Diocesan Resources
This Week in Ministry 33: Fact of Faith, Doctors of the Church (2015)
This Week in Ministry 33: Fact of Faith, Doctors of the Church by Fr. Larry Rice, Vocations Director for the Paulist Fathers.
Is there a doctor in the house? Well, if that house is the Church, then the answer is “yes.” And we don’t mean medical doctors. Of all the various kinds of saints in the church— virgins, martyrs, religious, whatever—the least appreciated by most people may be the Doctors of the Church.
These saints are probably best thought of as doctors in the PhD sense of the word. Through their research, study, and writing, they have advanced the Church’s knowledge of our faith. To be declared a Doctor of the Church does not imply that all their writings are free from error but rather that the whole body of their work, taken together serves to advance the cause of Christ and his Church.