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A resource for both professional and armchair canonists.

Also including the GIRM, GILH, CCC, CCEO, DC, SST, ESI, USCCB Norms, and Vos estis.

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Paragraph 771. "The one mediator, Christ, established and ever sustains here on earth his holy Church, the community of faith, hope, and charity, as a visible organization through which he communicates truth and grace to all men." The Church is at the same time: (827, 1880, 954)

  • a "society structured with hierarchical organs and the mystical body of Christ;

  • the visible society and the spiritual community;

  • the earthly Church and the Church endowed with heavenly riches."


These dimensions together constitute "one complex reality which comes together from a human and a divine element":



The Church is essentially both human and divine, visible but endowed with invisible realities, zealous in action and dedicated to contemplation, present in the world, but as a pilgrim, so constituted that in her the human is directed toward and subordinated to the divine, the visible to the invisible, action to contemplation, and this present world to that city yet to come, the object of our quest.

O humility! O sublimity! Both tabernacle of cedar and sanctuary of God; earthly dwelling and celestial palace; house of clay and royal hall; body of death and temple of light; and at last both object of scorn to the proud and bride of Christ! She is black but beautiful, O daughters of Jerusalem, for even if the labor and pain of her long exile may have discolored her, yet heaven's beauty has adorned her.

Paragraph 815. What are these bonds of unity? Above all, charity "binds everything together in perfect harmony." But the unity of the pilgrim Church is also assured by visible bonds of communion: (1827, 830, 837, 173)

  • profession of one faith received from the Apostles

  • common celebration of divine worship, especially of the sacraments;

  • apostolic succession through the sacrament of Holy Orders, maintaining the fraternal concord of God's family.
Paragraph 882. The Pope, Bishop of Rome and Peter's successor, "is the perpetual and visible source and foundation of the unity both of the bishops and of the whole company of the faithful." "For the Roman Pontiff, by reason of his office as Vicar of Christ, and as pastor of the entire Church has full, supreme, and universal power over the whole Church, a power which he can always exercise unhindered." (834, 1369, 837)

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