text: Grazie, Vincenzo. I think it's important to treat the gospel as what they are, and not what the church would like us to think they are, which is a set of scriptural endorsements of church authority and privilege.
  
  Although it's difficult for us to accept, the primitive kerygma of Christian faith says nothing about the existence of a hierarchy. As the church began to take shape, its leaders felt the need to justify their claims to authority, and words not found in the primitive kerygma were attributed to Jesus to make their point, or invented by Paul to impose order on his unordered communities. As you say, the church has consistently stated that its hierarchical structure is divinely ordained, most recently in Lumen Gentium, but that should be taken for what it is: an ecclesial statement that happens to be self-serving, and not a Dominical teaching. 
  
  In the final analysis, I'm not entirely opposed to hierarchy, but I do object to a hierarchy disconnected from the people. -Monica.