The Two Sides of Catholicism, Part I [pp. 96-106]

Two Sides of Catholicism.
does not date its origin from the institution of baptism. We must, therefore,
go one step further, in order to discover
the interior source of catholicity. As
has been heretofore pointed out, this
source lies in that region which we are
usually wont to designate as the Supernatural Order. Let us, therefore, make
a succinct exposition of the interior
law of development in this order.
According to the Catholic doctrine,
faith is the beginning of human salvation, the ground and root of justification,* i. e., of the supernatural life of
the soul. St. Paul designates faith
"the substance of things hoped for."t
That is to say, the beatific vision of
God, and with it the point toward
which the whole supernatural order
tends and in which it rests, has its
foundation laid in faith, and is already
in germ contained in it. Christ, and
with him the fountain of our supernatural life, dwells in us through faith.+
Is Christ, therefore, called the foundation, beside which no other can be
laid,~ then is faith recognized in the
basis of the supernatural order, because by faith we are immediately
brought into union with Christ.
Wherefore the apostle makes our participation in the fruits of the work of
redemption precisely dependent on the
condition, "If so ye continue in the
faith, grounded and settled."Il The
same portion as foundation, which
faith has in the inner life of grace in
the soul, is also accorded to it in relation to the exterior structure of the
Church. The visibility of the true
Church is only the historical embodiment of the element of the supernatural. The divine building of the
Church has for its foundation the
apostles,T that is, as the sense of the
passage evidently is, through the faith
which they preached. Very remarkable is the fbrm of expression in the
well-known saying of the apostle:
"One Lord, one faith, one baptism."**
* Trid. Sess. vi., cap. 8.
t Eph iii. 17.
II Cooss. i. 23.
** Eph. iv. 5.
Here the unity of faith is given the
precedence of the unity produced
through baptism, as being its necessary pre-requisite. The one baptism is
the bond of unity of the Church only
in the second line. Through it, namely, the fruitful germ of the one faith
in which exclusively the unity of the
Church has its root, is continually
planted in individual souls, an actual
confession of that faith being also included in the ceremony of baptism
itself.
The Church herself makes use of
language which clearly shows that she
regards faith as the deepest principle
of her being.* The Catechism of the
Council of Trent defines the Church
as " the faithful dispersed throughout
the world."t
According to St. Thomas, also, the
unity, and consequently the catholicity
of the Church, is radically grounded
in faith. The angelic doctor means
here living faith, or fides formata.
According to this view, the principle
of catholicity pervades the innermost depth of subjectivity. At the
same time it is clear how the same
comes to an historical manifestation.
This takes place in the symbol of the
Church. The faith which finds its
historical expression in the ecclesiastical symbol is to be regarded as fides
formata,+ for this reason, because it is
a confession of faith made in the name
and by the personality of the collective Church, which possesses its inward principle of unity in the fides
formata, or living faith. Moreover,
the symbol of the Church is a constant warning for those of her members who have not the grace of sanctification to make their faith living
through charity.~
In the foregoing doctrinal exposition St. Thomas has marked out for
us the path to be followed in seeking
* Concil. Lateran., iv. cap. Firqmiter: Uta.fidelium
universalis ecclesia.
t Catech. Re., pars 1, cap. x.. qu. 2.
t That is, faith made perfect by charity as it ext Heb. xi. i. ists in a person who is in the state of grace in
4 1 Cor. iii. 11. contradistinction from the faith of a sinner.~ EphL ii. 20. TRANSLATOR
~ Secunda Secundca, qu. 1. a. a. ad 3.
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