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Hence, "holy catholic" becomes "holy Christian." [6] Catholics believe the description "one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church" to be applicable only to the Catholic Church. They hold that "Christ established here on earth only one Church" and they believe in "the full identity of the Church of Christ with the Catholic Church". While "there ...
Chapter V of the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen gentium discusses the Universal Call to Holiness:...all the faithful of Christ of whatever rank or status, are called to the fullness of the Christian life and to the perfection of charity; ...They must follow in His footsteps and conform themselves to His image seeking the will of the Father in all things.
Roman Catholic theology, reacting against the protestant concept of an invisible Church, emphasized the visible aspect of the Church founded by Christ, but in the twentieth century placed more stress on the interior life of the Church as a supernatural organism, identifying the Church, as in the encyclical Mystici corporis Christi of Pope Pius XII, with the Mystical Body of Christ. [14]
Catholic ecclesiology is the theological study of the Catholic Church, its nature, organization and its "distinctive place in the economy of salvation through Christ". [2] Such study shows a progressive development over time being further described in revelation or in philosophy .
Stained glass window in a Catholic church depicting St. Peter's Basilica in Rome sitting "Upon this rock," a reference to Matthew 16:18. The Catholic Church teaches that Christ founded only "one true Church", and that this one true Church is the Catholic Church with the bishop of Rome (the pope) as its supreme, infallible head and locus of communion. [8]
Mystici Corporis Christi (The Mystical Body of Christ) is an encyclical issued by Pope Pius XII on 29 June 1943 during World War II. Its main topic is the Catholic Church as the Mystical Body of Christ. The encyclical is remembered for its statement that the Mystical Body of Christ is the Catholic Church.
The first meaning that Catholics attach to the expression "Body of Christ" is the Catholic Church. The Catechism of the Catholic Church quotes with approval, as "summing up the faith of the holy doctors and the good sense of the believer", the reply of Saint Joan of Arc to her judges: "About Jesus Christ and the Church, I simply know they're ...
Traditional Roman Catholic theology centres the union with Christ in a substantial sense on the unity of the institutional church, past and present. "The communion of saints is the spiritual solidarity which binds together the faithful on earth, the souls in purgatory, and the saints in heaven in the organic unity of the same mystical body under Christ its head."