lowers, the apostles, had been specifically empowered by Jesus to spread the gospel and to do so in significant part by way of sacraments, or a "visible sign or ceremony which Christ chose and uses to give us grace that is invisible to our senses" (Noll and Fallon 140). In the activity of worship and in the enactment of the sacraments, which can be interpreted as having scriptural foundation on one hand and a connection to the soteriological and moral makeup of humankind on the other, a definite role for a priestly order in the life of the church, and by extension a definite role for the clergy in the life of the individual soul, can be discerned.
Roman Catholic theology and doctrine center on the Church as an institution that is one, holy, catholic or universal, and apostolic. Oneness derives from prohibition against individual interpretation of Scripture or morality, holiness from its institutional provenance in Jesus and its attachment to the Holy Spirit, catholicism from its assertion of universality owing to its multinational character from its in
...