This is how you recognize the true Church...
The earliest Christians wrestled with this question: what is the Church? Where do we find it? How do we describe it?After centuries of debate, they agreed on four characteristics of the true Church.
It was one, holy, catholic, and apostolic.
If that sounds familiar, it’s because we affirm those four marks when we recite the Creed each Sunday at Mass.
But what do they mean? Find out in this video:
An excerpt from
CHAPTER TWO: TWO SUBTLE ENEMIES OF HOLINESS
35. Here I would like to mention two false forms of holiness that can lead us astray: gnosticism and pelagianism. They are two heresies from early Christian times, yet they continue to plague us. In our times too, many Christians, perhaps without realizing it, can be seduced by these deceptive ideas, which reflect an anthropocentric immanentism disguised as Catholic truth.[33] Let us take a look at these two forms of doctrinal or disciplinary security that give rise “to a narcissistic and authoritarian elitism, whereby instead of evangelizing, one analyses and classifies others, and instead of opening the door to grace, one exhausts his or her energies in inspecting and verifying. In neither case is one really concerned about Jesus Christ or others”.[34]
