Categorized quotes on Church authority, with some commentary
The internal structure of the Church
Cajetan
Re: communion of the believers:
“Since the communion between believers consists in both giving and receiving, their interior communion will entail both sides of this exchange. They give of their merits, prayers, and suffrages before God as intercession and aid for the benefit of others. They receive by the help of others gifts of grace and increase of grace, and the protection of God sheltering them from evil and increasing the good things in their lives. There is a twofold cause at the origin of these spiritual aids. At times they arise directly from an individual’s loving concern, as when a person living in charity prays according to his individual intention on another’s behalf, or does a good work or some penance for this person, and so obtains for him the gift of grace, increase of grace, protection against temptation, or the like. But at other times help is given by way of an institution, or action of the Church, as when by masses and by other official forms of worship people are helped toward doing good or avoiding evil.” (Cajetan 2011, 92)
This goes towards the positive work one expects of a member of the Church, as a member. Individual good works and personal prayer are a constituent part of the treasury of grace in the Church.
“Hence, concerning what a person receives there is no fundamental difference between the interior communion of direct sharing in love and the interior communion by way of the action and institution of the Church.” (Cajetan 2011, 93)
In general, Cajetan’s discussion on excommunication (see Cajetan 2011, pp 94-95) is interesting for insisting on the connection between external membership in the Church and internal graces.
Satis cogitum
“For this reason the Church is so often called in Holy Writ a body, and even the body of Christ -”Now you are the body of Christ” (I Cor. xii., 27)-and precisely because it is a body is the Church visible: and because it is the body of Christ is it living and energizing, because by the infusion of His power Christ guards and sustains it, just as the vine gives nourishment and renders fruitful the branches united to it. And as in animals the vital principle is unseen and invisible, and is evidenced and manifested by the movements and action of the members, so the principle of supernatural life in the Church is clearly shown in that which is done by it.” (Leo XIII 1896, p 3)
“The union consequently of visible and invisible elements because it harmonizes with the natural order and by God’s will belongs to the very essence of the Church, must necessarily remain so long as the Church itself shall endure.” (Leo XIII 1896, p 3)
“Furthermore, the Son of God decreed that the Church should be His mystical body, with which He should be united as the Head, after the manner of the human body which He assumed, to which the natural head is physiologically united. As He took to Himself a mortal body, which He gave to suffering and death in order to pay the price of man’s redemption, so also He has one mystical body in which and through which He renders men partakers of holiness and of eternal salvation. God”hath made Him (Christ) head over all the Church, which is His body” (Eph. i., 22-23). Scattered and separated members cannot possibly cohere with the head so as to make one body. But St. Paul says: “All members of the body, whereas they are many, yet are one body, so also is Christ” (I Cor. xii., 12). Wherefore this mystical body, he declares, is “compacted and fitly jointed together. The head, Christ: from whom the whole body, being compacted and fitly jointed together, by what every joint supplieth according to the operation in the measure of every part” (Eph. iv., 15-16). And so dispersed members, separated one from the other, cannot be united with one and the same head. “There is one God, and one Christ; and His Church is one and the faith is one; and one the people, joined together in the solid unity of the body in the bond of concord. This unity cannot be broken, nor the one body divided by the separation of its constituent parts” (S. Cyprianus, De Cath. Eccl. Unitate, n. 23).” (Leo XIII 1896, p 4)
“Wherefore Jesus Christ bade all men, present and future, follow Him as their leader and Saviour; and this, not merely as individuals, but as forming a society, organized and united in mind. In this way a duly constituted society should exist, formed out of the divided multitude of peoples, one in faith, one in end, one in the participation of the means adapted to the attainment of the end, and one as subject to one and the same authority.” (Leo XIII 1896, p 10)
The Church as a Perfect Society
Satis cogitum
“God indeed even made the Church a society far more perfect than any other. For the end for which the Church exists is as much higher than the end of other societies as divine grace is above nature, as immortal blessings are above the transitory things on the earth. Therefore the Church is a society divine in its origin, supernatural in its end and in means proximately adapted to the attainment of that end; but it is a human community inasmuch as it is composed of men. For this reason we find it called in Holy Writ by names indicating a perfect society.” (Leo XIII 1896, p 10)