Traditional Catholic Teaching - Lesson 4 - The Church is One and Catholic

Lesson 4 - The Church is One and Catholic

Anyone who wants to be at all well-informed about things in general knows that the Catholic Church is a factor in the world which cannot be ignored. If you read the newspapers you will see that they and especially their foreign correspondents realise that, whatever may be thought about the Church it is there, it is a fact and an important fact in the world.

In this talk I want to take the standpoint of a man who is outside the Church, who sees it is something which can't be ignored and wants to know what there is about it which makes it distinctive.

As long ago as the year A.D. 325 there was held what is called a General Council. It was a representative meeting of Bishops which had gathered together to settle a point of Church doctrine. They drew up a short formula of the main beliefs of the Church.

They said, in effect: "You can sum up the Catholic Church in four words. It is One. It is Catholic. It is Holy. It is Apostolic." In this talk I want to draw your attention to these first two words.

The Church is One — that is United and Unique: and it is Catholic that is Universal,

Unity is Rare

What do you think would be the most surprising news you could read in your newspaper tomorrow morning? Your answer no doubt will depend on your imagination. But a very surprising headline would be: "Unanimous Agreement in United Nations Assembly", "Our special correspondent reports that unammous agreement was reached yesterday on all outstanding problems. The Foreign Ministers of Great Britain, U.S.A., France and Soviet Russia were loudly cheered by all present, The German, Italian and Japanese Ambassadors joined in the cheering. Asked for a statement by our representative the Russian Foreign Minister said with a hearty laugh: ‘The more we are together the merrier we shall be'."

If you read that you'd be delighted. But you'd be surprised and perhaps skeptical. You'd say there was a catch in it somewhere, Or at any rate you'd say it won't last.

If somebody said to you this agreement on fundamentals would still be in existence two thousand years hence you'd say quite frankly it's impossible. Why? Because we know that to get agreement even on small things between human beings is difficult. Between men of different races still more difficult. To get agreement on important matters between men of different race, class, colour and an agreement that will last seems quite impossible.

Now the extraordinary thing is that such an agreement has existed and does exist in the Catholic Church. For nearly two thousand years you have had men of all sorts and kinds and classes and nations agreed on a number of very important matters indeed. Matters which affect their personal life considerably. Agreed on the way they should worship, the sort of prayer they should say, agreed about the nature of God, about the nature of man, agreed on the nature of life after death, agreed on their standards of conduct (even when they fall short of those standards in fact), agreed on the authority they should obey.

Catholic Means Universal

1. All Nations

We call the Church "Catholic", The word Comes to us from the Greek language which was the most commonly spoken in the early days of the Church and it means simply "universal". Anyone who has travelled knows how you come across the Catholic Church everywhere. In some places it is stronger than others. But it is represented in every country,

If you went to Rome you would see the students of all the different national colleges in the city studying for the priesthood. In the same university, studying the same Faith, you have English, German, French, Chinese, Ethiopians, all races.

You know how many Catholics there are in Europe. Go to America, the United States. More than thirty million Catholics. The biggest Church in the States.

Go to Japan. The Catholics are only small in number there. But if you read their history you will be astonished. They were converted over three hundred years ago. Then they were persecuted, thousands of them put to death, the Church seemingly stamped out and yet a group of them kept the Faith on their own without any contact with abroad for over two hundred years. Now there are Japanese Bishops and a growing Church.

In Africa the Church has grown by something like seven million in the past fifty years.

In England every year an average of 14,000 adult converts are received into the Catholic Church.

2. All Classes

With that variety of race goes a variety of type and classes of people. The most learned and the most simple can be found within the borders of the same Church. Scientists like Volta, Ampere, Coulomb (every electrician uses their names as measurements —Volta, Ampere, Coulomb); great artists like Michelangelo; thinkers like Thomas Aquinas, find their home in the Church. They find it satisfies their mind and heart just as it satisfies the mind and heart of ordinary people, working men and women,

A French nobleman once said: "I must have the same religion as my cook". He was very wise, The true religion must be for all men. Not just for one kind of men.

3. All Times

And now consider the Catholic Church in time. There is nothing in the world so certain as death. Not merely the death of men but of empires, nations, races, languages and literature, Over the Pennine Chain between Lancashire and Yorkshire you can walk on the remains of a Roman road. It was made somewhere about the year 100 when the ruling power all aver Europe, North Africa, the civilised world of the West, was the Roman Empire. There were no Englishmen, no Frenchmen. There were Britons and Gauls. The English and French races so far did not exist. But the Catholic Church existed.

Empires have gone, nations risen and disappeared, races of men, Romans, Normans, Saxons, etc., vanished. The Catholic Church is there still after seeing them rise and decline.

The Church is not called Catholic for nothing. It is the only thing which has remained international and unshaken since it was founded for two thousand years. There is something quite out of the ordinary about it.

The Catholic Church is United

Now men might quite reasonably say:

"Yes, there's no getting away from the fact that the Catholic Church is universal. It exists in all nations. It is found in every century of history since it was started. But is it the same thing everywhere and all the time? Or are all these different peoples, races and generations called Catholic just because they happen to have kept the name?"

Well the test is simple. There will be real unity, real identity in the different pares of the Church and in the different ages, if we find that in all places and all times, Catholics hold the same Faith, have the same worship, obey the same authority. If those things are so then the Catholic Church is one thing and really one thing, not just a lot of different things going under the same name.

1. United in Belief

Take unity of belief. There is a little book called the Catholic Catechism. It is a summary of the Catholic Faith in question and answer form. You can take that booklet in any language you like and in every part of the world where you find Catholics you can put questions to them and you will get the same answers. There is one God. In this one God there are Three Persons. Is Christ God? Yes. Is He truly Man? Yes. Are you allowed to divorce your wife and marry another? No. Take any of the fundamental questions and the Catholic—English, Irish, Italian, American, Chinese — will give you the same answer.

Here is an example from England. A few years ago there was an enquiry conducted into people's religious beliefs in a London borough. They were asked questions about a number of religious beliefs, about whether they prayed, what was the most important thing in life, and so on. Two of the questions were: "Was Christ God? Was He born of a Virgin?"

These were put to church-goers of all denominations — as well as unbelievers. The replies even from churchgoers were very varied. "Yes, No. Undecided," etc. "But," says the investigators: "None of the Catholic church-goers were undecided about the Virgin birth or the Divinity of Christ. And this definiteness of view point among Catholics was found on other questions as well."

Of course there will be uninstructed Catholics who don't know their Faith as well as they might. But you will never find Catholic Bishops, priests or laymen who know their Faith disagreeing on essential questions of religion. So you have worldwide agreement on doctrine, belief.

2. United in Worship

Now take worship. Go into any Catholic church or chapel in the world and you will find Catholics everywhere celebrating the same Mass. Sometimes there are differences of vestments, even of language, In some parts of the world Mass is said for example in Greek or Slavonic, as well as in Latin. But everywhere you will find it is the same service in essentials. Everywhere Catholics offer Mass as the sacrifice of the True Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, really present on the altar, under the appearances of bread and wine and offered to God for the living and dead.

It is the same today. It is the same no matter how far back you go towards Christ. For example, St. Justin, a convert schoolmaster from Palestine, writing about the year A.D. 150 describes how bread and wine are offered and blessed and says:

We do not receive them as ordinary food or ordinary drink. But as by the word of God Jesus Christ our Saviour took flesh and blood for our salvation so also, we are taught, the food blessed by the prayer of the word which we received from Him this food is the flesh and blood of Jesus Who was made flesh.

Then he gives a description of the Mass as you may see it today — prayers, readings from the Scriptures, the offering of the sacrifice — even the collection! The same Mass throughout the world, throughout the ages.

Even our ordinary prayers, our spiritual reading never grows out of date. Only a few students read, say, the writings of the authors of antiquity. Their style, their very ideas, need to be re-cast, re-modelled, to suit our changed lives and ideas. But a Catholic can still use — and use with understanding –– prayers and writings that were made in the year 100, 500, 1200, any date you choose.

3. United in Authority

Finally, there is the same authority recognised and obeyed. It is well known how Catholics all over the world today look to the Pope for guidance on matters concerning faith and morals. They do today. They always have done. From where did Christianity come to England? From Rome. St. Augustine, the Benedictine monk, was sent by Pope Gregory in the year 597. Go back further. Before England was England, the ancient British Church¹ was firmly linked with Rome.

St. Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons in France, lived about the years 140 to 202. He was a disciple of St. Polycarp who had himself known St. John, Our Lord's own disciple, Irenaeus speaks of Rome as the:

"greatest. the most ancient Church, the Church known
to all men founded and set up at Rome by the two most
glorious Apostles Peter and Paul".

Then he goes on:

"With this Church because of its position of leadership and authority must needs agree every Church that is, the faithful everywhere²".

That is why those Japanese Christians when at last Japan was opened to the outside world again put as their test question when they came to find the Catholic priest who had landed at Nagasaki: "Do you obey the Pope?"

That then is the picture. Millions of men of all races and nations of all times united on a great number of essential questions. United and agreed on matters of belief and worship which affects their daily life and conduct in the most intimate manner imaginable. United in obeying the same authority for two thousand years and all over the world.

¹"The Early British Church" by Reverend Gerard Culkin, CTS, London
²As there is some discussion about the exact translation of this phrase I have chosen the version given by a non-Catholic scholar, Henry Bettenson (Documents of the Christian Church, Oxford University Press).

What Happens to the Breakaways?

Have there never been any who refused to agree? Yes indeed. There have been breaks, divisions often. Sometimes whole masses of people have broken away, set up a Church of their own, then they have split, divided and re-divided, and finally disappeared.

Take the Arians. The Arians broke away from the Church because they refused to believe that Christ was truly God. Unless you are a student you have probably never heard of them. And yet they were spread over the whole Roman Empire. They had the emperor, the court, most of the officials, nearly all the army. They were the most fashionable and most powerful sect in the world. But their sect died and the Catholic Church remained.

The Arians, the Pelagians, the Montanists, the Nestorians. How many more! Once the world echoed with their names. They rise, grow, last sometimes for hundreds of years then decline and fall away like every human institution.

But the Catholic Church remains, it is an extraordinary fact. Unique, unparalleled. No human international organisation has ever done the same.

No Human Explanation

Catholics hold that there is no human explanation. It can only be explained by the hand of God. We hold that here is found fulfilled Christ's command:

Going therefore teach ye all nations; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you

It fulfils His promise:

Behold I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world

It is the answer to His prayer:

That they all may be one as Thou Father in Me and I in Thee: that they also may be one in Us: that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me. (John xvii.)

It fulfils Our Lord's description of the vine which lives on whereas the branches which are cut off wither and die.

End of Lesson 4

Supplement A

Supplement B "That They May All Be One"

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