[The author reviews the discussion between Kasper and Ratzinger on the ontological priority of the universal Church, and then summarizes several studies by Kasper on the papacy and episcopacy at Vatican I, on Aquinas’s teaching about the bishop’s ministry, and Vatican II’s teachings on the institution of the bishop’s office, as well as the pastoral,

[The discussions between Joseph Ratzinger and Walter Kasper on the relationship between the universal Church and the local/particular churches touch on one of today’s major theological and pastoral issues. If the universal Church is ontologically and temporally prior to the local church, then how is the local church fully Church, and how are bishops truly