By Deacon Mike Seibert
Connecting Creed and Life
Editor’s note: For 2025, the weekly Connecting Faith and Life column will be renamed Connecting Creed and Life. To celebrate the 2025 Jubilee Year and the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, the columns will consist of reflections on the Nicene Creed, corresponding with related paragraphs in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC).
“I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church” (cf. CCC 857-870).
To be apostolic means the Church is built on the apostles. That has at least three meanings (which, at face value, are kinda boring): First, the apostles are the building blocks of the Church, with Jesus as the cornerstone. Second, the apostles were sent, which is literally what apostle means. Jesus gave them the authority to govern his new Church and to speak on his behalf. (Luke 10:16, “Whoever listens to you, listens to me.”) Third, every baptized Christian is sent; it’s part of who we are, so in a way, we are all apostles.
But it gets more exciting if you dig into the implications.
What happened as the original apostles died? They handed down their office to other men whom we now call “bishops” through a process called “apostolic succession.” Yes — the bishops are the successors of the apostles. That means they have the authority to govern, interpret Jesus’ teachings, speak on his behalf and celebrate the sacraments. Big deal? Yes.
Twenty years ago, I was in a bible study with a mix of Christians, including several from my parish. It was led by a Lutheran pastor who, like so many of our protestant brothers and sisters, had an incredible understanding and love of the scripture. It was great to absorb what he could teach us, until we got to the Acts of the Apostles.
Acts 1 describes what kind of problems the fledgling church faced, like right after Judas died, the apostles had a decision to make: Should they replace Judas? Acts 1 describes how they reasoned and prayed about the decision, and in verse 26, they chose Matthias to replace Judas. Our study leader made a comment that may seem harmless, but to me, it revealed a significant difference in our understanding of the Church. He said, “Obviously, what the 11 decided was not an action of the Holy Spirit … they weren’t supposed to replace Judas.”
My eyebrows went up, and I had to ask, “Why would you say that? Why couldn’t this be an action of the Holy Spirit? Everything in the text makes it appear so.” His only answer was, “Because we never heard about Matthias again.” That seemed like a weak argument to me. After all, we never heard about most of the apostles again in scripture. In the end, he chalked it up to a difference in interpretation of scripture.
Do you see why this might be a big deal? In our understanding of the Church, apostolic succession is necessary for the Church. We believe that the same process from Acts 1 has continued through the ages until today. Through discernment, prayer and the laying on of hands, we can trace our own Bishop (Joseph M.) Siegel back to one of the Twelve Apostles. Really!
The thing is, if we didn’t have apostolic succession, we wouldn’t have many of the sacraments. Think about that — if our priest had not received the laying on of hands from our bishop, he wouldn’t be ordained — and if our bishop had not received the laying on of hands from the other bishops, we would not have apostolic succession, and, therefore, we would not have valid sacraments like the Eucharist or Reconciliation.
Interestingly, many people in non-Catholic churches do believe they have Jesus’ true presence in their communion. Who’s to say they don’t have it? After all, they say words very similar to our words of institution. Why is it not valid? The main reason is that their minister hasn’t been ordained by an apostle. That explains why it was so important for this Lutheran pastor to insist that replacing Judas was not guided by the Spirit. He’s directly challenging the need for apostolic succession so he can continue to believe their church has valid sacraments. Our protestant friends have many gifts, and the Holy Spirit does work through them, but without apostolic succession, they don’t have all the sacraments.
Being apostolic (“sent”) defines us. The final words of the Latin Mass are “Ite missa Est” (“It is Sent”). We ALL are sent out as apostles.
The Church IS Apostolic and everyone in it. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be The Church.