Since Christ founded only one Church and commanded that all men should join that Church in order to be saved, it is most important to discover which of the many churches that exist in the world is the one true Church. To discover this we have only to pick out the distinctive qualities of the Church as Christ founded it, and then find out which of the churches has these qualities. This process is quite similar to the modern methods of identifying a person by means of his fingerprints. No two persons have the same kind of fingerprints; and so, when we have a record of a person's fingerprints, we can find him in a group by having all make their fingerprints and then examining to see which one has the fingerprints of the person we are seeking. So too, we find in the Gospel a record of the fingerprints or marks of the true Church as Christ established it. The chief marks are unity, holiness, universality and apostolicity. And when we look for these marks or fingerprints among all the churches which claim to be established by Christ, we find that the marks are found in only one of these churches - the Catholic Church.
These marks are not the only proofs we have that the Catholic Church is the one true Church of Jesus Christ. We have another convincing argument In the many miracles that have always been wrought in the Catholic Church, in support of the Church's doctrines or at the intercession of a saint or a holy person. For example, in recent times many sick persons have been cured at the shrine of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Lourdes in France, in a manner that could not have been produced naturally. These must be wrought by God as a special favor to His Mother and to the Church which venerates her. Now, the God of truth would not work miracles for a false religion, and so the Catholic religion in whose favor these miracles take place must be true. Again, the fact that the Church has survived all kinds of obstacles and persecutions for almost twenty centuries is a proof that the Catholic Church is the Church of God since any merely human organization would have perished long ago.
Besides the marks, the Church has certain important attributes or qualities, authority to command its members, indefectibility or permanence; and, above all, infallibility in its official teachings. The claim of the Catholic Church to possess infallibility meets with great opposition from the enemies of the Church; yet, any one who believes that Christ is truly God must admit that He can give the teachers of the Church a special protection whereby they are preserved from teaching error, and the Gospel clearly indicates that He willed to do so. This privilege of infallibility is possessed in the first place by the Pope, in whom the fullness of the teaching power resides; but it is present also in the bishops, not individually but as a group united with the Pope.
One of the attributes of the Catholic Church which is much misunderstood is the necessity of the Church for salvation. The doctrine of the necessity of the Church does not mean, as some nonCatholics claim, that everyone who dies without being an actual member of the Church will be lost for all eternity. It means that Our Lord Himself made His Church a necessary means for salvation for all men, in such wise that a person must be joined to the Church at least by desire in order to be saved. Those who through no fault of their own do not realize that the Catholic Church is the one true Church of Jesus Christ, but try to serve God faithfully and love Him with their whole heart, will be saved, even though they are not actual members of the Church, because they are joined to the Church by implicit desire. But such persons are deprived of many graces which they would receive as members of the true Church. Speaking of those outside the Catholic Church, Pope Pius, in his Encyclical on the Mystical Body, said: "From a heart overflowing with love we ask each and every one of them to be quick and ready to follow the interior movements of grace and to look to withdrawing from that state in which they cannot be sure of their salvation. For even though unsuspectingly they are related to the Mystical Body of the Redeemer in desire and resolution, they still remain deprived of so many precious gifts and helps from heaven, which one can enjoy only in the Catholic Church."
Oftentimes Catholics are accused of intolerance; and in the United States, where personal rights are valued so highly, it is regarded as very wrong to be intolerant. Now, the truth is this: Catholics are intolerant toward doctrines opposed to the teaching of the Catholic Church; but they are tolerant toward the persons who hold those doctrines. Any intelligent person who examines this attitude of Catholics will admit that it is quite fair and reasonable.
When we say that Catholics are intolerant toward doctrines opposed to the teaching of the Catholic Church we mean that Catholics regard those doctrines as false. We must do this if we are honest. Since we are convinced that the Catholic religion is true and that it is the one religion established by the Son of God for all mankind, we logically hold that all other religions are erroneous, and that their existence is not in accordance with the will of Christ, who prayed that "there should be one fold and one shepherd." For this reason we try to persuade those who hold those false doctrines to examine the claims of the Catholic Church to be the one true Church of Christ.
Catholics, however, are tolerant toward persons who hold false doctrines. In other words, we believe that we are obliged to show Christian charity to all such persons, to love them as our brothers and sisters, to aid them in their necessities. We should presume that they are honest and sincere in holding their religious beliefs, and we should pray that God may bless and enlighten them. Even if some of them are unkind to us and persecute us because we are Catholics, we should not manifest a like spirit of bigotry toward them. In the United States, where our Constitution grants all religious bodies equal rights before the law, we should be most exact in conforming to this enactment Whatever rights or privileges we demand for ourselves as Catholics, we should always be willing that the same be granted to our fellow citizens of other religious beliefs.
It is indeed a great privilege to belong to the one true Church. Hence, it is one of the best works of Catholic Action for Catholics to try to persuade their nonCatholic friends to study the arguments for the truth of the Catholic religion. And Catholics themselves can never sufficiently thank God for the favor of being members of the true Church. They should remember the sublime teaching of St. Paul that the Church is a living body with Christ as its Head. "You are the body of Christ, member for member" (1 Cor. 12:27). Just as each member of the body receives vital power from the head, so we, if we are living members of the Church - that is, if we retain in our souls the life of grace - are constantly receiving supernatural power and vigor from Christ, our Head.
RESOLUTION: Thank God every day for giving you the grace of being a member of the one true Church, the Catholic Church.