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Authority seems to get a bad rap in the Catholic church. For many it comes with a negative connotation of oppression or suppression. Why is that?

There are examples of abusive authority in the history of the church that have contributed to that. But in fact, if you look at how our ancient tradition understands authority, it's not that simple. We need to place it in a larger context.

While we often talk about objects, people, or offices having authority-as in "the pope has authority" or "the Bible has authority"-the truth of the matter is things don't have authority, nor even do people in and of themselves. Authority resides in a particular relationship, so it requires the consent of at least two parties.

Authority is different from power. Power does not require the consent of all parties. A tyrant can have power over people without the people's consent. But I would argue that a tyrant doesn't have legitimate authority.

So when we talk about authority in the Catholic Church, we're talking about a particular relationship or set of relationships within the church that binds the church together. Authority exists largely to hold the community together in unity.

How does a relationship gain authority?
For Christians authority ultimately resides in God. We believe that the Bible has authority, or that the pope, bishops, and even theologians do. But these people or things have that authority by virtue of their relationship with God.

In many cases abuse of authority happens when a person forgets that his or her authority is a shared authority, dependent on the authority of God.

Our Catholic teaching is actually quite clear that the pope exercises his authority, even his infallible authority, under very clear limits and that ultimately it's not him but the Holy Spirit acting on behalf of the church.

What about those who are supposed to obey authority?
I would suggest that obedience is never to be understood as merely passive acquiescence. All Christians are called to respond to church authority in creative and responsible ways. Part of our relationship of respect to people in authority means letting them know about our concerns, always doing so with respect for the person and the office.

People think of authority in opposition to freedom. They think of freedom as unfettered ability to do whatever they want, to act without constraint, and that therefore authority, because it constrains freedom, constrains human creativity. But it's not that way at all.

Human freedom is always circumscribed in some way-by the era and family one was born in, education, culture, and so on. One never has absolute freedom. So as American Catholics we have some cultural suspicions about the exercise of authority that make us very nervous about it.

Is this suspicion of authority specific to Americans?
Our country has a tradition of skepticism about the abuse of authority that's written right into the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. This nervousness is not entirely misplaced. I think of the current clergy sex-abuse crisis. Many people are outraged by the instances of sexual abuse, but they're far more upset by the abuses in ecclesiastical leadership. Leadership has to demonstrate its own authenticity.

A strain of thought in modern Western philosophy says acting on the basis of someone else's authority is irrational and that you should only act based on human reason. To act on the authority of others is seen as a kind of tyranny.

But in fact, we act based on the authority of others in many areas of our lives. One of my favorite examples is from the English Catholic theologian, Nicholas Lash, who pointed out that most everyone simply assents to the fact that Great Britain is an island, even though they've never empirically verified that. They haven't followed the coast all the way around, but they assent to the truth of that statement based on the testimonies of others.

In the same way, when I go to a doctor and ask for a diagnosis for chest pains, I place my trust in the doctor that he or she is exercising authority appropriately. But somehow, when it comes to the church, we seem to be nervous about exercising that same kind of trust in church authorities, tradition, or scripture.

Why do we trust a doctor but not a bishop?
One reason is that we are probably more comfortable with the authority of expertise than with the authority of an office that has its roots of authority in grace. The authority of a bishop comes from the fact he holds an office that we believe is assisted by the Holy Spirit. Of course, it's very hard to verify the assistance of the Holy Spirit.

The second reason is that there is a distinction between authority of office and authority of character. We recognize that sometimes we have to accept the authority of office even when individual officeholders disappoint us. If there's a history of corrupt officeholders, ultimately even the authority of office gets undermined. That has certainly been the case in church history.