Collegiality: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

Collegiality is the relationship between colleagues. Colleagues are those explicitly united in a common purpose and respecting each other's abilities to work toward that purpose. Thus, the word collegiality can connote respect for another's commitment to the common purpose and ability to work toward it. In a narrower sense, members of the faculty of a university or college are each other's colleagues; very often the word is taken to mean that. Sometimes colleague is taken to mean a fellow member of the same profession. The word college is sometimes construed broadly to mean a group of colleagues united in a common purpose, and used in proper names, such as Electoral College, College of Cardinals, College of Pontiffs.

By some in the Roman Catholic Church the collegiality and independence of bishops is held to mean that only the Pope has authority over other bishops. Some critics perceive bishops' conferences to be a threat to this collegiality of bishops, in that they may attempt to impose a real authority over their own membership and thus undermine the Pope's authority. One of the major changes of the Second Vatican Council was to encourage Bishops confrences.