"What does it mean for the Church to be visible?" Editor’s comment: Whatever some may think about Archbishop Lefebvre, his thoughts, words, and deeds, it is clear that he was an enormously significant figure in the twentieth century response to Vatican II. Hence, while he is not an authority, what he thought about the Conciliar …
Introduction In the first three parts of this series, we have seen that: The Catholic Church is a perpetually visible society which must therefore consist of members whose identity is discernible by the senses;The sacrament of baptism is necessary and sufficient for constituting an individual as both a subject and a member of the Catholic …
Continue reading Membership of the Church: Part IV – Schism & Excommunication
In this part we will examine the second condition of membership, that of public profession of the true faith. In part one of this series, we saw that the Catholic Church could be defined as: “The society of men who, by their profession of the same faith, and by their partaking of the same sacraments, make up, …
Continue reading Membership of the Church: Part III – Public Profession of the True Faith
In the first part of our series on membership of the Church we discussed the Church’s perpetual visibility. We saw that the Catholic Church is a society which is always identifiable by men of good will through her four marks of unity, sanctity, catholicity and apostolicity. These marks are discernible by the senses. We further …
Continue reading Membership of the Church: Part II – Baptism
This is the first part of a series which will explore in detail the question of membership of the Catholic Church and the implications of this doctrine for the present crisis facing the Church. The Catholic Church teaches that the following, and the following only, are members of her visible body: “[those] who have been …
Continue reading Membership of the Church: Part I – Visibility