The Church

Choose an option and you are told at once whether it was right. The answer and the reason wait behind “Show the answer”.

A watercolor of a priest lamb and five other lambs gathered around a wooden cross and a loaf on a low round table, holding out bread and a potted sprout

What does the word “Church” in Scripture originally mean?
1. The assembly of the people God has called together
2. A building put up for worship
3. A religious body founded by believers who think alike
4. An organization made up of the clergy
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Answer ① The assembly of the people God has called together
“Ekklesia” means a calling together. If a building, or a society people founded, is what comes to mind first, the truth that it is God who does the calling drops out of sight; and on the fourth answer the baptized are pushed outside the Church.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 751-752
When and how did the Church begin?
1. It was founded when the Emperor Constantine granted freedom of religion
2. Jesus willed it and founded it; it was born on the cross and made manifest at Pentecost
3. It is a group the disciples put together as best they could once Jesus had died
4. It came into being in the Middle Ages, as the popes built up its institutions
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Answer ② Jesus willed it and founded it; it was born on the cross and made manifest at Pentecost
The Church is Christ's own foundation, not an organization people assembled after the fact. She was born from the side of the crucified Christ and shown to the world at Pentecost, while the first and the fourth answers turn the beginning of the Church into an event of politics and institutions.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 763-766, 767
What are the four marks of the Church professed in the Creed?
1. Ancient · large · wealthy · widespread
2. Invisible · pure · free · new
3. Prayer · service · proclamation · communion
4. One · holy · catholic · apostolic
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Answer ④ One · holy · catholic · apostolic
The four marks are not an achievement the Church boasts of; they are Christ's gift to her and her task. What the third answer lists is work the Church does, not the marks the Creed professes.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 811-812
What does it mean to say that the Church is catholic?
1. That she is the Western Church, with Rome at her center
2. That she is the church with the most members
3. That Christ is wholly present in her, that she has the fullness of the means of salvation, and that she is sent to all people
4. That she adjusts her doctrine to fit each country and culture
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Answer ③ That Christ is wholly present in her, that she has the fullness of the means of salvation, and that she is sent to all people
“Katholikos” means whole, entire, all-embracing. Reach first for a region or a head count and catholicity shrinks into a question of size; read it as the fourth answer does and meeting a culture where it stands slides into changing what the Church believes.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 830-831
To say that the Church is holy means there are no sinners in her.
1. Yes
2. No
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Answer ② No
The Church is holy because she is the body of the holy Christ, but her members are sinners who always stand in need of purification. Measure holiness by whether the membership is spotless and you can explain neither the repentance of the saints nor a Church that asks for forgiveness.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 823-827
What does it mean that the Church is apostolic?
1. She stands on the teaching handed on by the apostles, and carries their mission forward through the bishops who succeed them
2. Every generation elects new apostles to fill up the college of the Twelve again
3. She brings back the way of life of the apostolic age exactly as it was
4. She accepts as Scripture only the books the apostles wrote with their own hands
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Answer ① She stands on the teaching handed on by the apostles, and carries their mission forward through the bishops who succeed them
Apostolicity is not a matter of imitating an old style but of the faith and the ministry of the apostles carrying on unbroken. By apostolic succession the bishops take the place of the apostles, and the Church is built on the teaching those apostles handed on.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 857-862
How does a person become a member of the People of God?
1. By being born into a Catholic family
2. By being born again through faith and baptism
3. By belonging to a Christian country or people
4. By putting your name on the parish register and paying your dues
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Answer ② By being born again through faith and baptism
The People of God is not handed on by blood or by nationality. You enter this people not by being born of the flesh but by being born again of water and the Spirit.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 781-782
Lay people who are baptized also share in Christ's priestly, prophetic, and kingly office.
1. Yes
2. No
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Answer ① Yes
Yes. Baptism makes every believer a sharer in these three offices of Christ. Treat lay people as no more than helpers for the clergy and this whole share of theirs disappears from view.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 784-786, 901-913
How are the common priesthood of all the faithful and the ministerial priesthood received in Holy Orders related?
1. They are one and the same priesthood, with the ministerial priesthood one step further up
2. They are two separate things with nothing to do with each other
3. Only the ordained are real priests, and the common priesthood is no more than a figure of speech
4. They are ordered to one another yet differ essentially, and the ministerial priesthood is at the service of the common priesthood
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Answer ④ They are ordered to one another yet differ essentially, and the ministerial priesthood is at the service of the common priesthood
The two differ in essence, not in degree. Read them as rungs, the way the first answer does, and ordination turns into a promotion in rank; read them as the third answer does and the priesthood received in baptism collapses into an empty figure of speech.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1546-1547
What place does the Bishop of Rome, the Pope, hold in the Church?
1. He is exactly like the other bishops, holding an honorary title that merely puts his name first
2. As the successor of Peter he is head of the college of bishops, and the perpetual and visible source and foundation of unity
3. He holds an office that can add new revelation in Christ's place
4. He is elected by a vote of the faithful and represents the Church for a fixed term
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Answer ② As the successor of Peter he is head of the college of bishops, and the perpetual and visible source and foundation of unity
The papal office is neither an empty honor nor a place from which new revelation is opened up. It is where the mission given to Peter carries on, and that mission consists in serving the unity of the bishops and of the faithful.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 880-882
Which statement gets “papal infallibility” right?
1. The Pope does not sin
2. Whatever the Pope says is free from error
3. The Pope cannot go wrong in his judgments about politics or learning either
4. When the Pope, as supreme pastor of the whole Church, definitively proclaims a truth of faith and morals, he does not err
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Answer ④ When the Pope, as supreme pastor of the whole Church, definitively proclaims a truth of faith and morals, he does not err
Infallibility does not mean sinlessness, and it does not mean knowing everything. It is given in the narrow case of a definitive proclamation on faith and morals addressed to the whole Church, and it holds in the same way when the college of bishops teaches together with the Pope.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 889-891
Authority in the Church is given as service, not as power to rule.
1. Yes
2. No
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Answer ① Yes
Yes. Christ instituted this office as a service to his people. That is why the Church calls it a ministry — the word itself means service — and why the sense of the office is turned on its head the moment authority is taken for rank.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 874-876
Why is the Church called “the universal sacrament of salvation”?
1. Because the Church is an eighth sacrament added to the seven
2. Because the Church is the agency that hands the sacraments out
3. Because the Church herself is the sign and the instrument of communion with God and of the unity of the whole human race
4. Because anyone who comes to church is already saved by that fact alone
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Answer ③ Because the Church herself is the sign and the instrument of communion with God and of the unity of the whole human race
Here the word sacrament carries the wide sense of sign and instrument. Count the way the first answer does and the list of the seven sacraments falls apart; read it as the fourth answer does and salvation looks guaranteed with no repentance at all.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 774-776, 780
How does the Church teach the saying “outside the Church there is no salvation”?
1. It means that no one whose name is not on the register of the visible Catholic Church can be saved
2. It means that every religion is an equally valid way of salvation, so the saying is no longer used
3. It means that all salvation comes from Christ and from the Church, his body, and yet the way of salvation stands open also to those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel and who seek God by following their conscience
4. It means that salvation is simply each person following their own conscience, so the Church can be taken or left
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Answer ③ It means that all salvation comes from Christ and from the Church, his body, and yet the way of salvation stands open also to those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel and who seek God by following their conscience
The saying is a confession that salvation comes from Christ, not a measuring stick for sorting people out. It is aimed at anyone who knows the Church is necessary for salvation and still refuses to enter; narrow it as the first answer does and you fence God's mercy in, widen it as the second and the fourth do and you erase the will of Christ, who sent the Church out into the world.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 846-848
Someone born and brought up in a separated Christian community personally bears the sin of that separation.
1. Yes
2. No
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Answer ② No
No. Those born into such a community today cannot be charged with the sin of the separation, and the Church receives them as brothers and sisters in Christ. Elements of sanctification and truth are found among them as well, and these are the ground on which the work for unity is built.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 817-819
What does the Church name as the visible bonds of unity?
1. One profession of faith, the sacraments celebrated together, and apostolic succession in the ordained ministry
2. The same language and the same culture
3. The same country and the same political opinions
4. Everyone keeping exactly the same prayers and exactly the same devotions
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Answer ① One profession of faith, the sacraments celebrated together, and apostolic succession in the ordained ministry
Unity is not uniformity. Rites, devotions, and traditions of theology may be many; what has to be one is the faith, the sacraments, and the succession of ministry.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 813-815
Which of these best states what “the communion of saints” means?
1. A gathering in heaven made up only of the canonized saints
2. A declaration that no bond is left between us and those who have died
3. The fellowship shared in Christ by those still living on earth, those being purified, and those already in the glory of heaven
4. An old custom of sharing sacred objects and holy places in common
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Answer ③ The fellowship shared in Christ by those still living on earth, those being purified, and those already in the glory of heaven
The communion of saints means a sharing both in holy things and among holy people. That is why we pray for those who have died and ask the saints in heaven to intercede for us.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 946-948, 954-959
The Church is missionary by her very nature, and proclaiming the Gospel is not a task left to a few specialists.
1. Yes
2. No
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Answer ① Yes
Yes. The Church is missionary by nature because she is born of the mission on which the Father sent the Son and the Holy Spirit. Everyone who is baptized shares in that mission in the place where they actually stand.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 849-851, 863