Apologeticae sive Theologiae Fundamentalis, Tomus II (Pars Altera): Demonstratio Catholica

The mark of catholicity does not admit of a Church that is merely particular, regional, or national, but presupposes it to be, in the strict sense, international or universal. This universality, moreover, must belong to the Church both in right and in fact.

1. Catholicity in right requires that the Church abhor the boundaries of dominions and nations, and indeed essentially, virtually, formally. Essentially, i. e., having regard to its whole doctrine and character, the Church must show forth a universal character of spreading itself to all peoples and parts of the earth. Virtually, it must perpetually exert such effort and efficacy as enables it to propagate itself, to gather to itself as many men as possible, and to preserve catholicity everywhere on earth. Formally, finally, notwithstanding a wide material diffusion, the Church must everywhere show the strictest unity of confession and communion. For just as a vine cannot be said to be widely spread unless it extends its shoots always joined to the stock, so the Church, however widely diffused materially, is not catholic unless it is informed by unity. A Church deprived of unity constitutes not one society, but several or many. To catholicity in right, thus understood, is necessarily joined:

2. Catholicity in fact, which consists in the actually existing universal diffusion of the Church. This actual universality is both physical and moral. Physical (absolute) universality is present if the Church is so diffused that no region of the earth whatever escapes it; moral (relative) universality is present if the Church is conspicuous in most parts of the world known at some time and not closed to access, i. e., if it has "in the world a certain universal splendor, by which its dignity and majesty can be known and distinguished from the crowds of heretics".¹ Physical universality will be present only successively, in the sense that gradually, between the time of Christ and the last judgment, the Church becomes known at some time to all regions and peoples: "And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world (ἐν ὅλῃ τῇ οἰκουμένῃ) as a testimony to all nations (πᾶσι τοῖς ἔθνεσιν): and then shall come the consummation (τὸ τέλος)."² Moral universality, however, must always belong to the Church, once it has grown up,³ so that the Church may claim for itself the mark of catholicity. And indeed moral universality seems always to be required not only as successive, but as simultaneous, by which, namely, the Church shines at one and the same time in most parts of the world.⁴