The Book of Christians

APOSTOLIC DIGEST: BOOK IV: The BOOK OF CHRISTIANS

CHAPTER ONE

ONLY CATHOLICS

CAN BE CHRISTIANS

You are called in one body. (Colossians 3:15)

The Church is one, unified, and articulated, after the manner of a physical body. Therefore, whosoever is not joined in the Body is not a member of it and is not in union with Christ its head. (Pope Pius XI)

Christianity is incarnate in the Catholic Church; it is identified with that perfect and spiritual society that has the Roman Pontiff for its visible head. (Pope Leo XIII)

The Church is One, and it is not possible to be both inside and outside what is One. (St. Cyprian)

The Body of the Church is one, not a body made up of a kind of confused mixture of bodies, nor by each of them gathered into an indistinguishable heap or shapeless mass. (St. Hilary of Poitiers)

The Church is visible because she is a Body; therefore, they are straying from divine truth who imagine the Church to be something merely "spiritual" as they say, a Church in which many Christian communities, although separated by faith, could be joined by some kind of bond invisible to the senses. (Pope Pius XII)

Only those are really to be included as members of the Church who have been baptized, and who profess the true faith, and who have not unhappily withdrawn from the Body or, for grave faults, been excluded by legitimate authority. It follows that those who are divided in faith or in government cannot be living in one Body such as this, and cannot be living the life of its one divine Spirit. (Pope Pius XII)

If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. (Romans 8:9)

Those who go off to heretics, and all who leave the Church for heresy, abandon the name of Christ. Those who call these men "Christians" are in grievous error, since they neither understand Scripture at all nor the faith which it contains. (St. Athanasius)

In name only is Christ found among certain heretics who want to be called Christians. In reality, He is no longer among them. (St. Augustine)

You Protestants! In the entirety of your Reformation you haven't got a Saint whose name you can give your children. You have to borrow your Christian names from the Catholic Church. (St. John Mary Vianney)

"Christian" is my name, "Catholic" my surname. (St. Pacian)

Therefore, let us prove ourselves worthy of that name we have received. For whosoever is called by any other name besides this is not of God. (St. Ignatius of Antioch)

He who falls away from the doctrine and faith of the Catholic Church would not be, nor would even be called, a Christian. (St. Athanasius)

All true Christians are members of the Church. (St. John Eudes)

Whosoever and whatsoever he might be, he who is not in Christ's Church is no Christian! (St. Cyprian)

A manifest heretic is not a Christian, as is clearly taught by St. Cyprian, St. Athanasius, St. Augustine, St. Jerome, and others. (St. Robert Bellarmine)

Many will come in My name, saying: "I am Christ," and they will seduce many. Many will say to Me on that day: "Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name and cast out devils in Thy name and done many miracles in Thy name?" Then will I profess unto them: Depart from Me, you who work iniquity; I never knew you! (St. Matthew 24:4-5; 7:21-23)

For they are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself disguises himself as an angel of light. Therefore, it is no great thing if his ministers disguise themselves as ministers of justice. (II Corinthians 11:13-15)

Heretics do not have the same God, the same Christ, as do Catholics. (Tertullian)

Heretics worship a God who is a liar, and a Christ who is a liar. (St. Augustine)

In no way can men be counted among the children of God unless they take the Church for their Mother. (Pope Leo XIII)

No one is our brother unless he has the same Father we have. (St. Jerome)

And, just as the Church cannot err in faith and morals; so, on the contrary, all other societies arrogating to themselves the name of "church" must necessarily be sunk in the most pernicious errors, both doctrinal and moral, because they are guided by the devil. (Catechism of Trent)

How can "two or three gather in Christ's name" if they have obviously cut themselves off from Christ and His Gospel? Do they think Christ is with them in their gatherings when those gatherings are outside the Church of Christ? (St. Cyprian)

Therefore, neither faith without the Church nor the Church without the faith can save you. (St. Francis de Sales)

If anyone says that a justified man, however perfect he might be, is not bound to observe the commandments of God and of the Church, but is bound only to believe, as though the Gospel apart from the observance of the commandments were an unconditional and absolute promise of everlasting life: let him be anathema. (Council of Trent)

The Holy, Catholic, Apostolic, Roman Church is the only true Church of Jesus Christ. It is error to believe that men can find the path of eternal salvation and attain eternal salvation in the practice of any religion whatsoever. It is error to believe that Protestantism is nothing other than a different form of the same true Christian religion, in which it is permitted to please God equally as in the Catholic Church. (Ven. Pope Pius IX)

If anyone says that the condition of the faithful and those who have not yet come to the true faith is equal: let him be anathema. (I Vatican Council)

Therefore, let them tremble who imagine that any religion will lead them to the haven of eternal happiness; let them reflect on the words of the Savior Himself: "He who is not with Me is against Me"; that those who gather not with Him scatter; and that consequently, beyond a doubt, they who do not keep the Catholic faith entire and unchanged will perish in eternity. (Pope Gregory XVI)

REFERENCES

BOOK IV, CHAPTER ONE

1. Paul VI: Cf. TCH p.82

2. II Vatican: "Decree on Ecumenism," ch.1; a literal rendering from the Latin original

3. Pius XI: "Mortalium Animos," PTC:872

4. Leo XIII: "Annum Ingressi Sumus," PTC:652

5. Cyprian: "Epistle to Magnus," 69:3, JUR vol.I:589

6. Hilary: "On Psalm 121," no.5; CSL vol. XXII, Vienna: 1891; PL 9; FOC p.154

7. Paul VI: cf. TCH; "Ecclesiam Suam," Boston: St. Paul Ed.

8. Pius XII: "Mystici Corporis," PTC:1022 ff. 59

9. Paul VI: General Audience, June 12, 1974; LOR; The Wanderer, July 4, 1974, p.1; cf. also TCH p.123

10. John Paul II: Address to the Third General Assembly of Latin American Bishops, Jan. 28, 1979; National Catholic Register, L.A.,CA: Feb. 11, 1979