Indefectibility of the Church

INDEFECTIBILITY OF THE CHURCH. - A supernatural property of the true Church, by which it will remain, until the end of the world, just as Jesus Christ instituted it. This concept includes: a) the perpetual duration or perpetuity of the Church; b) the per-

© Ioannis Britanici Brixiani Regulæ ad infinitumæ
Darii Hippolyti & Pòponii Ioanis Maria filiopsuog.

Grammar is the art by which the correct manner of speaking and the correct manner of writing is grasped. An art, moreover, is a body of knowledge, doctrine, or practice acquired: or an art is a power effecting its own order.

Grammar, moreover, is interpreted as literature: and a grammarian is a man of letters, from ton grámaton, that is, from letters. For from letters syllables are made: from syllables, words: from words, speech: so that the foundation of grammar is established.

The parts of grammar are four: letter, syllable, word, and speech: as it were literature. S. syllables. Sci. word, as I write: speech, as "I write: he destroyed Carthage." © A letter is the smallest part of a composite sound: that is, that of which it consists in the composition of letters, or a sound indivisible which can be written, called a letter because it shows the path to reading by its strokes, or from the lines which are on the page on which the letters themselves are written, or because written things can be erased. © A letter, moreover, differs from elements. For elements are the pronunciations themselves. Notes, however, are their letters. By abuse, nevertheless, letters are called elements, and elements letters. © Letters, moreover, are called elements because, just as those coming together perfect every body, so too the letters of which a lettered sound consists compose it like some body. © The letters, moreover, are twenty and three: a b c d e f g i k l m o p q s t u x y z. h, however, is rather an aspiration perseverance of the same in what constitutes its essence, that is, in its constitution and in its specific properties. It follows that by indefectibility the Church will always remain identical to itself and will not lose any of its marks. Understood in this way, indefectibility encompasses all the other properties of the Church: hierarchical and monarchical constitution, infallibility, visibility (v. CHIESA).

That the Church is indefectible is a truth of the Catholic faith, clearly contained in Sacred Scripture and taught by the ordinary magisterium. It has not yet been directly defined by the solemn magisterium, but the Vatican Council had prepared a draft definition in the following canons: 1) «Si quis dixerit eamdem Christi Ecclesiam posse offundi tenebris aut infici malis, quibus a salutari fidei morumque veritate aberret, ab originali sua institutione devlet, aut depravata et corrupta tandem desinat esse, anathema sit»; 2) «Si quis dixerit praesentem Dei Ecclesiam non esse ultimam ac supremam consequendae salutis oeconomiam, sed expectandam esse aliam per novam et pleniorem divini Spiritus effusionem, anathema sit». The decree Lamentabili condemned the following proposition of the modernists (n. 53): «Constitutio organica Ecclesiae non est immutabilis; sed societas christiana perpetuae evolutioni, aequae ac societas humana, est obnoxia». The same error had been condemned by Pius VI in the bull Auctorem fidei against the Synod of Pistoia (Denz-U, 1501).

Foretold in the Old Testament by the messianic prophecies (Is. 9, 6; Dan. 11, 44; Jer. 31, 31; Ez. 37, 24), the indefectibility of the Church is affirmed by Jesus Christ himself: «Tu sei Pietro e su questa pietra edificherò la mia Chiesa e le porte dell'inferno (cioè le potenze dell'inferno o della morte) non prevarranno contro di essa» (Mt. 16, 18). He said furthermore: «Ecco che io sono con voi tutti i giorni sino alla consumazione dei secoli» (Mt. 28, 20); «Io pregherò il Padre ed egli vi manderà un altro Paraclito affinché dimori sempre con voi» (Io. 14, 16). To the Church, therefore, divine assistance is guaranteed until the end of the world, which will not allow it to perish or grow weak. The Fathers of the Church, especially St. Augustine in the struggle against the Donatists, often had occasion to defend and illustrate against the sects the unshakable stability of the Catholic Church. The promise of indefectibility can refer only to it. False churches, sects, schisms, etc. are destined, sooner or later, to disappear, as history moreover confirms. The Arian churches have disappeared and the Nestorian church is slowly dying out; Protestantism has fragmented into countless sects; the autocephalous Byzantine churches are victims of internal discord.

Indefectibility does not condemn the Church to a perpetual status quo and to immobility; it does not prevent progress and changes, but such progress is homogeneous and springs from within it without deviations (v. DOCMA); such changes, relating to organization, discipline, liturgy, do not concern the essence of the Church, are not of divine institution and can therefore undergo an evolution according to the needs of times and places. This synthesis of immutability and progress is found only in the true Church. False churches either become intrinsically corrupt or remain attached to old and outworn forms, from which they can no longer rid themselves, often seized by the temptation to take pride in them as if they were genuine expressions of true immutability.

Martino Jugie