Synopsis "The Two Sides of Catholicism (in English)"
The Church is, in a twofold respect, universal or catholic. While, on the one hand, she extends herself over the whole earth, and encircles the entire human race with the bond of the same faith and an equal love, on the other she makes known, by this very act, the most special inward character of her own being. Thus the Church is the Catholic Church, both in her interior being and in her exterior manifestation. The ground of the well-known saying of St. Ambrose, "Where Peter is, there is the Church," (1) lies in the thought, that the nature of the Church admits of only one form of historical manifestation. The idea of the true Church can only be realized where Peter is, in the communion of the legitimate Pope as the successor of Peter. (1) Ubi Petrus ibi ecclesia. In Ps. xl. No. 30 This proposition has its proximate justification in that clear expression of the will of Jesus Christ, the founder of the Church, in which he designates the Apostle Peter as the rock on which he will build his Church. Moreover, it is precisely this rock-foundation which is to make the Church indestructible. (2) From this it follows that, in virtue of the ordinance of Jesus, the office of Peter, or the primacy given him in the Church, was not to expire with the death of the apostle. For, if the Church is indestructible precisely on account of her foundation upon the rock-man Peter, he must remain for all time the support of the Church, and historical connection with him is the indispensable condition on which the Church can be firmly established in any part of the earth. This constant connection with the Apostle Peter is maintained through the bishop of Rome for the time being. For these two offices, the episcopate of Rome and the primacy, were connected with each other in the person of the Apostle Peter. Consequently the same superior rank in the Church which Peter possessed is transmitted to the legitimate bishop of Rome at the same time with the Roman episcopal see. Thus the Prince of the Apostles remains in very deed the rock-foundation of the Church, continually, in each one of his successors for the time being. (2) Matt. xvi. 18 In the view of Christian antiquity, the unity of the Church was the particular object for which the papacy was established. (3) This unity, apprehended in its historical development, gives us the conception of catholicity. (4) Written in the mid 1800's.
