CHURCH
760
CHURCH
orders and the power of jurisdiction derived by legit-
imate transmission from the Apostles. Any relig-
ious organization whose ministers do not possess
these two powers is not accredited to preach the
Gospel of Christ. For "how shall they preach",
asks the Apostle, "unless they be sent?" (Rom., x,
15). It is Apostolicity of mission which is reckoned
as a note of the Church. No historical fact can be
more clear than that Apostolicity, if it is found any-
where, is found in the Catholic Church. In it there is
the power of Holy orders received by Apostolic suc-
cession. In it, too, there is Apostolicity of juris-
diction: for history shows us that the Roman bishop
is the successor of Peter, and as such the centre of
jurisdiction. Those prelates who are united to the
Roman See receive their jurisdiction from the pope,
who alone can bestow it. No other Church is Apos-
tolic. The Greek Church, it is true, claims to possess
this property on the strength of its valid succession
of bishops. But, by rejecting the authority of the
Holy See, it severed itself from the Apostolic College,
and thereby forfeited all jurisdiction. Anglicans
make a similar claim. But even if they possessed
valid orders, jurisdiction would be wanting to them
no less than to the Greeks.
XIII. The Church a Perfect Society. — The Church has been considered as a society which aims at a spiritual end, but which yet is a visible polity, like the secular polities among which it exists. It is, further, a "perfect society". The meaning of this expression, "a perfect society", should be clearly understood, for this characteristic justifies, even on grounds of pure reason, that independence of secular control which the Church has always claimed. A society may be defined as a number of men who unite in a manner more or less permanent in order, by their combined efforts, to attain a common good. Association of this kind is a necessary condition of civilization. An isolated individual can achieve but little. He can scarcely provide himself with neces- sary sustenance; much less can he find the means of developing his higher mental and moral gifts. As civilization progresses, men enter into various socie- ties for the attainment of various ends. These or- ganizations are perfect or imperfect societies. For a society to be perfect, two conditions are necessary: (1) The end which it proposes to itself must not be purely subordinate to the end of some other society. For example, the cavalry of an army is an organized association of men ; but the end for which this asso- ciation exists is entirely subordinate to the good of the whole army. Apart from the success of the whole army, there can properly speaking be no such thing as the success of the lesser association. Simi- larly, the good of the whole army is subordinate to the welfare of the State. (2) The society in question must be independent of other societies in regard to the attainment of its end. Mercantile societies, no matter how great their wealth and power, are imperfect; for they depend on the authority of the State for permission to exist. So, too, a single family is an imperfect society. It cannot attain its end— the well-being of its members — in isolation from other families. Civilized life requires that many families should co-operate to form a State.
There are two societies which are perfect — the Church and the State. The end of the State is the
temporal welfare of the community. It seeks to realize the conditions which are requisite in order
that its members may be able to attain temporal felicity. It protects the rights, and furthers the interests of the individuals and the groups of indi- viduals which belong to it. All other societies which aim in any manner at temporal good are necessarily imperfect. lather they exist ultimately for the good of the State itself; or,' if their aim is the private advantage of some of its members, the State
must grant them authorization, and protect them in
the exercise of their various functions. Should they
prove dangerous to it, it justly dissolves them. The
Church also possesses the conditions requisite for a
perfect society. That its end is not subordinate to
that of any other society is manifest: for it aims at
the spiritual welfare, the eternal felicity, of man.
This is the highest end a society can have; it is cer-
tainly not an end subordinate to the temporal felicity
aimed at by the State. Moreover, the Church is not
dependent on the permission of the State in the at-
taining of its end. Its right to exist is derived not
from the permission of the State, but from the com-
mand of God. Its right to preach the Gospel, to
administer the sacraments, to exercise jurisdiction
over its subjects, is not conditional on the authoriza-
tion of the civil Government. It has received from
Christ Himself the great commission to teach all
nations. To the command of the civil Government
that they should desist from preaching, the Apostles
replied simply that they ought to obey God rather
than men (Acts, v, 29). Some measure of temporal
goods is, indeed, necessary to the Church to enable
it to carry out the work entrusted to it. The State
cannot justly prohibit it from receiving this from the
benefactions of the faithful. Those whose duty it is
to achieve a certain end have a right to possess the
means necessary to accomplish their task.
Pope Leo XIII summed up this doctrine in his Encyclical "Immortale Dei" (1 November, 1885) on the Christian constitution of States: "The Church", he says, " is distinguished and differs from civil soci- ety; and, what is of highest moment, it is a society chartered as of right divine, perfect in its nature and its title to possess in itself and by itself, through the will and loving kindness of its Founder, all needful provision for its maintenance and action. And just as the end at which the Church aims is by far the noblest of ends, so is its authority the most excellent of all authority, nor can it be looked on as inferior to the civil power, or in any manner dependent upon it." It is to be observed that though the end at which the Church aims is higher than that of the State, the latter is not, as a society, subordinate to the Church. The two societies belong to different orders. The temporal felicity at which the State aims is not essentially dependent on the spiritual good which the Church seeks. Material prosperity and a high degree of civilization may be found where the Church does not exist. Each society is supreme in its own order. At the same time each contributes greatly to the advantage of the other. The Church cannot appeal to men who have not some rudiments of civilization, and whose savage mode of life renders moral development impossible. Hence, though her function is not to civilize but to save souls, yet when she is called on to deal with savage races, she com- mences by seeking to communicate the elements of civilization to them. On the other hand, the State needs the supernatural sanctions and spiritual mo- tives which the Church impresses on its members. A civil order without these is insecurely based.
It has often been objected that the doctrine of the Church's independence in regard to the State would render civil government impossible. Such a theory, it is urged, creates a State within a State; and from this, there must inevitably result a conflict of authori- ties, each claiming supreme dominion over the same subjects. Such was the argument of the Gallican [legalists. The writers of this school, consequently, would not admit the claim of the Church to be a perfect society. They maintained that any juris- diction which it might exercise was entirely depen- dent on the permission of the civil power. The difficulty, however, is rather apparent than real. The scope of the two authorities is different, the one belonging to what is temporal, the other to what is
