§ 54. On Ecclesiastical Authority in General

The task of the Church consists in this, that man’s will be directed in accordance with the will of God, and that all be united with God.[1] For this task to be accomplished, there is established in the Church a special authority, in which are concentrated all those powers which Christ gave to the Church.[2] As the task of the Church is of a spiritual nature, and strives that the spirit of man be directed toward the good, and that man be prepared for the future eternal life, so too the authority of the Church can be nothing other than spiritual.[3] Likewise, the means at the disposal of ecclesiastical authority must be of the same nature as that authority itself, that is, of a purely spiritual nature; nor may the Church, in the exercise of her authority—whatever her outward circumstances may be—make use of earthly means for her purpose, nor employ material force to defend any of her rights which someone refuses to acknowledge to her.[4]

According to the character of the Church as a spiritual kingdom, the authority of the Church, in the first place, concerns the spiritual side of man, and is exercised upon matters that lie beyond the earthly sphere. But the Church exists in the world, and has her own determined constitution, which must be immutably preserved for the proper attainment of her task, and accordingly ecclesiastical authority, besides the spiritual side of man, must also extend its activity to his earthly relations, as a member of the visible and rightly ordered ecclesiastical organism.[5]