Rereading Marthaler's "The Creed": Part VI

One holy, catholic, and apostolic church

This summer I’ve been rereading Father Berard L. Marthaler’s wonderful book, The Creed: The Apostolic Faith in Contemporary Theology (AMAZON LINK), which offers a comprehensive study of the Apostles’ and the Nicene Creeds, which are the Christian Church’s foundational statements of belief. I’ve been cross-referencing Bishop Robert Barron’s study of the Nicene Creed, Light from Light (AMAZON LINK), which is a little more dense.

“And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.” (Matt. 16-18)

In reciting the Nicene Creed, we affirm our belief in “one holy, catholic, and apostolic church.” If we recite the Apostles’ Creed, however, we affirm our belief in “the holy catholic church.” Let’s think about what the two great creeds have in common and how they differ.

One Church

Jesus prayed that his followers “may be one.”¹ (John 17:22) He intended from the beginning that the Church be unitary. It is the Bride of Christ. Not the Brides of Christ.

Bishop Barron explains:

God is using the Church to draw the whole human family into the divine life. … In the Bible, God is presented consistently as a gathering force, drawing a people Israel to himself so that, through them, he might eventually gather in all the nations. (131)

Having said that, however, the Church is not a monolith. To be sure, as Marthaler observes, there is a tendency to confuse unity and uniformity.” (297) But Christ told us that “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.” (John 14:2) There is room in the Church for a certain amount of diversity, just as there are a diverse assortment of cells in a body. To be sure, they must cohere into a single body, but within that body that are many different ways of experiencing and expressing the faith.

Or, as Marthaler puts it, “Ideally the church is called to mirror the tri-unity of God, the indivisible unity that binds Father, Son, and Spirit, and at the same time acknowledges the distinctive properties of each.” (298)

Sadly, of course, Christianity long has been divided in ways that call the single body metaphor into question. As the Catechism recognizes, “large communities became separated from full communion with the Catholic Church—for which, often enough, men of both sides were to blame.” (817) Catholics accept as brothers and sisters “those who at present are born into these communities [that resulted from such separation] and in them are brought up in the faith of Christ.” (818) We pray for the ultimate “reconciliation of all Christians in the unity of the one and only Church of Christ.” (822)

We are thus gladdened by the ecumenical strides that have been made, especially in the post-Vatican II period.

A Note on Crossing the Tiber

In addition to great ecumenical efforts between the various churches, the unity of the church is also effected by individuals. As an adult convert to Catholicism from a sort of generic Protestantism, I have found inspiration in stories of others who have made the same journey:

• Thomas Howard, Evangelical is not Enough (AMAZON LINK)

• Evangelical Exodus: Evangelical Seminarians and Their Paths to Rome (AMAZON LINK)

• Scott & Kimberly Hahn, Rome Sweet Home: Our Journey to Catholicism (AMAZON LINK)

• Stephen Ray, Crossing the Tiber: Evangelical Protestants Discover the Historical Church (AMAZON LINK)

Holy

We know that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23 KJV) The Catechism thus recognizes that “All members of the Church, including her ministers, must acknowledge that they are sinners. In everyone, the weeds of sin will still be mixed with the good wheat of the Gospel until the end of time.” (827)

The priest abuse scandals of the last few decades have brought home that this is just as true of the highest officials of the Church as well as the laity. But, as Bishop Barron observes, “the holiness of the Church … is not dependent upon the vibrant sanctity and moral excellence of the baptized” or the lack thereof. (134)

The Catechism thus also teaches that:

... the Church gathers sinners already caught up in Christ’s salvation but still on the way to holiness: The Church is therefore holy, though having sinners in her midst, because she herself has no other life but the life of grace. If they live her life, her members are sanctified; if they move away from her life, they fall into sins and disorders that prevent the radiation of her sanctity. (827)

In other words, as Marthaler puts it, “The church’s holiness is the expression of divine love that will not allow itself to be defeated by human willfulness and weakness.” (302)

Catholic

Growing up in a Protestant church, I rarely recited the Nicene Creed (for reasons discussed below). Instead, we mainly used the Apostles’ Creed. Even so, having all too often been taught that Catholics were not saved Christians and that the Catholic Church was not a Christian church (I ran into a lot of the execrable Jack Chick tracts in those days), I thought it odd that we would recite a creed affirming that we were “catholic.”²

Of course, I later learned that there is an important difference between small-c and large-c catholic. The former does not mean Roman Catholic. It simply means universal. In turn, the unity and, hence, the universality of the church is inherent in The Great Commission:

Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. (Matt. 28: 19-20)

Apostolic

As I grew older, I realized that the real stumbling block for most Protestants is not the word catholic but the word apostolic. Apostolic succession is the claim that modern bishops are part of an unbroken, continuous line of ministerial authority and leadership. Their authority traces back directly to the original 12 Apostles of Jesus Christ through the laying on of hands in ordination.

The Catechism thus teaches that, “in order that the full and living Gospel might always be preserved in the Church the apostles left bishops as their successors. They gave them their own position of teaching authority.” (77)

In order that the mission entrusted to them might be continued after their death, [the apostles] consigned, by will and testament, as it were, to their immediate collaborators the duty of completing and consolidating the work they had begun, urging them to tend to the whole flock, in which the Holy Spirit had appointed them to shepherd the Church of God. They accordingly designated such men and then made the ruling that likewise on their death other proven men should take over their ministry. (861)

Just as the office which the Lord confided to Peter alone, as first of the apostles, destined to be transmitted to his successors, is a permanent one, so also endures the office, which the apostles received, of shepherding the Church, a charge destined to be exercised without interruption by the sacred order of bishops." Hence the Church teaches that "the bishops have by divine institution taken the place of the apostles as pastors of the Church, in such wise that whoever listens to them is listening to Christ and whoever despises them despises Christ and him who sent Christ. (862)

Christ governs her [the Church] through Peter and the other apostles, who are present in their successors, the Pope and the college of bishops. (869)

To be sure, the Roman Catholic church is not the only church that accepts the principle of apostolic succession. The various Orthodox churches, the Anglican church, and Scandinavian Lutheran churches all believe their current bishops are successors of the apostles.

But Protestant denominations descended from the Reformation reject the notion of apostolic succession. They believe that the apostolic office ended with the death of St John (who they believe to be the last surviving of the original apostles).

Although most Protestants claim that the Bible does not teach apostolic succession, and it admittedly is true that apostolic succession is elaborated in the Tradition, there are in fact biblical bases for it. In Acts 1:21-26, for example, the remaining disciples elected Matthias to the office of apostle, demonstrating their ability to appoint successors. In 1 Timothy 1:6 and 4:14, Paul reminds Timothy of how the latter had been appointed as a bishop through the laying on of hands.

There is also the evidence of the Church Fathers, as Thomas Howard explains:

The history of the early Church makes clear that they all accepted this picture [of an apostolic lineage] and that these bishops, all around the Mediterranean as the gospel advanced, recognized each other as sharing in the unique apostolic ministry. The Church was “one” under them, scattered as the churches were, inasmuch as teaching and discipline had to be agreed upon by these bishops in council.

Conclusion

In his General Audience of June 14, 2000, Saint Pope John Paul II expounded at some length on the meaning of the phrase “one holy, catholic, and apostolic church,” breaking down the four component parts.

He concluded:

The one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church is the People of God, the Body of Christ and the Temple of the Holy Spirit. These three biblical images point to the Trinitarian dimension of the Church. In this dimension are found all disciples of Christ, who are called to live it ever more deeply and in an ever more intense communion. … In the Church, then, we find a magnificent epiphany of Trinitarian glory. Let us therefore accept the invitation which St Ambrose extends to us: "Rise, you who were lying fast asleep.... Rise and hurry to the Church: here is the Father, here is the Son, here is the Holy Spirit"

1. As always, unless otherwise indicated, Biblical quotations are taken from the Revised New American Bible, which is available online at the USCCB website.

2. Marthaler observes that “some confessional documents of the Protestant Reformation” substituted the word Christian for the word catholic. (305) Martin Luther’s Commentary on Galatians, for example, states: “In the Apostolic Creed we confess: ‘I believe in the holy Christian Church.’”