For the third consecutive week, the Wednesday catechesis of the Holy Father involved the study of Tradition, linked to the ministry of Bishops and their Apostolic Succession, and the eminent position of the Holy Roman Church, remembering the glorious teaching of the most famous Primate of the Gauls, Saint Irenaeus:Irenaeus, then, ... focuses on that Church, "the very great and the very ancient church, known to all" which was "founded and established in Rome by the most glorious apostles Peter and Paul"... .
In this way, for Irenaeus and for the universal Church, the episcopal succession of the Church of Rome becomes the sign, the criterion, and the guarantee of the uninterrupted transmission of the Apostolic Faith: "For it is a matter of necessity that every Church -- that is, the faithful everywhere -- should agree with this Church, on account of its preeminent authority (propter potiorem principalitatem) inasmuch as in her the Apostolic Tradition has been always preserved" (Adversus haereses, III, 3, 2).
The episcopal succession -- verified on the base of its communion with that [succession] of the Church of Rome -- is therefore the criterion of of permanence of the particular Churches in the tradition of the apostolic faith, which through this channel could reach us since the origins. "In this order, and by this succession, the ecclesiastical tradition from the apostles, and the preaching of the truth, have come down to us. And this is most abundant proof that there is one and the same vivifying faith, which has been preserved in the Church from the apostles until now, and handed down in truth."(ib., III, 3, 3).
According to these testimonies from the ancient Church, the apostolicity of the ecclesial communion consists in the faithfulness to the teaching and to the praxis of the Apostles, through whom the historical and spiritual link of the Church with Christ rests assured.
