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certain distinctions must be drawn. (1) Many bap-
tized heretics have been educated in their erroneous
beliefs. Their case is altogether different from that
of those who have voluntarily renounced the Faith.
They accept what they believe to be the Divine
revelation. Such as these belong to the Church in
desire, for they are at heart anxious to fulfil God's
will in their regard. In virtue of their baptism and
good will, they may be in a state of grace. They belong
to the soul of the Church, though they are not united
to the visible body. As such they are members of
the Church internally, though not externally. Even
in regard to those who have themselves fallen away
from the Faith, a difference must be made between
open and notorious heretics on the one hand, and secret
heretics on the other. Open and notorious heresy sev-
ers from the visible Church. The majority of theolo-
gians agree with Bellarmine (de Ecclesia, III, c. x), as
against Suarez, that secret heresy has not this effect.
(2) In regard to schism the same distinction must be
drawn. A secret repudiation of the Church's authority
does not sever the sinner from the Church. The
Church recognizes the schismatic as a member, en-
titled to her communion, until by open and notorious
rebellion he rejects her authority. (3) Excom-
municated persons are either excommunicati tolernti
(i. e. those who are still tolerated) or excommuni-
cabi n'tandi (i. e. those to be shunned). Many theo-
logians hold that those whom the Church still toler-
ates are not wholly cut off from her membership,
and that it is only those whom she has branded as
" to be shunned " who are cut off from God's kingdom
(see Murray, De Eccles., Disp. i, sect, viii, n. 118).
(See Excommunication.)
X. Indefectibility of the Church. — Among the prerogatives conferred on His Church by Christ is the gift of indefectibility. By this term is signified, not merely that the Church will persist to the end of time, but further, that it will preserve unimpaired its essential characteristics. The Church can never undergo any constitutional change which will make it, as a social organism, something different from what it was originally. It can never become corrupt in faith or in morals; nor can it ever lose the Apos- tolic hierarchy, or the sacraments through which Christ communicates grace to men. The gift of in- defectibility is expressly promised to the Church by Christ, in the words in which He declares that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. It is mani- fest that, could the storms which the Church en- counters so shake it as to alter its essential charac- teristics and make it other than Christ intended it to be, the gates of hell, i. e. the powers of evil, would have prevailed. It is clear, too, that could the ( hurch suffer substantial change, it would no longer 1»- nn instrument capable of accomplishing the work for which God called it into being. He established it that it might be to all men the school of holiness. This it would cease to be if ever it could set up a false and corrupt moral standard. He established it to proclaim His revelation to the world, and charged it to warn all men that unless they accepted that message they must perish everlastingly. Could the Church, in defining the truths of revelation err in the smallest point, such a charge would be impossible. No body could enforce under such a penalty the acceptance of what might be erroneous. By the hierarchy and the sacraments, Christ, further, made the Church the depositary of the graces of the Passion. Were it to lose either of these, it could no longer dis- pense to men the treasures of grace.
The gift of indefectibility plainly does not guarantee each several part of the Church against heresy or apostasy. The promise is made to the corporati body. Individual Churches may become corrupt in morals, may fall into heresy, may even apostatize. Thus at the time of the Mohammedan conquests,
whole populations renounced their faith; and the
Church suffered similar losses in the sixteenth century.
But the defection of isolated branches does not al-
ter the character of the main stem. The society of
Jesus Christ remains endowed with all the preroga-
tives bestowed on it by its Founder. Only to one
particular Church is indefectibility assured, viz. to
the See of Rome. To Peter, and in him to all his
successors in the chief pastorate, Christ committed
the task of confirming his brethren in the Faith
(Luke, xxii, 32); and thus, to the Roman Church, as
Cyprian says, "faithlessness cannot gain access"
[Ep. lv (lix), ad Cornelium]. The various bodies that
have left the Church naturally deny its indefectibility.
Their plea for separation rests in each case on the
supposed fact that the main body of Christians has
fallen so far from primitive truth, or from the purity
of Christian morals, that the formation of a separate
organization is not only desirable but necessary.
Those who are called on to defend this plea endeavour
in various ways to reconcile it with Christ's promise.
Some, as seen above (VII), have recourse to the
hypothesis of an indefectible invisible Church. The
Right Rev. Charles Gore of Worcester, who may be re-
garded as the representative of High Church Anglican-
ism, prefers a different solution. In his controversy
with Canon Richardson, he adopted the position that
while the Church will never fail to teach the whole
truth as revealed, yet "errors of addition" may exist
universally in its current teaching (see Richardson,
Catholic Claims, Appendix). Such an explanation
deprives Christ's words of all their meaning. A
Church which at any period might conceivably teach,
as of faith , doctrines which form no part of the deposit
could never deliver her message to the world as the
message of God. Men could reasonably urge in re-
gard to any doctrine that it might be an "error of
addition".
It was said above that one part of the Church's gift of indefectibility lies in her preservation from any substantial corruption in the sphere of morals. This supposes, not merely that she will always proclaim the perfect standard of morality bequeathed to her by her Founder, but also that in every age the lives of many of her children will be based on that sublime model. Only a supernatural principle of spiritual life could bring this about. Man's natural tendency is downwards. The force of every religious movement gradually spends itself; and the followers of great religious reformers tend in time to the level of their environment. According to the laws of unassisted human nature, it should have been thus with the society established by Christ. Yet history shows us that the Catholic Church possesses a power of reform from within, which has no parallel in any other religious organization. Again and again she pro- duces saints, men imitating the virtues of Christ in an extraordinary degree, whose influence, spreading far and wide, gives fresh ardour even to those who reach a less heroic standard. Thus, to cite one or two well- known instances out of many that might be given: St. Dominic and St. Francis of Assisi rekindled the love of virtue in the men of the thirteenth century; St. Philip Neri and St. Ignatius Loyola accomplished a like work in the sixteenth century; St. Paul of the Cross and Si. Alphonsus Liguori, in the eighteenth. No explanation suffices to account for this phenom- enon save the Catholic doctrine that the Church is not a natural but a supernatural society, that the preservation of her moral life depends, not on any laws of human nature, but on the life-giving presence of tin' Holy Ghost. The Catholic ami tin- Protestant principles of reform stand in sharp contrast the one to the other. Catholic reformers have one and all fallen back on the model set before them in the person of Christ and on the power of the Holy Ghost to breathe fresh life into the souls which He has re-
