These two men were disciples of St Paul and were appointed by him as church leaders in the early church, Timothy to Ephesus and Titus to Crete.
This was part of a pattern of the early church as the apostles went about establishing churches they appointed church leaders for various ministries.
Among these, some were appointed to share in the ministry and authority of the apostles.
In this great time of amazing technological advancement, I notice many views about the Church expressed in social media. Some are helpful others are misleading and confusing.
Genuine Catholic theology keeps a number of things in balance with regard to church structures.
There has always been a long-held belief that the bishops share in a particular way the role and authority of the apostles. They are called to be custodians of our Faith Tradition. They do this together with the successor of ST Peter, who at present is pope Francis. He has the cardiomyopathy of keeping the church United.
Together they need to work for church unity.
There are also many other charisms and ministries in the church and all have their rightful place and importance.
We are also as a church searching to recapture a sense of deeper synodality.
This is also part of our longer authentic Church tradition.
I see unnecessary and unhelpful fear being expressed on social media about this.
Yes, we need wisdom, prudence, and prayer.
We need to get it right, we need to be as the gospel says both old and new. We need to be faithful to our creeds and church teachings and of course the Gospel and the other scriptures.
However, we also need to be obedient to how the Holy Spirit is calling us to best live there today.
We are neither a democracy nor a theocracy, we are a church under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
We all need to be humble servants not teaching the Holy Spirit not telling this Holy Spirit about our model of the church but rather listening to this same Spirit.