dedication, responsibility and coresponsibility "for the glory of God and the salvation of souls," in the "interest of Jesus Christ and his Church."  This same sacramental nature of the Church is expressed in the hierarchy: the "hierarchical principle" guarantees the transmission of grace through the channels instituted by Christ, namely, Pope, bishop, and priest.

Lay people are more beneficiaries than protagonists.  But they, too, are priests and apostles, the bishop's and the priest's mediators before the world, just as the bishop is the mediator of God and the Pope before priests and lay people.

Bishop Scalabrini had a reason for defending the doctrine of "mediatorship," that is to say, that the bishop is the sole legitimate mediator between the Pope and the faithful ‑- a doctrine that has been reinterpreted in our day.  He wants to affirm and defend the principle, then practically challenged by the

"intransigent" movement, that, in the field of conscience, the only competent legislator and judge for the universal Church is the Pope and, for the local Church, the bishop in communion with the Pope.

Membership in, and union with, the Church, namely, with the whole body of Christians, ecclesiastical and lay, is not the result of mere "subservience" but is something fully realized through the "threefold union of faith, communion and submission," that is to say, through a union "of faith, charity, and obedience" with the Pope and the Church.  This union, in turn, ensures the members' union of life and grace with the Head, Christ.