Holland:
The local priest said in a homily that we (the folks in the pews, etc.) are the Catholic Church. I thought the Catholic Church established by Christ was perfect and I know that I am not perfect. If we aren’t the Catholic Church then what exactly are we? I thought I knew what was going on till I heard this homily, now I am not sure.
It has become quite an erroneous fad among some Catholics (including priests) to say “We are the Church”. Rather, Christ extended in us is the Church. Thus only what is done out of this union with Christ in us is the Church, such as teaching on faith or morals by the Magisterium, the sacramental life of the Church, the acts of virtue done in grace by the faithful, above all the lives of heroic sanctity of the Saints. All this is Christ in those who cooperate with Him. It takes divine faith that the Church is this Great Mystery of union between Christ and His Body to see this; a purely sociological approach misses this entirely as does an historical/scientific approach without faith.
It is this sociological approach which presumes that the poor version of Catholicism exemplified by many “American Catholics” is one to be foisted on the faithful universally as a purer presentation of Christ teaching in and through His Church, than that specifically given us through the ones entrusted by virtue of their Apostolic Office to preserve the Faith counter what those who have embraced the secular, and spiritually-illiterate culture desire who have no authority but their own presumption.
In
Lumen Gentium 1:4 (The Dogmatic Constitution of the Church) we read: “Hence the universal Church is seen to be a people brought into unity from the unity of the Father, the Son and Spirit.” (Which, btw, was a quote from St. Cyprian of Carthage.)
Here, St. Cyprian, of course, and the 2nd Vatican Council, also, spoke of “A People” as one organic whole, not as merely the sum of the number of individuals. That is because the Church is One Mystical Person of Christ and Body in a supernatural union of Grace by the Indwelling of the Holy Spirit in three states: of blessedness in Heaven, of purification after death, of visible communion on earth. This means that Christ dwells in all and only in all that comes from Him (what He joins to Himself), but not in any of what contradicts Himself. This is why there can not be a facile identification of the Church with its visible members with all the actions of all or any of its members. All that comes from the sin of its visible members, of course, is not the Church, because it departs from union with Christ.
The opposite distortion is this “we are the Church” materially understood as one would of any other sociological grouping of humanity, which is a radical secularization of a Divine Mystery. This is why one can say that every member of the Visible Church sins, but the Church does not sin. Thus in the John Paul II’s “apology” we see clearly that he does not identify the Church herself with the sins of which her sons and daughters, however lofty their position, have committed.
continued. . .
Priests giving homilies are not attempting to teach in the ordinary sense of the word, but to bring to life the Mass readings in order to stir our hearts and souls to love of God and neighbor. So, they aren’t going to tell us everything that can be said about a topic from the pulpit, such as the full nature of the Church. That is why we are responsible for learning about such things on our own or in a study group at our parish, etc. You asked a question here in order to learn more, which I think was quite wise and sensible of you. 
