Why Did Jesus Christ Found One Church?
Short Answer
Jesus Christ did not establish Christianity as a loose association of independent congregations, denominations or national churches, each free to decide doctrine and government for itself. He founded one visible, supernatural society: His Church. He gave that Church one revealed Faith, one sacramental life, one mission, one governing authority and one visible principle of unity. Scripture therefore speaks of “one body,” “one faith,” “one baptism,” “one fold and one shepherd,” while Christ Himself said, in the singular, “I will build my church.”
This does not mean that there could be only one congregation, diocese or local church. From apostolic times there were Churches at Corinth, Galatia, Ephesus, Thessalonica and elsewhere. But these were local parts of the one universal Church, united in the same Faith, sacraments and apostolic government. The Roman Catechism explicitly describes such local churches as “portions of the Universal Church.”
Pope Leo XIII expressed the point with exceptional precision in Satis Cognitum. Christ did not establish a Church composed of several mutually distinct Christian communities lacking the bonds that make the Church one and indivisible. Pope Pius XI later rejected precisely the theory that Christ's Church is a federation of separate communities holding incompatible doctrines. The Catholic doctrine is therefore not merely that Christians ought ideally to become more united:
Christ actually founded one identifiable Church and gave it visible bonds by which it could remain one.
Why This Question Matters
The question goes to the heart of Christianity. If Christ intended only an invisible spiritual association of everyone who sincerely believes in Him, then denominational division need not be fundamentally contrary to His plan. Baptists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Anglicans, Orthodox and Catholics could disagree about baptism, the Eucharist, priesthood, justification, divorce, ecclesiastical authority and other doctrines while nevertheless constituting equally legitimate branches of the same Church.
But if Christ founded one visible teaching and governing Church, that explanation cannot stand. Contradictory doctrines cannot simultaneously be the one Faith revealed by God. A society cannot possess one government if its component bodies recognize mutually incompatible authorities. Nor can Christ command men to “hear the Church” if the Church is fundamentally invisible or impossible to identify.
This question therefore precedes many later controversies. Before asking which Christian body one prefers, or which form of worship seems most attractive, the prior question is:
What kind of Church did Christ actually establish?
It also matters for understanding heresy, schism and ecclesiastical communion. Catholic teaching distinguishes objective separation from the Church from the subjective culpability of an individual person. Someone raised outside the Catholic Church may have very different knowledge and responsibility from someone who knowingly rejects Catholic doctrine. God's judgment of interior guilt must not be confused with the objective question of where the Church Christ founded is to be found.
The same principle is crucial when examining the modern crisis in Catholicism. One cannot solve apparent doctrinal contradictions by redefining Christ's Church as a collection of mutually contradictory branches. The nature of the Church must first be established from Scripture and the perennial Catholic Magisterium; contemporary claims must then be measured against that standard rather than the standard being altered to accommodate contemporary circumstances.
What the Catholic Church Teaches
Sacred Scripture
Christ's language about His Church is remarkably concrete.
At Caesarea Philippi, after St Peter confessed Him to be the Christ, the Son of the living God, Our Lord declared:
“Upon this rock I will build my church.”
He then entrusted Peter with the keys of the kingdom of heaven and the authority to bind and loose. The image is not of a collection of unrelated societies but of one edifice, founded by Christ and possessing authority. Matthew 16:18–19 does not by itself supply the whole Catholic doctrine of the Church, but it establishes fundamental elements that later revelation and the Church's teaching make explicit.
Christ similarly described His redeemed people under the image of a flock:
“There shall be one fold and one shepherd.”
The point is not that every sheep performs the same function or lives in the same locality. A flock may contain many sheep scattered through a large field; what makes it one flock is that they belong together and are governed by one shepherd.
St Paul uses another image:
“One body and one Spirit ... One Lord, one faith, one baptism.”
A body contains many members, but diversity of members does not destroy unity of the body. What St Paul excludes is division into separate bodies professing contrary faiths. His appeal to the Corinthians is consequently that there “be no schisms” among them and that Christians be united in belief.
Christ's command concerning ecclesiastical correction also presupposes an identifiable authority: “tell the church,” and if the offender refuses to hear the Church, he is to be treated as one outside its communion. An entirely invisible Church could neither be addressed nor render such a judgment.
The apostolic Church acted accordingly. When a major dispute arose concerning circumcision and the Mosaic Law, St Paul and St Barnabas did not establish one “Gentile Christianity” while their opponents established another equally legitimate branch. The dispute was referred to the Apostles and priests at Jerusalem. A common decision was reached and communicated to the churches of Antioch, Syria and Cilicia as authoritative: “It hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us.” Acts 15 therefore displays diversity of local communities within a common apostolic government and Faith—not denominational independence.
Pope Leo XIII: Christ Determined What Kind of Unity His Church Would Have
Among papal documents, Leo XIII's 1896 encyclical Satis Cognitum is perhaps the clearest direct answer to this question.
Leo begins with an essential methodological principle: Christians are not free to invent whichever theory of Church unity seems plausible. Since the Church is Christ's institution, the question is how Christ Himself chose to constitute it.
Leo then states that Christ did not institute a Church embracing several communities that remained distinct and lacked the bonds making the Church one and indivisible. Christ established one Church because He had one universal saving mission to continue throughout all nations and ages.
The Pope proceeds to identify several dimensions of this unity. The Church is one body; her members possess one Faith; Christ established a perpetual teaching authority to preserve that Faith; and He established a governing principle capable of preserving the members in communion. Unity therefore means considerably more than mutual goodwill among people who happen to call themselves Christians.
This teaching is especially significant because Satis Cognitum anticipates a common modern claim: perhaps Christ wanted Christians to be spiritually one while permitting their visible societies to remain doctrinally and institutionally independent. Leo rejects precisely that separation. The Church contains invisible supernatural realities—faith, grace and the indwelling of the Holy Ghost—but she also possesses an external, visible constitution. Because human beings are bodily as well as spiritual creatures, Christ teaches, sanctifies and governs them through visible means.
The First Vatican Council: One Flock Under One Supreme Shepherd
The First Vatican Council's dogmatic constitution Pastor Aeternus gives still greater doctrinal weight to the Church's Petrine constitution.
Vatican I solemnly teaches that Christ directly conferred upon St Peter a primacy of jurisdiction over the whole Church. It further defines that this primacy was not a temporary arrangement ending with Peter's death. What Christ established in Peter for the Church's permanent benefit was to remain through Peter's successors.
The Council then explains the relationship between the Roman primacy and ecclesiastical unity: through unity in communion and profession of the same Faith with the Roman Pontiff, the Church is “one flock under one Supreme Shepherd.”
The existence and perpetuity of the Petrine primacy belong to the solemn dogmatic teaching of Vatican I. The Council therefore excludes the theory that each national church, bishop, congregation or Christian community possesses an autonomous right to construct its own version of Christianity independently of the universal Church.
This does not abolish episcopal authority. Vatican I expressly affirms the ordinary authority of bishops over the particular flocks entrusted to them. Catholic unity is therefore not administrative uniformity in which every legitimate local distinction disappears. It is a hierarchical unity: many dioceses and legitimate rites, governed by their own pastors, forming one Church rather than a federation of independent churches.
The Roman Catechism: Local Churches Are Parts of the Universal Church
An objection sometimes arises from the New Testament's use of the plural word churches. St Paul writes to the Church at Corinth and speaks elsewhere of churches in Galatia and other places. Does this not prove that Christianity was originally a collection of independent communities?
The Roman Catechism, issued following the Council of Trent, answers the difficulty directly. It explains that “Church” can refer to the universal Church, to a local body of Catholics, to a household congregation, or in some contexts to ecclesiastical authority. It specifically calls Corinth, Galatia, Laodicea and Thessalonica portions of the Universal Church.
The distinction is fundamental:
A particular Church is part of the universal Catholic Church.
An independent denomination claims the right to exist separately while maintaining doctrines or government incompatible with other Christian bodies.
Those are not the same thing. The Roman Catechism then names unity as the first mark of the true Church and explains that the Church has one Faith, one baptism, Christ as her invisible Head and a visible principle of ecclesiastical government.
Pope Pius XII: The Church Is Visible and Perceptible
Pope Pius XII develops the same doctrine in Mystici Corporis Christi in 1943.
Christ could have distributed grace without human instruments, Pius XII teaches, but chose to do so through “a visible Church made up of men.” The Church, because she is a body, must possess a definite unity perceptible externally. Pius XII therefore rejects the conception of an invisible Church formed from Christian communities that differ from one another in their profession of faith.
Pius XII also draws an important consequence: those divided from one another in faith or government cannot, precisely in that state of division, be living in the visible unity of the one ecclesiastical body.
Again, this does not deny the existence of particular Christian communities within Catholicism. Pius XII expressly speaks of individual Eastern and Latin communities that together constitute the one Catholic Church. Their legitimate diversity exists inside a common Faith, sacramental communion and ecclesiastical government.
Historical and Theological Evidence
Unity Does Not Mean Uniformity
The Catholic claim is sometimes misunderstood as requiring every Catholic everywhere to have identical customs, spirituality, liturgical rite or local discipline. That has never been Catholic teaching.
The Church historically contained many dioceses, religious orders, schools of theology and liturgical traditions. Eastern Catholics and Latin Catholics did not cease to belong to one Church merely because their rites differed. Different bishops governed different territories. Different theological schools could disagree on questions the Church had left open.
What the Church could not contain as equally legitimate alternatives were contradictory professions of revealed Faith or rival sovereign ecclesiastical governments.
A Dominican and a Franciscan may disagree on a theological question that the Church has not decided. But one Catholic community cannot teach that baptism regenerates while another denies baptismal regeneration, each claiming that both doctrines constitute equally legitimate expressions of the apostolic Faith. Nor can one part of the Church recognize a divinely established ecclesiastical authority while another denies that authority in principle.
Unity permits legitimate diversity. It does not make contradiction into communion.
Why One Revealed Faith Requires a Teaching Authority
This explains why Leo XIII connects the unity of the Church with the Magisterium—the Church's divinely instituted teaching authority.
If Christ revealed a definite body of truth but left every congregation finally sovereign in interpreting that revelation, doctrinal fragmentation would be practically inevitable. Leo XIII makes precisely this argument in Satis Cognitum: Scripture is divine, but human interpreters can produce conflicting interpretations; therefore Christ provided a living and perpetual teaching office to preserve the unity of revealed Faith.
The Catholic argument is not that Scripture is obscure or useless. It is that Scripture was never intended to function as an authority detached from the apostolic teaching Church that received, preserved and authoritatively expounded it.
This is already visible in Acts 15. The controversy was not resolved by declaring that both interpretations could coexist indefinitely. The Church judged the dispute and transmitted a common determination to the faithful.
St Thomas Aquinas: Communion and Subordination
St Thomas Aquinas gives a concise theological analysis of ecclesiastical unity in the Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 39, a. 1.
Discussing schism, St Thomas explains that the unity of the Church consists in the communion of her members with one another and their subordination to one head. Christ is the principal Head of the Church, while the Roman Pontiff serves as His visible representative in ecclesiastical government.
This is theological exposition by a Doctor of the Church rather than a solemn dogmatic definition in itself. Nevertheless, it expresses with exceptional clarity the traditional Catholic conception later articulated authoritatively by the papal Magisterium.
Unity is therefore neither purely emotional nor merely invisible. It has an interior supernatural source and visible ecclesiastical expression.
St Robert Bellarmine and the Visible Church
St Robert Bellarmine's De Ecclesia Militante, Book III, chapter 2, became one of the classic theological treatments of the Church's visible constitution.
Bellarmine describes the Church militant as a visible society whose members are joined by three principal external bonds: profession of the same Christian Faith, participation in the same sacramental communion, and subjection to legitimate ecclesiastical pastors, especially the Roman Pontiff.
Bellarmine's formulation is a theological definition rather than a solemn dogmatic definition. Yet it became highly influential because it accurately synthesizes elements already contained in Scripture, Tradition and Catholic ecclesiastical practice. A digitised Latin edition of Bellarmine's controversies is preserved by the University Library of Paderborn.
His definition also explains something important: Catholic unity is not achieved merely by individuals privately holding similar beliefs. It is social and ecclesial. Christians are visibly joined in profession, sacramental communion and government.
St Peter as the Visible Principle of Ecclesiastical Unity
Christ remains the supreme and invisible Head of His Church. Catholic doctrine does not place Peter alongside Christ as a second independent head.
Rather, Christ chose to exercise visible pastoral government through men. He gave Peter the keys in Matthew 16 and, after the Resurrection, commanded him to feed His lambs and sheep.
Vatican I solemnly interpreted this Petrine commission as a genuine primacy of jurisdiction given by Christ to Peter and perpetuated in his successors. Pius XII later explained that this does not produce two competing heads: Peter's authority is ministerial and derives entirely from Christ.
The papacy therefore exists for the unity of the Church, not as an optional later addition to it.
This principle remains true even during a vacancy of the Apostolic See. Catholic theology has always recognised interregna between the death of one Pope and the election of another. A temporary absence of an incumbent does not alter the divinely instituted constitution of the office, any more than the vacancy of a diocesan see abolishes the episcopal constitution of the Church.
Questions concerning an unusually prolonged vacancy, disputed papal claimants or the application of traditional principles to the post–Vatican II crisis are separate theological questions. They should not be confused with the prior dogmatic question of what Christ established.
Pius XI and the Rejection of a Federation of Churches
The theory of a Christian “federation” was explicitly addressed by Pope Pius XI in Mortalium Animos in 1928.
Pius XI describes the theory fairly before rejecting it. Its proponents regarded the Church of Christ as composed of several distinct Christian communities which remained separated and disagreed on significant doctrines. Christian unity, on this view, could be reconstructed by finding a common doctrinal minimum and cooperating across denominational boundaries.
Pius XI answers that Christ instead instituted His Church as an external, perceptible society possessing teaching authority, sacramental ministry and visible government. He further rejects the claim that Christ's prayer for unity refers to an ecclesial unity that never actually existed and remains merely an unrealised ideal.
The problem is logical as well as ecclesiological. If one community teaches that Tradition is a source of divine revelation and another denies it; one teaches a sacrificial priesthood and another rejects it; one professes the Real Presence and another denies it—these contradictions cannot constitute one Faith in the same sense at the same time.
Pius XI therefore concludes that Christian unity cannot consist in constructing a federation in which each body retains mutually contradictory beliefs. Genuine reunion means restoration of unity in the one Faith and Church Christ established.
The Main Objection
“But the Bible Speaks of Many Churches, and All True Christians Are Spiritually One in Christ”
A serious Protestant response would distinguish the invisible Church from visible Christian organisations.
On this view, the one Church consists fundamentally of all genuine believers known perfectly to God. Individual denominations and congregations are imperfect visible expressions of this deeper spiritual reality. Their disagreements are regrettable, but they do not necessarily destroy the fundamental unity Christians possess through faith in Christ.
Furthermore, the New Testament itself speaks of “churches” in the plural. There were churches in different cities under different local leaders. It might therefore appear that institutional plurality existed from the beginning.
This objection should not be dismissed. Christians genuinely can share important truths about Christ while remaining divided ecclesiastically, and the New Testament certainly recognises local churches.
The question, however, is whether those facts establish the branch or denominational theory.
Response
They do not.
First, Catholic theology itself distinguishes the invisible supernatural life of the Church from her visible social structure. The Church possesses both dimensions. What Catholic teaching rejects is the conclusion that because grace and interior faith are invisible, the Church herself is therefore merely an invisible association.
Leo XIII states that the Church is simultaneously supernatural and visible, just as Christ Himself possessed a visible human nature and invisible divine nature. Pius XII likewise insists that the Mystical Body must be a definite and perceptible body rather than an invisible bond joining mutually contradictory Christian societies.
Second, the New Testament's local “churches” do not resemble modern denominations. Corinth did not possess one creed while Ephesus possessed another. Paul did not tell one congregation to decide for itself whether the Resurrection was bodily, another whether baptism was necessary, and another whether the Eucharist was sacrificial.
The local communities were expected to receive the same apostolic doctrine. When a dispute threatened doctrinal unity in Acts 15, it was submitted to apostolic judgment and a common decision was sent beyond Jerusalem to other churches.
The Roman Catechism therefore makes exactly the necessary distinction: local churches such as Corinth and Galatia are parts of the Universal Church. They are not rival denominations.
Third, Christ's own commands require visible ecclesiastical authority. “Tell the Church” makes little sense if no identifiable Church possesses the authority to decide the matter. “Feed my sheep” implies a real pastoral office. The keys and the power of binding and loosing imply government, not merely spiritual fellowship.
Fourth, spiritual unity cannot turn contradictory propositions into one Faith. If Christ revealed that proposition A is true, a church teaching not-A cannot be an equally legitimate doctrinal expression of the same revelation. Charity between Christians is necessary, but charity does not eliminate the law of non-contradiction.
The traditional Catholic position consequently does not deny that separated Christians may possess Scripture, valid baptism in some cases, elements of Christian truth, genuine natural virtues or even supernatural graces under conditions known to God. Nor does it presume to judge every individual's internal culpability.
The narrower ecclesiological conclusion is this:
separate bodies divided from one another in profession of faith or ecclesiastical government cannot, precisely as separated bodies, constitute several equally legitimate branches of the one visible Church founded by Christ.
What We Can and Cannot Conclude
Established Catholic doctrine: Jesus Christ founded one Church. The unity of the Church belongs to her divinely instituted constitution and is professed in the Creed as one of her four marks: One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic. Scripture describes this Church as one body, one flock and Christ's Church in the singular.
Defined dogma: Vatican I solemnly defined that Christ conferred upon St Peter a true primacy of jurisdiction over the universal Church and that this primacy was instituted to endure in Peter's successors. The Church's Petrine constitution is therefore not merely a theory of Bellarmine or a later medieval administrative arrangement.
Authoritative pre–Vatican II Catholic teaching: Leo XIII, Pius XI and Pius XII consistently teach that Christ's Church is a visible society and reject the notion that the one Church is merely an invisible spiritual union or a federation of mutually separated communities holding contradictory doctrines.
Common theological teaching: Catholic theologians commonly analyse the external bonds of ecclesiastical unity in terms of profession of the same Faith, sacramental communion and hierarchical government. St Robert Bellarmine's classic formulation belongs here. It is a theological synthesis of Catholic doctrine, not itself a separate solemn dogmatic definition.
Strong theological conclusion: Communities that are institutionally independent of one another and officially profess mutually contradictory doctrines cannot all be constituent branches of the one Church in the same sense. This conclusion follows directly from the Church's unity of Faith and government and was expressly applied to federation theories by Pius XI.
Matters requiring further distinction: Questions about material versus formal heresy, personal culpability, baptism of desire, catechumens, the exact canonical status of particular persons, or extraordinary circumstances affecting ecclesiastical membership require separate treatment. The objective identity of the Church should not be confused with God's judgment of an individual soul.
What is not necessary to establish this argument: One does not need any theory about the 1958 conclave, Cardinal Siri, Freemasonry, infiltration, intelligence agencies or later Vatican politics in order to establish that Christ founded one visible Church. The doctrine was taught centuries before those controversies arose. Questions about the Vatican II crisis must therefore be examined in light of this prior doctrine, not used to redefine it.
Conclusion
Jesus Christ founded one Church because He gave mankind one revealed Faith, one means of supernatural communion, one apostolic mission and one divinely constituted ecclesiastical society to carry His work through history.
That Church contains immense legitimate diversity. It can encompass many nations, languages, dioceses, religious orders, liturgical rites and theological schools. But diversity within Catholic unity is fundamentally different from independent Christian bodies contradicting one another about revealed doctrine and ecclesiastical authority.
Scripture presents one body, one Faith, one baptism, one flock and one Church. The Roman Catechism distinguishes local churches from the one Universal Church. Leo XIII explicitly denies that Christ founded several distinct Christian communities. Vatican I solemnly establishes the Petrine principle of universal ecclesiastical unity. Pius XI rejects the theory of a federation of doctrinally divided churches. Pius XII teaches that Christ's Mystical Body is both supernatural and visibly identifiable.
The sincere seeker should therefore not begin by asking,
“Which denomination best suits my preferences?”
The more fundamental question is:
Which visible Church can demonstrate continuity with the Church Christ actually founded—with the apostolic Faith, sacraments, government and marks that He gave it?
According to the constant pre–Vatican II Catholic teaching examined above, Christianity was never intended to become a marketplace of independent denominations. Christ founded one, visible, Catholic and Apostolic Church, and He commanded men to believe her teaching, receive her sacramental life and remain within her unity.
The present ecclesiastical crisis does not abolish that principle. On the contrary, it makes the principle more important. Whatever claims are made today must be measured against the constitution Christ gave His Church and the doctrine by which the Catholic Church herself explained that constitution before the present crisis.
Primary Sources
Sacred Scripture, Douay-Rheims Bible
Matthew 16:15–19 — Peter's confession, Christ's Church, the rock and the keys. Matthew 16
Matthew 18:15–18 — “Tell the Church” and the authority to bind and loose. Matthew 18
John 10:16 — one fold and one shepherd. John 10
John 21:15–17 — Christ's commission to Peter to feed His lambs and sheep. John 21
Ephesians 4:3–6 — one body, one Spirit, one Lord, one Faith and one baptism. Ephesians 4
Acts 15 — the Council of Jerusalem and the authoritative settlement of a doctrinal controversy. Acts 15
Pope Leo XIII, Satis Cognitum: On the Unity of the Church, 29 June 1896, especially §§3–10. The encyclical treats the Church's visibility, unity of Faith, perpetual teaching authority and Christ's institution of one rather than several distinct Christian societies. Official Vatican text of Satis Cognitum
First Vatican Council, Pastor Aeternus, First Dogmatic Constitution on the Church of Christ, 18 July 1870, chapters 1–3. Particularly relevant are the institution and perpetuity of Peter's primacy and the Church's unity in communion and profession of Faith under one supreme shepherd. English text of Pastor Aeternus
Catechism of the Council of Trent (Roman Catechism), Part I, Article IX, “I Believe in the Holy Catholic Church.” Especially the sections concerning the meanings of “Church,” local churches as portions of the Universal Church, and unity as the first mark of the Church. Roman Catechism, Part I, Article IX
Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos: On Religious Unity, 6 January 1928, especially §§6–11. Pius XI examines and rejects the concept of the Church as a federation of distinct Christian communities professing incompatible doctrines. Official Vatican text of Mortalium Animos
Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis Christi: On the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ and Our Union in It, 29 June 1943, especially §§12–14, 22–23 and 40–42. The encyclical treats the Church as one visible Mystical Body united in Faith and government. Official Vatican text of Mystici Corporis Christi
St Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 39, a. 1, “Whether schism is a special sin?” Relevant to the communion of the Church's members and their subordination to one head. Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 39, a. 1
St Robert Bellarmine, De Controversiis, De Ecclesia Militante, Book III, chapter 2. Bellarmine's classic theological description of the visible Church and her external bonds of unity. A digitised Latin edition is held by the Erzbischöfliche Akademische Bibliothek Paderborn. Digitised Bellarmine edition — Paderborn University Library
Further Reading
Joseph Clifford Fenton, The Catholic Church and Salvation: In the Light of Recent Pronouncements of the Holy See. Westminster, Maryland: The Newman Press, 1958. Fenton was professor of fundamental dogmatic theology at the Catholic University of America and a member of the Pontifical Roman Theological Academy. Especially useful are his discussions of the nature and necessity of the Church.
1958 edition — Internet Archive/Open Library record
Gerardus Cornelis Van Noort, Dogmatic Theology, Vol. II: Christ's Church. Van Noort's pre–Vatican II manuals provide a systematic treatment of the Church as a visible, hierarchical and indefectible society, including her unity and marks. For the related 1957 English volume The True Religion, see the archival record here. Van Noort — Open Library/Internet Archive record
Catechism of St Pius X, section on the Ninth Article of the Creed. Its question-and-answer treatment provides an accessible traditional summary of why the Church is called one and how her members are united in Faith, worship, law, sacraments and visible government. Catechism of St Pius X
St Robert Bellarmine, De Ecclesia Militante, especially Book III. Bellarmine should be read as a major approved theologian and Doctor of the Church, while preserving the distinction between his theological explanations and formally defined dogma. Digitised Latin Bellarmine collection
Related Questions
1.1. What is the Catholic Church and why should I be a member of it?
1.2. What does it mean to be a member of the Catholic Church?
1.3. Who leads, governs, and protects the Catholic Church?
1.4. Don’t all Christian denominations make up the Church, and isn’t it just a matter of personal taste? Doesn’t God see our heart anyway?
1.5. What are the four marks of the Catholic Church, and why are they important?
1.6. Can the Catholic Church ever fail or teach heresy?
1.7. How can we recognize the true Church today?