The Church And The Catholic
by Romano Guardini

EPILOGUE

THESE lectures have not attempted to establish by scientific

reasoning, but to state as my firm conviction, that the

sphere of Catholic faith--the Church--is not merely one

alternative among many, but religious truth, pure and

simple, the Kingdom of God. The Church is not something

belonging to the past, but absolute reality, and therefore

the answer to every age, including our own, and its

fulfillment. And this fulfillment will be the more perfect,

the more substantial and the more complete our acceptance of

the reality displayed by the Catholic faith and the more

serious our endeavor to make our own the spiritual

disposition it involves. This genuine Catholicity, which is

seriously convinced of the supernatural and dogmatic

character of Catholicism, is the most open-minded and the

most comprehensive attitude, or rather the only open-minded

comprehensive attitude, in existence. If by open-mindedness

we mean the intellectual outlook which sees and values all

objects as they really are, the Church can claim this

description, because in face of the superabundant wealth of

human experience she occupies the sole perfectly stable,

clear and determined position Both the wealth and the fixity

enter into the Catholic mind. For the man whose outlook is

narrow and timid and whose experience of reality is

impoverished, falls as far short of the Catholic outlook as

the man who is incapable of an unconditional affirmative or

negative, or who waters down her definitely supernatural

teaching, or explains away the clear historical facts upon

which it is based.

But more remains to be said. Already in my second lecture I

pointed out that we are concerned with the actual, not the

ideal Church, not with a spiritual one, but the historical

Church as she exists to-day. The Church is not an ideal,

which can be constructed a priori, and upon which we may

fall back when reality fails us, as, for instance, we may

elaborate an ideal state. Fundamentally there is no such

thing as a philosophy of the Church. She is on the contrary

a unique fact. Her position in this respect resembles that

of a man. If anyone were to say that a particular judgment

was applicable not to his friend in the concrete, but only

to his ideal, and in consequence were to divert his approval

from the man to the ideal, he would be guilty of an

injustice to his friend's personality. It would indeed be

worse than an injustice; it would be disloyalty. For it

would be a complete blindness to the essential decision with

which human personality confronts us to accept or refuse it

as it actually is. It demands yes or no, hostility or

loyalty, but cannot admit a retreat into the abstract and a

denial of reality in the name of the ideal. Such an

attribute would be metaphysically false, because it would

ignore the essential nature of individual personality by

treating it as nothing more than a particular instance of a

universal, and it would be morally unacceptable, because it

would substitute for the attitude which must be adopted

towards a person the attitude proper in the case of a mere

thing. It is equally irrational to distinguish between the

reality and the ideal of the Church. This, however, makes a

further distinction the more indispensable. We must inquire

whether the real inner form of the Church, her inner

perfection ordained by God, is revealed by any given

external of manifestation. Are forces which spring from her

very essence fully operative in the visible expressions of

her life? Is her inner nature visible in her members? No one

can evade this question, for it concerns each one of us

personally. When a man reaches the conviction that the

Church is absolute in her actual nature and in every age

teaches the way to perfection and the strength by which it

may be achieved, his immediate reaction will be an intense

gratitude. But this gratitude must not induce him to settle

down in spiritual comfort, but must be felt as a demand. The

parable of the talents is applicable also to our relation to

the Church. We are all responsible for her, each in his own

way, the priest in virtue of his Ordination, the layman in

virtue of his Confirmation. Upon each one of us depends the

degree of harmony achieved between the nature of the Church

and her outward semblance, between her inner and outer

aspects. Here, too, we bear a heavy responsibility towards

those outside the Church. It requires the vision of love and

of faith to see the inner nature of the Church beneath

expressions often so defective. Even her own members

sometimes lack this vision. How much less then is it to be

expected from those who regard the Church with distrust as

strangers, blinded by the prejudices and false values of

their education! We cannot blame them if they regard the

assertions made in these lectures as theorizing. For it is

indeed true that a valid argument in this sphere should be

conducted by Catholics, whose lives inspire confidence.

Their proofs, it is true, are not without their intrinsic

value. But their power to bring conviction is strongest when

they are supported by a living "proof of power."

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