What is the Church?

[missmatch]

I am Catholic and today I had a protestant tell me that the people are the church, Im pretty sure this is not true. Ive been searching for a catholic answer as to what the church is and cant find anything… Can you help me? What is the church?

Camille

 

[Fr.Vincent_Serpa]

Hi Camille,

Well, your friend was correct as far as he or she went. The Second Vatican council in “Lumen Gentium” stated the Church is the people of God. Protestants see this as pretty much it. They see “Church” as a name for a structure-less body of people who follow Christ and believe in his divinity as the second Person of the Holy Trinity as revealed in the Bible and the Bible alone.

Catholics, on the other hand, see the Church also in terms of a hierarchical structure with definite authority given to it by Jesus in the person of St. Peter and therefore to his successors. We see in Scripture much evidence that Jesus gave much personal attention to the Apostles, preparing them to minister after he was no longer with them. “Anyone who listens to you listens to me; anyone who rejects your rejects me, and those who reject me reject the one who sent me” (Lk 10:16). There would be no reason for him to prepare them for only their lifetime. The early Church Fathers verify this. They early Church does not fall into the Protestant vision of a structure-less, sacramental-less body of believers. It was hierarchically structured and sacramental. The canon of the New Testament, on which Protestants base all their faith, is the product of this Church.

See: newadvent.org/cathen/03744a.htm

Fr. Vincent Serpa, O.P.