Doctors of the
Church

Christians see Jesus more
than simply one of God's
Messengers; but the Son of
God, true God and True Man,
one in being with the Father
and Holy Spirit.  

However, I think the
background music helps
explain the role of a Doctor of
the Church, a modern day
Prophet or Prophetess. Recall
the particular definition of a
prophet as one who is a
reveler of Truth.

In Roman Catholicism, a Doctor of the Church is a theologian from whose
teachings the whole Christian church is held to have derived great advantage
and to whom eminent learning and great sanctity have been attributed by a
proclamation of the Pope or of an ecumenical council. No ecumenical
council has yet exercised its prerogative of proclaiming a Doctor of the
Church. There a thirty three Doctors of the Church, three are women, the
first, as declared by the Pope, of these women lived in the 16th Century;
However, the second Woman Doctor of the Church lived in the 14th
Century.


Listing of Doctors of the Church.

ST. ALBERT THE GREAT (1200-80?). Dominican. Patron of natural
scientists; called doctor universalis, doctor expertus.

ST. ALPHONSUS LIGUORI (1696-1787). Patron of confessors and
moralists. Founder of the Redemptorists.

ST. AMBROSE (340-97). One of the four traditional Doctors of the Latin
Church. Opponent of Arianism in the West. Bishop of Milan.

ST. ANSELM (1033-1109). Archbishop of Canterbury. Father of
Scholasticism.

ST. ANTHONY OF PADUA (1195-1231). Franciscan Friar Evangelical
Doctor.

ST. ATHANASIUS (297-373). Bishop of Alexandria. Dominant opponent of
Arianism. Father of Orthodoxy.

ST. AUGUSTINE (354-430). Bishop of Hippo. One of the four traditional
Doctors of the Latin Church. Doctor of Grace.

ST. BASIL THE GREAT (329-79). One of the Three Cappadocian Fathers.
Father of monasticism in the East.

ST. BEDE THE VENERABLE (673-735). Benedictine priest Father of
English history.

ST. BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX (1090-1153). Cistercian. Called
Mellifluous Doctor because of his eloquence.

ST. BONAVENTURE (1217-74). Franciscan theologian. Seraphic Doctor.

ST. CATHERINE OF SIENA (1347-80). Mystic. Second woman Doctor.

ST. CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA (376-444). Patriarch. Opponent of
Nestorianism. Made key contributions to Christololgy.

ST. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM (315-87). Bishop and opponent of Arianism in
the East.

ST. EPHRAEM THE SYRIAN (306-73). Biblical exegete and ecclesiastical
writer. Called Harp of the Holy Spirit.

ST. FRANCIS DE SALES (1567-1622). Bishop, leader in
Counter-Reformation. Patron of Catholic writers and the Catholic press.

ST. GREGORY I THE GREAT (540-604). Pope. Fourth and last of the
traditional Doctors of the Latin Church. Defended papal supremacy and
worked for clerical and monastic reform.

ST. GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS (330-90). Called the Christian
Demosthenes because of his eloquence and, in the Eastern Church, The
Theologian. One of the Three Cappadocian Fathers.

ST. HILARY OF POITIERS (315-68). Bishop. Called The Athanasius of the
West.

ST. ISIDORE OF SEVILLE (560-636). Archbishop, theologian, historian.
Regarded as the most learned man of his time.

ST. JEROME (343-420). One of the four traditional Doctors of the Latin
Church. Father of biblical science.

ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM (347-407). Bishop of Constantinople. Patron of
preachers and called Golden- Mouthed because of his eloquence.

ST. JOHN DAMASCENE (675-749). Greek theologian. Called Golden
Speaker because of his eloquence.

ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS (1542-91). Joint founder of the Discalced
Carmelites. Doctor of Mystical Theology.

ST. LAWRENCE OF BRINDISI (1559-1619). Vigorous preacher of strong
influence in the post-Reformation period.

ST. LEO I THE GREAT (400-61). Pope. Wrote against Nestorian and
Monophysite heresies and errors of Manichaeism and Pelagianism.

ST. PETER CANISIUS (1521-97). Jesuit theologian. Leader in the
Counter-Reformation.

ST. PETER CHRYSOLOGUS (400-50). Bishop of Ravenna. Called
Golden-Worded.

ST. PETER DAMIAN (1007-72). Benedictine. Ecclesiastical and clerical
reformer.

ST. ROBERT BELLARMINE (1542-1621). Jesuit. Defended doctrine under
attack during and after the Reformation. Wrote two catechisms.

ST. TERESA OF AVILA (1515-82). Spanish Carmelite nun and mystic. First
woman Doctor.

ST. THERESE OF LISIEUX (1873-1897). French Carmelite nun. Known as
The Little Flower, her autobiographical "Story of a Soul" has become a
spiritual classic, inspiring millions to follow her "Little Way" of holiness.
Already Patroness of the Missions, she was proclaimed the third woman
Doctor of the Church by Pope John Paul II on October 19th, 1997.

ST. THOMAS AQUINAS (1225-74). Dominican philosopher and theologian.
Called Angelic Doctor. Patron of Catholic schools and education.

(Lat. Doctores Ecclesiae) -- Certain ecclesiastical writers have received this
title on account of the great advantage the whole Church has derived from
their doctrine. In the Western church four eminent Fathers of the Church
attained this honour in the early Middle Ages: St. Gregory the Great, St.
Ambrose, St. Augustine, and St. Jerome. The "four Doctors" became a
commonplace among the Scholastics, and a decree of Boniface VIII (1298)
ordering their feasts to be kept as doubles in the whole Church is contained
in his sixth book of Decretals (cap. "Gloriosus", de relique. et vener.
sanctorum, in Sexto, III, 22).

In the Eastern Church three Doctors were pre-eminent: St. John
Chrysostom, St. Basil, and St. Gregory Nazianzen. The feasts of these three
saints were made obligatory throughout the Eastern Empire by Leo VI, the
Wise, the deposer of Photius. A common feast was later instituted in their
honour on 30 January, called "the feast of the three Hierarchs". In the
Menaea for that day it is related that the three Doctors appeared in a dream
to John, Bishop of Euchaitae, and commanded him to institute a festival in
their honour, in order to put a stop to the rivalries of their votaries and
panegyrists. This was under Alexius Comnenus (1081-1118; see "Acta SS.",
14 June, under St. Basil, c. xxxviii). But sermons for the feast are attributed
in manuscripts to Cosmas Vestitor, who flourished in the tenth century. The
three are as common in Eastern art as the four are in Western. Durandus (i,
3) remarks that Doctors should be represented with books in their hands. In
the West analogy led to the veneration of four Eastern Doctors, St.
Athanasius being very properly added to the three hierarchs.

To these great names others have subsequently been added. The requisite
conditions are enumerated as three: eminens doctrina, insignis vitae
sanctitas, Ecclesiae declaratio (i.e. eminent learning, a high degree of
sanctity, and proclamation by the Church). Benedict XIV explains the third
as a declaration by the supreme pontiff or by a general council. But though
general councils have acclaimed the writings of certain Doctors, no council
has actually conferred the title of Doctor of the Church. In practice the
procedure consists in extending to the universal church the use of the Office
and Mass of a saint in which the title of doctor is applied to him. The decree
is issued by the Congregation of Sacred Rites and approved by the pope,
after a careful examination, if necessary, of the saint's writings. It is not in
any way an ex cathedra decision, nor does it even amount to a declaration
that no error is to be found in the teaching of the Doctor. It is, indeed, well
known that the very greatest of them are not wholly immune from error. No
martyr has ever been included in the list, since the Office and the Mass are
for Confessors. Hence, as Benedict XIV points out, St. Ignatius, St. Irenaeus,
and St. Cyprian are not called Doctors of the Church.

The proper Mass of Doctors has the Introit "In medio", borrowed from that
of the Theologus par excellence, St. John the Evangelist, together with
special prayers and Gospel. The Credo is said. The principal peculiarity of
the Office is the antiphon to the Magnificat at both Vespers, "O DOCTOR
OPTIME", and it is rather by this antiphon than by the special mass that a
saint is perceived to be a doctor (S.R.C., 7 Sept., 1754). In fact, St. John
Damascene has a Mass of his own, while Athanasius, Basil, Leo, and Cyril
of Jerusalem have not the Gospel of Doctors, and several have not the
collect.

The feasts of the four Latin Doctors were not added to until the sixteenth
century, when St. Thomas Aquinas was declared a Doctor by the Dominican
St. Pius V in his new edition of the Breviary (1568), in which the feasts of
the four Greek Doctors were also raised to the rank of doubles. The
Franciscan Sixtus V (1588) added St. Bonaventure.

St. Anselm was added by Clement XI (1720), St. Isidore by Innocent XIII
(1722), St. Peter Chrysologus by Benedict XIII (1729), St. Leo I (a
well-deserved but belated honour) by Benedict XIV (1754), St. Peter
Damian by Leo XII (1828), and St. Bernard by Pius VIII (1830). Pius IX
gave the honour to St. Hilary (1851) and to two more modern saints, St.
Alphonsus Liguori (1871) and St. Francis de Sales (1877). Leo XIII
promoted (1883) the Easterns, St. Cyril of Alexandria, St. Cyril of
Jerusalem, and St. John Damascene, and the Venerable Bede (1899).
[Editor's note: Benedict XV added St. Ephraem (1920). Pius XI promoted St.
Peter Canisius (1925), St. John of the Cross (1926), St. Robert Bellarmine
(1931), and St. Albertus Magnus (1931), Pius XII added St. Anthony of
Padua (1946). John XXIII named St. Lawrence of Brindisi (1959), and in
1970 Paul VI added St. Teresa of Avila and St. Catherine of Siena. John Paul
II added St. Thérèse of Lisieux in 1997.]

Leo XIII, when, in 1882, he introduced the simplification of double feasts,
made an exception for Doctors, whose feasts are always to be transferred.

There are therefore now [1997] thirty-three Doctors of the Church, of whom
eight are Eastern and twenty-four Western. They include two Carmelites,
two Jesuits, three Dominicans, three Franciscans, a Redemptorist, and five
Benedictines. For some of these the Office had previously been granted to
certain places or orders--St. Peter Damian to the Camaldolese, St. Isidore to
Spain, St. Bede to England and to all Benedictines. St. Leander of Seville
and St. Fulgentius are kept as Doctors in Spain, and the former by
Benedictines also, as he was in earlier times claimed as a monk. St.
Ildephonsus has the Introit "In medio" in the same order (for the same
reason) and in Spain without the rank of Doctor.