By DON FIER
For the past two weeks, we have been unpacking the teaching of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) on the first of her four marks, that she is one. Our Lord left no room for uncertainty when He said, “There shall be one flock, one shepherd” (John 10:16), nor did St. Paul when he proclaimed that “we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another” (Romans 12:4).
The Catechism summarizes several reasons to support the claim that the Catholic Church is the one true Church founded by Christ: “She acknowledges one Lord, confesses one faith, is born of one Baptism, forms only one Body, is given life by the one Spirit, for the sake of one hope (cf. Eph. 4:3-5), at whose fulfillment all divisions will be overcome” (CCC, n. 866). “Unity,” affirms the Catechism, “is of the essence of the Church” (CCC, n. 813).
As demonstrated in previous installments, the Church’s unity has as its spiritual foundation the Triune God. However, unity is also manifested visibly in her doctrine, in her worship, and in her leadership.
First, the dogmatic teaching of the Catholic Church is unchangeable: It is based upon objective truth as revealed by Christ and transmitted through the apostles. Just as God Himself is immutable, so is objective truth eternally unchangeable, for God is truth.
Second, we are united in worship: Everywhere is offered the same Mass where Christ renews His redemptive sacrifice on the cross, and everywhere there are the same seven sacraments. Finally, the Church is united under the Roman Pontiff (and the bishops in communion with him), whose unbroken line of Predecessors can readily be traced back to St. Peter to whom Christ said, “On this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18).
We also saw last week that great diversity exists among peoples and cultures and in gifts and charisms in the spiritual edifice which is the Church. But this does not oppose unity, for as St. Paul says, “Just as the body is one and has many members” (1 Cor. 12:12), so it is with Christ’s Church. Charity is able to bind “everything together in perfect harmony” (Col. 3:14).
Yet we must never lose sight of the fact that man has a fallen nature. The effect of sin has caused great divisions which have rendered the Body of Christ torn and wounded, so much so that St. Paul asks the dissenting factions, “Is Christ divided?” (1 Cor. 1:13).
As Pope St. John Paul II taught in his 1995 encyclical letter on ecumenism (Ut Unum Sint), one of the great responsibilities of members of the one true Church is to work and pray for reunification. Though “elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside of [the Church’s] visible structure” (Lumen Gentium, n. 8 § 2), the fullness of the means of salvation “subsists in the Catholic Church” (CCC, n. 816). It is incumbent upon each of us to work toward the goal of unity.
The second mark of the Catholic Church, which the Catechism now takes up, is holiness. The Vatican II fathers categorically state: “The Church . . . is believed to be indefectibly holy” (LG, n. 39). But how can this be? To many, this might seem a bold and provocative statement, one that could not possibly be true. How could a Church, whose membership is made up of sinners (even among her leaders) who have been found guilty of scandalous and gravely sinful acts, make the claim of holiness?
The Catechism transparently acknowledges her members’ sinfulness: “All members of the Church, including her ministers, must acknowledge that they are sinners” (CCC, n. 827). Likewise, as St. John states with conviction in a verse meant for all, excepting our Lady: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8).
This question is answered perhaps most clearly by St. Paul in his Letter to the Ephesians: “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (Eph. 5:25-27).
Vatican II states it this way: “Christ, the Son of God, who with the Father and the Spirit is praised as ‘uniquely holy,’ loved the Church as His bride, delivering Himself up for her. He did this that He might sanctify her. He united her to Himself as His own body and brought it to perfection by the gift of the Holy Spirit for God’s glory” (LG, n. 39).
In other words, the Church is not holy because of her members, but rather because of her Founder, Jesus Christ, “the Holy One of God” (Mark 1:24), to whom she is indissolubly linked. As expressed by Christoph Cardinal Schönborn in Living the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “Just as all the Church’s light emanates from Christ (cf. CCC, n. 748), so, too, does her holiness” (p. 116). “United with Christ,” says the Catechism, “the Church is sanctified by him; through him and with him she becomes sanctifying” (CCC, n. 824).
As members of the Body of Christ, we have Christ in us, healing and transforming us, reconciling us to His Father. As such, the Church is not so much an institution of holy people as she is an institution to make people holy.
From her inception, the Church has been composed of sinners. Indeed, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Tim. 1:15). He founded His Church to continue His redemptive and sanctifying work knowing full well that her members would be a mixed lot, both the virtuous and the vicious.
Various parables attest to this. For example, in the Gospel of St. Matthew we see that the wheat and the weeds were allowed to grow together, not to be separated until the time for harvest came (Matt. 13:24-30). Likewise, it was not until the fishing net that was thrown into the sea was raised that the good and the bad fish were separated (Matt. 13:47-53).
Moreover, Jesus warns that not all are certain to reach Heaven: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven . . . ‘depart from me you evildoers’” (Matt. 7:21-22).
The fact that her members are sinners and in need of repentance suggests a compelling reason for professing that the mark of holiness resides within the Church: “She is holy because the goods of salvation have been permanently given to her and entrusted to her for transmission — these are the truths of faith, the sacraments of new life, ministries, and offices” (German Bishops’ Conference, The Church’s Profession of Faith [CPF], p. 234).
It is the Catholic Church who has been entrusted with the word of God and the sacraments as requisite means for learning the truth and for gaining the graces necessary for salvation.
The Church is holy, then, because she provides all the necessary means for the attainment of holiness. One does not join the Church because he is already a saint, but as a sinner in need of help to become one. Dr. Peter Kreeft cleverly reinforces this point: “Christ established His Church not as a museum for saints, but as a hospital for sinners” (Catholic Christianity, p. 112).
Strive For Holiness
Some additional reasons why we profess the Church to possess the mark of holiness include the following: “She comes from God and is ordained to Him;…the holy God, the One who is different from the whole world, keeps faith with her unconditionally and does not abandon her to the powers of death or the transitoriness of the world (Matt. 16:18); . . . [and] the powerful presence of the Holy Spirit is permanently promised to her (John 14:26; 16:7-9)” (CPF, ibid.).
It is clear, therefore, that holiness is an attribute or mark of the one true Church even though she is composed of sinners. What, then, can be said of her members, those who form the Body of Christ? During the course of His Sermon on the Mount when our Lord gave us the eight Beatitudes, He said to the multitudes: “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48).
Is this not an unmistakable call to all to strive for holiness? Indeed, an overriding principle emphasized in Vatican Council II is that each member of the Church has been called to holiness. The fifth chapter of Lumen Gentium, in fact, has as its title: “The Universal Call to Holiness.”
The Catechism next avows that “the Church on earth is endowed already with a sanctity that is real though imperfect” (LG, n. 48 § 3; as cited by CCC, n. 825). Although various states of holiness or Christian perfection exist in her members who have cooperated with grace, “perfect holiness is something yet to be acquired” (CCC, n. 825) and “will attain its full perfection only in the glory of heaven” (LG, n. 48 § 1).
It is through the means provided by the Church that each of us is called to strive for the perfection of holiness, which will be fully realized only in the Beatific Vision.
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(Don Fier serves on the board of directors for The Catholic Servant, a Minneapolis-based monthly publication. He and his wife are the parents of seven children. Fier is a 2009 graduate of Ave Maria University’s Institute for Pastoral Theology. He is doing research for writing a definitive biography of Fr. John A. Hardon, SJ.)
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