Religion is a relation of man to God, and a true religion must be true to both. God will treat man as man is, and man will react to God's act as man is.
21.1.
Almost the first thing we see about man is that he is not an isolated unit. He is a social being bound to others, both by unsatisfied needs and by powers, which must remain unused, except in relation to other men. It would be strange if God, having made man social, should ignore the fact in His own personal dealings with man. Treating man as an isolated independent unit, would be as monstrous in religion, as it would in any other aspect of human life. The one being, not likely to do this is God, who made man what he is, and what He wanted him to be. A religion, that consists in an individual relation of each person directly to God, would be no religion for man. A social being requires a social religion. In that social religion, the individual will have his own religious needs and experiences. They will be within, and not external to or a substitute for, his approach to God, and God's approach to him in union with other men.
Individualist religious theories, even among Christians have never been able to carry out the full logic of their individualist theory. Their nature, as men, stood solidly in their way, which in religion they have had to get from other men. The Bible Christian, despising priesthood and minimizing Church, has yet had to fall back on the Bible. The Bible, given to us by God, is given through men, who under His inspiration wrote it. A religion, where the soul finds and maintains a relation with God with no dependence on men, is impossible. What makes it impossible is the nature God gave man. The question is whether religion will do the utmost to elude the social element in man's nature, or will wholly accept and glory in the social element. A social element, given by God, to be used to the utmost in religion for the rest of man's life. In giving man the religion of the Kingdom, God showed His answer.
Christ did not leave His followers, at their discretion to form their own groups, or to remain isolated. He banded them into a society, a Church. What the Jews had been, the Church now is. We remember Moses' words: "This is the blood of the covenant." But now we have Christ's words: "This is My blood of the new covenant."
Now there is a new covenant and a new people, not just millions of redeemed individuals, but a people. The brotherhood of every Christian with Christ, involves the brotherhood of all Christians with one another. His normal way of giving them His gifts of truth and life was to be through the society. The whole Christian life was not to be a solitary relation of each soul to Christ, but of each to all in Christ. This is what the Apostles' Creed means by the Communion of Saints. In solidarity with other men, we fell in Adam and rose again with Christ; in the same solidarity we live the new life.
God can and does give man what he individually needs. The great needs of the soul are not peculiar to the individual, but the same for all. There is the need for the Life of Christ, that we might have more abundantly: the need for Knowledge, knowledge of what God is and what man is; and of the goal of life and how we are to attain it. It is through the society, that God offers to all men the spiritual gifts by which these common needs are supplied. The relation of Christians, with one another, is essential in their relation with Christ. They are related to Him not one by one, but in virtue of their membership of His Kingdom.
21.2
The close correspondence of religion, with the nature of man, is continued in every detail of the provision God made for the communication of His gifts of truth and life. The mind of man is capable of knowing reality and needs to know reality. It is of the nature of man, to will his action, according with what he knows. His eternal destiny depends upon the choices he makes. Light is essential for his proper operation as man. Man, not only needs knowledge; he is capable of astonishing energy, and even astonishing sacrifice in the pursuit of it. Within the Kingdom, this side of man's nature is superbly provided for. There is no limit to the possibility of man's growth in knowledge in the light. This growth is not by spoon-feeding, but by an intellectual effort, which will call into play every muscle his mind has. If Christ came to save men, He certainly did not to save them trouble. It is not part of His purpose to do for men what they can very well do themselves, but only what they cannot. As in the act of atonement, the humanity of Christ gave all that humanity had to give. The divinity of the person supplied only what human nature could not give, in the matter of truth, and in the matter of life too. God supplies what man cannot, but expects man to do the utmost that he can.
There are certain things that the mind of man cannot compass. By thinking, we cannot know what is in the mind of another, or what some place is like that we have not visited. We must either be told by someone who knows, or remain ignorant. This is why God has given men His revelation on what He had in mind when He created man. On what awaits us after death; and on what kind of action on earth will bring us to our true destiny. There is a multiplicity of such truths which man could not find, and God has supplied them. The Kingdom came into being with an overflowing treasury of them. All the truths contained in the revelation of God are written down in Scripture (men inspired to write the books of the New Testament), or held securely in the mind of the Apostles securely. Our Lord promised that the Holy Spirit would bring them all things He had taught them. Given this rich treasure of truths, the minds of Christians could work on them by close study in their direct statement, by meditation on the implications in any given piece of truth, and on its relation to other truths. Along with this is an intimacy which comes almost unawares from living by the truths, from prayer and from contemplation. The mind of man could make vast progress, not adding to the truth, but seeing it more profoundly, more richly and vitally. It could find new ways of stating the truths, to get more light from them and bring more of life within the circle of their light. The mind of man could not know with absolute certainty, if all its gains were in fact gains, or if some admixture of error might have crept in. Men made statements, which other’s thought to be false. There was much controversy, as one man would seem to succeed, at another time another. The mind of man has no faculty for settling such questions with certainty or finality. Human minds, even the most brilliant, are capable of error. One mind can be better than another, but none is perfect. If God had given men a deposit of truth and left it to their mercy, there would soon have been no certainty of truth left in the world. It is vital for some truths that certainty should be possible. Since this certainty cannot be provided by man. God saw to it.
This is the whole point of the doctrine of infallibility. It is important to be clear on this. God made His Church infallible. In one sense it is surprising to see how little this means, yet how totally effective this little is. When we say the Church is infallible, we mean the Bishops, for they are, in the fullest sense, successors of the Apostles. Their infallibility means simply that whatever is taught as to the revelation of Christ by the Bishops of the Church cannot be wrong: God will not allow it. This does not mean that each individual Bishop is prevented by God from teaching error, or that particular groups of Bishops might not teach error. It means that when any teaching by the Bishops of the Church is the teaching of the episcopate, then we can know that this teaching is true. If they teach that something it is so, it is so. If they teach that something is false, it is false. This is not by their power, but by God's power.
A situation might arise when it would be difficult to tell with certainty the common teaching of the episcopate throughout the world. It might be due to some problem in theology newly posed and too urgent to be left to theological discussion. A definite statement which is certainly true, is needed, to address any dispute or doubt, on what the episcopate throughout the world teaches on the matter. This is a situation of action for the infallibility of the Pope. Just as the Apostles had their successors, the Bishops, Peter has his successor, the Bishop of the See of Rome. The Pope is endowed with that same infallibility with which God has endowed the Church. This is the same infallibility whereby God safeguards the Bishops, as a body, and the Bishop of Rome, as head of the body, from teaching error to His Church. The Pope learns his doctrine like anyone else. No hidden source of doctrine is available to him, and not available to any other citizen of the kingdom. God sees to it, that when the Pope gives the Church a definition of faith or morals on the revelation of Christ, there will be no error in it. If the Pope defines a thing as so, it is so. If he defines it as false, it is false.
This is a tiny gift. In a sense, it gives nothing at all. By his infallibility, the Pope acquires no truth. The truth that he infallibly teaches was acquired in the ordinary way of learning with ordinary or extraordinary effort. Infallibility does not provide the truth that is in his definition; it accounts only for the absence of error possibly in his definition. As the human mind struggles for more light, infallibility, from Church or Pope, does not save the mind troubles, and does nothing the mind cannot do for itself. It does guarantee the mind true findings and rejects its false findings. The result: the thinker has the luxury of thinking; yet the truth is safe.
Infallibility is God's device to make it possible for the human mind to exercise its activity on His revelation without destroying the revelation in the process. The preservation of what God has revealed is primary, incomparably more important than any conceivable mental activity. The revelation provides truth which man cannot find himself but must have to live intelligently.
Man, could not be given truths to live by, but not think about. Mental activity on the revelation of God has to be. We have seen logically and historically, that mental activity without the infallible teacher, could lead only to chaos. The Bible, written by men under the inspiration of God, is a marvelous repository of God's revelation, but cannot defend itself. If men differ on what any of its teachings mean, it cannot intervene to settle the difference. The process would end in chaos, not acceptable. Free inquiry and discussion with no safeguarding infallibility, have not produced chaos in the physical sciences. If they have not produced actual chaos, they have produced multitudinous error, only slowly corrected. The correction often turns out to be only an error in a different direction. This is tolerable in the physical sciences, but not in religion. The truths of religion are the indispensable minimum, man needs to live by. Errors of science tend to correct themselves, as experience provides tests showing false theories are shown to be false. The decisive testing in religion takes place after death, where we on earth cannot see it.
Given the immense difference of opinion on the meaning of every teaching Christ gave, there is no way of settling the difference. No way of knowing with certainty what Christ means, unless on earth a living teacher can settle it, without the possibility of error. No other way is even suggested for attaining certainty as to what Christ meant. And what He meant is what matters.
21.3
Truth is a great gift, given to us by Christ through His Church. Life is the other. Both have the same close contact with human nature; in the way life works in us, when we have It, and the channels through which it comes to us. In order to live the life of Heaven to which man is destined, he needs new powers of knowing and loving in his soul, over and above the natural powers of his intellect and will. A new principle of life and of operation, must be given to his soul. This new life is meant primarily to enable him to live in Heaven, yet is given to him while he is still on earth. Its acquisition and preservation are man's principal business on earth. Even without its full flowering in the direct vision of God, its effect on the soul is still very great. It elevates the intellect to the level of faith, and the will to the levels of hope and charity. It is not a gift given once for all. It may be lost and restored, and more vital it may be increased. While we live, there is no limit to the possibility of the growth of this life. It is a result of the energizing of God's life in our souls; and precisely because God's life is infinite, there is no limit to the increase of its energizing in us. Only the limit of our willingness to open ourselves to it.
Christ meant the life to come to us in Baptism. We are to be born again of water and the Holy Spirit. Life cannot be in us, unless we eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood. At the Last Supper He changed bread into His body and wine into His blood, and gave them to the Apostles. At the same time giving the Apostles the command, and therefore the power, to do likewise for us. We have seen how He gave the Apostles the power to forgive sins, restoring life to the soul which was lost from sin. Since the power to forgive was paired with the power to withhold forgiveness, the minister of the power must be told what the sin was. This is so the restoration of life was made consequent on the material action, by which one man told another his sins. Baptism, Eucharist and Forgiveness we see in the Gospels. In the earliest days of the Church in action, we find another way by which life is given: "Is one of you sick? Let him send for the presbyters of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the Lord's name. Prayer offered in faith will restore the sick man, and the Lord will give him relief; if he is guilty of sins, they will be pardoned." (James 5:14)
Two other ways, used by the Apostles, were clearly taught to them by Christ. The appointment of successors and the imposition of hands. We have seen they were to have successors, until the end of time, with the same powers to convey Christ's gifts to the souls of men. Also, the New Testament story of the early Church is filled with the accounts of this communication of priestly power, and always in the same way, by the imposition of hands.
Baptism, Penance, Blessed Eucharist, Confirmation, Holy Orders and Last Anointing are evident from Scripture. There is enough in Scripture for the Church's statement that there was a seventh sacrament, established like these by Christ, the sacrament of Matrimony. What is to be noted in all seven is the combination of the spiritual gift with some material thing, used as the vehicle, by which the gift is brought to us. We have bread and water, wine and oil, the imposition of hands, the utterance of our sin and the union of a man and woman. God is treating man according to what man is. We have already seen, that because man is a social being, God has made a social religion for him. We see now that because man is a union of spirit and matter, God treats him as both. The sacraments are a union of spirit and matter, because they are God's approach to man, and are what man is. Religion is the act of man, the whole man, soul and body. The body is not as important as the soul, in life generally or in religion. It is truly a part of man, as the soul is, and has a part to play both in life generally and in religion.
The supernatural does not ignore the natural, or substitute something else for it. It is built on or into the natural. Sanctifying grace does not provide us with a new soul, but enters the soul we already have. Nor does it give the soul new faculties, but elevates the faculties that are already there, giving the intellect and will new powers of operation. God as Sanctifier does not destroy or bypass the work of God as Creator. What God has created. God sanctifies. All this means that the more fully man is man, the better his nature serves for the supernatural that is to be built on it. Whatever damages man as man, damages him in his religious relation to God. His integrity as man requires a balance between spirit and matter. He finds this balance most difficult to keep and calamitous to lose. If the body becomes dominant, he is in danger of becoming a beast. Spiritual men have another danger, a spiritual pride leading to contempt for the body, which can bring them pretty close to the Devil. The sacramental principle, continually reminding man of his body, will keep his feet firmly on the ground and destroy pride in its strongest root. Sanctifying his body will make it the fit partner of a soul indwelt by God.
The giving of supernatural life by way of sacrament, corresponds with the structure of man. Observe how precisely this particular system of sacraments corresponds with the shape of man's natural life. Ordinarily we can count upon four determining points in human life. A man is born and a man dies, in between he grows up and he marries, or as a Catholic he may choose the direct ministry of God. For these points and their five possibilities there are five sacraments. A man is reborn by Baptism, which gives him a place in the Kingdom; growing out of childhood there is Confirmation, which gives him a function in the Kingdom. For marriage there is Matrimony, for ministry there is Holy Orders, this latter bringing a fuller function in the Kingdom and for death there is the Last Anointing. As life flows from one point to the next, there are two other needs, daily bread and healing in sickness. In the supernatural life there are sacraments for these two, completing the seven. The Blessed Eucharist provides our daily bread; and the sacrament of Penance our healing in the soul's sickness.
The Blessed Eucharist differs from the others, as by the others we receive life from Christ, and by the Blessed Eucharist we receive Christ Himself. The Blessed Eucharist is the basis of them all. It is the food of the soul and without food there can be no continuance in life. The other sacraments take the Blessed Eucharist for granted. Baptism is a preparation for it, and in another way is Penance. The others develop its possibilities.
Observe how the life of the early Church, depicted in the Acts of the Apostles, is filled with it.
At the Last Supper Our Lord took bread, and gave thanks, and broke it, and said. "Take, eat;
this is My Body which is to be given up for you. Do this for a commemoration of Me." And so with the cup, when supper was ended. This cup, He said, is the New Testament, in My blood.
Do this whenever you drink it, for a commemoration of Me." (l Cor. 11:24-25)
He had changed bread into His body so that it was no longer bread, though it had all the appearances and properties of bread, but was really His Body; and the same with the wine. And He had told the Apostles: "Do this for a commemoration of Me." The “this” which they were to do, in memory of Him, was what He had done. They too, were to change bread, now no longer bread but the body of Our Lord; and wine, now no longer wine but the blood of Our Lord. Christians were to receive Our Lord's body and blood from their hands as from Christ's hands.
St. Paul insists most urgently upon the reality of what we receive: "Whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord." (l Cor. 11: 27)
It is the living Christ we receive. The bread ceases to be bread, becoming His body and the wine ceases to be wine, becoming His blood. Death has no more dominion over Him, so where His body and blood are, He wholly is, body and blood and soul and divinity. If we receive either, we are receiving the whole Christ. And receive Him we must, for He is the food of our life.
21.4
It is clearly necessary for the Kingdom to have teachers and ministers of the sacraments. Until the end of time, men will need Christ's gifts of truth and life, as He has chosen to dispense them through men. Christ, our High Priest, has offered the totally effective sacrifice, and a continuance of sacrifice with Priests, as it is men through whom Christ is offering sacrifice. It is He Who is teaching through teachers, and giving life through ministers of the sacraments. Teachers of the Church are not adding to His teaching, ministers are dispensing no life but His, and priests are offering no new sacrifice. (see Rev. 5:9-10 & Mal. 1:11)
21.5
To know the Church of Christ, we must study its actuality, as history shows it. It brings us to a deep understanding of the nature of the human society on earth, in which Christ has chosen to live and operate in His followers. The society is a true human society. In order to be a society, it has to have officials and authority, and Christ has given His society, officials with authority. It is through them that He gives the gifts of life and truth, and preserves the unity of the society. As ultimate custodian of the sacraments, which convey the life, and the teachings, which convey the truth and ultimate authority for the preservation of unity, Christ uses the Pope. All these gifts come through the society not from it. They are from Christ, as is their value, not from the society He has chosen, and has guaranteed to give them. For these purposes, the officials (Pope included) represent Christ. Representing Christ, there is no defect in them.
With no error given to us as truth, the sacraments retain their integrity. Outside their representative capacity, the officials (Pope included) are simply themselves, and must answer to God for their conduct like anyone else. The gifts we get from God through them, in their unique capacity, are enormous in value. Once we are sure that God has chosen to use them, it would be sheer impertinence to suggest that He should give us gifts so vast in any other way.
This is logical, but leaves a troubling doubt. Would God use as His representatives, even for limited purposes, some of the men whom we find as priests, bishops or Popes? The answer lies in the second and less graspable issue of the Church's nature as a true human society. Men do not become sainted just by entering it. Their whole life in it is meant to be a striving towards sanctity. Men do not cease to be men by entering it. They retain their free will; and the capacity to fix it on any object deemed desirable. At any moment the human society, the Church on earth, consists of millions of souls at various stages on the road leading to sanctity. Some have attained it, still struggling to remain in it; some close to it, some not so close, some seeming to have given up the struggle, and some even seeming to be headed viciously away from it. This is the reality of the human society at any given time. It is made up in a proportion, that changes from moment to moment, of men headed for Heaven, men headed for Hell, and men apparently not headed anywhere. And it is through this society that Christ is operating.
He guarantees that the truth, the life and the unity shall not fail. He fulfills His guarantee without doing violence to the nature of man, or to the nature of human society. Having chosen to act on men through a society of men, Christ is faithful to the logic of His choice. The men remain men; and the society remains a society of men. They do glorious and ghastly things. The meaning of the Church, is that Our Lord unites men to Himself through humanity, not through an ideal humanity, but through the humanity that actually exists.
There is a kind of spiritual man who finds all this intolerable. His every instinct is revolted at the thought of Christ's working in and through this mixed crowd of human beings. He would prefer a direct relation with God, excluding our humanity, or make his own choice of the men for God to choose. It is as though the man, Christ healed by the touch of His spittle, had asked to be healed some other way. One cannot be this delicate about the gifts of God. We do not join the Church for the company, but for the gifts.
Most people get into the Kingdom by being born of citizens. There is no way of testing babies for their fitness to be Catholics. Those who join later in life have to pass no intelligence test, or character test. Provided they know what the Church is and wish to join, they are admitted, despite their defects of intelligence or virtue. The truth is that Christ has chosen to unite to Himself and work through, not an elite, but an unexclusive cross-section of humanity. He solicits it, aids it and showers gifts upon it, but He does not force it. It responds to Him, as the individuals in it will, sometimes better, sometimes worse. It acts according to what it is, by its co-operation with His gifts. He does not interfere with it, beyond carrying out His guarantee that the truth, the life and the unity shall abide in it. He does not appoint the officials after the first, or even the Pope. He has left the Church of Rome to choose its own rulers. The mode of election has varied, but at all times the human electors have been true electors, unforced by God. The Cardinals pray to the Holy Spirit for guidance, as Christians pray for guidance in every action. According to the sincerity and integrity of the prayer, it is answered: no less: no more.
Anyone knowing the state of Europe in the nineteen centuries of the Church's existence would be prepared for any possible character in the Popes. He will find: anything and everything. The electors choose their man. He is consecrated Bishop of Rome. God makes him infallible. God will not let him teach the Church anything that is erroneous, and so safeguards his office. The elected man remains a man. He has his own soul to save and struggle to save it, like any other Catholic. Being Pope does not of itself help him in the struggle, or guarantee that he will save his soul. The Pope is a man, and men do not get that guarantee. The guarantee is not teaching the Church error. The gifts of Life and Truth, of which his office is the custodian on earth, shall not fail. The office of Pope is not for the advantage of the Pope, but for the Society.
This twofold nature of the Church, a society of human beings with Christ operating in and through it, presents the same puzzle and scandal to the onlooker, as the twofold nature of Christ Himself, a true human nature assumed and made His own by a Person of divine nature. Seeing Christ bleeding, thirsting and dying, the onlooker would feel certain that this a mere man with the limitations of a man. Seeing Him raising others from the dead and Himself raised, he would feel that this must be God. There is a similar double effect with the Church. It is Christ Himself living in men. For the teaching of truth, the promulgation of the moral law and the life-giving work of the sacraments, it is perfect. Apart from the field of operations, safeguarded by the Founder, the Church's actions and policies will be affected by the limitations and defects of its human members. The first field is all that God has promised. If He gives more, it is over and above the bargain. We are not entitled to expect it. He does no doubt give more. It would be hard to follow the Church's history without the recurrent feeling that we are in the presence of something more than human. Something that human powers and purposes cannot wholly explain. Some intervention of God, over and above the strict terms of the guarantee.
Consider now, the men chosen to be Popes. You will find everything in the Popes, pretty well every sin, and pretty well every virtue that is to be found among men. The mass of sheer sanctity and sheer human greatness seems beyond any human average. The number of "unworthy" Popes, even judged severely, is tiny compared to the total. Our Faith is rooted in Christ, not in the human instruments He uses. In a given age a Catholic might revere the reigning Pope and rejoice in his policies, providing an extra stimulation; or might also find the Pope's life unedifying or his policies unpleasing, which would be depressing. This is not the substance of our Catholicity. In the Church, of which the Pope is the earthly ruler, the primary matters are the grace of the Sacraments, the offering of the Sacrifice, the certitude of the Truth, the unity of the Fellowship, and Christ in Whom all these are.
What has been said about the Popes could be said about the mass of Catholics. Every sin that is found outside the Church will be found inside. The proportion of virtue to sin, if it could be measured, would likely be found to be very different. An individual Catholic might be less pleasing to God than a non-Catholic. The stream of truth and grace, flowing through every channel that Christ made to carry the flow to men's souls, does not go for nothing. To form some notion of the richness of the stream, we must look not at Catholics making no use of it, or at good average Catholics, but at the Saints. To know how wet the rain is, do not judge by someone who went out into it with an umbrella. Most of us are like that in relation to the shower of truth and life. We do not give ourselves to it wholly, but set up protections against the terrifying down-rush of it. The Saints have gone out into it stripped. There, but for resistance to the grace of God, goes every one of us.