Teaching Level

Authority level: Authoritative doctrine
Theological status: Theological synthesis
GuideThis editorial classification applies the Church's distinctions among doctrinal grades to an encyclopedia article; the underlying grades and obligations follow the Magisterium, while their application requires theological judgment.
Contents

Teaching level is an editorial classification identifying the strongest grade of magisterial teaching materially treated in an article.[1]

Scope

An article may contain dogma, definitive doctrine, non-definitive authoritative doctrine, disciplinary rules, theological explanations, and historical statements. The tag names only the strongest doctrinal grade present; it does not collapse these different kinds of claim into one category.

Dogma is the highest displayed grade, followed by definitive doctrine and authoritative doctrine. These names follow the distinctions explained in Grades of Magisterial Teaching and the obligations set out in canons 750–752.[2][3]

Reading the tag

If an article is marked Dogma, the flag means that at least one controlling proposition is divinely revealed and proposed as such by the Church. It does not mean that every date, quotation, application, or theological explanation in the article is dogmatic.

A separate non-doctrinal label may identify discipline, devotion, theological synthesis, or historical evidence when that distinction is materially necessary. None of those is merely a lower rung on the doctrinal scale.

References

  1. 1.Lumen gentium, 25 — Vatican II on the authentic Magisterium, infallibility, and the assent owed to teaching
  2. 2.Code of Canon Law, canons 747–755 — The obligations corresponding to revealed, definitive, and non-definitive teaching
  3. 3.Doctrinal Commentary on the Professio fidei — CDF explanation and examples of the three grades of magisterial teaching

This project page documents Catholicism Wiki’s editorial classifications and workflow. It is not an encyclopedia article or an official magisterial text.