1 von Balthasar and the Office of Peter in the Church – Peter Dobbing – 29.09.

03

CTC401: Catholic Identity and Its Main Themes

Assessment Task 1 (Portfolio)

Von Balthasar and the Office of Peter in the Church (John McDade SJ)

Exposition

Bias, in itself, is as unremarkable as it is universal. Our perspectives on

issues are underpinned by values that cause us to regard some factors as
significant and others as irrelevant. Bias only becomes a problem when it
masquerades as complete objectivity or when it is made towards a position
that is obviously flawed and not worthy of respect. In his book, Der
antiromische affect (published in English as The Office of Peter and the
Structure of the Church1), the Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar
appears to be encountering two kinds of bias: one understandable since it is
essentially a reaction to a misrepresentation; the other the upshot of an
attitude that is ‘strangely irrational’ (16) and that ‘has to be overcome again
and again by the community of the Church’ (9). On the one hand, the view of
the Papacy as positioned at the apex of a hierarchical pyramid, exercising
ecclesiastical power in a top-down fashion over an increasingly docile
(servile?) Church is such a distortion and travesty of the Office of Peter that
resistance to and bias against such a notion would be consistent with a
reasonable approach to this matter. On the other hand, what deeply concerns
von Balthasar is an unreasoned contemporary bias against the Petrine Office
as a central focus of authority in the Church. Indeed, von Balthasar believes
that the full scandalon of the ultimate authority of the Pope is a sine qua non
for a coherent and balanced ecclesiology. That balance is upset, however, if
either the extreme of total rejection (as in Protestantism) or exaltation of the
pope’s position (as in Ultramontane Papalism) is embraced.
2 von Balthasar and the Office of Peter in the Church – Peter Dobbing – 29.09.03

It should be clear from the last point that von Balthasar is content to allow a
(creative) tension between the scandal of the particularity of ultimate papal
authority and what amounts to a relativising of the Pope’s position within the
ecclesiastical structure. Within the ecclesiology that he is proposing the
identity of the Church is constituted by several indispensable elements (that
include, but are wider than, the primacy of Peter and the collegiality of the
successors of the Apostles) that exist in a necessary tension with each other.
According to von Balthasar’s account of the Church, these essential elements
have an archetypal character and can all be referred to the central figures that
gathered around Jesus during his earthly ministry – Mary, Peter, James and
others. Together they make up a network of principles which, ‘in their
mutuality, interaction and tension, form the Church which relates to the Lord’.
In place of the (flawed) pyramidal structure with its connotations of
hierarchical power and an authority grounded on position and influence, we
are now presented with a ‘multi-dimensional reality of the church’ (26), a
constellation of ‘real symbols’ (309) that designate particular missions within
the church. Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles, represents the Church’s need to
adapt to new cultures; Outcasts (such as lepers and publicans) remind the
Church of its option for the poor and its identification with those who are
marginalized or rejected. While Peter stands for the pastoral office and ‘has a
right to claim authority … and to demand unity’, the radiant heart of this multi-
faceted reality is Mary. She, as the one who said ‘Yes’ to God in her chamber
at Nazareth, is the embodiment of that faithfulness and holiness that the
Church as a whole is called to realise.

It should not be thought that, in spite of the last comment and what was said
earlier about von Balthasar’s wish to situate Peter’s Office between the
extremes of rejection and exaltation, the role of Peter within the network of
missions is not distinctive. Rather, this office ‘must take its bearings by the all-
encompassing totality of the Church, which expresses itself concretely in the
dynamic interplay of her major missions and in the laws inherent in her
structure’. It is only when Peter’s Office is placed at the service of these
missions that it realises itself in its full dignity and authority. A principal task of
his ecclesiology is to keep the office of Peter, authoritative in its Christ-like
3 von Balthasar and the Office of Peter in the Church – Peter Dobbing – 29.09.03

quality of service to the whole of the People of God, in balance with the
archetypal centre of the Church, embodied in Mary’s faithful union with Christ.
He argues that the Petrine Office should be rooted in that centre ‘to become
the criterion, the concrete point of reference for unity … thus leading beyond
itself to the centre, Christ, and liberating people for Christian freedom.’ (287)

Critique

Von Balthasar’s multi-dimensional/directional model of the Church that relates

its fundamental missionary orientations to relationships established by Jesus
in ‘the period of origins’, does highlight the inadequacy and distorting nature of
the top-down, hierarchical/institutional understanding embraced so readily by
secular culture. My concern, however, is that in positing a network of discrete
principles (symbolised by New Testament persons and groups), some of
which stand in tension with each other, he has inadvertently substituted a
more plausible kind of misrepresentation for another. While the original
persons that Jesus surrounded himself with were complex human individuals
who, in their own lives, recapitulated many of the facets of the Church that
von Balthasar seeks to celebrate, the foundational archetypes are by their
very nature one-dimensional and highly focused constructs. Therefore it is
never principles that the Petrine office stands in relation to, but to the People
of God who in their own complexity and multi-dimensional identities make up
the Church. This tendency to see persons as embodiments of a particular
principle – standing in tension with others who embody different principles – is
instanced in such remarks as ‘In the unfathomable mystery of Jesus’ good
pleasure, John retains his own mission, distinct from that of Peter’, and later,
‘[John 21 contains] ‘ a subtly composed symbolic doctrine of the Church in
which the “office” (Peter) and the task of “love” (John) become … intertwined’
(142).

It seems to me that the idea of ‘being in tension with’ is not being used by von
Balthasar in a consistent way. While the tension between the office of Peter
and the collegiality of the Twelve could be construed as something creative
and an important aspect of the engine that powers an evolving understanding
4 von Balthasar and the Office of Peter in the Church – Peter Dobbing – 29.09.03

of the nature of the Church’s authority, what is it that the Judas archetype
stands in tension with? Betrayal is not a principle in the same sense as
collegiality or adaptation to other cultures or hospitality. Surely it is less
confusing to see betrayal as a lack or privation, a failure to be faithful rather
than a substantial principle that can intertwine with another. Equally it is not
clear to me that adaptation (Paul) and tradition (James) are tensions in the
same way as Peter and the Twelve. Indeed, it could be argued that these
principles have a complementary nature and that they are conceptually
interdependent.

My suggestion that betrayal is a falling off from faithfulness, combined with the
further suggestion that faithfulness (and several of the other von Balthasarian
principles) represent goals to be achieved rather than (static) states of being,
indicates to me that von Balthasar’s archetypes could more fruitfully be
conceived as possibilities for being. Lives, whether they be those of the
foundational archetypes of the New Testament, or those of followers of Christ
at any subsequent time, would, through the grace of God, realise some or all
these authentic Christian possibilities to a greater or lesser extent. Within this
more existential interpretation, both Mary and Peter stand in a special
relationship to the autos of Christ: Mary as the one who realises the core
Christian possibilities in a pre-eminent way, Peter as the pre-eminent witness
to, and upholder of, those possibilities that can be termed authentic.

(1348 words)

References and bibliography

1
Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Office of Peter and the Structure of the
Church (Ignatius Press, 1986)

Von Balthasar and the Office of Peter in the Church (Paper by John
McDade SJ).
5 von Balthasar and the Office of Peter in the Church – Peter Dobbing – 29.09.03