Ecclesiological Orientation: The Influencers, The Diarchies, and The Digital Continent

 

Ecclesiological Orientation 

The Influencers, The Diarchies, and The Digital Continent

• Introduction

• New Complexities Concerning Ecclesial Orientation and Influence

• Cardinal Dulles’ Ecclesiological Dialectic

• Dual Models, The Digital Continent, and Navigating Ecclesiological Orientation

• Three Hierarchies in Mystical Communion: The Clerics, The Consecrated and the Dyarchs

• Macrocosmic Consideration: Beyond Hierarchical Ecclesiological Orientation

• Three Hierarchies and Overlapping Spheres of Influence

• The Three Hierarchies and The Cosmological Paradox

• Practical Skills for Ecclesiological Orientation and Proper Exercise of Authority and Influence 

• Microcosmic Consideration: Lateral Ecclesiological Orientation

• Concupiscence and Poor Ecclesiological Orientation: Problems and Remedies

• Autocephalous Nuptial Diarchies: Principles and Participations

• Conclusion

Introduction

The subtitle of the treatise Relativism, Conscience, and The Magisterium is “The Grace of the Church as a Sacrament and the Error of the Church as ‘Paperwork’”.  In that treatise, I grappled with the issue of a church that, in the 16th century, confronted a new technology and suffered damage.  The printing press made the written word into an Idol and some people have come to see “the Church” as paperwork.  They may see the Church as the paperwork of the Bible, as protestants do, or they may see the Church as the paperwork of magisterial documents as a certain variety of Catholics do.  In that treatise, we focused on the latter because the digital continent has made those documents ubiquitously available in the same way the printing press made the Bible available in the first example.  Since writing that treatise I have reflected on how the “paperwork” is available to be an idol, but something more is going on in the communication present on the digital continent.  Given the tendency to think of the digital continent as a “space” it is not simply that the information there is subject to idolatry, but also people may be beginning to feel that there experience there is an experience of “the Church”, even “The Universal Church” given the scope of reach of the digital continent.  

This is a grave error that runs counter to a fundamental belief of Catholicism much discussed in Relativism, Conscience, and The Magisterium, the sacramental cosmology.  Because of this error, people become “lost” regarding their role in the ecclesia, where they fit in the picture and how they exercise their ministry and vocation. Because of the development of written to digital media, people have become subject to a hype-cycle that keeps them filled with anxiety about issues that are not in their control and on the absolute peripheral to their vocation or ministry.

The purpose of this treatise is to give practical skills for ecclesiological orientation.  The reader will understand how the digital continent has caused confusion concerning place and participation in Christian life.  The treatise will find a matrix for empowerment and techniques for use of proper authority relating to one’s position and role in the Church.  This treatise will focus mostly on the position and role of the majority of church members, the nuptial diarchies.            

In the first section, we will begin the work of navigating ecclesiological orientation by laying out the dialect of church models proposed by Cardinal avery Dulles.  After reviewing the thesis of the institutional Church and the antithesis of the Church as mystical communion, we will analyze the synthesis of the Church as sacrament.  From there we will paint a dire picture of the dichotomous church present on the digital continent and note ways in which it alienates one from actual engagement in Christian life, a life that is sacramentally based.  We will end the section with a contemplation on how one can more effectively engage in the Church by making one’s digital abidance serve one’s life in God’s good creation.

In the second section, we will seek to analyze the interrelated nature of the three hierarchies of the Catholic Church.  We will begin by analyzing two urges, tribalization and atomization, that cause ecclesial trouble in the digital continent.  We will seek to get our bearings by taking a macrocosmic view of the Church.  Noting the interdependent nature of the Church as a trans-terrestrial reality to mitigate any sense of atomism, we will then expand the bounds of the definable church beyond the observable hierarchies to mitigate any sense of tribalism. Next, we will analyze the three operative hierarchies of the Church, each in turn, while maintaining their nature as overlapping spheres of a mystical communion.  We will finish the section by connecting how each hierarchy relates to the cosmological paradox in an effort to better understand the Church as sacrament.

In the last section we will discuss practical skills for acquiring proper ecclesiological orientation.  We will begin by contrasting the micro and macrocosmic Church and a culture of digital ecclesiological influencers verses a culture of personal engagement and relationships.  We will deduce that the smaller communities of the Church are the places where true Christain engagements take place.  Next we will discuss how clericalism can create compounding concupiscence.  The pride of clericalism inflames either a rebellious pride in the laity or a reliant sloth against the laity’s appropriate task.  We will concentrate on how this particular brand of compounding concupiscence plays out in nuptial dyads because they are considered the lowest in the Church so they feel the most pressure in their position.  We will then offer skills for investing in that position as a valid and powerful office of the Church combining baptismal priesthood, dynamic and adaptable freedom and the gift of a self generating sacral hierarchy.  Lastly, after commenting on the invested authority of the nuptial diarchy, we will offer some very practical advice and tools for how to generally organize a domestic church and how the domestic church abides in the greater frameworks of its three spheres of influence, those within evangelical reach, the parish, and the diocese.  We will wrap the treatise up with a brief reiteration of the primacy of sacramental engagement over digital influence.    

New Complexities Concerning Ecclesial Orientation and Influence 

We will begin by exploring some new complexities concerning ecclesiological orientation and the problem of “influence” before going on to discuss the three hierarchies in mystical communion. Those hierarchies are the clerics, the consecrated and the diarchies.  By the end, we will be well positioned to begin a study of practical skills for ecclesiological orientation and exercise of proper authority influence. 

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Cardinal Dulles’ Ecclesiological Dialectic 

The nature of the Church is multifaceted and how those facets interrelate is complex.  In his famous book Models of the Church Cardinal Avery Dulles goes chapter by chapter to talk about the Church as an institution, a mystical communion, a sacrament, a herald, and a servant.  Each chapter describes a way of understanding the Church, and each understanding complements the others.  The danger is when one understanding usurps the position or function of another or, worse yet, is employed to the exclusion of all others. The descriptions institution, mystical communion, and sacrament consider “how” the Church is, while the descriptions herald and servent consider what the Church does. To begin here we will consider how the Church is in order to arrive by the end at some practical applications of how to do the work of the Church.  Primarily this will be a treatise of ecclesiological analysis in order to foster more effective engagement by the majority of Christians, who abide and live their lives in domestic churches.

In this part, we will focus on the dialectic between institutional church and the approach to the Church as the mystical communion.  In Dulles’ presentation of ecclesiology, this takes place in the understanding of the Church as a sacrament.  We shall present the dialectic maneuver to summarize Dulles’ position before laying out current problems with an ecclesiological perception that are agitated by new technologies.

First, we will take Dulles’ understanding of the Church as an institution.  Dulles points out that this conception of the Church sees “the Church” as the clerical hierarchical church.  It is the job of the Church to teach, sanctify, and govern.  This outlook has its strengths and weaknesses.  It tends to focus on the “outward” manifestations of Christianity, ritual and moral, because those are “governed” by promulgation of law. It also sees its teaching as propositional knowledge that is imparted in order to facilitate salvation. This is most likely because under more traditional teaching models promulgation of axiomatic premises allows demonstration of knowledge by “assent”.  One demonstrates this assent by being able to recount them and draw them to conclusions in one’s life.

The bonus of the institutional view is that the focus on objective action and knowledge instills a uniformity which creates a strong sense of Catholic identity.  Also, because of the dominance of this view over the past few centuries, the institution has provided a seriously documented continuity, because it thrives on legalistic governance.  But, this strength becomes its weakness.  Generally, those invested in this model collapse the sanctification and teaching aspects of the hierarchy into the governance.  This consolidation forms a jurisdictional and litigious culture that permeate such a model.  This model developed dramatically as a result of, and in response to, the reformation.  At this time the hierarchical church was under attack and circled its wagons around its own authority.  As an overcorrection to the reformation’s outright denial of the necessity of clergy, especially clerical authority, the institutional church doubled down on its investment in governance.  The result is a general atmosphere of clericalism, where the clergy are the source of all power and initiative and the laity are characterized by passivity and docility. Coupled with Clericism the biggest drawback of the institutional model is that the propositional/juridical model of teaching along with the incessant documentation eventually creates a crystallized the Church that disallows for creativity and puts the Church beyond adaptability or reform.

   

For the dialectical balance Dulles next explores an antithesis to the Church as an institution, the Church as mystical communion.  This methodology is more related to what we often call Christian ontology or what we also have called Trinitarian ontology.  Dulles makes passing reference to the foundational nature the Trinity provides for this model in his third chapter of  Models of the Church.  But, as was noted in the treatise Christian Ontology, it forms the basis of what makes this model so inherently Christian.  In that work, we discussed how Christian ontology sees objects and relationships as equally real, and thus we have a reality that is simple and manifold at the same time,

God is Primary and Fundamental, so the dogma of the Trinity is the primary and fundamental comment on how reality itself works.  The dogma of the Trinity asserts that God is simple and manifold at the same time.  The dogma itself is not complicated, God is one God in three distinct persons.  This is the case from all eternity.  The first question any semi-intelligent person might ask is “How”?  and always the Christian must retreat into faith and say, “He just is.”  But if this leaves an unsatisfactory taste in your mouth then you may want to point out that it’s not all strange.  Remember?  “It’s a desk!”  “Ah, but is it? or is it a collection of parts . . . Part of the room” etc.  Play the game, it’s not just academic, it’s a fundamental aporia.  If your conversation is amiable and honest, you have to come to the conclusion that everything we experience is simple and manifold.  It doesn’t help in explaining how, but it does make the belief much more palatable, because everything else you experience conforms to the same principle.  Even if your conversational partner wants to go to an atomistic or monistic extreme, they still can only validate that by saying, “that’s just how it is.”  There’s no way to prove such beliefs, there’s not even criteria to prove it. 

    

In that treatise, we ended with how this ontology functioned to bind the members of the Church together as one.  As was noted in the treatise Paradoxes and Disorders Loving relationships are the relationships that bind persons together the same was that gravity is the relationship that binds objects together.  The importance of this type of relationship is why in that treatise we dubbed loving relationships the highest of the three fundamental relationships. At the very end of Christian Ontology we briefly promoted the Church as mystical communion of love,

As part of Christ’s mission he founds The Church, a group of people who are one and bound to him as his mystical body. With the Holy Spirit sent out after the ascension The Church is established as one with Christ and yet distinct from him, bound by the relationship of Love.  This is a collective reality for its members, but works on the individual level as well.  Each of us is bound to The Church as a whole and through that bond to Christ, in the Love we experience. 

This view of the Church is the mystical unitive view of the Church that must balance the analytical distinctive view of the institutional model.  This view is not a method of ruling and teaching, but an ontologically defined community of relational persons.  

Dulles gives two overarching images of this construct, the people of God and the Body of Christ.  These images focus on the oneness of the Church over any juridical boundaries.  Since the focus is relational this model is much more focused on interior/spiritual as opposed to objective/action oriented.  The “people of God” are not the members of the hierarchy.  They are not even connotatively perceived of as those who are constitutionally bound to the hierarchy (clerics and laity).  The people of God are usually perceived as all those who share a spiritual relationship with God, thus it is fairly all inclusive beyond the normal “religious” boundaries.  Dulles is clear as to the benefits of this type of vision.  It is well founded in scripture and tradition.  The Body of Christ model is one of Saint Paul’s primary frames for church life, and in the Acts of the Apostles, even the extra-religious boundary issue is quite obvious.  Its is also brilliantly commented on from such seemingly disparate sources as Pius the XII in his encyclical Mystici Corporis Christi and in the Second Vatican Council’s Lumen Gentium.  This model also foster a deep spiritual life that enables Christian beatitude as opposed to litigious scrupulosity that sees spirituality as a morality of commerce.  Lastly, being the antithesis of the institutional model, the mystical communion model is extremely dynamic and adaptive.

With all these assets, it is important to note that Dulles does see serious limitations in the mystical communion model.  The most pressing is that is offers no real framework for the connection between the spiritual focus it values and action concerning those values.  That is not to say that it is not action oriented.  The problem is it begs the question, how does one know a person is demonstrating the required spirituality.  The laws based emphasis of the institutional model definitely addresses observability.  This lack of objective, observable, spirituality leads to the larger problem, this model does not readily instill a universal ethos for being Catholic.  As Dulles points out, it leads to a vague sense of Christan identity.  Taken to the extreme and this vagary can lead to the irrelevance of Christianity as “Christianity”.  

As a healthy synthesis of these two approaches to the Church, Dulles brings the idea of the Church as a sacrament to bear.  The two approaches hint at opposing camps in a mind body duality is prevalent in our basic religious outlook.  People who lean to one model have most likely suffered the negative effects of the liabilities of the other.  If those negative effects were extreme the leaning is extreme.  But according to the principle of cross-spectral mutual pedagogy these extremes need each other in order to be healthy and thrive.  The compromise that Cardinal Dulles offers is to stay true to proper Christan cosmology.  The treatise Sacramental Cosmology, pointed out that a sacramental cosmology recognizes how

In the first creation story creation springs from the power of God’s Words.  This implies that the thing made is a vast communication system.  It speaks to a receiver of that communication built into the system itself, humans.  Every aspect of this creation is built to communicate God’s love to a receiver of that communication and draw that receiver into a loving relationship with God.  Every facet of our being as humans is constructed to receive the communication and activate the sanctifying grace by which the loving relationship becomes possible.             

Couple this with the assertion made in the treatise Christian Ontology that objects and relationships are equally real and one begins to see how a sacramental view seeks to show the compatible nature of both the physical and the relational aspects of the Church.  Instead of simply laws to be followed or dispositions without external effect, the life of the Church and therefore one’s own life is a series of “signs”.  These outward signs are manifestations of the inner or invisible mysteries of love; the love of God for us, of us for God and of us for each other.  A sacramental view facilitates a connected view of the inner and outer, the law and the beatitude because the outer is expressing the invisible.

The sacramental model forces one to reckon with each end of the centrifugal spectrum of ecclesiology. One cannot simply focus on the inner invisible or the outer legal.  One cannot simply divide and rule or relate and adapt.  One must demonstrate the interior by the exterior, which means that, as a church, there needs to be rulers and ruled as well as beatitude shared by all members.  There is no doubt that Catholicism, and ancient Christianity in general, employs a model of leadership that is sacramentally invested.  This leadership is easily identified as a hierarchy, but that hierarchy is not (or should not be) the identity of the Church.  The difference of Christain power dynamics was noted in the treatise Inversal Unity and The Divine Triple Descent.  We first contemplated the nature of prelapsarian power dynamics,

This awareness of the proper understanding and use of power foster Christian beatitude.  Where this beatitude is possessed; what is structurally a hierarchy is functionally a dynamic interplay of mutual service.  God is over the humans because he creates and sustains them, but acts as a servant by planting a garden and creating companions for the man, who is a leisure to name them and reject them as his ultimate companion.  The man is over the animals and Garden, but his job is to tend for the garden.   

We went on to note how the use of “hierarchy” seemed foreign because the model was strict and pure service.  But once the fall takes place, hierarchies become necessary,

In the flow of salvation history, there was a turning away from the leader/servant after the Garden toward authoritarian monarchies and patriarchies that sought by strict discipline to order human civilization and culture.  Much like how clothes are necessary in postlapsarian reality, though they were not in prelapsarian reality, hierarchies are necessary to keep order and peace, but they are not how God intended our relationships to be. . . .

Christianity is a religion of fulfillment.  The structures we have now as stopgaps for keeping order will be fulfilled such that oppressive hierarchies will disappear and hierarchies that exhibit Christian power dynamics, where the greatest serve the least and there is no sense of pretension of superiority.  How the messiah effects this is through a series of descents into created reality to demonstrate inversal unity, that power structure where the lesson of Christian ontology is applied, power is simple and manifold at the same time, it is distinguishable in function, but teleologically it all points to the same end, mutual service and mutual love. 

Since the time we live in now is neither Paradise nor the Eschaton we live in the tension of the cosmological paradox, which tries, through cross-spectral mutual pedagogy, to integrate this divisive paradox.  The awareness of the sacramental nature of reality is a ready way to make peace with this division.  In the sacramental understanding there is clearly a hierarchy, but one that is fulfilled.  Clericalism is neutralized by a full embrace of the priesthood of baptism, and the mutual respect of the functions of each member of the body.  But the duel abidance of these structures in the sacramental model can evoke confusion as to one’s place and the best course of action in the Church.  This evocation is dramatically intensified by the introduction of the digital continent into Church life.

Dual Models, The Digital Continent, and Navigating Ecclesiological Orientation

Due to the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, and the subsequent reform of the reform, etc. there have appeared two factions in the Church.  These factions can only be roughly defined, and quickly fall into caricature when distinguished in any definitive way.  Yet, the intuition of these camps drives how many people engage in talk of “The Church”.  With the Second Vatican Council magisterium sought to authoritatively institute a reform to correct an overly institutional model that developed out of the counter reformation.  That development was situational.  In some ways it was effective, yet in many ways the degree to which the Church “broke institutional” was inherently flawed and it enflamed and enshrined some of the worst weaknesses of the institutional model. When the reform began to be implemented, it was done with the zeal of the antithesis, the mystical community model.  As the weaknesses of that model quickly became manifest, those more invested in the old model began the cry of “we told you so”.  This problem is exacerbated by a misapplication of the program for reevangilization as was discussed in the treatise Digital Evangelization,

The new evangelization can be taken as a catch all to persecute any proper expression of faith that a self justified Catholic does not personally approve of.  It seems the new evangelization, as a program, has given Catholics permission to incorrectly declare each other inadequate in a variety of disturbing ways, thereby shutting people off to valuable, useful and sometimes necessary aspects of the catholic faith.  What is obviously a program of fulfillment has become a program of condemnation. 

The dichotomous alignment becomes even worse when the factions align with secular political factions or economic theories, as has happened in the United States.  In this case, often the religious investment becomes a means for a larger end.  Culture is seen as a large dichotomous alignment at war with itself and religion is seen as a “useful” piece for the larger campaign of the whole.  This is disordered.  In the proper order, religion is the over arching or binding belief system, and the other cultural facets are means for expressing relation and devotion to God.  But in the Catholic Church of the United States, those who prefer the institutional or communal models have aligned along cultural political ideologies and there has been a wedge, such that people see their fellow believers as enemies.  Paul’s probing of the Corinthian community comes to mind. “Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?” He advises the community to avoid needless factions, especially those that are based on “who is better” or “who knows more”.

In the Gospels, the narrative is people who encounter Christ and are healed, helped, and redeemed.  Under their baptismal priesthood, Christians called to present Christ under one of the four modalities of Christological interchange.  As was discussed in the treatise The Manifold Priesthood of the Catholic Church these modalities sum the possibilities for alter Christus presentations of a baptismal priest.  Given the dual nature of presentation, which requires a “presenter” and a “presented to”, there are four possibilities, two offering first person presentation of Christ and two offering second person presentation. The relationship assumes some sort of help is being offered and the modalities work to “Christ as the helper”, “Christ as the helped”, “the helper of Christ” and finally “helped by Christ”.  The narrative appropriation here is to offer a method for sacrifice and mediation. It may be that one of the problems of a fractured Christian community is an appropriative misfire.

In the Gospels, when people encounter Christ, it is never the person who “knows more” that comes out ahead.  It is important to meditate on the fact that the Scribes, Sadducees, and Pharisees know a lot about the practice of the law.  But Jesus is less concerned with this.  A successful story in the Gospels is not Jesus imparting specific knowledge about the law.  Rather, when Jesus instructs on the law itself he seems intent on teaching the why and beatitude of the law to the Pharisees.  Even more often than that he seems less concerned with the specific laws at all, and more concerned with the turning of a person’s spiritual life to the love of God.  If one recalls that he instructs one to “go and sin no more”, it can also be recalled that proper knowledge is not required to sin or abstain from sin.  Sin is the use of the knowledge the person has (right or wrong) against their perceived desire of God for them.

If a person is using a first person alter Christus it is possible to see one’s self as the teacher.  It is well and good to try to impart beneficial knowledge to someone who is suffering.  However, Jesus’ power to teach truth serves the greater function of redemption and reconciliation.  It is a teaching of service that employs inversal unity, displaying Christian power dynamics.  One could also narratively appropriate the work of the Apostles from Acts and the Epistles and seek to channel their teaching authority, but that authority is also much less law focused and more geared toward binding unity.  Acts is the story of the inculturation of Caristianity beyond the confines of Palestinian Hellenized Judaism.  The Epistles are almost exclusively bent of unifying as opposed to factionalizing the Church.    

Far to often, in a factionalized Christianity, one spectral extreme will seek to convert or teach the other, and vise versa.  These instructions are less about beatitude and more about winning a debate or being right.  If one wishes to teach by first person alter Christus one must teach to serve toward salvation.  If one is institutionally invested, and one expounds upon the particular practices of the Church, it should be at the service of someone’s relationship with God.  This is the case even if the urge is “obedience teaches humility”.  But if that maximum does not have the intended effect it is incumbent upon the one “teaching” to persuade.  The teacher must go to the pupil’s learning style the same way Christ became incarnate for us.  The opposite end of the spectrum must rise to the same challenge.  If one is waxing poetic about the mystical communion of the Church and one who is more litigiously minded is not hearing it, hurling abuse or slander will do no good.  Calling someone a Pharisee will most likely not serve for proper instruction.  Again, it is incumbent on the teacher to find the proper teaching methodology.

Probably more useful in the current situation is the second person alter Christus.  This will involve careful listening and learning so that one can come to understand the purest motives of the “other side”, because the other side loves Jesus.  The best way to foster unity is an opening gambit of listening and seeking understanding.  To understand someone's motives and spiritual dispositions (mystical communion model) or to understand one’s actions (institutional model).  

But this ability to be with someone is extremely hard, especially in the digital continent, as we shall see.  A litmus test for one’s self may be one’s disposition in the current climate of liturgical divisiveness can one approach Jesus in the Eucharist and be content to receive grace?  Or would one be distracted by a priest “disrespecting the rubric”?  Would one be distracted that the priest did not mention a certain social justice concern “obviously” connected to the Gospel in his homily?  If one’s encounter with Christ is fraught with constant criticism then one is playing the part of the Scribes and Pharisees, not the disciple, penitent, or invalid.    

In a sacramental model, the differences in these “camps” can be viewed as different expressions of the same reality.  The sacramental view allows for a cross-spectral mutual pedagogy because it so clearly connects the visible and the invisible as one reality. But one way we have failed in our mission as a Church is the failure to communicate a sacramental cosmology.  It causes great divisiveness, great confusion, and no small amount of disillusionment.  It has also lead to a breakdown of respect for authority in the Church by the very people who value the authoritarian structure.  This odd quirk has happened because the current Pope values the mystical communion and the factions that promote over investment in the institutional model reject his emphasis and at times his papacy.  

All of these divisions and the misery attributed to them are exacerbated by the new interface of the digital continent.  Gaudium et Spes was prophetic when it noted, “new and more efficient media of social communication are contributing to the knowledge of events; by setting off chain reactions they are giving the swiftest and widest possible circulation to styles of thought and feeling.”  This wide and swift circulation makes it hard to locate one’s self in the maelstrom of Catholic thought.  This difficulty in navigating ecclesiological orientation can be lateral or hierarchical.  Hierarchical ecclesial orientation is where one is situated in noe of the three hierarchies of the Catholic Church.  This orientation will give one an indication of who one should engage with concerning spiritual and moral direction and guidance.  Being aware of one’s orientation hierarchically should relieve one's anxiety of things beyond one’s control. Lateral ecclesial orientation is how one orients in mystical communion with the many small communities in one’s day to day life.  For example, how one may need to navigate one’s domestic church, one’s parish community, an archdiocese in communion with other parishes, and the consecrated people living in that archdiocese and abide in your parish. In these spheres all manner of hierarchical structures commingle in lateral relationships.  Being aware of one’s lateral orientation should give one impetus to act and engage in Church life as a member of the Body of Christ.  

When these orientations go wrong they cause great stress and possibly division.  So for example, in lateral ecclesial orientation one can misfire their attempts at orienting their modes of alter Christus, for example, taking themselves as Christ, when they should be the disciple or vice versa.  One can also lose bearings of where they are in the hierarchical / institutional structure of the Church.  This is commonly seen on the digital continent, where people without the authority constantly accuse others of heresy.  They locate themselves in a completely different institutional situation than they actually occupy.  People probably do this because they feel powerless concerning situations they feel passionately about.  But, this has even gotten as extreme as the current “conservative/traditional” mantra that the laity must call out the bishops and pope on their heresy.  The people who make this bold assertion now claim the mantle of protecting the true Catholic Church from modernist and protestantizing influence without seeing how they are the protestants in the situation.    

As it stands right now, the digital continent is possessed by an “influencer” culture.  This is not new for humanity, but the impact across the globe at such speed is dramatically new.  That a theologian could have world wide impact was possible one hundred years ago.  But that impact would be directed to the elite over a generation, then to the non-theologically invested by practice and linguistic implications over the next few generations.  So when the printing press was invented it took a bit of time for the ideas of the reformation to spread across the elite of Europe, then filter down to the peasant.  That process seemed rapid at the time, becasue of the new technology.  That technology then gave birth to a new power broker in the world, those who control the medium of dissemination of information (the media).  Now the local authority does not control the information that comes into his realm, nor can he as easily filter the narrative the populace receives.  Information is far too available far too quickly. Over the next few centuries those who control this technology slowly increased in power until the 19th century when the printed medium was ubiquitous and telegraph began to speed the process of communication.  By the mid 20th century, with the advent of reel and television, another dramatic increase made the use of such media very clear to the powers that be.  All the players in the second world war knew the power of propaganda.  The beginning of the 21st century places information dissemination back into a state of diffused control. A new chaos, with no concentration of manipulation has emerged in a new medium, the digital continent.       

Now, someone who fancies themself a theologian can gain a large base by manipulating basic sociology, psychology, algo and logarithms, and marketing.  They can then have an immediate impact on the spiritual state and orthodoxy of large populations.  They can conceivably get replies and comments from actual theologians, and even bishops, if their influence is large and effective enough.

As a discerning Christian in the communication age, the question is, is it acceptable to engage in impact beyond our own “depth level”?  This is a just question whether one buys into the institutional or mystical communion model.  In each case, the model implies either a “chain of command” for interaction, or a gemeinschaft that relates to a larger Gesellschaft.  To jump far beyond one’s station or peer group runs many risks.  The well educated technical theologian runs the risk of speculating and since they are a theologian, being mistaken for asserting.  The uneducated, but pious, runs the risk of making critical mistakes in theology while they are pontificating to mass numbers of people.  The former sheltered nature of these kinds of mistakes gave them better space to develop and grow into fruit.  Now the absolute nature of communication exacerbates the problems of Babel.  Everyone is seeking to communicate without communion.  It is in this maelstrom that the concept of ecclesiological orientation must come into play as a discernment technique.

One major problem is that the digital content is not suited for engagement in a way that takes a sacramental cosmology into account.  It is a realm of communication, but chiefly through language and art.  This is only a small measure of what interpersonal communication is.  The sacramental nature of communication takes corporeality into account.  The treatise Digital Evangelization, discussed how the semi-spiritual realm of the digital continent could be a balancing effect of an over empirically invested world.  We noted there that the world created in the digital continent is off the rails and in need of evangelization.  

Could we replace this lapsarian digital cosmology view with a more positive evangelical digital cosmology?  In the more positive version of Christian cosmology, one imbued with a sacramental awareness, the physical world is a dyad with the spiritual world, a complement to it.  In a sacramental cosmology humans are the most profound point of contact between the spiritual and the physical world.  They express their role as ambassador through an elaborate complex of communicative processes including verbal language, cognitive interpretation, ritual action, physical sexuality, and enough other ways to warrant a separate paper.  Urged by their proper role as ambassador between the physical and spiritual world, humans are extremely creative when it comes to communication.    

That treatise took great pains to illustrate how one should conduct oneself as one abides on the digital continent.  But even there, we could not leave the fact that the human “ complex of communicative processes include[s] verbal language, cognitive interpretation, ritual action, physical sexuality, and enough other ways” that we needed to wrap up the treatise with how one utilizes the digital continent to shape one’s own life in the physical world.  The skill we developed was called digital cognitive re-association.  It is used to foster intentional cognitive empathy and allow for the Golden Rule. This technique combines “swap narratives”, the modern dissociative disorder trope in film, and introspective reimagination to practice a technique that reduces alienation by an assumption that one’s interlocutor is actually one’s self. 

The main take away from this technique is that the digital continent should serve one’s personal life, and ultimately serve the Church, but also to recognize that the digital continent surmises neither one’s life nor the Church.  When one spends too much time there it begins to seem so.  Even as an influencer, one is not influencing “the Church” one is influencing a very particular way of engaging the Church, only the digital manifestation of it.  In this narrow view one is an ecclesiological digital influencer.  That is an important role, but to know that it is one’s vocation takes discernment and direction, as we pointed out in Digital Evangelization.  In the current climate, there is little discernment and less intentional direction concerning this vocation.  Most participants in comment dialogues are reaching far beyond their station or community.       

The first step in ecclesiological orientation is realizing that no matter who one interacts with in the Church (bishops, pope or peasant) the communication is aimed at the benefit of one’s personal situation or intimate community.  It is in these places, one’s being and one’s particular community, that the Church is lived as a sacrament.  The far reaching vistas of the digital continent are well ordered when they aid in the sacral abidance.

The interactive nature of the digital continent often presents a fractured ecclesiology where people comment far out of their own depth, betraying obsessions that cause needless anxiety.  This goes for those invested in either model, institutional or mystical communion.  Engagement in the digital continent can agitate this anxiety exponentially.  Again, a commonly observed obsession as of late concerns the ordinary and extraordinary forms of the liturgy in the Roman rite.  The institutionally minded generally break extraordinary form, while the mystical communion minded usually gravitate toward the ordinary form.  Most people understand the beauty of both.  But very loud minorities spend an inordinate amount of time stumping for their favorite and insulting the other variety.  This disparaging of liturgy, the height of sacramental reality, is all done in the realm that is completely bereft of sacramental engagement and relies completely on “ideas”, with no corporeal input.  The obsession comes off as distracting.  So much so that people talk of going to liturgies of the “opposite” variety and hating it.  Here we see how the digital continent can poison sacramental life.  One’s concupiscent urge to control the Universal Church and “fix” fictional liturgical problems across the entire church has disallowed one to accept grace in a truly sacramental setting. 

If one’s participation in the digital continent negatively affects one’s full participation in the life of the Church, one has probably become subject to poor ecclesiological orientation.  It is not that we are to ignore the promulgation of the Pope (we form our conscience by magisterial teaching). It is not that we do not pray for the Universal Church.  It is not even that one should ignore that there are problems in the Universal Church, there certainly are. The issue of this treatise is, how, and at what level is my situation best at dealing with these problems? 

Seeing one’s self as the one person to fix the problems of the Universal Church, or even one of a small group, far overplays one’s hand, even if one is the Pope.  Only one person effectively fixes the problems of the Universal Church and that person is Christ himself.  The way to help is to cooperate with him, meeting him in others, listen to his word, and participate in the Church he founded with one’s whole life.  Taking on the mantle of Athanasius against the overwhelming numbers of Arian heretics is generally unhealthy, especially in a world where there seems to be an inordinate number of other’s doing the same to a variety of different ends.  In the end, one has situations where there are people condemning the pope, almost every bishop, almost every priest, and almost every other Catholic.  If this is the situation that abiding on the digital continent has gotten one in, it may be time to prayerfully discern one’s lot in life.

Proper ecclesiological orientation both hierarchical and lateral should mitigate most of those fears.  This is not Pollyanna.  One should not discount that there are problems in the Church.  But how can one best serve where one is at, this is the discerning question.  First, it is important to serve at your appropriate authority.  Discerning and doing this makes one a well oriented ecclesiological influencer.  The well oriented ecclesiological influencer remains in their appropriate place as the principle of subsidiarity reminds us.  In that place we must exercise authority, if it is not our place, then we listen, learn, even chime in, but in the end, we can trust God to take care of it.  If one is an American, the problems of a bishop in Tanzania may be troubling, but they are problems for the Pope and his fellow bishops in Tanzania.  If there is a problem in one’s parish, in one’s family, or among other social groups one is invested in, one has engagement (absent the digital sphere) that allows for sacral exercise.  Here one can effectively practice their baptismal priesthood invested in a sacramental cosmology to the full effect of their station or community.  

Subsidiarity reminds us not to reach “to far or wide” in a mystical communion model.  In an institutional hierarchical model, subsidiarity reminds us not to reach “up” and when we reach “down” it is not to be done in a way that robs those below of their due authority.  Ecclesiological orientation reminds one to stay where one has discerned to be, and presumably where God has placed one.  In this day and age that may be “social media influencer” but to know this is a process of discernment itself that helps one orient appropriately.  Proper ecclesiological orientation allows one to be creative and dynamic according to proper hierarchical and lateral orientation.  It allows others and God to be creative dynamic at all others with only natural, and thereby minimal, anxiety.  All that being said it is now time to build skills for discerning one’s orientation.  Thus we can turn to the three hierarchies that abide in mystical communion.

In this section, we began the work of navigating ecclesiological orientation by laying out the dialect of church models proposed by Cardinal Avery Dulles.  After reviewing the thesis of the institutional Church and the antithesis of Church as mystical communion, we analyzed the synthesis of church as sacrament.  From there we painted a dire picture of the dichotomous church present on the digital continent and noted ways in which it alienates one from actual engagement in Christian life, a life that is sacramentally based.  We ended the section with a contemplation on how one can more effectively engage in the Church by making one’s digital abidance serve one’s life in God’s good creation.  We can now proceed to exploring the ecclesiological alienation set up by the digital continent as well as the true nature of the Church as a series of hierarchies in mystical communion.  

In the last section we will discuss practical skills for acquiring proper ecclesiological orientation.  We will discuss how clericalism can effect compounding concupiscence.  The pride of clericalism inflames either a rebellious pride in the laity or a reliant sloth against the laity’s appropriate task.  We will concentrate on how this particular brand of compounding concupiscence plays out in nuptial dyads because they are considered the lowest in the Church so they feel the most pressure in their position.  We will then offer skills for investing in that position as a valid and powerful office of the Church combining baptismal priesthood, dynamic and adaptable freedom and the gift of a self generating sacral hierarchy.  We will offer some very practical advice and tools for how to generally organize a domestic church and how the domestic church abides in the greater frameworks of its three spheres of influence, those within evangelical reach, the parish, and the diocese.  

Three Hierarchies in Mystical Communion: The Clerics, The Consecrated and the Diarchs 

In the last section we began the work of navigating ecclesiological orientation.  We painted a dire picture of the dichotomous church present on the digital continent and ended the section with a contemplation on how one can more effectively engage in the Church by making one’s digital abidance serve one’s life in God’s good creation.  In this section, we will seek to analyze the interrelated nature of the three hierarchies of the Catholic Church.  While analyzing the three operative hierarchies of the Church, we will maintain their nature as overlapping spheres of a mystical communion.  We will finish the section by connecting how each hierarchy relates to the cosmological paradox in an effort to better understand the Church as sacrament. In the last section we will discuss practical skills for acquiring proper ecclesiological orientation and skills for use of authority and influence.

Macrocosmic Considerations: Beyond Hierarchical Ecclesiological Orientation

The problem we laid out in the last section concerning navigating ecclesiological orientation is born out of two possible views.  The first is a tribal view, us against them, where one aligned with a side and seeks to nullify one’s perceived enemy.  The second view is the atomistic view and is the result of one who goes to an extreme even in one’s own tribe and finds themself in an exclusively critical stance.  This sets up a dichotomous antagonism between the individual and the whole of the Church, which is in need of reform.  This antagonism can be the result of one who gets a taste for the small pleasure of just criticism, then takes the hunger for being the critic to an inordinate extreme. What should be a situation of cross-spectral mutual pedagogy becomes a situation of complete alienation.   To use the language of the treatise Christian Ontology, one is over atomized.  One is not recognizing the mutual flow of relationships as a reality.  This makes it difficult to “find one’s place” in the Church.  One wants to effect the whole as a single actor.  One wants the whole to reflect one’s atomistic existence.  Given everything reflected on in the treatise Christian Ontology among many others here, this is not how reality works.  Even the nature of the Church one may be trying to effect as an ecclesiological digital influencer is not in any way close to complete.  If one wants to get a bearing on “the whole” church one must look far beyond liturgy or clerical politics as discussed on the digital continent.      

If one is invested in the institutional model it can seem simple to consider one’s place in the Church, the impact one can have, and the when, where and how of such impact.  But when one says “the Church” one can mean far beyond the bounds of the hierarchical clerical institution.  Consider Saint Paul’s use of the term “saints”.  It may be tempting to consider saints as “passed on” and no longer members of the Church, because they have gone to their reward, and the Church is our lot to struggle with.  However, when Saint Paul uses the term, he means those who have passed away as well as those who are on this earth now.  This reminds us that our communion with the saints is not a one way street. 

Even among those institutionally minded (so focused on objective action), there is an older hierarchical model of the Church that extends into the afterlife.  It is based on how the Church is a trans-terra-celestial reality with trans-terra-celestial relationships.  When an institutionally minded person focuses on this it generally comes down to “who can help who”.  The focus regards how we can ask the intercession of the saints, who can help us.  It also regards how we can help the souls in purgatory by praying for them and offering sacrificial acts for mitigation of their suffering.  This great economy of companionship points to the complex nature of the Church.  It is not a simple observable institution. But beyond that, the traditional explanations are very functional.  Each part of the macro picture knows its function in relation to the others. 

The function of the saints is to help us in our lives.  Anyone who is seeking to become an atomistic or tribal ecclesiological digital influencer forgets that much if not most of the Church is not only beyond their help, but exists in a relationship to help us, not to be helped.  We are not the ones who are influencing this ecclesiological relationship.  The scope of this relationship should wake such people up to the impotency of their task.  At the other end, those who abide on this earth can influence a whole section of the celestial church, the souls in purgatory.  But that influence cannot happen on the digital continent, only in the sacrifices made according to our baptismal priesthood.  This influence is an influence of self giving service, not cognitive pedagogy.  The dynamic of the economy of trans-terra-celestial relationships boxes either variety of self proclaimed ecclesiological digital influencers completely out of existence.

The “whole” that an ecclesiological digital influencer may want to effect is actually only a small part of the grand trans-terra-celestial reality we call the Church.  So what they are trying to influence is the “Church Militant”, that is the Church as it struggles through salvation history and as it abides in the cosmological paradox.  Even there usually the one who seeks to influence only in the digital continent is seeking to sway (or replace the authority of) the clerical hierarchy and not the entire terrestrial church.  But even here vagary comes into play.  Those invested in the institutional model tend to see the Church as the clerical hierarchy.  But the mystical communion models have become mainstream enough that most Catholics of any variety recognize the Church as all of the baptized.  But by baptized, the assumption is usually that they are baptized in the Roman Rite and are in process to accept and maintain the grace of the rest of the sacraments of initiation.  This particularity is where the institutional clerical model still holds sway.  However, the Church as “the baptized” covers a much larger scope.  There are those who are baptized and are protestant.  These baptized are valid and conform those participants to the person of Christ and therefore the Church.  The easiest way to look at is is that they are poorly catechized members of the Church who are taking a long time in their discernment and learning.  They are “not yet in full communion” because they have not completed the sacraments of initiation. 

But this definition is still too narrow.  It only takes into account baptism by water.  There are the other two varieties to be considered.  Since in one the participant dies (blood/fire), and we are considering the Church militant, we need not concern ourselves with it here.  But with the baptism by desire, we begin to see a painfully expansive view of the Church. Some of the wide ramifications of baptism by desire were commented on in the treatise Ordinary and Extraordinary Religions, 

[T]he desire for baptism, which is in effect a desire for God’s saving action, is a form of baptism itself.  Once again this is not dependent on knowledge of God, but on the circumstances, intention, or desire, and will of the recipient.  A narrow view of this applies it to only those among the catechumenate who die prematurely.  However, the church extends this type of baptism to “every man who is ignorant of the Gospel of Christ and of his Church, but seeks the truth and does the will of God in accordance with his understanding of it.”  The catechism asserts that such a person can be saved through baptism by desire.  (CCC 1260)  

But once again, knowledge here is a very interesting term.  For something to be known, it must be true, for it is not proper to say one “knows” things that are not true.  We will assume the truth of the necessity of baptism for salvation.  Then, two epistemological qualifiers kick in, 1) that the person be cognitively aware of the possibility of the truth, and 2) that the person believe the content of that awareness.  If you don’t believe something you do not know it.  Regarding the epistemological categories and the baptism of desire, people often focus on the first, the awareness of the possibility.  It is often people's belief that if someone were at all exposed to any information about Christianity then baptism by desire is off the table for them.  But if I am in a religion other than Christianity and someone tells me that Jesus died for my sins and baptism is the way to access the grace afforded, the simple proclamation in my presence only gives me the cognitive awareness of its possibility.  It does not mean I believe it, and if I don’t believe it I don’t know it. 

The baptism by desire recognizes the dynamic nature of both grace and the Church and expands the Church far wider than most Catholics are comfortable with.  This expansive ecclesiology is beyond where any ecclesiological digital influencer would dream of wandering.  Most of the niche obsessions would only make sense to fellow “Institutional Catholics”.    

To truly become a well oriented ecclesiological influencer takes discernment and to be able to discern one must know one’s self and one’s choices.  It turns out, even in the “institutional Catholic Church” that ecclesiological digital influencers are trying to sway there are three major fields one can begin to navigate.  But none of these exist solely on the digital continent. This is why skills for being a well oriented ecclesiological influencer are paramount in a time when influential reach is so dynamic. The three fields form three hierarchies and a mystical communion in the sacramental model.  We can now turn to exploring these three hierarchies.

Three Hierarchies and Overlapping Spheres of Influence

The three hierarchies of the Church are the clerical, the consecrated, and the domestic.  These three hierarchies are completely interwoven and overlapping, because the Church is both an institution and a mystical communion.  But that three hierarchies exist in the catholic church may be shocking to some.  When one thinks of the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, what immediately comes to mind is the clerical hierarchy.  This hierarchy, in its simplest form, runs; pope, bishops, priests, laity. 

 This is the hierarchy as most people perceive it.  It is important to begin with the Pope, the icor of Christ who stands at the top of each of the earthly hierarchies that we are about to discuss. The pope as an individual office is both the pinnacle and centering figure of the Roman Church. The clerical hierarchy is organized and run on this unifying office as head among equals.  This office is chief among bishops and patriarchs. The bishops themselves as successors to the apostles hold priestly authority and dispense that authority to their presbyters (the priests of the parishes), who act and teach in their name.  The laity are under the jurisdiction of their parish pastor, then their bishop, who is under the jurisdiction of the Pope. 

In the institutional model, the clerical hierarchy is “The Church”.  When discussing bishops, pastors and priests, one immediately gets a sense of geographical boundaries, archdioceses, dioceses, parishes etc.  But what is the “authority” of these boundaries?  It is not as if these offices peek into the deep personal lives of most people in their “district”.  In one way, the boundaries are soteriological.  The bishop is directly responsible for the soul of every person in their diocese.  Along with that responsibility, the pastor is responsible for the soul of every person in his parish.  That responsibility is in terms of instruction in ways that are effective, as well as access to the grace of the sacraments. They are also responsible for working for the conditions in the jurisdiction to facilitate effective worship of God. With regards to the other two hierarchies, this hierarchy is a binding force, and the bind is the teaching office and the availability of the sacraments. In terms of governance, the bishop only governs consecrated communities in as much as he “allows” them to operate in his diocese.  After that, consecrated communities are governed by their own hierarchy.  A domestic church is governed by the bishop and their pastor in the same capacity.  The episcople office holds the authority to teach and administer sacraments the domestics need to receive.  But the authority persists only in as much as the domestic resides in their jurisdiction.  In past times it may have been that a domestic church necessarily resided in a jurisdiction due to the way that medieval society worked.  Serfs were tied to the land, mobility was not an option.  Now, mobility is a given, even for a family unit under the traditional structure.  This is not to mention an extended family network which would certainly spread over multiple episcopal (not to mention parish) jurisdictions.  At this point, the domestic hierarchy becomes much more prominent and powerful in what it needs to do according to its function. 

This is a social change that the institutional model’s over focus on jurisdiction has yet to account for and already it is the least of that model’s concern.  How does jurisdiction work on the digital continent?  How and by what authority are self made ecclesiological digital influencers kept is line?  For such answers a shift to the mystical communion model may be helpful.  As opposed to top down hierarchy, one sees the relationship between bishop/cleric and laity as one of service.  This is the model of inversal unity, where the first man tends and takes care of the garden.  Top down focuses on “who can tell who what to do or belive”.  A service model shows the interdependency reflected in the trans-terra-celestial reality we call the Church.  Those relationships of mutual aid abide here in this reality.  There is not a “top” to this model.  There is only those who have a greater capacity to help.  Who that is may not be clear, which is both a strength and weakness of this model.

The second hierarchy is the consecrated hierarchy.  Consecrated communities are composed mainly of laity.  So on the face of it, they seem to fit right in to the institutional clerical hierarchy at the “bottom”.  But like a diocese, consecrated communities possibly can have incardinated priests.  They are communities that have an internal hierarchical structure, that reflects the institutional model of the clerical church.   They seem somehow integrated into the clerical structure, by they are not headed by a bishop, rather, they are headed by a “superior” within their own structure.  There is a low level tension between authoritative structures of the episcopacy and the congregations.  They dynamic runs thusly, a bishop has authority over whether or not a community can “operate” in his diocese.  But he has no authority over their internal affairs, that is, how they run their community, even concerning their priests.  There is a stark difference between the line of authority for a priest in a consecrated community and one in a diocese.  The one in the consecrated community is not beholden to the bishop, only his community.  If a member of a community becomes a bishop of a diocese, they effectively give up being part of that community, because they have “switched” power structures. So for example, it actually makes no sense to call Pope Francis, “The first Jesuit Pope”, because he has not been a Jesuit since he was first made a bishop.

The consecrated communities make for an interesting case study, because they represent lay structures of authority that work outside the clerical institutional model.  The hierarchical church, specifically the Holy See and cannon law, regulates these institutions.  They get approval from the Pope and are subject to him (as opposed to a bishop).  Their rules are approved by him, and their maneuverability is subject to his judgment.  Some of these communities have their own clerics, some (like communities that are exclusively women) do not.  For those clerics, the hierarchy is not pope, bishop, priest, laity.  It is pope, superior (who may not even be a priest), member (lay or priest).  Though at times there is contention between the two structures, the consecrated communities help the episcopal hierarchy.  They bring their charism and ministries into his diocese and offer great aid to the body of Christ.  The contention may be the result of an over investment in the institutional model.  Focus on mutual aid is the fruit of the mystical communion model.

What is interesting about this alternate structure is that it is interrelated with, yet at the same time parallel to the clerical structure.  For communities that have priests, this is what causes the confusion commented on concerning “two types of priests” in the treatise, The Manifold Priesthood of the Catholic Church.  They are not ‘types’, they simply belong to differing structures.  What may be more interesting is consecrated communities that have hierarchical structures subject to the pope (but not the bishop), and have no priests.  For example, a consecrated community of women, that does not have a male counterpart, would have no clerical “buy in” unless the pope felt the need to assign one.  In this situation one could conceivably have a consecrated community under the “control” of the pope, who approves their orders, but otherwise, completely outside the institutional clerical hierarchy.  Such a congregation would need to “exist” somewhere, geographically, so they would need a working relationship with at least one bishop. But once permission is granted, the only leverage a bishop has is possible expulsion.  The complex dance of these separate, yet interrelated, hierarchies leads us to the third and least commented on the structure of the Church, the domestic church.

Most people would not consider a domestic church as a “separate hierarchy” within the Catholic Church.  They would simply see the laity who are married or in a family as the bottom rung of the clerical hierarchy, “laity”.  But interestingly the consecrated, who are not ordained, are also “laity”.  They obviously have a legitimate structure of their own, independent and in ways autonomous from the bishop. They are under the “protection” of the bishop, and are certainly in a cooperative relationship with him.  But in how they run their affairs, they are not under his “institutional” authority.  This is an example of subsidiarity, malleability, and functional distinction in the Body of Christ.  Now we can apply the same calculations to a domestic church.  The bishop does not usually “give a domestic church” permission to dwell in his diocese.  Actually, the domestic church grants the Bishop authority over them by choosing to dwell in his jurisdiction.  It is considered part and parcel of Catholic social teaching that families are within their rights to seek a better life by geographical relocation.  This is usually framed in terms of economic or cultural migration.  But migration changes the bishop whom the domestic church is under.  It is possible that in the choice of movement, the domestic church is considering choosing who’s authority they are being placed under.  Perhaps this is never conceived of as “radical” because bishops should be of one voice on church teaching and in pastoral acumen.  But they are not of one voice, especially when it comes to zeal, pastoral care, and evangelization.  

If one is skittish about calculating a diocesan move based on who sits on the episcopal seat and thinks one should only care about or one only has rights concerning, economic considerations, there is a simple reply.  Are economic considerations more important than spiritual considerations?  In former times, there was less mobility in Christendom.  Moving parishes, much less diocese, seemed impossible.  In the juridical institutional model, one must attend the parish of the jurisdiction one lives.  Canon 518 states, “As a general rule a parish is to be territorial, that is, one which includes all the Christian faithful of a certain territory. When it is expedient, however, personal parishes are to be established determined by reason of the rite, language, or nationality of the Christian faithful of some territory, or even for some other reason.”  But it certainly does not say that one must stay in that parish.  One can move residences, and change parishes if one has the funds and wherewithal.  One can move and change dioceses if one has the funds and wherewithal. These are free choices a domestic church can make if one is so disposed.  A consecrated person does not have the personal freedom to relocate into a parish or diocese.  In fact, a congregation does not have the personal freedom to officially operate in a diocese without the permission of a bishop, whereas a domestic church needs no such permission.  The authority of choice is on the domestic church.

As of late, the extreme mobility of society, especially given the advent of the automobile, has fostered an even wider aggression of choice by domestic churches.  Though they are canonically geographically bound, most domestic churches do not respect this law.  It may be that most do not even know about these juridical issues until they want to officially utilize the parish, a baptism for example, and they find out “it’s not really your parish” because they are driving across town.  This parish mobility and choice have been in practiced for close to a century, ever since the wide availability of the automobile.  With the development of the digital continent, a mobility of information has tribalized people in such a way that they cite and stump for bishops other than their own juridical bishop.  But, previous to the information age, what any other bishop was up to would have been practically inaccessible to the average catholic.  This leads us back to the problem of the digital ecclesiological influencer.  It could be that some bishops are seeking such influence on the digital continent apart from being “invested” with that authority or mission by the Holy See.  To seek that without approval seems beyond their authority and jurisdiction.  But domestic churches and their leaders have much more freedom.

A domestic Church is the most liberated hierarchy in the Church.  They are, of course, subject to all the duties of a Christain.  But as we have seen, they are at liberty to choose their bishop, not vice versa.  They are the least referenced structure in cannon law.  This makes the appearance that domestic churches are “not important”.  But domestic churches are hierarchy whose primary purpose is to generate “the Church” in time.  They have a particular mission concerning evangelization and utilization of their baptismal priesthood.  As Canon 225 states, “Since, like all the Christian faithful, lay persons are designated by God for the apostolate through baptism and confirmation, they are bound by the general obligation and possess the right as individuals, or joined in associations, to work so that the divine message of salvation is made known and accepted by all persons everywhere in the world. This obligation is even more compelling in those circumstances in which only through them can people hear the Gospel and know Christ.”

A Pope consecrates a bishop, and bishops consecrate their priests.  A bishop can start a consecrated community in his diocese, but it takes a pope to give a community life outside that diocese, by “approving” it (or if a pope creates it).  Once so recognized, the consecrated community is under the direct auspices of the pope, and it’s own internal authority.  The domestic church is different.  Neither Pope, nor bishops, nor priest creates them.  They are created by a sacramental ritual officiated by the couple who is starting the domestic church.  The authority and power of institution is on the dyarchs themselves. The clerical hierarchy has the role of witnessing this creation, but as church discipline stands, they have no power to create one.  Only ratification and consummation by the diarchy can do that.  There are no guidelines for the clerical hierarchy being involved in the ordinary order and discipline of a domestic church other than such authority that is exercised over any baptized Christian.  Book II of the Code of Canon Law discusses “The People of God”.  It gives a detailed description of the “hierarchical Church” or what we are calling the clerical hierarchy.  Book II also give a detailed account of the rights, duties, structures, purposes, and formations of what we are calling consecrated communities.  But little to nothing is stated about the organization, make up and autonomous nature of domestic churches.  Book II runs from canon 204 to canon 746. Of the five hundred and forty two canons, only two directly concern the role and authority of the domestic church. 

Can. 226 §1. According to their own vocation, those who live in the marital state are bound by a special duty to work through marriage and the family to build up the people of God.

§2. Since they have given life to their children, parents have a most grave obligation and possess the right to educate them. Therefore, it is for Christian parents particularly to take care of the Christian education of their children according to the doctrine handed on by the Church.

Most of the rest of treatment of marriage is in Canon Law is in Book IV and revolves almost exclusively around how to form diarchies and “who belongs” to them, (the legitimacy of children). Only 2 cannons are otherwise.  The first is canon 1136, which re emphasises the role of the diarchy established in canon 226.  The second is the relational nature of the diarchy itself as noted in canon 1135. “Each spouse has an equal duty and right to those things which belong to the partnership of conjugal life.”  This canon simply asserts that there is a mutuality and equality to the structure.     

 Some domestic diarchies may be much more democratic or involve much more consultation.  Others may have a family culture where one person is trusted with the power to wield sole authority in all but the most impactful decisions.  Some may delegate authority to certain fields for particular diarchies and other fields to the other.  Some may combine all of these methodologies given the need or circumstance.  Regardless, under any model, the power broker(s) use their power to serve the whole, and particularly to the benefit of the most vulnerable.  That is not a nuptial maximum or a consecrated maximum, that is a Christian maximum.  Neither bishop, nor pastor, nor even pope seems to have canonical power to demand or approve a certain organization or authoritative model.  In this treatise we are analyzing the sacramental structure of the nuptial dyad.  Yet the treatise The Dysfunctional Human Family and the Nontraditional Holy Family discussed a host of ways that one can organize family life, and therefore a domestic church, that each available to yield great fruit by the grace of God.  Pope Francis noted the difficulty of family life when he stated in The Vocation and Mission of the Family in the Church and in the Contemporary World,

People ought to be received with understanding and sensitivity to their real-life situations and to learn how to continue their search for meaning in life. Faith inspires a desire for God and to feel fully part of the Church, even in those who are experiencing failure or are in very difficult situations. The Christian message always contains the reality and dynamics of mercy and truth, which converge in Christ: “The Church’s first truth is the love of Christ. 

This care and support for families “however they may be” is not unique to Pope Francis.  Pope Saint John Paul II stated in his apostolic exhortation Familiaris Consortio, “The Church's pastoral action must be progressive, also in the sense that it must follow the family, accompanying it step by step in the different stages of its formation and development.”  So in this treatise, for the sake of simplicity we will refer to the diarchy because that is what a sacramental marriage requires.  But much if not most of the concepts we are discussing are applicable to any instantiation of family life that postlapsarian reality my require.  These structures must live, move and adapt to reality as it is.  Given that, it will help to reflect on the relationship each hierarchy has with the cosmological paradox before getting into the true value of the domestic church.

The Three Hierarchies and The Cosmological Paradox                        

The three hierarchies are not accidental historical developments.  Neither are they simply efficient organizational structures.  They queue into a cosmological outlook and each facilitates a part of what humanity needs to navigate the cosmological paradox.  The treatise  Paradoxes and Disorders pointed out how the scope of salvation history is paradoxical in nature.

We will call this the cosmological paradox.  Here we have the simplicity of humanity and the absolute complexity of humanity which form a unit through the process of reordering we are calling salvation history, the process we abide in.  The motion of this process at the extremes is the process of a communion of two persons who form the basic unit of humanity, the First Parents, splintering into multiple billions of self regarding sentient beings that must first self regard (alienation) then turn from that splintered selfishness back to a relationship of oneness.  It is a motion from dyadinal mutual appropriation to seeming infinite self regard to maximal mutual appropriation at every level.     

The paradox is spectral.  It is the totality of temporal flux as it presents two human perfections, the dyad of Eden and the communion of the Eschaton.  When one tries to picture all of reality at once, we can theoretically conceive of the spectral paradox between Eden and the Eschaton.  So we can refer to the cosmological paradox as “salvation history” we also often give it the name “postlapsarian reality”  The three hierarchies abide in this space of history.  They work at different angles to bring humanity through this space to perfection in the Eschaton. To fully understand how they function we need one more cosmological tool, an understanding of sacramental cosmology.

The treatise Sacramental Cosmology was written to explore this cosmology.  We noted in that work,

A sacramental cosmology simply means that God created reality as a communication system of love and all of it is geared toward that end.  Thus physical reality works in conjunction with spiritual reality to convey the grace of God and draw one specific part of that creation, the human, in a life of shared love with God. . .

A sacramental cosmology is simply an acknowledgment that God works through physical, tangible reality to convey grace and bring healing to humanity.  At its core this interpretation of reality is how one can believe in the God/man Jesus Christ.   Jesus is a physical experiential reality that conveys the grace of God to those who encounter him.  Also, the God/Man he surmises the communicator, the communication and the one communicated to.  Hence the incarnation is a pivotal point in created reality.  With a sacramental cosmology, this is not a miracle that relies only on shock value to convey the import.  “Wow, God became a human, that’s different!”  It is the culmination of a creation God has made in order to communicate just such a reality. 

So to with the development of the three hierarchies, they are not incidental or accidental. They relate specifically to these two facets of ancient Christian cosmology, the flow of salvation history as postlapsarian and the sacramental nature of the cosmos.  Each hierarchy has a role to play, signifying or symbolizing a celestial or invisible mystery.  Each interacts with the cosmos, as a part of the mystical body of Christ, to fulfill that role. 

First, let’s notice the interplay of sacramental character among the three hierarchies.  There are two hierarchies that bear a specific sacramental nature, the clerical hierarchy, and the nuptial dyads.  Each of these queues into a relationship that sacramental cosmology has with the cosmological paradox. As was noted in the treatise Two Paths for Expanding True Love, 

Each vocational path has a narrative that has a heavenly component and a terrestrial manifestation.  For the path of marriage the heavenly component is God as trinity and the exercise of divine love as trinitarian love. As the catechism states, married love is caught up in divine love.  What we mean here is that marriage in its ideal perfectly images God, as is made clear in the terrestrial manifestation of this story.  We read of this in the first story of creation.  When God creates humanity in Genesis chapter one he specifically says, “Then God said: Let us make human beings in our image, after our likeness. . . . God created mankind in his image; in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” 

 The nuptial dyad harkens back to the first part of the spectral paradox, the perfection of the personal relationship of the first parents.  In Paradise, the sacramental nature of the cosmos was perfectly observable and intuitive for the first parents. The nuptial dyad, by what it sacramentally signifies, seeks to harken back to that perfection.  The nuptial dyad is the hierarchy that is established by God in the Garden.  It is the fundamental hierarchy of humanity.  Reaching back as it does to generation, the nuptial dyad is the dynamic generator of the Church.  Using baptismal priesthood, the nuptial dyad seeks to shine light on the dormant sacramental nature of the world that the dyad has deep hidden memory of.  This hierarchy exists extra ecclesia, it is a pan-human institution because the sacramental nature of the cosmos has been with us since the beginning.  Nuptial dyads are either waiting for clerical evangelical and missionary aid to activate their true task.  Or they are aiding the clerical hierarchy by bringing the culture and world to it according to the dyad’s baptismal priesthood and sacred mission.  Again from Two Paths for Expanding True Love,

The married are the special forces of the church, in that the lives we life operate deep in hostile territory, and special forces must be adaptive or they are destroyed.  The job of special ops is to train native populations to be on your side, and that is the married couple's job, by their lives, through one’s everyday action, and through one’s marriage.  Married people evangelize by living their sacramental lives in a world that is not geared toward facilitating it.  The married vocation finds allies in a given culture and actives or recruits them into the service of Christ.  Thus married life takes the sacramental path that relies on the grace of God, which allows us to take risks and make mistakes.  The married mission is adapting to the culture, going native and bringing the faith to the culture by being a sacramental sign in its midst.  Married people take that world and through creative use of popular piety, shift the meaning of the world, the world itself to be geared toward God. In John’s Gospel it is the dynamic Martha who goes out to meet Jesus, assert his authority, and bring news of him back to passive Mary, who remained sitting at home.   

The clerical hierarchy is the hierarchy that is most significant to the situation of postlapsarian reality.  The first devotional action we see in postlapsarian reality is the sacrificial calculated ritual of Cain and Abel. In this new mode of being, ritual is the means by which humans engage their whole being to seek the sacramental intuition they have lost. Ritual seeks to queue into the sacramental nature of the cosmos by means of sacrifice and mediation.  The clerical hierarchy is the hierarchy established by Christ when he chose the twelve and invested them with authority.  It is the hierarchy the seeks to unify all hierarchies by ritual action and correct teaching.  By the ritual life it facilitates, the clerical hierarchy allows access to grace that heals the brokenness of postlapsarian reality.  Through the specific ritual of the eucharist the clerical hierarchy actualizes and fulfills the baptismal priesthood active in the other two hierarchies. As was noted in the treatise The Manifold Priesthood of the Catholic Church,      

The priest “collects” the sacrifices of the baptismal priesthood, performed in the world, into one and all are offered as one sacrifice through the mass.  This healing and sacralization of the world by the baptismal priesthood, collected and offered by the ordained priesthood, binds the sacrifice of the mystical body of Christ (the Church) the corporeal body of Christ, sacrificed on the cross, and makes these sacrifices effective.  This back and forth is what we are calling the sacrificial economy between the baptized and ordained priesthood.             

The role of the clerical hierarchy, in one way allows for the union of the three hierarchies as the “mystical body” because of how it ritually unites the other two and sacramentally activities their role and purpose. 

Concerning cosmology it is the hierarchy that is most specifically interested in postlapsarian reality because postlapsarian reality presents the completeness of the clerical hierarchy.  It does not have a grounding in the perfection of paradise at the beginning or the perfection of the Eschaton at the end when this hierarchy’s use will fade away.  The heavenly and terrestrial narrative components for the clerical hierarchy are the same because their formative narrative is the incarnation.  Their job is to bridge the sacrifices and significations of the two other hierarchies, just as postlapsarian reality bridges the two extremes of the cosmological paradox.  It does so by narrative appropriation and by sacramental engagement, thus the clerical hierarchy is the activator of the sacramental model of the Church which unites the visible and invisible aspects of the Church together. What’s more, the clerical hierarchy signifies, as receptive sacramental matter, how God interacts in this disordered and broken world, and enlivens it with grace.  

If the day comes when the magisterium generally relaxes the discipline of celibacy for priests, then a married priest along with a celibate priest in an order would be another way that this hierarchy could symbolize the unity of the three hierarchies. One possible hesitancy of the clerical hierarchy to such a relaxation is the radical freedom that the nuptial diarchy has in his domain.  Control of priests as priests readily mirrors the ordered control of the consecrated.  But  Control of priests as priests does not easily match control of priests as diarchs.  That can cause discomfort.

The final hierarchy is the order of consecrated life.  As we noted in  Two Paths for Expanding True Love the transcendent narrative of consecrated life is the Eschaton, the future perfection of the kingdom, where as the terrestrial narrative is the body of Christ, we stated,

 

In this story it is the story of the end, when all is one, thus the operable image here is the Body of Christ, perfectly functioning.  The Church is the physical manifestation of the divine mystery in the world, which foreshadows in an imperfect way the perfect community with at the end.  We laid the foundation for understanding this in the former paper Christian Ontology. . .

We are mystically bound to Christ’s body by our baptism to this unit.  In the Eschaton, the “body” will be complete.  Consecrated life seeks to present to the best of their ability what that may look like in this life by living a life of communal unity. 

     

This analogy is a different story than the incarnation because it speaks to the organizing element of the corpus, not the grace available in physical reality. However the relation of this hierarchy to the cosmological paradox is one that is very invested in the theme of postlapsarian perfection, perfect striving, presented in the treatise The Spiritual Sacrifice of the Incarnation.  There it was noted that perfection in our “situation” is different than perfection in either of the bookends of the cosmological paradox,

as Aquinas pointed out by his a third type of human perfection, the world we live in is different from these and requires a differing perfection, a perfection that has “totality neither on the part of the object served, nor on the part of the lover.”  This perfection relies completely “on the part of the lover as regards the removal of obstacles to the movement of love.”  This is “perfect striving” and it is the perfection available to humans in postlapsarian reality where we have neither perfect will, perfect desire, nor perfect knowledge.  This perfection is a transitory perfection, allowing for the goal of the New Jerusalem.  But it is described as a “perfection”, not a stopgap, technique or antidote. 

Because the reason this way of life present seeks perfect striving is that they are seeking to “live the eschaton now” and therefore, this hierarchy “forgoes” sacramental validation (offering grace for this life) in order to work as hard as they can by means of spiritual virtue and will on order to live “as one would live” in the Eschaton.  They don’t “signify” because the narrative they are seeking is in the future not at present, thus their vocation is not a sacrament.  Instead they symbolize the eschaton, because though they are communicating its existence, it is not an “effective communication, sacramentally speaking.  It is a powerful choice to make and takes on the need for great fortitude.  We noted in  Two Paths for Expanding True Love that because of that lifestyle choice, the mode of life itself seeks a rigid order of mutual support, and seeks to “coddle” the practitioner in relation to the ways of the world as opposed to a dyarch, who is offered relatively no protections, because their job is to engage the world as it is a make creation new.  We stated 

The consecrated life practitioner is more like a regular army troop, wearing an identifiable uniform (the habit) which constantly reminds them of the purpose and mission, and keeps them true to the cause.  They stay in formation and do the task assigned as an outside garrisoned force.  Their job is to conform society to Christ, not activate Christ within the society.  These two paths together bring any given culture to complete service of Christ in the ways we discussed in Cosmic Evangelization.    

With these three mystically united hierarchies one can choose to engage in the Church on a large scale according to differing models, roles, purposes etc.  Their existence offers an objective choice of ecclesial orientation that takes into account both the lateral and hierarchical aspects of ecclesiological orientation.  How do I want to effect the Church?  But that orientation situates one hierarchically, up to down, within one’s own chosen path.  Once one has made that choice one must stay in their lane and serve their proper function.  When doing that one must learn to orient laterally, by means of engaging effectively at one’s station.  

Previously, after discussing how to navigate ecclesiological orientation by laying out the dialect of church models proposed by Cardinal Avery Dulles, we painted a dire picture of the dichotomous church present on the digital continent and explored ways one can more effectively engage in the Church by making one’s digital abidance serve one’s life in God’s good creation.  In this section we sought to analyze the interrelated nature of the three hierarchies of the Catholic Church.  We began by analyzing two urges, tribalization and atomization, that cause eccelsial trouble in the digital continent.  We then sought to get our bearings by taking a macrocosmic view of the Church.  We noted the interdependent nature of the Church as a transterrestrial reality to mitigate any sense of atomism.  We then expanded the bounds of the definable church beyond the observable hierarchies to mitigate any sense of tribalism. Next, we analyzed the three operative hierarchies of the Church, each in turn while maintaining their nature as overlapping spheres of a mystical communion.  We finished the section by connecting how each hierarchy relates to the cosmological paradox in an effort to better understand the Church as sacrament.

In the final section we hope to discuss practical skills for acquiring proper ecclesiological orientation.  We will discuss how clericalism can effect  compounding concupiscence.  The pride of clericalism inflames either a rebellious pride in the laity or a reliant sloth against the laity’s appropriate task.  We will concentrate on how this particular brand of compounding concupiscence plays out in nuptial dyads because they are considered the lowest in the Church so they feel the most pressure in their position.  We will then offer skills for investing in that position as a valid and powerful office of the Church combining baptismal priesthood, dynamic and adaptable freedom and the gift of a self generating sacral hierarchy.  Lastly, after commenting on the invested authority of the nuptial diarchy, we will offer some very practical advice and tools for how to generally organize a domestic church and how the domestic church abides in the greater frameworks of its three spheres of influence, those within evangelical reach, the parish, and the diocese.  The treatise will wrap up with a brief reiteration of the primacy of sacramental engagement over digital influence.    

Practical Skills for Ecclesiological Orientation and Exercise of Proper Authority and Influence 

Having explored some recent complexities concerning ecclesiological orientation and the problem of influence we went on to discuss the three hierarchies in mystical communion. Those hierarchies are the clerics, the consecrated and the diarchies.  Now we are well positioned to begin a study of practical skills for ecclesiological orientation and exercise of proper authority influence. 

Microcosmic Consideration: Lateral Ecclesiological Orientation

We can now return to the ecclesiological digital influencer.  Whether they are atomistic or tribalistic the digital influencer they are seeking to use a platform to communicate in order to influence spheres far beyond whatever hierarchy and community they abide in.  It is certainly not wrong to seek communion, communication and education on the digital continent.  It is not even wrong to seek to influence “the Church” on the digital continent.  But one must be oriented properly to how the Church relates to the cosmological paradox, as each hierarchy does, and how one abides in the Church according to that pattern.  A well oriented ecclesiological influencer understands certain things about the Church and takes them into account when seeking to influence.  Primarily one must take into account what we noted previously, the digital continent serves ecclesiological engagement, but it is not near the sum of ecclesiological engagement.  If one spends the majority of their time evangelizing on the digital continent and not engaging with people “irl”, not praying, not engaging in the sacraments and doing spiritual as well as corporeal works of mercy, one is not a well oriented.

The digital world itself is not properly “ecclesial”.  It is not a community, so much as a means of communication for communities.  We hinted at how engaging in the digital continent has the feeling of being “in a place” in the treatise Digital Evangelization. But despite our analogical language, the digital continent is not part of the physical world, therefore it is not a “sacral” reality.  Sacraments require a physical aspect, and since the Church is a sacrament, the summation of how one engages the Church cannot be the digital continent.  One’s ecclesiological orientation is founded on and grounded in one’s life in the physical world.  

The first thing one must do to be well oriented is consciously discern and choose one’s hierarchical abidance. This we called hierarchical ecclesial orientation.  This choice will designated how far one may “rise” in the Church, or better how deep one will serve.  In short it will determine who and how you influence the body, because it is the choice of “organ tissue” Primary to consideration of hierarchical jockeying, it is best if one understands how one seeking to relate to the cosmological paradox by their choice.  This discernment will also determine how we will effectively engage as a member of the Body of Christ.  The discernment itself should also help build empathy for the other modes, so that one can appreciate what they are and how they serve the head.  Once one has done this one can become a well oriented ecclesiological influencer by priestley engagement according to one the variety of priesthood one exercises, ordained or baptized.  One can then also better influence by sacramentally signifying or eschatologically symbolize one’s appropriated narratives as described above.         

The second step to being a well oriented ecclesiological influencer is to find one’s sphere of influence.  This we called lateral ecclesiological influence This is not a thing that happens on the digital continent, because as a sacramental reality the sphere of influence must maintain sacramental matter.  It is best practiced fundamentally by engaging that matter physically, or at least in the physical presence. It is about who one directly communes with in one’s daily life.  It is about the small communities one lives and moves and has one’s being in.  Engagement on the digital continent can have a good effect on these relationships if exercised properly.  But make no mistake, a community operating according to a sacramental cosmology  (manifest as spiritual and physical) is primary to any communication system that is only one not the other.  The digital continent is great for practicing communication, learning information, and possibly forming new relationships.  The latter is it’s most powerful asset.  But if most or all of one’s relationships are on the digital continent, or if the relationships of the digital continent take precedence over one's where one is truly sacramentally engaged, one is using the digital continent poorly.  One is not well oriented ecclesiological.  If one spends most of one’s time trolling, or building credentials as an ecclesiological digital influencer, one is in dire straights.  Even if digital evangelization is the primary ministry of one’s vocation, it remains a ministry, not a vocation.  It is one way that one exercises a devotion to God, but it is not a mode of life itself because it is not a field here one can experience the full effect of the cosmos as sacramental.  Thus one only turns to the digital continent from the perspective of one’s micro sacral community.  This is why the treatise Digital Evangelization placed such an emphasis discernment of one’s role on the digital continent, use of a spiritual director (if one discerned a missionary role), and primary use of the digital continent as a tool for enriching one’s whole (sacramental) being.  Again, the crowning skill of the treaties was digital cognitive re-association to foster intentional cognitive empathy and allow for Golden Rule in one’s life community.        

A community such as a nuptial dyad, a parish, or a congregation is a relationship played out in the physical world as an experience of sacramental cosmology. It is a place of personal abidance as one’s whole self, where one’s physical being expresses one’s interior life to another physical being.  It takes place in the form of talking, acts of charity, ritual life, all of the works of mercy, priestly ministry (under both varieties) etc.  Most of what community means according to a sacramental cosmology cannot take place on the digital continent.  

For the best expression of this one need only take the example of Jesus.  He came to redeem the world, a task of large influence.  One would expect what the Jews expected, a person who used the conventions of power (priest king) in order to communicate on a large scale.  But Jesus did not come that way.  He did not use the Jewish political or religious structure.  He certainly did not use the Roman imperial structure, which seems more efficient for a wide reaching effect.  Much to the lament of the scholarly, he did not write a book, which would have been a great technology to transcend his particular situation in palestine.

Jesus’ methodology for effecting the world was to gather a close group of friends and engage with them in loving relationships.  Jesus had his best friend, Peter.  He had his close inner circle, the pillars, Peter, James, and John.  There was the wider inner circle, the twelve apostles.  There was an even wider group of committed people, disciples.  And lastly there were followers, acquaintances interested in him, but not quite as on the inside as the disciples.  This is the original Christan hierarchy. Yet this community is an organic whole that is all saved by his action and by relationship with him.  From the great commission and his ascension, his legacy begins.  This is “Jesus the influencer”.  His strategy is awful by any study of marketing methods.  But Christianity is not a market, it is a relationship.

Following this model one immediately sees ground zero for a well oriented ecclesiological influencer, it is the parish, the congregation, the family.  It is the smallest, lowest place of the hierarchical structure because these places are where life is.  These are the places of most intimate contact with the whole of one’s being. And of course, all of these small communities can interact as fields of abidance for an individual Christian.  The mystical communion of one’s small sphere of influence links and interrelates with other spheres.  Both monk and mother go to the parish for mass.  Priests share life with the families in their parish, and with their own family.  Monks visit and minister to families and parishes. The person joins or forms a community.  The small communities form a bigger etc.  

One gets a template for how this could be even along the lines of a “growth model” in Numbers Chapter 11.  Jesus’ intimate friendship is balanced by Moses’ inability to sustain such an intimacy with the vast people of God.  So as a merely human leader he is able, through the spirit of God, to share his leadership and charism in an institutional/hierarchical model that very much at the same time a mystical communion.  This particular story even implies that this communion and authority expanded beyond the obvious institutional structure by presenting the characters Eldad and Medad. Thus we have the larger Universal Church based on these same hierarchies and communions. 

This communion is signified in the physical world in a complex dance of sacramental presentation, priestly action, (both baptismal and ordained), works of charity, ritual life etc.  To use the digital continent to communicate among these communities is a great asset.  To use the digital continent to learn in order to edify one’s community is a great asset.  To use the digital continent to form relationships (especially ones that can fully manifest in the physical world) is a great asset.  To uses the digital continent to foist one’s particular view, expression, or micro-obsession onto the Universal Church is not appropriate.   To use the digital continent to remake the Universal Church according to one’s micro community is not appropriate.  These actions of the poorly oriented ecclesiological influencer.  The urge of the poorly oriented ecclesiological influencer is not shocking.  It is born out of the most common concupiscent infection of humanity, pride.     

 

Concupiscence and Poor Ecclesiological Orientation: Problems and Remedies

          

The problem of the digital ecclesiological influencer is actually not new.  It is the same problem as the “press ecclesiological influencer”, better known as a “protestant reformer”, or counter reformer.  The problems in the 16th and 17th centuries were born of abuse.  Today, there is another situation of horrific abuse, abuse of children and abuse of the structure to cover for priests.  Presumably, the motive for this cover up was a fear rooted in clericalism. It is born of a fear that people would understand that priests can commit horrific sins, and this scandalous information would reduce the spiritually privileged status of the ordained priesthood.  It was also clericalism that allowed for the prevalence of the abuse in the first place.  The privileged position of the priest led to abuse of the gift of obedience and made claims of malfeasance hard to believe.

What is born out of this situation, where the clerical hierarchy is not operating according to Christan power dynamics, is a spiration of compounding concupiscence.  This is a situation where one concupiscent disorder inflames another, which in turn inflames the first in a cyclical escalation of misery, anxiety, and mutually intensifying tendency toward sinful action.  When the clerical hierarchy “lords their authority like the gentiles” it creates a misery that begets resentment, but also sets an example of abuse of power.  Enter into that resentment and example as new expansive communicative technology [the printing press or the internet] and one has all the makings of a prideful and vitriolic response to the clerical hierarchy.  Once scandal breaks, the moral authority of the clerical hierarchy is dissolved and we now have a situation of digital ecclesiological influencers of all stripes jockeying for position to re-form the Church.  Doubtless some of that reform is good and needed, just as reforms were needed in the seventeenth century.  But the situation is chaos and the amount of disinformation [intended or not] is staggering.  

The concupiscent pride that drives clericalism compounds upon the laity (married and consecrated) in the form of a pride that generates against the clerics even when they properly execute their role.  The situation is particularly dire for married laity, who have a larger chip on their shoulder concerning how they interact and what role they have in the Church. This comes from a long tradition of the Church seeming to devalue the dyarchs of the Catholic Church.  The most famous of these devaluations comes in Session Twenty Four Canon X of the Council of Trent

If any one shall say, that the marriage state is to be preferred before a state of virginity, or of celibacy, and that it is not better and more blessed to remain in virginity, or in celibacy, than to be joined in matrimony; let him be anathema.

The treatise Two Paths for Expanding True Love discussed at great length the need to understand how the two states of life work together and regardless of what “better” or “more blessed” means.  It cannot mean more effective every single time, because each person is called to a vocation.  It helps to recall that when the church defines doctrine or dogma, she usually asserts broadly and condemns very technically.  And it always pays to pay attention to the logical formulation of the condemnation.  One must respect that this is an anathema that is a conjunction of an assertion and a negation. This combination leaves a wide variety of other logical constructions on the table for viewing the relationship between married life and celebate life open.  

You are only forbidden to say that married life is better AND that it is not better to remain celibate.  ~(A ⋅ ~B) Which means you can say anything else that is not this formula.  This is the freedom of technical anathemas. By this anathema you ARE able to say they are equivalent A=B.  A=B is a different formula and has not been condemned. You can say marriage is greater than or equal to A≥B or less than or equal to A ≤ B. You can make a logical dichotomy and add qualifiers such as (A>B ⋁ A<B) for example, marriage is better if one is called to that vocation OR celibacy is better if one is called to that vocation.  This is the most appealing as things stand. All of these possibilities and an almost infinite amount more are permissible according to the canon.  Most importantly, by this canon, one is not required to assert that “consecrated life is better than married life”.  It is just that one cannot absolutely and unequivocally state that marriage is better AND celibacy is not better (the conjunction is important). 

All this being said, most people when encountering this canon interpret the cannon to mean simply, “celibate life is unequivocally better than married life”, which is obviously also a licit interpretation. It’s just hard to defend.  Taking that as the common interpretation and making matters worse is an increasing tendency over the past century to reorganize the language of “laity” to mean married life.  In an institutional model, laity is at the “bottom” of the hierarchy. Laity are any people who are not ordained as a cleric.  Consecrated persons who are not ordained are laity.  But the language of the Church is increasingly setting the divide not by clergy and laity, but rather by “laity” and “religious”.  “Religious” include priests and consecrated.  Utilizing such a divide when making distinctions in the Church is not in and of itself a problem.

  

The problem lies in the language of the distinction.  “Religious” makes the other variety seem “not” religious.  Otherwise, why would one need to distinguish between “religious” and “other”.  To call only married Catholics “laity” is also odd because, as of now, priests in the catholic church are generally not married, but some are.  Also there are many lay consecrated, so why leave hanging an implication that “the laity” are only the married laity?  One can only surmise that this is a hierarchical and spiritual recognition of the “better and more blessed” state.  Married laity are clearly recognized as the “bottom” of the hierarchy in the institutional model. A maneuver that takes a portion of the laity and elevates them to “religious” while leaving the rest as “bottom” comes off as demeaning.  Especially when the implication is that the ones at the bottom in no way fulfill the entire purpose of the institution, that is they are not “religious”.  This comes with a background where (last century) the married laity were told their purpose was to pray, pay, obey, and procreate.  Except for the “pray” part (which seems almost personal), the married laity comes off as having no role in the Church except generative.  This then sets up another conflictual dynamic that instills brutal inferiority among the married of the faith.

If a marriage has no offspring, sacramentally it is a completely valid marriage.  But, given that the vocation of marriage is the generative engine of the Church, there is a culture of suspicion concerning marriages with no offspring.  This is compounded by the recent obsession in church morality that every sexual act be “open to life”.   Given the emphasis on the generative function of the nuptial state, those without children often get treated as having failed in there task, or under suspicion of breaking church teaching on sexual morality. All of these implied accusations and suspicions are levied by people who already teach that people who engage in sexual activity “took the worse path” and this further implies that sexuality itself brings an essential impurity to a relationship.    

Doubtless, there are good people and teachings to counter these currents, but these attitudes have formed the general ethos of the Church for some time and place married people in a  painful catch 22 concerning their call and vocation. Dyads seem to have little to no official institutional authority, and the host of these cultural currents, coupled with clericalism, now extended to consecrated, life creates a concupiscent backlash of rebellion and reckless abandonment of authority among the married lay Catholics.  This backlash is accentuated by the confusion of ecclesiological orientation manifest in the digital continent.  The “chip on the shoulder” brought about by a feeling of alienation leads married laity to a concupiscent desire to act “out of their depth” so to speak.  But the phrase “out of their depth” is part of the problem.  As we shall see, nuptial dyads have the ability to have a profound institutional impact if they (and the Church) treat their authority, as it is, with respect. 

The problems of ecclesiological orientation we are discussing are not the problem of one “side”.  For example, on the progressive end of the theological spectrum, this backlash is a conscious effort to negate the teaching office of the Church.  This was especially apparent during the previous two papacies when a more institutional model was affirmed by the magisterium.  On the conservative end, the backlash is an unconscious rebellion, cloaked as a preservation of truth.  Their feeling of powerlessness was not evident until the current papacy, when the mystical body approach came into clearer focus.  The reaction by the theologically conservatives manifests in an adherence to personal interpretation of texts above the office of the magisterium.  Either way, when these urges are asserted toward the Universal cChurch it speaks to a powerlessness that is felt by the married laypersons.

Our response is to reinvest in the power that the married laity actually has by means of proper ecclesiological orientation.  This is why we spent time in the second section defining the nuptial diarchy under an institutional lens and by means of canon law.  These tend to be the frames used by those who do wield power and authority in the Church.  To reframe a married couple as a nuptial diarchy speaks both to the sacramental nature and the invested religious authority of the relationship.  First and foremost, the diarchy has authority by sacramental investment.  As was noted in the treatise Two Paths for Expanding True Love,   

The imago dei is not just stamped onto the individual, but also onto the married couple.  We discussed in Christian Ontology how to understand trinitarian existence by an analogy of object/object/relationship and then go on to understand all of reality by that same interpretation.  Here we have marriage, object: male, object: female, relationship: nuptial love.  The archetypal terrestrial manifestation of Divine self love (the trinity) is human mutual love in the persons of the first parents.        

The sacramental nature of the nuptial dyad is in and of itself effective for grace.  Like the priest, who’s body becomes sacramental material relevant to the ritual system of the Church, the corporeal existence of the nuptial dyad is a signifier of divine life and divine love in creation itself, that is, beyond the ritual system of the Church.  They signify love to each other and mutually share the grace of the sacrament through the diarchy.  They also signify and share these to the world by how they engage with the world as nuptial dyad.  The investment in the vocational sacrament of matrimony is a particularization and yet expansion of the baptismal priesthood, which seeks to present an alter Christus to the world.  In the communion of the dyad, they also become a significance of the trinity, God in God’s self, because God is love.  This sacramental significance is the purpose and point of marriage.  

As a nuptial dyad the couple can manifest this sacramental charge and fulfill the purpose of their mission.  That may seem obvious, but some corners of the Church want to imply that a marriage without children is somehow lacking in its “marraigeness”.  This is not true.  It is important to keep the sacramental nature of the nuptial dyad in the forefront, in order to mitigate compounding concupiscence brought on by alienation.  That compounding concupiscences runs from “lording power like the gentiles” by those in ‘religious’ life, to rejecting authority by those in married life, to full on digital ecclesiological influencers gone awry and destroying the community of the Church.

Marriages, especially in their sexual communication, need to be open to life. But marriages do not need to procreate in order to be effective sacramental marriage.  As a whole, the collective of nuptial dyads, is the primary generative engine of the Church. But, nuptial dyads are valuable to the mission of the Church regardless of their individual ability to generate members of the Church.  They are valuable, as everyone is, through the exercise of their baptismal priesthood.  The treatise The Manifold Priesthood of the Catholic Church discussed how a more prominent understanding of this priesthood would counter all the severe damage caused by clericalism. Nuptial dyads are valuable in their particular way of sacramentally bringing the love of God to creation.  The knowledge they gain from the practice of this sacral role, in and of itself, is valuable for the Church.

Perhaps the reason people want to emphasize procreation in a nuptial dyad is because the generative role of the nuptial dyad is profoundly special, and actually unique in the Church.  It is not the only situation where it is possible, but it is the only situation where it is licit.  Procreation also makes manifest the true authority of the dyad.  It is in family life that “who they rule” becomes very obvious.  This should not be very important for a Christain, but it seems important for one who is institutionally invested. But what is interesting is that nuptial diarchies which procreate are almost necessarily autocephalous nuptial diarchies.  That is to say, they create a hierarchy with the purpose of allowing members to individuate and create or join new or alternate hierarchies.  Here is the great power of the nuptial diarchy.  They teach, tend and direct children to their vocation.  We will spend the entire last part developing this role of the nuptial diarchy.

But this is not the only way that nuptial diarchies influence and shape the Church.  The freedom of the dyarch from the most restricting parts of canon law gives the diarchies a powerful role in the process of inculturation of the Church.  This role is practiced through family life and cultural engagement.  As we noted above, nuptial dyads are special forces, not regular army.  They take present the culture and steer its logos spermatikos to its fulfillment as a culture in communion with Christ.  This happens in how they minister as baptismal priests.  This happens in how they sacramentally signify trinitarian love by their corporeal existence as a dyad.  This happens in how they shape the culture of their family if they are an autocephalous nuptial diarchy.  Autocephalous diarchies are particularly effective because they have a compounding effect concerning inculturation.  They shape a family culture, which then goes on to shape new familial cultures and other cultural and religious institutions.

Here is one’s most intimate location of influence.  This place, the family, is where a dyarch wields true power according to Christan power dynamics.  To be properly ecclesiological oriented is to know one’s most intimate community, how one relates to it, and how it relates to the larger church. So for example, any urge to directly and immediately influence to global church should be left to dyarchs who are also trained theologians and are also maneuvering in other realms of the institutional church.  To understand diarchies as influential in this way and truly respect it, the hierarchical institution must truly exercise the Catholic maximum of “unity but not uniformity”.  Allowed the freedom given by canon law, the diarchies become the best petri dish of the sensus fidelium. It is the most dynamic and developmental point in the mystical body.  Given that freedom and dynamism, it may be helpful that autocephalous nuptial diarchies are relatively small institutions, but the small influence they have should not be stifled. As family customs become community customs, and community customs become cultural customs, the Church can grow in its understanding and exercise of how to present Christ to the world.

Since autocephalous nuptial diarchies are the largest portion of the Church, and since they are relatively so free in their methods and manifestations, we can now turn to our last part where we will briefly survey some practical investments and methods in autocephalous nuptial diarchies.                                

Autocephalous Nuptial Diarchies: Principles and Participations

For a consecrated congregation to manifest it takes recognition by a local bishop and if that community wants to be transdiocesan, the Pope.  Or they can go straight to the pope for approval.  In order for this to happen, they would need to have a rule, mission and charism the certifying authority deemed worthy.  Apart from that, people may form societies, but they are not institutionally valid. The situation of a nuptial diarchy is very different.  As a sacrament, the ordinary ministers for the creation of a nuptial diarchy are the two people getting married, not the priest.  By canon law, the priest needs to witness the marriage in order for it to be valid.  But if one is absolutely not available, it is possible for a couple with any two witnesses to ratify a marriage, and then proceed to consummate it making it a valid sacramental marriage and forming a nuptial diarchy.  This diarchy has institutional standing as married laity and is able to serve and performs all of its functions presently, even if it is later witnessed by a priest.  It bears emphasizing that this scenario is highly unlikely, but it is possible. The very possibility demonstrates the extraordinary freedom of the diarchy.  They are self forming sacramental institutional structures that facilitate inculturation and literally create Catholicism as they develop.  Thus their “rule”, if they have one written, tends to be descriptive instead of prescriptive.  

When consciously creating a domestic church, a dyarch is creating the influence one wants to have on the Catholic faith.  By domestic church, we mean both members (as diarchs create the physical members of the domestic church) and the rule of the domestic church.  The first consideration a nuptial dyad will want to develop is how they implement Christan power dynamics.  It must be the case that in a domestic church the greatest serves the least and that diarchies do not lord their authority over their subjects like the gentiles.  I personally realized how true this is for the Catholic dyarch one day while I was helping one of my children get dressed. The strong in spirit, lord and kings, have servants who dress their children, and themselves.  They wield their authority for their own benefit.  But here I was a dyarch, doing what every peasant parent has done for most of human history, dressing my child.  Our job as a nuptial diarchy is to create an environment, a domestic church, that facilitates our children to be the best they can be.  This was made clear in the treatise The Dysfunctional Human Family and the Nontraditional Holy Family and there we took the Holy Family as our summative example,

In the narrative of the Holy Family all the Christian power dynamics that according to the world are so convoluted take perfect center stage.  The greatest, the parents, serve the least, the child, providing him with a safe, stable and ordered life and developing him into the best person he could be according to God’s plan, not the world’s, and doing so in a way personal to him.  What all this yields is the greatest human being ever, Jesus, who is God, the greatest reality, come to serve the least, sinful humanity.  

So in the highest analogy across the span of salvation history, The Triune God, Father and Son bound by the Spirit, gives birth to nurtures and coddles Humanity as a body until it is fully developed, that full development is the Eschaton, Humanity as the Body of Christ.  On a hyper-concentrated microcosmic scale the way God chooses to show us this is a classic divine flip flop of unexpectedness.  Divinity becomes the child, Jesus, and the parents are the humans Mary and Joseph who must raise this child in an environment such that he can fulfill his mission.  They must supply him with knowledge and empowerment such that he can recognise his mission and perform it when the time is right, not sooner, not later.  How Joseph and particularly Mary do this is not based in any traditional family structure, but the exact relationships we discuss as primary to family structure.   

Magisterial church teaching and canon law generally frames the creation of this environment, this domestic church, as “teaching”.  But if it is teaching it is teaching to the whole person, not simply the rote indoctrination of facts.

How a nuptial diarchy teaches its autocephalous members, both style and method, is under the authority of the nuptial diarchy.  There is a considerable lack of trust from the clerical and consecrated church in nuptial dyads’ ability to perform this task.  This concern is understandable considering the busy life of the nuptial dyad and how much they have to juggle compared to the relatively contemplative nature of the consecrated and cleric.  But this is the job that the dyad signed up for and it is the nuptial dyad’s appointed and proper task according to both the Catechism and canon law.  Again, canon 1136 clearly states the right and duty of the nuptial diarchy with regards to their task,

Can. 1136 Parents have the most grave duty and the primary right to take care as best they can for the physical, social, cultural, moral, and religious education of their offspring.

If one responds that it is proper to the magisterium to teach, that is completely true. Yet canon law delegates it to the nuptial diarchy, and canon law also stipulates that this delegation is proper.

Can. 137 §1.Ordinary executive power can be delegated both for a single act and for all cases unless the law expressly provides otherwise.

§2. Executive power delegated by the Apostolic See can be subdelegated for a single act or for all cases unless the delegate was chosen for personal qualifications or subdelegation was expressly forbidden.

Much of the problem is the nuptial dyad’s lack of confidence in this task.  It seems that many succumb to the compounding concupiscence we discussed earlier and revolt.  An equal if not greater number of people experience that same dynamic of compounding concupiscences, but instead of compounding pride, they compound sloth and do not live up to their appointed task.  Thus even now one can come across examples of the institutional church seeking to exert authority over the process of creation of a domestic church.  For example, the Life-Light Movement started in Poland demonstrates a moment of clerics seeking to help domestic churches consciously form.  The urge to aid fellow Christian is admirable, especially if seeking to empower those Christians to live up to their proper role.  But the group has a few irksome clerical qualities that neither respect the subsidiary model concerning the domestic church nor suite its fundamental nature as a diarchy.  First, any domestic church involved in this group must be under the particular guidance of a cleric, probably not their parish pastor, who must direct them to the proper end. Second, the group begins its ministry with a series of maneuvers that devalue the baptismal priesthood of the diarchy as it is.  The stages are evangelization, Deuterocatechumenate, and diakonia directed under this priest along with other domestic churches.  The language here seems to indicate a “starting from scratch” of the domestic church under the clerical hierarchy.  In fact, the program is based on the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults, in a maneuver that suggests that the nuptial dyad is in no way “actually” living the faith before they officially attached themselves to the priest.  This goes against the state of affairs and seems to indicate a malfunction of the initial sacral investment of the nuptial dyad.  The domestic church already has a place in the hierarchy and has a function it plays that relies of dynamic freedom.  Could that freedom be unconsciously threatening to the clerical and even consecrated hierarchies who are actually the ones who do not fully understand the role of the autocephalous nuptial dyad as a domestic church?  To help is one thing, to rob one of their proper authority is another.       

It is most proper for the nuptial dyad to be in authority over the education, formation and religious participation of their autocephalous members, both by the principle of subsidiarity and by effectiveness.  The issue of effectiveness was played out in the treatise The Dysfunctional Human Family and the Nontraditional Holy Family using the example of the Finding in the Temple and the Wedding feast of Canna 

If as a parent one may be inclined to think that it is “the Church’s” job to religiously educate a child, I would first direct the to Oscar Romero’s quote, “The Church is all of you.”  Then I would remind the reader of your role as a familial domestic church.  Lastly I would remind the reader that the institutional church may not be best equipped to translate the faith to your child.  The institutional church speaks broad truth to humanity it is your job to translate that truth to your domestic church. . . .  The sacred author's intent, given everything just discussed, could be to let you know exactly where Jesus learned his religious knowledge and deep spirituality, that would be from his mother, not the scribes and pharisees of the temple complex.  In fact by the time he forayed into that world for the first time as a young adult, his domestic church had done such a good job that his knowledge and insight was already impressive, though deemed by his family still inadequate for that environment.  

In that treatise, we used the stories of The Finding in the Temple and The Wedding at Cana to discuss the delicate balance between protecting your child from influences they are not ready for and pushing your child to their personal potential. The principle of subsidiarity is obviously most effective for this because the nuptial dyad would be in the best position to personally know the child, their learning style, and what most effectively motivates them to learn.  This knowledge probably is why nuptial dyads are not limited in their task by “higher authority”.  The dyad must use all the knowledge and skill to draw and teach by every means necessary so that when the child individuates, they will have the strength to carry out their own vocation and ministry.  Thus, the task of teaching for the nuptial diarchy cannot simply be rote memorization of the catechism, it must instill Christan life in the child.  Most likely, for this to happen example, rites, rituals, dialogues, speculation and every other pedagogical means must be employed.  Life is the classroom in this field because the subject is being true to life. 

A nuptial diarchy must be free to create an environment that suits their family culture and life.  Short of heresy, they must be free to express the Catholic faith and the life of Christ in ways appropriate to their mode of being and for the best education of their children if they are an autocephalous nuptial diarchy.  This is the greatest point of ecclesiological influence for most Catholics.  So, for example, often on the digital continent I see people stumping for particular devotions or practices that they seem to imply should be imposed upon the entire Universal Church. Those practices are easily imposable upon those under one’s legitimate authority.  Why do we feel the need to impose our interests beyond our legitimate authority or sphere of influence?  One is at liberty to sculpt the domestic church as one desires.  If one leans more “trad” by all means invest in ember and rogation days for your domestic church.  A nuptial diarchy may have great and meaningful ways to relate these experiences to their children.  If one is more of an inculturator, then one should absolutely draw on the best symbology one has available and connect the meaning to the Christian mysteries.  This is not “modernist” or “new age” heresy, this is the mode of evangelization of a domestic church.  It is the manner that the domestic church grows the logos spermatikos toward its fulfillment.  In the end, if one is particularly drawn to the Life-Light Movement, join the movement and invest.  As we noted above the freedom of the nuptial diarchy is the freedom of choice in association.  

As advice, we can assert that one should invest in certain general ideas and manifest them in one’s own church.  Examples of such general ideas would be a rhythm of life for the domestic church, a communication system of sacramentals, linguistic terms of art for the family that convey proper cosmology, and specific prayers, rites,and rituals adopted or created by the Domestic Church.  This is good and proper to especially to the domestic church.  As was noted in the treatise Cosmic Evangelization 

This interrelation between stable and general magisterial definition and creative and dynamic adaptation by the laity, both consecrated and in the domestic church, is even more geared toward the adaptive side when the third type of rite, sacramentals, is explored.    

How these sacramentals, prayers, and rituals “incarnate” into a specific domestic church is guided by the nuptial diarchy, but these aspects should be consciously considered and aligned with the liturgical year to reflect synchronicity with the Universal Church.

To effect this a nuptial diarchy must be conscious and open to learning about the life of Christ in the Church.  They may want to actually write a rule down for their domestic church, but if one were to do this, the rule works descriptive to prescriptive, not the other way around.  The nuptial diarchy is a creative force, modeled on the first parents at the beginning of creation.  Therefore they must be able to adapt to a development, not exhibit a static perfection like the consecrated community might do.  The consecrated seek to demonstrate the static “finished product of the Eschaton, not developing creation.  To write a rule down for a domestic church is almost counter intuitive. It crystallizes what is meant to be fluid.  Yet at the same time, it can also help a dyad keep track of how they are consciously organizing their domestic church.

As a document of practical application I published The Rule of Our Family’s Domestic Church in advance of publishing this treatise.  I had written it down some time ago just to keep things organized.  When conceiving and beginning this treatise, I realized how much of a useful source both the Rule and our family litany, The Litany of Our Family Mantel, might be by way of example.  One will note that the preamble of the Rule speaks to the necessity of adaptability by the diarchy.  One will then see a host of examples of rituals, such as shrine building, prayers, such as the litany, rites, such as “the Dom Rite, relationships with celestial patrons, and an entire rhythm of life, especially centered on food, that syncs with the rhythm of the liturgical year.  If one were to peruse the Rule without being familiar with this blog, one would probably be struck by the quirkiness of language.  We talk differently in our home because we want our language to reflect a deeper contemplation of the cosmos.

All of these are the way that our nuptial dyad “teaches” our children.  So, one may observe that our domestic church has a specific food set aside for both the Feast of Saint Joseph AND the eve of the feast of Saint Joseph.  It speaks to the educational effect of the entire system working together.  One year on the eve of the feast of Saint Joseph we were in a rush for dinner.  This evening my spouse picked up regular store pasta, sauce in a jar and prefab vegetarian meatballs.  It bears pointing out that under normal circumstances I make all of our pasta, the sauce and the vegetarian meatballs from scratch (as per the Rule). When we sat down to dinner, I said to my spouse, well, tomorrow is the feast of St. Joseph, so pasta is a good choice (on the actual feast we have minestrone).  Apparently the processed garbage was quite a hit, because, much to my chagrin, a few weeks later, when at the weekly meeting (as per the Rule) we asked the kids, “what do y'all want for dinner this week?”  The oldest child said, “I want Saint Joseph’s Eve Spaghetti.” and all the autocephalous members sounded a consensus.  The point is not that process food is better than fresh made food, I hope.  The point is that a child naturally formed a ritual connection to a celestial companion with little prompting, and did so with joy. 

We put that meal on the calendar as a yearly thing because once a title is so proclaimed, “Saint Joseph’s Eve Spaghetti”, how can it be denied.  That is until its usefulness is outdated.  That is why it is hard to write a rule down for a domestic church.  The one published is descriptive of our life, but we are constantly making exceptions in order to account for the dynamic engagement required of a domestic church.  In time large portions will probably change, especially as autocephalous members jettison and create their own lives by merging with other hierarchies or creating their own diarchies.  At this point, it will be very nice to have a copy of the now defunct rule to look back on and reminisce about life, “way back when”.  By that time my spouse and I will have shifted from a role as educators back to a simple role as sacramental signs of trinitarian life in and of ourselves.  Our “influence is not done yet, because the nuptial diarchies’ influence is not only on the autocephalous members.  It is in the local or general region of the hierarchy or body.  The children are part of that region, but so is the parish, the non Catholics who the nuptial diarchy evangelizes and draws symbology from and even the diocese as a whole in union with the bishop.

These three realms (evangelical reach, parish, and diocese) are the sphere of influence of the oriented ecclesiological influencers as a nuptial diarchy.  By them, the diarchy can have a slow but longitudinal effect, especially if they utilize their autocephalous members well, and/or bind with others like minded dyarchs.  This is the sacramental model because it does not take place in the realm of ideas (the digital continent, the media world, the world of hierarchical influence).  It takes place by what one sacramentally signifies by one's life, as invested in a vocational sacrament.

Thus the significance a nuptial dyad conveys to the community beyond the Church is well oriented ecclesiological influence, because it is their life and example that brings people to the Church.  The people they draw will be people disposed as they themselves are.  This is not to suggest a conflictual relationship with others.  Rather, it is influence one has on the makeup of the Church as a whole. 

The most pertinent point of contact and influence for a nuptial dyad should be at the parish level.  One’s ritual and prayer life should be created in synchronicity with parish life as much as it is in synchronicity with the Church’s liturgical life in general.  The synchronicity should not be stifling, but integrating.  As a hierarchy in a mystical communion, a domestic church is a point of powerful influence in the parish, especially if bound in communion with other domestic churches.  A domestic church influences parish life by involvement and by example of Christian life.  If one honestly pursues these goals, one will become a force to be reckoned with appropriate to one’s station.  That  ́ 'station” is not small potatoes.  One is a priest of baptism and a dyarch who offers services to the community by these roles.

The influential scope of a nuptial diarchy is properly as broad as the bishop, who’s diocese they choose to live in.  In terms of seeking to create effect, one is free to bond with other diarchies, and associate how they see fit in the diocese.  One is free to draw symbology from all the local culture at hand, especially in as much as one is able to discern the logos spermatikos.  One is obviously free to go beyond the bounds of one’s own diocese to learn and grow, but such growth should be aimed at bringing whatever is attained back to the local community, both domestic and diocesan.  These places are one’s home and where one lives one’s life in Christ.  

Now we have come full circle back to the conundrum of the “digital church”.  The simple fact is that there is no digital church.  The basic material of the church was noted in the treatise Sacramental Cosmology,  “Assuming the information is retained by memory or inspiration, the only thing left required to preserve Christianity is water, wheat flour, grape wine, olive oil and three humans; one female two males.” More than this may certainly augment the church.  But those augmentations do not comprise the church.  The former treatise Relativism, Conscience, and The Magisterium noted that the Church is a sacrament, not paperwork.  And now we can apply the same lesson, the Church is a sacrament, not a digital interface.  A sacrament is similar to the digital continent in that sacraments are communications.  But they require an “outward sign” some sort of matter, that is a physical presence.  Life as a nuptial diarchy being an evangelizer in their community, as a participant in their parish, abiding and being part of their diocese is a sacramental presence that signifies trinitarian love and generates the Church, both biologically and culturally.

Now we can return to a question from the treatise Digital Evangelization, why am I putting on this mask? Why am I entering this grand masked ball?  In that treatise we explored a host of reasons.  Some of those reasons were poor; self aggrandizement, stumping for one’s pet issue in an attempt to become a digital ecclesiological influencer.  Then there are more noble reasons like self educationm finding community and even evangelizing  I  that same treatise we explored a host of tactics for how to go about evangelizing if one discerned that this is one’s ministry. But we can safely add education or community to the list given certain qualifiers.

If one engages the digital continent in order to learn about Catholicism or seek religion community or even to educate concerning one’s own interest and expertise a few things would help one’s navigation.  As we said in Digital Evangelization one almost necessarily puts on a mask.  But to keep honest, it may be helpful to keep proper ecclesiological orientation in mind.  If one has discerned one is an evangelizer, work on strategy with a spiritual director as suggested in that treatise.  If one is simply there to work on learning and maybe educating oneself, keep that in mind and be open to learning.  Remember the true scope of one’s impact, which is the community one lives in.  For example if one is a diocesan priest, as one engages the digital continent, one should keep in mind that they are situated in a diocese and keep in mind how their regard for the digital continent fits in with the abidance in that diocese.  The same dynamic is true for a dyarch.  Anything one does on the digital continent should flow back to one's life in the physical world.  The digital continent is a support for the physical world (sacramental church).  The particular skill of digital cognitive re-association is one’s best bet for keeping the digital content in proper focus.  If one feels the need to save the Church of Christ, remember and seeks to become a powerful digital ecclesiological influencer remember, Christ saves through the Church and the Church is a series of interlocking hierarchies in a mystical communion.  If one finds oneself influential on the digital continent, use that influence to spread Christan joy and charity, not to impose one’s personal vision on the Church.  Keep your personal vision for those under your personal authority according to the path you have chosen.  If you discerned well and cooperated with the graces God gave you, there is no limit to the good your influence can do.      

                                                 

Conclusion

In the first section we began the work of navigating ecclesiological orientation by laying out the dialect of church models proposed by Cardinal avery Dulles.  After reviewing the thesis of the institutional Church and the antithesis of Church as mystical communion, we analyzed the synthesis of church as sacrament.  From there we painted a dire picture of the dichotomous church present on the digital continent and noted ways in which it alienates one from actual engagement in Christian life, a life that is sacramentally based.  We ended the section with a contemplation on how one can more effectively engage in the Church by making one’s digital abidance serve one’s life in God’s good creation.

In the second section we sought to analyze the interrelated nature of the three hierarchies of the Catholic Church.  We began by analyzing two urges, tribalization and atomization, that cause eccelsial trouble in the digital continent.  We then sought to get our bearings by taking a macrocosmic view of the Church.  We noted the interdependent nature of the Church as a transterrestrial reality to mitigate any sense of atomism.  We then expanded the bounds of the definable church beyond the observable hierarchies to mitigate any sense of tribalism. Next we analyzed the three operative hierarchies of the Church, each in turn, while maintaining their nature as overlapping spheres of a mystical communion. We finished the section by connecting how each hierarchy relates to the cosmological paradox in an effort to better understand the Church as sacrament.

In the last section we discussed practical skills for acquiring proper ecclesiological orientation.  We began by contrasting the micro and macrocosmic Church and a culture of digital ecclesiological influencers verses a culture of personal engagement and relationships.  We deduced that the smaller communities of the Church are the places where true Christain engagements take place.  Next we discussed how clericalism can effect  compounding concupiscence.  The pride of clericalism inflames either a rebellious pride in the laity or a reliant sloth against the laity’s appropriate task.  We concentrated on how this particular brand of compounding concupiscence plays out in nuptial dyads because they are considered the lowest in the Church so they feel the most pressure in their position.  We then offered skills for investing in that position as a valid and powerful office of the Church combining baptismal priesthood, dynamic and adaptable freedom and the gift of a self generating sacral hierarchy.  Lastly, after commenting on the invested authority of the nuptial diarchy, we offered some very practical advice and tools for how to generally organize a domestic church and how the domestic church abides in the greater frameworks of its three spheres of influence, those within evangelical reach, the parish, and the diocese.  We wrapped the treatise up with a brief reiteration of the primacy of sacramental engagement over digital influence.    

Sometimes I fantasize that I wake up, open my computer, hit the “Stats” page on the blog and, “GOOD GOD! I’VE GONE VIRAL!!”  The fantasy carries with it the possibility of becoming an influencer.  I don’t indulge that fantasy very long.  First of all, the 20,000 word format of these treatises does not lend itself to “going viral”.  No one cares to read these things.  Second of all, I absolutely do not promote the blog.  I use it as a tool of digital evangelization, and I use the “persona” online to engage freely, but even most of that is to the end of digital cognitive re-association.  If, God help me, I ever did become an influencer, I pray that I could stay true to the principles in this work.  I pray that I do not seek to be an ecclesiological digital influencer, but rather an influencer who spread the message of the Gospel and shared the experience of Christain joy through God’s mercy.  That is the influence I want to have, because that I can easily take back to my true community as I abide in the sacrament that is the mystical body of Christ.