Tuesday, August 18, 2015

"adher[ing] to the Church in her catholicity"

"one has not truly adhered to the Church in her catholicity so long as he mistakes her for what a mere portion of the people of God, which is the Church, may express, and a fortiori achieve, in a particular time and place.  All one can ask of this portion is not actually and deliberately to separate itself, to cut itself off, from the Una Sancta, i.e. from the faith structure and the organic, sacramental common life in the Body of Christ.  But it is the duty of one and all, starting with 'those who seem to be something in it,' (!) [(Gal 6:3)] to work with all their might at connecting themselves to it and to connect it to the fullness and purity of the tradition entrusted once and for all to the Apostles and to their successors. Whether they do this well or poorly is their business, but it will also be the primary object of God's judgment on one and all."

     Louis Bouyer, The memoirs of Louis Bouyer, trans. John Pepino (Kettering, OH: Angelico Press, 2015 [2014]), chap. 8, p. 144-145.

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