Saying 'yes' to Christ also means saying 'yes' to the Church he founded The Holy Father gave his third catechetical talk on Catholic belief about the Church at the General Audience on Wednesday, 24 July. Today's topic is the human and divine dimensions of the Church. The Holy Father spoke in Italian. 

1. We are continuing our cycle of catecheses devoted to the Church. We have already explained how the profession of this truth in the Creed has a specific character, inasmuch as the Church is not only an object of faith, but also its subject: we ourselves are the Church in which we profess our faith; we believe in the Church, while at the same time being the Church which believes and prays. We are the Church in her visible dimension, which expresses her faith in her own reality as Church, a reality which is divine and human: two dimensions that are so inseparable that, if one is missing, the entire reality of the Church, as willed and founded by Christ, is cancelled. This divine and human reality of the Church is organically joined to the divine and human reality of Christ himself. The Church is in a certain sense the continuation of the mystery of the Incarnation. The Apostle Paul actually spoke of the Church as the Body of Christ, (cf. l Cor 12:27; Eph 1:23; Col 1:24), just as Jesus compared the Christic-ecclesial "whole" to the unity of a vine with its branches (cf. Jn 15:1-5).

From this premise it follows that believing in the Church, stating in regard to her the "yes" of acceptance in faith, is a logical consequence of the entire Creed, and particularly of our profession of faith in Christ, the God-man. It is a demand resulting from the internal logic of the Creed and should be kept in mind, especially in our time, when we feel that many are separating, and even opposing the Church and Christ, when they say, for example, Christ—yes, the Church— no. This opposition is not entirely new, but has been proposed again in certain parts of the contemporary world. And so it is good to devote today's catechesis to a calm and accurate examination of the meaning of our yes to the Church, even in reference to the opposition just mentioned.

2. We can admit that this opposition Christ—yes, the Church—no originates within the particular complexity belonging to our act of faith, by which we say: "I believe in the Church". One could ask whether it is legitimate to include among the divine truths to be believed a human, historical, visible reality such as the Church; a reality, which like any human thing, has limitations, imperfections, sinfulness on the part of the persons who belong to every level of her institutional structure: lay people as well as ecclesiastics even among us Pastors of the Church, without anyone being excluded from this sad inheritance of Adam.

We must note, however, that Jesus Christ himself wanted our faith in the Church to face and overcome this difficulty, when he chose Peter as "the rock upon which I will build my Church" (cf. Mt 16:18). We know from the Gospel, which reports the very words of Jesus, how humanly imperfect and weak the chosen rock was, as Peter demonstrated at the time of his great test. The Gospel itself, nevertheless, testifies that Peter's triple denial, shortly after he had assured the Master of his fidelity, did not cancel his selection by Christ (cf. Lk 22:32; Jn 21:15-17). Rather, one notices that Peter acquires a new maturity through contrition for his sin, so that after Christ's resurrection he can balance his triple denial with a triple confession: "Yes, Lord, you know that I love you" (Jn 21:15), and he is able to receive from the risen Christ the triple confirmation of his mandate as pastor of the Church: "Feed my lambs" (Jn 21:15-17). Peter then proved that he loved Christ "more than these" (cf. Jn 21:15), by serving in the Church, according to his mandate of apostleship and governance, until his death by martyrdom, his definitive witness for building the Church.

By reflecting on the life and death of Simon Peter, it is easier to move from the opposition Christ—yes, the Church— no to the conviction Christ—yes and the Church—yes, as a continuation of our yes to Christ.

3. The logic of the mystery of the Incarnation—synthesized in that yes to Christ—entails acceptance of everything that is human in Christ, in virtue of the fact that the Son of God assumed human nature in solidarity with the nature tainted by the sin of Adam's race. Although he was absolutely without sin, Christ took on himself all of humanity's sin: Agnus Dei qui tollit peccata mundi. The Father "made him to be sin", the Apostle Paul writes in the Second Letter to theCorinthians (5:21). Therefore, the sinfulness of Christians (about whom it is said, and sometimes not without reason, that "they are no better than others"), the sinfulness of ecclesiastics themselves, should not elicit a pharisaical attitude of separation and rejection, but should rather compel us to a more generous and trusting acceptance of the Church, to a more convinced and meritorious yes in her regard, because we know that precisely in the Church and by means of the Church this sinfulness becomes an object of the divine power of redemption, under the action of that love which makes possible and accomplishes the individual's conversion, the sinner's justification, a change of life and progress in doing good, sometimes even to the point of heroism, i.e., to holiness. Can we deny that the Church's history is full of converted and repentant sinners who, having returned to Christ, followed him faithfully to the end?

One thing is certain—the life which Jesus Christ, and the Church with him, proposes to man is full of moral demands which bind him to what is good, even to the heights of heroism. It is necessary to observe whether, when one says "no to the Church", in reality one is not seeking to escape these demands. Here, more than in any other case, the "no to the Church" would be the equivalent of a "no toChrist". Unfortunately, experience shows that this is often the case.

On the other hand, one cannot fail to observe that if the Church—in spite of all the human weaknesses and sins of her members—in her entirety remains faithful to Christ and brings to Christ her many children who have failed in their baptismal commitments, this occurs because of the "power from on high" (cf. Lk 24:49), the Holy Spirit, who gives her life and guides her on her perilous journey through history.

4. We must also say, however, that the "no to the Church" is sometimes based, not on the human defects of the Church's members, but on a general principle of rejecting mediation. There are indeed people who, although admitting the existence of God, wish to maintain an exclusively personal contact with him, without allowing any mediation between their own conscience and God, and therefore, they reject the Church above all.

But, be careful: appreciation of conscience also lies at the heart of the Church, which claims to be the representative of God for man's good, both in the moral order as well as on the more specifically religious level, and so she gives light, formation and service to the human conscience. Her job is to help human minds and consciences to have access to the truth of God which is revealed in Christ, who entrusted to his apostles and to his Church this ministry, this diakonia of preaching the truth in love. Every conscience, motivated by a sincere love for the truth, cannot fail to want to know, and so, to hear—at least the latter—what the Gospel preached by the Church says to human beings for their own good.

5. But frequently the problem of yes or no to the Church becomes complicated at this point, because it is the very mediation of Christ and his Gospel which is rejected: this means a no to Christ, more than to the Church. This fact must be taken into serious consideration by anyone who claims and wants to be a Christian. He cannot ignore the mystery of the Incarnation, by which God himself granted man the possibility of establishing contact with him only through Christ, the Incarnate Word, of whom St Paul says: "There is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (1 Tm 2:5). Since the Church's beginning, the apostles preached that "there is no other name [besides Christ's] under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved" (Acts 4:12). Christ instituted the Church as a community of salvation, in which his saving mediation is continued to the end of time in virtue of the Holy Spirit whom he sent. The Christian, therefore, knows that according to God's will, man—who, because he is a person, is a social being—is called to be in relationship with God precisely in the community of the Church. It is impossible to separate mediation from the Church which participates in Christ's function as mediator between God and men.

6. Finally, we cannot ignore the fact that the "no to the Church" frequently has deeper roots, both in individual persons and in human groups and contexts —especially in certain sectors of true or presumed culture—where today, as before or perhaps more than before, it is not difficult to find attitudes of rejection or even hostility. At the bottom of this there is a psychology characterized by the will for total autonomy, originating in a sense of personal or collective self-sufficiency, by which one maintains independence from the superhuman Being which is proposed—or interiorly discovered—as author and lord of life, of fundamental law, of the moral order, and so, as the ground of the distinction between good and evil. There are those who pretend to establish on their own what is good or bad, and thus refuse to be directed by another, either by a transcendent God or by a Church which represents him on earth.

This position generally results from a great ignorance of reality. God is conceived as an enemy of human freedom, as a tyrannical master, even though he is actually the one who created freedom and is its most authentic friend. His commandments have no other purpose than to help men to avoid the worst and most shameful form of slavery, that of immorality, and to foster the development of true freedom. Without a trusting relationship with God, it is not possible for the human person to achieve fully his own spiritual growth.

7. We should not be surprised, then, when we see that an attitude of radical autonomy easily produces a form of subjugation worse than the feared "heteronomy": i.e., dependence on the opinions of others, on ideological and political ties, on social pressures, or on one's own inclinations and passions. Whenever one believes or boasts that he is independent, a man free from all servitude, he thus reveals that he is subject to public opinion and to other old and new forms of domination over the human spirit! It is easy to see that the attempt to do without God, or the claim not to need the mediation of Christ and his Church, comes at a high price. It was necessary to recall our attention to this problem in order to conclude our introduction to the cycle of ecclesiological catecheses which we are beginning. Today let us say once again: "yes to the Church", precisely because of our "yes to Christ".