magisterium
Sign in to savethumb|A part of the Ghent Altarpiece showing three popes ([[Martin V, Gregory VII and Antipope Alexander V) and other bishops ]]
Article
27 sectionsContents
- Solemn and ordinary
- Etymology
- Source and criteria
- Levels
- Historical development
- Early Church
- Bishops as authority
- Early disagreements
- Era of the ecumenical councils
- Medieval period
- Era of Charlemagne
- Theologians, Masters, Experts
- Papal primacy and teaching authority
- Papal infallibility
- Council of Constance (1414–1418)
- Council of Basle (1439)
- Late medieval period
- Vatican councils and their Popes
- Pius IX and Vatican I
- Pius XII and Paul VI
- Postconciliar era
- See also
- References
- Sources
- Books
- Articles
- Papal declaration
thumb|A part of the Ghent Altarpiece showing three popes ([[Martin V, Gregory VII and Antipope Alexander V) and other bishops ]]
The magisterium of the Catholic Church is the church's authority or office to give authentic interpretation of the word of God, "whether in its written form or in the form of Tradition". According to the 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church, the task of interpretation is vested uniquely in the Pope and the bishops, though the concept has a complex history of development. Scripture and Tradition "make up a single sacred deposit of the Word of God, which is entrusted to the Church", and the magisterium is not independent of this, since "all that it proposes for belief as being divinely revealed is derived from this single deposit of faith."