The semi-official answer to this question, ‘Who does the teaching in the Church?’, the answer that would be given by the average official of the Roman Curia, or the average Catholic bishop, would probably be that it done by a rather mysterious entity called ‘the Magisterium’ (or, with more formal emphasis, ‘the sacred Magisterium’). By this is meant, in theory/practice, ‘the pope and the bishops’, and in practice/practice, the Holy See.

The notion that the teaching of doctrine is the exclusive preserve, privilege and duty of the pope and bishops is bizarre, surely. I mean, I doubt if the pope or any of the bishops were themselves taught their catechism, before they reached their present exalted office, by popes or bishops in illo tempore—or that the catechisms they were taught from were actually compiled by any pope or bishop.

This distortion of reality arises from the application of the word ‘magisterium’ (which means ‘mastery’ or ‘the status and function of a master’) to the traditional and authentic Catholic doctrine that final authority in matters of doctrine, the final judgment where there is controversy, is the responsibility and right of the pope and the bishops. The use, or rather misuse, of the word ‘magisterium’ in this sense is very recent in the history of theology. Its first and comparatively innocuous employment in an official document is to be found in Gregory XVI’s brief Dum acerbissimas, of 1835, condemning the errors of George Hermes. Its far from innocuous apogee was attained in Pius XII’s encyclical Humani Generis of 1950, in which it appears at least eleven times.