The Institution of the Church
I. Various Opinions
1° Rationalists and Liberal Protestants — Harnack, Höffding, Sabatier, Stapfer, Ménégoz, Dean Inge, and others — assert that Christ did not found a Church in the sense of a visible, permanent religious society, since He Himself believed in the immediate approach of the Second Coming. Dean Inge, writing in the Evening Standard (December 21, 1922) on the subject of divorce, put the point bluntly: Christ, he wrote, was not legislating even for the Church, for there was no Church yet to legislate for, and none of His disciples suspected that the Church would prove to be anything more than a brief stop-gap arrangement until the Messianic Kingdom of God should arrive. Harnack and Sabatier, in the same vein, judge that the “Kingdom” Christ founded consisted only in the interior dispositions of penitence, faith, and filial love toward God.
2° Modernists — Loisy, Tyrrell, and others — hold that the Kingdom of God preached by Christ was eschatological: to be realized only after the destruction of the world, a catastrophe He supposedly expected imminently, when the Messiah would appear in the clouds of heaven. They allow that Christ formed a society from which the Church later emerged, but deny that this society is infallible — a position formally condemned among the propositions of Lamentabili.
3° Conservative Protestants do not accept the institution of a supreme and infallible authority, holding Scripture alone to be the rule of faith. Lutherans traditionally held that the true Church of Christ is invisible, though after the publication of Rothe’s Anfänge der christlichen Kirche (1837) this doctrine of pure invisibility ceased to be generally maintained even in Germany. Calvinists and Presbyterians hold that the Church is visible, but is governed by elders appointed by the people. Anglo-Catholics, for their part, generally accept Roman teaching on almost every point except the infallibility of the Pope, and Anglo-Catholic clergy and laity are notable for their earnestness and zeal — may Christ’s own words be realized in their regard before long: “other sheep I have, that are not of this fold: them also I must bring … and there shall be one fold and one shepherd.”
4° The Orthodox Greeks recognize an infallible authority residing in the collective episcopate, deny that the Roman Pontiff’s primacy of jurisdiction is of divine right, and acknowledge the authority of the first seven ecumenical councils.
5° Catholics believe that Christ instituted the Church as a hierarchical and monarchical society, of supreme authority, infallible in matters of faith and morals — an infallibility residing not merely in the collective body of bishops but in the Roman Pontiff himself, as Vicar of Christ.
Four questions accordingly require examination: (a) what was the Kingdom of God preached by Christ? (b) did He found a hierarchical and perpetual Church? (c) did He endow the Church with infallibility for the safeguarding and propagation of Divine Revelation? (d) did He give the Church visible marks?
II. The Kingdom of God Preached by Christ
1° It is a spiritual Kingdom. At the time of Our Lord, the Jews, interpreting the Messianic prophecies in a material sense, expected a temporal and national kingdom — hence Herod’s fear at the news of the Messiah’s coming (Matt. 2:3), and the crowd’s attempt, after the multiplication of the loaves, to make Jesus a king by force (John 6:15). When the Pharisees asked when the Kingdom of God would come, Our Lord replied: “the kingdom of God cometh not with observation. Neither shall they say: Behold here, or behold there. For lo, the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:20–21); and to Pilate He said plainly, “my kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36). Membership in this spiritual kingdom requires faith — “the kingdom of God is at hand: repent, and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:15) — and charity: the love of God is the greatest commandment (Matt. 22:38), the love of neighbour is likewise obligatory (Matt. 22:39), and there is an obligation to love even one’s enemies, “that you may be the children of your Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 5:44–45); “unless your justice abound more than that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:20).
2° The Kingdom of God is also external, visible, and social. It is described as a flock: “fear not, little flock, for it hath pleased your Father to give you a kingdom” (Luke 12:32) — a flock that includes the Apostles, to whom Christ said, “come ye after me, and I will make you to be fishers of men” (Mark 1:17). This society is called a “Church” (ekklēsia, the Septuagint equivalent of the Hebrew qahal), and of it Christ said: “if he will not hear [the Church], let him be to thee as the heathen and publican” (Matt. 18:17). If the Church consisted only of an interior spiritual reality, it would contain only the good; but it contains both good and bad, as the parable of the cockle shows (Matt. 13:36–50), and the Kingdom of Heaven is likened to “a net cast into the sea, and gathering together of all kind of fishes,” from which the good are separated out from the bad only at the end (Matt. 13:47–48).
3° The Kingdom of God is not merely a future or eschatological kingdom. (a) When the Pharisees asked when the Kingdom would come, Christ answered that it “cometh not with observation,” whereas His final coming in the clouds of heaven will, by contrast, come with observation, visible to all; “the kingdom of God is within you [entos hymōn, in medio vestrum]” (Luke 17:20–21) describes a present, not merely a future, reality. (b) The Kingdom of God is progressive, growing like the grain of mustard seed (Matt. 13:32); “the gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world, for a testimony to all nations, and then shall the consummation come” (Matt. 24:14); “many shall come from the east and the west” (Matt. 8:11) to share in it, while the time of its final consummation remains genuinely unknown — “of that day and hour no one knoweth, no, not the angels of heaven, but the Father alone” (Matt. 24:36). (c) The very association of good and bad within the Kingdom, noted above, proves that it cannot be a purely eschatological reality reserved for the world beyond.
The Kingdom of Christ, in short, is already present — partly hidden within the souls of the just, partly visible in the organized society of the Church — while its full consummation is reserved for heaven, after the end of the world.
III. Christ Instituted the Church as a Hierarchical and Perpetual Society
A society is a body of persons united for some specific purpose. A spiritual movement can perpetuate itself in one of two ways: either by embodying its teaching in a written book — which Christ Himself did not do — or by founding an institution to hand that teaching on. The word “hierarchy” (hiera archē) means “sacred government,” a government instituted by divine right; and the Catholic Church is precisely such a society, instituted by Christ, hierarchical and monarchical, governed by a single head possessing supreme power. Even Renan spoke of the “divine institution of the hierarchy” as a theme especially stressed by St. Luke, and Paul Sabatier characterized the conciliar decree recorded in Acts as already savouring of “hierarchical pretensions” (Renan, Les Apôtres; Sabatier, La Didache). Conservative Protestants admit that Christ gave Peter and the Apostles the power of teaching, ruling, and sanctifying the faithful, but deny that this power was given in perpetuity to their successors; Liberal Protestants admit the existence of a perpetual hierarchy, but attribute its origin not to Christ but to Christian teachers writing at the end of the first century.
1° Christ instituted a hierarchical and monarchical society, conferring on the Apostles collectively the threefold power of teaching, ruling, and sanctifying the faithful, and conferring immediately on Peter both the primacy of magisterial power and the primacy of jurisdiction.
(A) After the death of John the Baptist, once it had become clear that the Jewish leaders would reject Him, Our Lord chose twelve Apostles and devoted Himself to their training — the twelve were, in effect, the true Israel to come, the nucleus of His Church. He sent them out to preach first to the house of Israel: “go ye rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel: and going, preach, saying: The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, raise the dead … cast out devils: freely have you received, freely give” (Matt. 10:3–8; cf. Mark 6:7–13; Luke 9:1–6).
(B) At Caesarea Philippi, when Peter confessed his belief in Christ’s true identity, Our Lord made him the great promise: “thou art Peter [kēpha, “rock”]; and upon this rock [kēpha] I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven” (Matt. 16:18–19). Peter is thereby promised a primacy not merely of honour but of jurisdiction: he is to be the very foundation of the Church, he is to hold the keys of the kingdom, and his acts of binding and loosing are to have effect in heaven itself — that is, he holds the right to impose obligations in the spiritual order, the primacy of jurisdiction properly so called. The primacy of magisterial, or teaching, power is expressed with equal clarity in Christ’s words to Peter before the Passion: “Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and thou, being once converted, confirm thy brethren” (Luke 22:31–32).
(C) Toward the middle of His public life, Christ said to the Twelve collectively: “amen I say to you, whatsoever you shall bind upon earth, shall be bound also in heaven; and whatsoever you shall loose upon earth, shall be loosed also in heaven” (Matt. 18:18) — words that confer the power of binding and loosing, that is, of ruling the Church, upon the Apostolic college as a whole. It should be carefully noted, however, that to Peter alone is promised, individually, the very same authority that is here promised to the other Apostles only as members of a single body united with him. The Twelve are further promised the special assistance of the Holy Ghost in their preaching of the Gospel: “the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring all things to your mind, whatsoever I shall have said to you” (John 14:26); “he will teach you all truth” (John 16:13).
(D) After the Resurrection, the power Christ had promised was actually conferred on Peter and on the Apostles. To the Apostles as a body He gave the power of teaching, ruling, and sanctifying the faithful: “all power is given to me in heaven and in earth. Going therefore, teach ye all nations: baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:18–20; cf. Mark 16:15; Luke 24:44–49); “peace be to you. As the Father hath sent me, I also send you. When he had said this, he breathed on them; and he said to them: Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them: and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained” (John 20:21–23). On Peter alone, individually, is conferred the supreme power already promised him earlier: “Simon, son of John, lovest thou me more than these? … Feed my lambs. … Simon, son of John, lovest thou me? … Feed my lambs. … Simon, son of John, lovest thou me? … Feed my sheep” (John 21:15–17). These words were addressed to Peter alone, and confer primacy upon him: the word “feed” (boske, poimaine) denotes, in both profane and sacred usage alike, the exercise of governing power within a society, and the power in question is given here over the whole flock, since “lambs and sheep” together include every disciple of Christ, whatever his rank.
The Church is therefore hierarchical: on the Apostles collectively is conferred the power of teaching, ruling, and sanctifying the faithful; on Peter individually is conferred the primacy of both magisterium and jurisdiction. After the Ascension, Peter is seen exercising this supreme authority in the infant Church (cf. Acts 1:15ff.; 2:14; 3:6; 9:32; 10:20; 15:7, 12). St. Paul himself writes, “then, after three years, I went to Jerusalem to see Peter: and I tarried with him fifteen days” (Gal. 1:18); nor does his rebuke of Peter at Antioch (Gal. 2:11) deny Peter’s authority — Paul’s concern there was rather that Peter’s indulgence toward Jewish converts and their legal observances might turn Gentile converts away from the fulness of the Christian Faith. Paul elsewhere teaches that the Church is built “upon the foundation of the apostles” (Eph. 2:20–22), and that she is the mystical body of Christ, within which a genuine hierarchy is found (Eph. 1:22–23; Rom. 12:4–8).
2° Christ instituted a perpetual hierarchical society. “I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world” (Matt. 28:20); “you shall be witnesses unto me … even to the uttermost part of the earth” (Acts 1:8). The office of teaching, ruling, and sanctifying was accordingly passed on to the successors of the Apostles: St. Paul himself testifies that such power was conferred on Timothy and on Titus through the imposition of hands, and writes of the bishops of various churches, “the Holy Ghost hath placed you bishops, to rule the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood” (Acts 20:28). Christ wished the primacy itself to be perpetual: “thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” — for the Church is clearly indefectible, yet cannot persist as such without a stable foundation and a supreme governing power. The primacy of Peter, and the corresponding pre-eminence of the Roman Church, was acknowledged both in theory and in practice throughout the first three centuries, and was afterward taught so explicitly that serious doubt on the matter became impossible.
IV. The Testimony of Christ Regarding the Infallibility of the Church
Doctrinal infallibility implies not merely the truth of some particular statement or fact, but a divinely guaranteed source of truth as such; it differs from Inspiration, which implies a positive divine impulse to write infallibly, and from Revelation, which supposes the manifestation of some previously unknown truth. Modernists and Rationalists deny the Church any such endowment of infallibility, holding, on their view, that dogma itself must change in step with the advance of philosophy and of science.
1° Christ conferred the prerogative of infallibility on the College of the Apostles and on their successors. (A) In sending them to preach the Gospel throughout the world, He added the promise, “I am with you all days” (Matt. 28:19–20) — a special assistance that itself guarantees infallibility in their teaching of the truths of the Faith; and He adds elsewhere, “he that believeth not shall be condemned” (Mark 16:16), a warning that presupposes the reliability of what is to be believed. (B) Christ promised the College of Apostles the gift of infallibility explicitly: “I will ask the Father, and he shall give you another Paraclete, that he may abide with you for ever. The Spirit of truth … he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your mind, whatsoever I shall have said to you” (John 14:16–17, 26); “when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will teach you all truth” (John 16:13). (C) The Apostles themselves clearly understood Christ’s promises in this sense. In formulating their decrees they could write, “it hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us” (Acts 15:28); in preaching they claimed to be “witnesses of these things, and the Holy Ghost” (Acts 5:32); and in condemning error they did not hesitate to write, “though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema” (Gal. 1:8). St. Paul speaks of the Church as “the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15), no longer “children tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine” (Eph. 4:14); “therefore, brethren, stand fast; and hold the traditions which you have learned, whether by word, or by our epistle” (2 Thess. 2:14). The later Fathers, in refuting heresy, likewise argue consistently from the infallible magisterium of the Apostles and of the bishops who succeeded them, of which teaching the ecumenical councils came to be regarded as the authentic expression.
2° Christ conferred the gift of infallibility directly and immediately on Peter and on his successors. The bishops assembled at the Vatican Council, to whom this same gift of infallibility had itself been promised, solemnly declared that on Peter, and on his successors, the gift of infallibility was conferred at the very moment he received the primacy of magisterium and of jurisdiction. (A) “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18) — for if Peter, speaking ex cathedra on a matter of faith, were not himself infallible, the very foundation of the Church would lack the stability that this promise requires. (B) “I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and thou, being once converted, confirm thy brethren” (Luke 22:32) — Peter could not truly and effectively confirm the faith of his brethren if he himself could err in matters of faith, or if his own definitions required the further consent of the Church to become infallible. (C) “Feed my lambs … feed my sheep” (John 21:15–17) — to feed the whole flock of Christ in this sense itself requires the gift of infallibility.
St. Irenaeus, writing his Adversus Haereses about A.D. 180, states in Book III, chapter 3, that with the Roman Church, because of her more excellent origin and authority, every other church — that is, the faithful everywhere — must necessarily agree, since it is through this Church that the tradition handed down by the Apostles has been preserved for the faithful everywhere. From the fifth century onward, the prerogative of infallibility was affirmed with ever-increasing clarity by Popes, by the Fathers of the Church, and by councils; but already in the first four centuries the Roman Church was regarded as the centre of unity and the source of orthodoxy for the whole Church.
V. Christ Furnished His Church with Visible Marks
(A) Marks are visible signs by which the true Church of Christ is distinguished from every other visible society; they are essential properties belonging to the Church alone. The Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed (A.D. 381) names four such marks: Unity, Holiness, Catholicity, and Apostolicity. In instituting the Church as a visible society, exercising her authority visibly — in teaching, in ruling, and in sanctifying through the administration of the sacraments — Christ willed her members to be united by visible bonds: by the external profession of one and the same Faith, by external obedience to the same pastors, and by participation in the same sacraments.
1° Unity. Unity is a visible property by which the Church remains undivided in herself, in her profession of Faith, in her government, and in her worship, and is thereby differentiated from every other society. It is a direct consequence of the Church’s hierarchical and monarchical constitution, placed as she is under a single Supreme Head. Christ compared His Church to a kingdom, a city, a flock, a house — figures that all suggest unity of themselves: “every kingdom divided against itself shall be made desolate” (Matt. 12:25); “other sheep I have, that are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd” (John 10:16); and, in His solemn prayer immediately before the Passion: “holy Father, keep them in thy name whom thou hast given me; that they may be one, as we also are” (John 17:11), extending this prayer explicitly to future believers “that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that thou hast sent me … that they may be one, as we also are one: I in them, and thou in me; that they may be made perfect in one” (John 17:20–23). Unity belongs to the Church essentially, from the standpoint of her very constitutive form. Christ desired unity in three respects: (1) in the profession of Faith — “teach ye all nations … to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:19–20); (2) in government — “thou art Peter … to thee I will give the keys … feed my sheep” (Matt. 16:18–19; John 21:17); (3) in worship — unity of baptism, “baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” (Matt. 28:19), and unity of the Eucharist, “do this for a commemoration of me” (Luke 22:19). Hence it is said of the infant Church in Acts, “the multitude of them that believed, had but one heart and one soul” (Acts 4:32) — a doctrine St. Paul teaches at length in Ephesians (4:3–17), and St. John touches on as well (2 John 10–11).
2° Sanctity. Christ wished His Church to be characterized by a manifest and extraordinary sanctity. Sanctity implies innocence of life and firm union with God; a society is visibly and eminently holy if it both possesses principles and means genuinely efficacious for the attainment of sanctity, and actually shows, continuously, the fruits of an extraordinary sanctity — a high degree of virtue in many of her members, and in some a heroic virtue that visibly surpasses the natural moral capability of humanity, manifest in its effects: wholehearted love of God, great self-denial, great charity toward others. Sanctity belongs to the Church essentially, from the standpoint of her final end. Christ prayed explicitly that this mark be granted to His Church: “holy Father, keep them in thy name whom thou hast given me … sanctify them in truth” (John 17:11, 17). At the very beginning of His ministry, in the Sermon on the Mount, He had already said, “unless your justice abound more than that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:20), and, in the Beatitudes and evangelical counsels, He set a standard of virtue far higher than the common one — humility, chastity, self-denial, charity even toward enemies. To secure this sanctity He instituted the Eucharist: “the bread which I will give, is my flesh, for the life of the world … he that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath everlasting life … abideth in me, and I in him” (John 6:51–56); and He promised the Holy Ghost: “I will ask the Father, and he shall give you another Paraclete, that he may abide with you for ever” (John 14:16). He wished this sanctity to be, moreover, visible: “you are the light of the world. A city seated on a mountain cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but upon a candlestick, that it may shine to all that are in the house” (Matt. 5:14–15); “every good tree bringeth forth good fruit” (Matt. 7:17); “I have chosen you, and have appointed you, that you should go, and should bring forth fruit; and your fruit should remain” (John 15:16); “I am come to cast fire on the earth; and what will I, but that it be kindled?” (Luke 12:49). He further prophesied that the preachers of the Faith would manifest extraordinary signs both of their own sanctity and of the Gospel’s divine origin: “in my name they shall cast out devils: they shall speak with new tongues … they shall lay their hands upon the sick, and they shall recover” (Mark 16:17–18) — promises fulfilled repeatedly, as the lives of missionaries of the Faith attest across the centuries; St. Paul alludes to this same note of sanctity in Eph. 5:25–27. The sanctity of the Church will be consummated only in heaven; on earth, sinners and saints exist side by side within her, just as the cockle grows amid the wheat until the harvest (Matt. 13:30).
3° Catholicity. Christ wished His Church to be catholic, or universal, spread throughout the whole world. The word “catholicity” (kath’ holou) means simply universality. Virtual catholicity (catholicitas juris) is the Church’s inherent aptitude to spread to every nation; actual catholicity (catholicitas de facto) implies her visible, progressive diffusion, such that a notable number of the principal races of mankind should gradually come to belong to her — a progressive catholicity closely associated with the mark of unity. Catholicity belongs to the Church essentially from the standpoint of her membership, her material cause. Our Lord signified His wish that the Church be universal both de jure and de facto. As to catholicity de jure: He compares the Church to a grain of mustard seed which, once grown, “is greater than all herbs, and becometh a tree” (Matt. 13:32); “God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in him, may not perish” (John 3:16); and St. Paul writes of Christ, who “will have all men to be saved … for there is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus: who gave himself a redemption for all” (1 Tim. 2:4–6). As to catholicity de facto, ordained by Christ Himself: “you shall be witnesses unto me … even to the uttermost part of the earth” (Acts 1:8); “go ye into the whole world, and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15); “teach ye all nations … I am with you all days” (Matt. 28:19–20); “many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 8:11); and in the parable of the sower, “he that soweth the good seed, is the Son of man … and the field is the world” (Matt. 13:37–38). At Pentecost, accordingly, the disciples began at once to speak in many tongues (Acts 2:4, 8); Peter is sent by the Holy Ghost to the Gentiles (Acts 10:20); and Paul becomes the great Apostle of the Gentiles: “for as many of you as have been baptized in Christ, have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek … for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:27–28). Christ, however, foretold not an absolute and physical, but only a moral and relative, catholicity: “the light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than the light: for their works were evil” (John 3:19); “many false prophets shall rise, and shall seduce many … and because iniquity hath abounded, the charity of many shall grow cold” (Matt. 24:11–12); “this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world, for a testimony to all nations: and then shall the consummation come” (Matt. 24:14).
4° Apostolicity. Christ wished His Church to be Apostolic — to remain, throughout her history, the very same society the Apostles themselves founded. Apostolicity concerns the legitimate, public, uninterrupted succession of pastors from the time of the Apostles onward — a succession that must preserve the identity of Faith, sacraments, and rule alike, and so must be not merely material but genuinely formal succession, involving the further notes of unity and catholicity as well. This visible succession concerns above all the transmission of rule, and the mark is taken, precisely, from the standpoint of the Apostles as its efficient, instrumental cause. Apostolicity is an essential property of Christ’s Church, since He made her a hierarchical and perpetual society in which authority and jurisdiction could be handed on without interruption: “thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18) — hence any church not built upon this foundation, separated from the authority of Peter and his successors, is not the true Church of Christ. St. Paul writes to the Ephesians: “now therefore you are no more strangers and foreigners; but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and the domestics of God: built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone” (Eph. 2:19–20), and asks elsewhere, “how shall they preach, unless they be sent?” (Rom. 10:15). Accordingly, as recorded in Acts, Paul and Barnabas “ordained to them priests in every church” (Acts 14:22), and Paul writes to Titus, “for this cause I left thee in Crete, that thou shouldest … ordain priests in every city, as I also appointed thee” (Titus 1:5).
5° Conclusion. The union of these four marks — Unity, Sanctity, Catholicity, and Apostolicity — within the one Catholic Church constitutes, taken together, a great moral miracle, which proves her to be the true Church of Christ. Unity is, in this account, her formal cause; Sanctity her final cause; Catholicity her material cause; and Apostolicity her efficient, instrumental cause.
VI. The Testimony of Christ Regarding the Church Is in Complete Accord with His Preaching
Christ preached the Kingdom of God, salvation, the Eucharist, and the remission of sins — but unless some living authority exists that we can genuinely trust, how could His doctrine possibly be preserved and propagated intact across the centuries? A society, like every other society, cannot subsist for long without a supreme, living authority. Dogmas are difficult, and so easily misunderstood; precepts are demanding, and so easily neglected; sacred rites can easily slide into superstition; and Sacred Scripture itself requires a living, infallible magisterium for its correct interpretation. The testimony of Christ regarding His Church, in other words, stands in complete and necessary agreement with the rest of His doctrine.