Church of Christ

Authority level: Authoritative doctrine
Theological status: Theological synthesis
GuideThe entry presents Catholic teaching together with theological explanation. The exact note of each proposition depends on the teaching act and sources cited.
Contents

Church of Christ is the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church founded by Jesus Christ, enduring in history as a visible and spiritual communion and concretely found in the Catholic Church.

One enduring Church

The Church of Christ is not a later federation of Christian bodies. Christ established one Church, entrusted her to the apostles with Peter at their head, gave her the Gospel and sacraments, and promised his abiding presence. The society ordered through apostolic ministry and the mystical communion animated by the Holy Spirit are two dimensions of one complex reality, not two Churches.[1]

Her four creedal marks—one, holy, catholic, and apostolic—name gifts and obligations received from Christ. Human sin can wound the witness and communion of Christians but cannot abolish the Church's identity or force a new foundation after a total historical disappearance.

Visible society and spiritual communion

The Church's visible offices, profession, Sacraments, law, and common life cannot be separated from the Mystical Body animated by grace. Lumen gentium calls these one complex reality formed from a human and a divine element. An invisible aggregate known to God alone would omit Christ's public apostolic constitution, while a merely human institution would omit the Spirit, communion of saints, and supernatural end for which the visible order exists.[2]

Subsistence in the Catholic Church

Vatican II teaches that the Church of Christ Subsists in the Catholic Church, governed by the successor of Peter and the bishops in communion with him. Subsistit in identifies the perduring historical subject in which the fullness of the elements instituted by Christ remains; it does not describe the Catholic Church as one branch among several equally complete realizations.

The Catholic Church is at once the Universal Church and a communion of Particular Churches. The universal and particular are mutually interior: the Universal Church is not a headquarters above local branches, while no Particular Church is a self-sufficient whole that later negotiates membership in a federation.[3]

One historical subject

Subsistence names stable identity and continuity. It does not mean that the Church of Christ exists only partially in Catholic communion or that several denominations are parallel subjects whose combination would finally constitute the whole. The fullness of apostolic faith, sacramental means, and universal governance remains in the Catholic Church even where her members fail morally to live those gifts.

Presence beyond visible Catholic boundaries

Elements of Sanctification and Truth exist outside the Catholic Church's visible structure. Through them the Church of Christ is present and operative in separated Churches and Ecclesial Communities. Their saving efficacy comes from Christ and from the fullness entrusted to his Church, and by their nature they tend toward restored Catholic unity.

This presence admits real differences. Separated Eastern Particular Churches retain Apostolic Succession and Eucharist. Reformation Ecclesial Communities with valid baptism retain Baptismal Communion but lack the sacramental constitution needed to be Churches in the proper sense. Non-Christian Religion stands outside this specifically Christian communion while remaining within God's providence and the Church's mission.[4]

Presence, defect, and orientation toward unity

An element remains Christ's ecclesial gift wherever it is found: Scripture is inspired, valid Baptism incorporates into Christ, and a valid Eastern Eucharist is truly the sacrament of his Body and Blood. The surrounding separation is nevertheless a defect rather than another complete form of the Church. The gifts sanctify through the one saving economy and by their nature summon Christians toward the full visible unity Christ instituted.

References

  1. 1.Dominus Iesus — The CDF declaration on Christ and the Church, especially nos. 16–17 and 20–22
  2. 2.Lumen gentium — The Second Vatican Council's dogmatic constitution on the Church, especially nos. 8, 14–15, and 18–26
  3. 3.Communionis notio — The CDF letter on ecclesial communion and the relation of the universal and particular Churches
  4. 4.Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine on the Church — The CDF's 2007 clarification of subsistit in, particular Churches, and ecclesial communities