We need to have a continuing catechesis about the different elements that make up the Church. How can we as Church get our act together if we are ignorant about these things?

For example, bishops. To my mind, many people do not know what bishops really are and do in the Church. Some think the bishop is just some old fellow heavily vested with special garments and usually invited as a VIP in town fiestas.

Others see the bishop merely as a manager, some kind of a CEO in an entity called diocese. This is specially so when the bishop is relatively young, exuding a certain dynamism akin to that of business executives.

There are many other misconceptions floating around that appear simply tolerated and hardly rectified, among which are that they are just a political or social force to reckon with in our body politic.

From various Church documents, we learn that:
- Bishops are successors of the apostles by divine institution. Through the Holy Spirit conferred on them in their episcopal consecration, they are made Pastors of the Church, chosen and sent by Christ himself to continue Christ's work through time.

- Bishops act in the name and with the authority of Christ, Head of the Church, to teach, sanctify and govern the Church. They are entirely dependent on Christ, and thus are the ministers and "slaves of Christ."

- Because the word and the grace of which they are ministers are not their own, but are given to them by Christ for the sake of others, they must freely become the slaves of all. Everyone should also understand that his way to Christ passes through the bishops.

- It belongs to the sacramental nature of their ministry to have at once both the personal and collegial character. They always act in a personal way. But they also exercise their ministry from within the episcopal college, in communion with the Pope.

On their own, they get separated from Christ and can be like Judas Iscariot, who started doing things on his own and later turned traitor. The mystery of Christ's choice of Judas as one of his apostles must be linked to the possibility that bishops, if not careful, can become traitors and false prophets.

No bishop acts alone, even if he is assigned to head a particular diocese. His mentality should be that he is part of a college and is responsible not only for a part of the Church, but for the whole Church, linking the personal with the collegial, the particular with the universal.

And just as he cannot confine his concern to cover only a part of the Church, the bishop should always remember that like Christ, his only purpose should be to bring about man's true salvation, ultimately a spiritual and supernatural endeavor.

So, he can intervene in political and social issues, but bringing in always the mind of Christ in these issues. The question is not whether a bishop can intervene in these matters or not, but rather in how he is intervening in them.

This is a very tricky matter, and thus, it helps a lot, at least for the sake of prudence, for a bishop to do his interventions with the greatest sense of collegiality with the Pope and other bishops, and following closely the guidelines already clearly enunciated.

Like Christ, he has to know how to deal with all men and with all earthly affairs, but without getting entangled in them. He has to know how to blend the old and the new, the eternal and the temporal, spiritual and material, the sacred and the mundane, etc.

For this reason, bishops need to take care of their own spiritual life first, and their own continuing formation. Because of the sacrament conferred on them, they have to realize that they have a grave obligation to be truly holy.

Pursuing sanctity single-mindedly, they have to go beyond simply having a facade of holiness. In their heart should burn the love Christ has for everyone.

Let's pray for our bishops, love and help them in every way we can.

**********

Fr. Roy Cimagala is the Chaplain of Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE) in Talamban, Cebu City. You can email him at:Email: roycimagala@boholchronicle.com