ABSTRACT

As the global Church continues to evolve into a more heterogeneous and non-Western unit, this paper explores the possibility of a decentralized exercise of magisterial authority using a polyhedron model. In the context of church authority, the figure of the polyhedron represents an expanded vision of unity that reimagines new connections between the local and global Catholic Church, but more importantly, places the local church in a unique position as locus of hierarchical teaching authority. The main question that will be addressed by this paper is the following: ‘How can the local church participate in and/or contribute to the exercise of the magisterium’s authority?’