Clarifying What The Church Is

by Fr. Roger J. Landry - August 3, 2007

On July 10, the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a short "Response to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine of the Church." As the news story on page 2 of this edition describes, the document reiterated elements of the Church's self-understanding that irritate some of the Church's ecumenical partners, many of whom wondered aloud about the timing and purpose of the document.

The timing of the document, however, is essential to understanding its purpose. It came just three days after Pope Benedict released his motu proprio concerning the celebration of Mass according to the 1962 Missal. Word that the doctrinal note was coming was given on the same day the motu proprio was published. And when one looks at the five questions to which the doctrinal note responds, their principal audience is clear. These are the questions often raised by the followers of late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in the Society of St. Pius X, which went into schism not just as a result of the liturgical changes after Vatican II but because they thought the Council compromised the Church's ecclesiological doctrine. The publication of the "Response to Some Questions" was meant to address these doctrinal concerns at the same time that the motu proprio was addressing liturgical concerns. Both flow from Benedict's ardent desire to end the Lefebvrite schism.

The Church's reaching out to one group that has split itself off from the Church, however, was falsely interpreted — not just by those in ecumenical dialogue with the Church, but also by some of the Catholics involved in that dialogue — as a reaching away from other groups that have split off in earlier centuries. The restatement of the Church's self-understanding, however, provides one of the essential building blocks for authentic ecumenical dialogue — the clear and sincere mention of one's Church's beliefs — without which a joint search for the truth God wants us all to live would be impossible.

All those interested in Church unity must first come to grips with what the Church that Christ came from heaven to found really is and is not. In the five questions-and-answers of the "Response," the Catholic Church presents her understanding, which is obviously important for all Catholics and all those in dialogue with Catholics to know.

The first question is of relevance mainly to Lefebvrites: Did the Second Vatican Council change the Cathoolic doctrine on the Church? They ask this question because the fathers of Vatican II, in referring to the Church Christ founded, said that it "subsists in the Catholic Church" rather than "is" the Catholic Church, which was the traditional formulation. The doctrinal note replies that the Church didn't change her doctrine at all, just her articulation of it. The change from "is" to "subsists in" was meant to harmonize two doctrinal affirmations: first, to reiterate that the "one" Church of Christ that we profess in the Creed is found in the Catholic Church, in which alone are found all the elements that Christ himself instituted in the Church; secondly, to bring out the fact that there are "numerous elements of sanctification and truth" found outside her structure that the word "is" might be interpreted to exclude.

In the first three questions, the Catholic Church is saying, humbly, that it alone has all that Christ himself endowed his Church — the fullness of teaching, sacraments and structure — but that non-Catholics also have numerous elements of that truth (most notably the Word of God and teaching based on it) and sanctification (especially, for most Protestant denominations, the sacraments of baptism and marriage and for the Orthodox Churches all of them).

In the last two questions, the document clarifies what why the Second Vatican Council uses the word "Church" to refer to the oriental churches separated from full communion with the Catholic Church and not to refer to those Christian communities born out of the Reformation of the 16th century. The answers to these questions help us to understand better the Church's understanding of what a Church really is.

The Orthodox are referred to as a "Church" because, although separated, they have "true sacraments and above all — because of apostolic succession — the priesthood and the Eucharist." From the earliest days of Christianity, Christians have proclaimed that the "Eucharist makes the Church," because it is through receiving Christ's body and blood in the Eucharist that the Holy Spirit makes us "one body, one spirit in Christ." Since the Oriental Churches have maintained apostolic succession, their priestly ordinations are valid and therefore the sacraments they celebrate are also valid. The "Response" notes that Orthodox Churches do lack one important element of what Christ endowed his Church: unity with the successor of St. Peter on whom Christ built his Church.

The Christian communities born of the Protestant Reformation, however, have not retained apostolic succession and therefore do not have valid holy orders. For that reason, they have not retained those sacraments that require a validly ordained priest, most notably the Eucharist and consequently are "deprived of a constitutive element of the Church." The Catholic Church refers to them as "ecclesial communions," because they do have "elements of sanctification and truth" but are missing something essential for what it means to be a Church.

To affirm this is not to demean Lutherans, Calvinists, Baptists, Methodists or Episcopalians. It is simply to recall that, from the Catholic Church's perspective, we cannot really speak of a Church without the apostles and the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, that ordination through by successors to the apostles makes possible. To refer to these ecclesial communions as Churches would be to say that apostolic succession and the sacraments are non-essential elements of the Church Christ intended to found — and that is something that the Church, out of fidelity to Christ who chose the apostles and instituted those sacraments for the good of his Church, could never do.

Father Roger J. Landry is pastor of St. Anthony of Padua in New Bedford, MA and Executive Editor of The Anchor, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Fall River.