You [Venerable Brethren] represent the hierarchy, social inequalities, authority, and obedience – worn out institutions to which their hearts, captured by another ideal, can no longer submit to.
Pope St. Pius X
Equality has been embraced by the contemporary Western world as the ideal for human social order. Hierarchies are seen quite often as evil, and inequality has become a bad word. However, hierarchy is inescapable. Differences between human beings imply hierarchy. According to Fr. Chad Ripperger,
There is a metaphysical principle that is self evident, and basically this principle states this: If in a particular category of being, there are two things that are different there is, by necessity, an inequality…for example, in a family you’re in the category of family relations. Now, this means that when you are talking about the parents to the children, when it comes to the category of being a human being, they are equal. But, when it comes to the category of governance of the family, they are not, because the children are below the parents.
Fr. Chad Ripperger, https://youtu.be/r3LUJttsM7k?t=499
The Catholic distinctions between men and women, bishops and laymen, and rulers and subjects clearly, then, imply inequality. The Catholic Faith, and even a minimal observation of human social order, indicates hierarchy in all of humanity’s organizations. Catholic civilization for thousands of years rested on a hierarchical constitution. However, human hierarchy does not eliminate the elementary dignity possessed by all equally.
Equal Dignity
To preface any discussion of hierarchy, a Catholic should reach a proper understanding of equality. The Catholic Church, in recent decades, has repeatedly stressed the equal dignity of human beings. This equality rests on the fact that humans have a rational soul,
1934 Created in the image of the one God and equally endowed with rational souls, all men have the same nature and the same origin. Redeemed by the sacrifice of Christ, all are called to participate in the same divine beatitude: all therefore enjoy an equal dignity.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1934
The Catechism still acknowledges that there are differences in other categories of being, and, therefore, that there are hierarchies in human social order,
1937 These differences belong to God’s plan, who wills that each receive what he needs from others, and that those endowed with particular “talents” share the benefits with those who need them. These differences encourage and often oblige persons to practice generosity, kindness, and sharing of goods; they foster the mutual enrichment of cultures
Ibid. 1937
While not repudiating hierarchy in human order and the Church, the Catechism does condemn sinful forms of inequality,
1938 There exist also sinful inequalities that affect millions of men and women. These are in open contradiction of the Gospel: ‘Their equal dignity as persons demands that we strive for fairer and more humane conditions. Excessive economic and social disparity between individuals and peoples of the one human race is a source of scandal and militates against social justice, equity, human dignity, as well as social and international peace.’44
Ibid. 1938
The Church Hierarchy
To perpetuate His mission, sacraments, teaching, and visible leadership, Jesus entrusted His Church to twelve Apostles.
[13] And when day was come, he called unto him his disciples; and he chose twelve of them (whom also he named apostles).
Luke 6 DRA
In creating this differentiated category, Our Lord created an inequality between his ordinary disciples and the Apostles. These twelve men were surely equal to the disciples in so far as they were human beings and followers of Christ. However, the Apostles were differentiated from the disciples in authority and power,
[18] Amen I say to you, whatsoever you shall bind upon earth, shall be bound also in heaven; and whatsoever you shall loose upon earth, shall be loosed also in heaven.
Matthew 18 DRA
Among the twelve Apostles, there was a further distinction between Peter and the rest,
[18] And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. [19] And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven.
Matthew 16 DRA
Peter was set apart from other eleven Apostles, and designated to be a special ‘key-bearer’ and rock upon which Christ would build His Church. Peter, in so far as he was a human being, still possessed equality with everyone. Peter was also still equally a disciple and an Apostle. Several early church fathers pointed out categories wherein Peter was equal to the other Apostles, while still maintaining his inequality to the eleven as their head,
And again to the same He says, after His resurrection, Feed my sheep. And although to all the apostles, after His resurrection, He gives an equal power, and says, ‘As the Father has sent me, even so send I you: Receive the Holy Ghost: Whose soever sins you remit, they shall be remitted unto him; and whose soever sins you retain, they shall be retained;’ John 20:21 yet, that He might set forth unity, He arranged by His authority the origin of that unity, as beginning from one. Assuredly the rest of the apostles were also the same as was Peter, endowed with a like partnership both of honour and power; but the beginning proceeds from unity.
Cyprian of Carthage, On the Unity of the Church
St. Cyprian observed that the apostles had an equal ability to forgive sins on behalf of Jesus Christ. Surely, Paul’s power to absolve sins would not be lacking equality with Peter’s. However, Cyprian sets Peter apart as the origin of unity among the twelve. St. Cyprian also viewed the Church as being founded on Peter, and Peter as having a primacy.
Pope St. Leo the Great noticed basic equality among priests and bishops as stemming from a common equality among the Apostles. However, this great Pope and church father stated that there is hierarchy of rank in the clergy,
The connection of the whole body makes all alike healthy, all alike beautiful: and this connection requires the unanimity indeed of the whole body, but it especially demands harmony among the priests. And though they have a common dignity, yet they have not uniform rank; inasmuch as even among the blessed Apostles, notwithstanding the similarity of their honourable estate, there was a certain distinction of power, and while the election of them all was equal, yet it was given to one to take the lead of the rest. From which model has arisen a distinction between bishops also, and by an important ordinance it has been provided that every one should not claim everything for himself: but that there should be in each province one whose opinion should have the priority among the brethren: and again that certain whose appointment is in the greater cities should undertake a fuller responsibility, through whom the care of the universal Church should converge towards Peter’s one seat, and nothing anywhere should be separated from its Head.
Leo the Great, Letters, 14:12
While all priests, bishops, and popes are equal in their power to consecrate bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, they are differentiated in authority. Confession to a Pope would not forgive your sins more powerfully than absolution from an ordinary parish priest. However, the Pope possesses supreme jurisdiction over the universal Church, while your ordinary parish priest does not. The categories of equality between Pope and priest are just as apparent as the areas in which they are unequal.
Marriage: A Simple Example
Marriage is a straightforward illustration of the Catholic understanding of hierarchy and equality. Since all human persons have an equal fundamental dignity, every member of a family has the same basic dignity. According to the Constitution on the Church in the Second Vatican Council,
Firmly established by the Lord, the unity of marriage will radiate from the equal personal dignity of wife and husband, a dignity acknowledged by mutual and total love.
Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et Spes 49
While husband, wife, and children all have an elementary equality in dignity, there exists hierarchy in other categories of their being. Pope Pius XI restated the apostolic teaching on the hierarchy between husband and wife,
Domestic society being confirmed, therefore, by this bond of love, there should flourish in it that “order of love,” as St. Augustine calls it. This order includes both the primacy of the husband with regard to the wife and children, the ready subjection of the wife and her willing obedience, which the Apostle commends in these words: “Let women be subject to their husbands as to the Lord, because the husband is the head of the wife, and Christ is the head of the Church.”[29]…
For if the man is the head, the woman is the heart, and as he occupies the chief place in ruling, so she may and ought to claim for herself the chief place in love.
Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii
So, while husband, wife, and children all have the same basic dignity, they lack equality in governance and authority. The family possesses both hierarchy and equality between persons.
Hierarchy in Civil Society
The Catholic social order that reigned for thousands of years is infamous for being quite hierarchical. To this day, the Church teaches that human societies are fundamentally hierarchical. Wherever there is a gathering of people, according to the Church, there must be authority figures. This creates a hierarchy of rulers and the ruled,
If therefore, it is natural for man to live in the society of many, it is necessary that there exist among men some means by which the group may be governed. For where there are many man together. and each one is looking after his interest, the group would be broken up and scattered unless there were also someone to take care of what appertains to the commonwealth
On the Governance of Rulers, p. 35. St. Thomas Aquinas
1897 “Human society can be neither well-ordered nor prosperous unless it has some people invested with legitimate authority to preserve its institutions and to devote themselves as far as is necessary to work and care for the good of all.”15
Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1897. 15 – John XXIII, PT 46.
Additionally, St. Thomas Aquinas demonstrates that there are further gradations in civil society,
[I]n what pertains to all mankind, one man is not able to do all things which are needed in a society, and, accordingly different people work at different tasks. This diversity of men in different functions happens in the first place, by Divine Providence which has so distributed the types of men that nothing necessary for life will ever be found wanting. But this also comes about from natural influences by which different men have different inclinations for this function or that manner of life. Because many things are needed for man’s livelihood for which one man is not sufficient for himself, it is necessary that different things be done by different men, that some, for instance, should cultivate the land, that some build houses and so forth.
St. Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones Quodlibetales, Quodlibetum 7, q. 7, a. 17, c., quoted by Rev. B. w. Dempsey, “Property Rights,” Summa Theologica, III, 3361.
Social order contains a diversity of offices and functions. This is a differentiation in particular categories of being, and thus human society is clearly hierarchical,
As explained above, one hierarchy is one principality—that is, one multitude ordered in one way under the rule of a prince. Now such a multitude would not be ordered, but confused, if there were not in it different orders. So the nature of a hierarchy requires diversity of orders.
This diversity of order arises from the diversity of offices and actions, as appears in one city where there are different orders according to the different actions; for there is one order of those who judge, and another of those who fight, and another of those who labor in the fields, and so forth.
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Q. 108
A traditional Catholic view of civil society is quite hierarchical. Not only is there a hierarchy of governance, but there is also inequality of function. Those who work in agriculture are fundamentally differentiated from those who are magistrates. This differentiation implies inequality. Hierarchy, rather than being condemned, should be embraced by Catholics in the civil order.
We shall then tell them [young people] that equality [should] set itself within the framework of a hierarchy, founded on the diversity of office and merits
Philippe Pétain http://faithandheritage.com/2018/12/vichy-france-as-counter-revolutionary-state/
On Earth as it is in Heaven
In Heaven, there is a hierarchy among angels, saints, and God. According to St. Thomas Aquinas,
Hierarchy means a “sacred” principality, as above explained. Now principality includes two things: the prince himself and the multitude ordered under the prince. Therefore because there is one God, the Prince not only of all the angels but also of men and all creatures; so there is one hierarchy, not only of all the angels, but also of all rational creatures, who can be participators of sacred things
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Q. 108
The old Catholic Encyclopedia reinforces the idea that there is a hierarchy in heaven,
There is, consequently, a necessary gradation among hierarchs; and this gradation, which exists even among the angels, i.e. in the heavenly hierarchy (on which the ecclesiastical hierarchy is modelled), must a fortiori be found in a human assembly subject to sin, and in which this gradation works for peace and harmony
Van Hove, Alphonse. “Hierarchy.” The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 7. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. 7 Dec. 2019 <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07322c.htm>.
Church hierarchy and human society are reflections of the divine order. Because all things have their origin and end in God, and because God’s heavenly kingdom exudes perfection, human social orders ought to imitate heaven. St. Thomas Aquinas states this principle explicitly,
Human government is derived from Divine government, and should imitate it.
Summa Theologica, Thomas Aquinas
Bishop Barron explains that every time we pray the ‘Our Father’, we are praying that human and social order will become like the divine heavenly order,
‘Thy Kingdom come’…We are saying, ‘May Your way of ordering things be our way of ordering things,’ so ‘on Earth as in Heaven’; the way things are ordered rightly in heaven may they become the right order of Earth
Bishop Barron https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DCWtlLQkrA
Every society and State is made of people; individual human beings are their primary element. What kind of human beings? Not people as they are conceived by individualism, as atoms or a mass of atoms, but people as persons, as differentiated beings, each one endowed with a different rank, a different freedom, a different right within the social hierarchy based on the values of creating, constructing, obeying, and commanding. With people such as these, it is possible to establish the true State, namely an antiliberal, antidemocratic, and organic State.
Julius Evola, Men Among the Ruins, Pp. 139
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