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Pope Benedict XVI and Evangelization

With the uproar from the secular media regarding the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s clarification on “Responses to some questions regarding certain aspects of the Doctrine of the Church”, what Fr. Richard John Neuhaus wrote in his book, Catholic Matters, published last year by Perseus Books, can help us understand further the teaching that the “Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church”. He wrote on pages 14, 15 and 16:

We speak of people "converting to Catholicism", which is understandable enough. More accurately, one "enters into the full communion" with the Church. To say that one enters into "full" communion implies that one is already in some kind of communion with the Church that is less than full. And this is exactly what the Catholic Church teaches. Lumen Gentium means “light to the nations,” and that is the title of the crucially important document of the Second Vatican Council on how the Catholic Church understands herself. The Council’s document on Christian unity, Unitatis Redintegratio, says that all Christians who are baptized and believe in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior are “in a certain but imperfect communion” with the Catholic Church.

In this view, entering into full communion is a matter of bringing the imperfect to perfection. Other Christians may bridle at this. They don’t think they are Catholics, and they don’t take kindly to the Catholic Church’s assumption that they really are Catholics, although imperfectly so. It is hard for Catholics to explain this teaching without giving offense. In our culture, it is polite to say that all religions are more or less equal. What matters is that your religion “works for you.” Then the Catholic Church comes along and violates the protocols of polite society with this talk about perfect and imperfect, less full and more full, and even, if you would believe it, true and false. Just who does the Catholic Church think she is anyway?

Well that is the question. She (note the feminine, for the Bible calls the Church “the bride of Christ” and brides are feminine) thinks she is the Church of Jesus Christ most fully and rightly ordered through time. That is, admittedly, a heavy-duty claim. Needless to say, not everybody accepts that claim. Not by a long shot. There are more than 2 billion Christians in the world and over 1 billion of them Roman Catholic. That would seem to suggest that close to a billion Christians in the world do not accept the aforementioned claim. The Catholic Church is keenly aware of the awkwardness and potential offensiveness of maintaining the claim, but it really can’t be helped. To use another image that occurs again and again in the New Testament, the Church is the body of Christ. There is only one Christ and therefore there can be only one body of Christ. There are many churches, but finally there is only one (upper case) Church. These teachings fall into the field of theology called ecclesiology, meaning what the Church believes about the Church, which is to say what she believes about herself….

….The Catholic Church understands herself to be the gravitational center of the Christian movement through time. That may sound like unseemly boasting, but it is necessary to say it if, in fact, there is only one Christ and therefore only one Church. And so, Lumen Gentium asserts that all the Christian grace to be found outside the formal boundaries of the Catholic Church gravitates toward unity with the Catholic Church. In John 17, Jesus prays for his disciples that “they may be one.” He is praying that they may be visibly one, “so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” The point is not to argue that all Christians should become Catholic. The point is to explain, all too briefly, how the Catholic Church thinks about these matters, and to explore some of the interesting questions raised by that way of thinking. If one believes that Christ intended a continuing community of disciples, and any fair-minded reading of the New Testament leaves not doubt that he did, it seems highly improbably that he did not have in mind a form that community should take. The gospel of Jesus Christ was not just a message dropped into the maelstrom of history, anyone and everyone being free to interpret the message and organize religious associations composed of those who agree with their interpretation.

The four gospel accounts are filled with instructions by Jesus about what the disciples are to do, and about what kind of community they are to be, after he ascended to the Father. He chose apostles and, among the apostles, he chose Peter to be the center of unity…..

And you will have to buy the book to read the rest.

Catholic Matters: Confusion, Controversy, and the Splendor of Truth



Mission of the singles of the Eucharist:

Living a Eucharist Centered Life

Goals that flow from a life centered on the Eucharist:

Evangelization of the Real Presence

Commitment to Chastity

Love of Neighbor

Support of Vocations

Activities of learning and sharing