Mystici Corporis Christi

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Mystici Corporis Christi (The Mystical Body of Christ) is an

Mystical Body of Christ
.

The encyclical is remembered for its statement that the Mystical Body of Christ is the Catholic Church. According to Mystici corporis, to be truly a member of the mystical body, one must be a member of the Catholic Church. Non-Catholics who erred in good faith could be unsuspectingly united to the mystical body by an unconscious desire and longing.[1]

According to the

Christ and the Church.[1]

Background

Mystical Body of Christ.[3] In 1936, Emile Mersch[who?] had warned of some false mysticisms being advanced with regard to the mystical body, and his history of this topic was seen as influencing the encyclical.[4]

On 18 January 1943, five months before the promulgation of Mystici Corporis Christi,

perfect society on earth as an attempt to save the mystical body theology, with its many theological, pastoral, and spiritual benefits, from the danger of docetism.[5]

Content

Role of the laity

The encyclical teaches that both laypeople and the leadership have a role to play in the Catholic Church. Lay people are at the forefront of the Church, and have to be aware of 'being the Church', not just 'belonging to the Church'. At the same time, the Pope and bishops are responsible for providing leadership for all the faithful. Together, they are the Church and work for the good of the Church.[6]

Apostles and bishops

The encyclical states that

Christ, while still on earth, instructed by precept, counsel and warnings "in words that shall never pass away, and will be spirit and life" to all men of all times.[7] He conferred a triple power on his Apostles and their successors, to teach, to govern, to lead men to holiness, making this power, defined by special ordinances, rights and obligations, the fundamental law of the whole Church.[8] God governs directly and guides personally the Church which He founded. Pius XII quoted Proverbs 21:1, noting that God reigns within the minds and hearts of men, and bends and subjects their wills to His good pleasure, even when rebellious.[9]

Mystici Corporis requests the faithful to love their Church and to always see Christ in her, especially in the old and sick members. They must accustom themselves "to see Christ Himself in the Church. For it is Christ who lives in His Church, and through her, teaches, governs, and sanctifies; it is Christ also who manifests Himself differently in different members of His society".[10]

Opposition to Nazism

See also: Mit brennender Sorge, Catholic Church and Nazi Germany, and Non abbiamo bisogno

Pius XII wrote: "The Church of God […] is despised and hated maliciously by those who shut their eyes to the light of Christian wisdom and miserably return to the teachings, customs and practices of ancient paganism". He quoted the book of Wisdom to the effect that "a most severe judgment shall be for them that bear rule. […] The mighty shall be mightily tormented […] A greater punishment is ready for the more mighty".[11]

Ronald Rychlak has described the encyclical as "an obvious attack on the theoretical basis of

National Socialism".[12]

Killing of disabled people

Pius' statement of "profound grief" at the death of "the deformed, the insane, and those suffering from hereditary disease […] as though they were a useless burden to Society"[13] was a condemnation of the ongoing Nazi euthanasia program, under which disabled Germans were being removed from care facilities and murdered by the state as "life unworthy of life".[14]

Exclusion on the basis of race or nationality

See also: Exsul Familia and Catholic Church and race

Pius XII appealed to "Catholics the world over" to "look to the

among the first people to adore Jesus. Pius then made an appeal for all to "follow our peaceful King [Jesus Christ] who taught us to love not only those who are of a different nation or race, but even our enemies".[11]

Forced conversions

Mystici Corporis Christi strongly condemned the

Sacraments
; for the 'faith without which it is impossible to please God' is an entirely free 'submission of intellect and will.'".

Ecclesiology

See also: Baptism of desire, Fate of the unlearned, and Vincible and invincible ignorance

Ecclesiology is one of the focus of the encylical.

The encyclical defines the "true Church of Jesus Christ" and the "Mystical Body of Christ" as "the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Church".[16]

It states that the only ones who can be considered as "members of the Church" are those "who have been

baptized and profess the true faith, and who have not […] separate[d] themselves from the unity of the Body, or been excluded by legitimate authority for grave faults committed".[17] The encyclical also states that the sins of heresy and schism, by their "own nature", "sever a man from the Body of the Church".[18]

As for "those who do not belong to the visible Body of the Catholic Church, […] even though by an unconscious desire and longing they have a certain relationship with the Mystical Body of the Redeemer, they still remain deprived of those many heavenly gifts and helps which can only be enjoyed in the Catholic Church".[19]

The encyclical rejects two views on the Church:[20]

  1. A
    visible Church and its structures do exist but the Church is more, she is guided by the Holy Spirit: "Although the juridical principles, on which the Church rests and is established, derive from the divine constitution given to it by Christ and contribute to the attaining of its supernatural end, nevertheless that which lifts the Society of Christians far above the whole natural order is the Spirit of our Redeemer who penetrates and fills every part of the Church".[21]
  2. An exclusively
    mystical understanding of the Church is mistaken as well, because a mystical 'Christ in us' union would deify its members and mean that the acts of Christians are simultaneously the acts of Christ. The theological concept una mystica persona ("one mystical person") refers not to an individual relation but to the unity of Christ with the Church and the unity of its members with him in the Church.[22]

Mariology

Main article:
Mariology of Pope Pius XII

The encyclical concludes with a summary of the

Martyrs".[23]

While the

second Eve, who, free from all sin, original or personal, and always more intimately united with her Son, offered Him on Golgotha to the Eternal Father for all the children of Adam, sin-stained by his unhappy fall".[24] Pius viewed her compassion there as the basis for her role in humanity's redemption.[25]

If the Mother of God was born as the "second Eve", the Church was born as the "new Eve". Pius XII repeated that, according to "unanimous teaching" of the Church Fathers and the magisterium of Christ, the "Church was born from the side of our Savior on the Cross like a new Eve, mother of all the living".[24]

Legacy

Mystici Corporis did not receive much attention during the war years but became influential after World War II.[20]

Racial relationships

In the

African-Americans.[26]

Nazi Germany

See also: Catholic Church and Nazi Germany

The encyclical was followed, on 26 September 1943, by an open condemnation in Nazi Germany by the German Bishops which, from every pulpit of every German churches, denounced the killing of "innocent and defenceless mentally handicapped, incurably infirm and fatally wounded, innocent hostages, and disarmed prisoners of war and criminal offenders, people of a foreign race or descent".[14]

Ecclesiology

Mystici Corporis Christi is principally remembered for its statement that the

Pius XII in Humani generis (1950) in response to dissension.[a][1]

In 1947, Pius XII wrote the encyclical

Mystical Body and participated in Christ's priestly office.[1]

During the

Holy Office for describing the Church as essentially a community in the Spirit, a gathering of the faithful.[1]

Main article: Subsistit in

The Second Vatican Council would later define in Lumen gentium that the Church subsists in (in Latin: subsistit in) the Catholic Church.[1]

Paul VI's 1964 Ecclesiam Suam quotes Mystici Corporis Christi:

Consider, then, this splendid utterance of Our predecessor:
"The doctrine of the Mystical Body of Christ, which is the Church, a doctrine revealed originally from the lips of the Redeemer Himself, and making manifest the inestimable boon of our most intimate union with so august a Head, has a surpassing splendor which commends it to the meditation of all who are moved by the divine Spirit, and with the light which it sheds on their minds, is a powerful stimulus to the salutary conduct which it enjoins."

Laity

In 1947, Pius XII issued the apostolic constitution Provida Mater Ecclesia, which allowed lay people to form their own secular communities, and establish them within a newly established canon law framework.[28]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ 27. Some say they are not bound by the doctrine, explained in Our Encyclical Letter of a few years ago [Mystici Corporis Christi], and based on the Sources of Revelation, which teaches that the Mystical Body of Christ and the Roman Catholic Church are one and the same thing. Some reduce to a meaningless formula the necessity of belonging to the true Church in order to gain eternal salvation. Others finally belittle the reasonable character of the credibility of Christian faith.
    28. These and like errors, it is clear, have crept in among certain of Our sons who are deceived by imprudent zeal for souls or by false science. To them We are compelled with grief to repeat once again truths already well known, and to point out with solicitude clear errors and dangers of error.[27]

References

  1. ^
    S2CID 45707192
    . — pp. 420–431
  2. ^ Sullivan, Francis (2006). "Quaestio Disputata: A response to Karl Becker, SJ, on the Meaning of Subsistit in". Theological Studies. 67 (2): 395–409.
  3. ^ La Cristologia in Italia 1930-1990, Sergio de Marchi, Piemme, 1994, P. Parente, De Verbo Incarnato, 1933, Hofmann, Der Kirchenbegriff des hl. Augustinus, München 1933, H. Käppeli, Zur Lehre des hl. Thomans von Aquin vom Corpus Christi Mysticum, Freiburg, 1931, E Mersch, Le Corps Mystique du Christ 2 Vol. Paris, 1936, A E Rawloson, Corpus Christi Mysticum, Berlin, 1931, Robinson, H Wheeler, The Cross of the Servant, London, 1926
  4. ^ The Whole Christ: The Historical Development of the Doctrine of the Mystical Body in Scripture and Tradition, Wipf & Stock Pub, 2011.
  5. ^ Gabrielli, Timothy R. (2017). "One in Christ". Liturgical Press.
  6. ^ Pius XII, Discourse, February 20, 1946:AAS 38 (1946) 149; quoted by John Paul II, CL 9.
  7. ^ Cf. John VI, 63.
  8. ^ Pius XII, Enc. Mystici corporis Christi, 38
  9. ^ Pius XII, Enc. Mystici Corporis Christi, 39
  10. ^ Pius XII, Enc. Mystici corporis Christi, 93
  11. ^ a b Rychlak, Ronald (30 March 2000). "A Response to: The Vatican and the Holocaust, A Preliminary Report by the International Catholic-Jewish Commission". Catholic League. Retrieved 2019-12-21.
  12. ^ "Pius XII as a Righteous Gentile | EWTN". www.ewtn.com. Retrieved 2019-12-21.
  13. ^ Pius XII, Enc. Mystici Corporis Christi, 94
  14. ^
    ISBN 978-1-59420-206-3
    .
  15. ^ "Goldhagen v. Pius XII | Ronald J. Rychlak". First Things. June 2002. Retrieved 2019-12-21.
  16. ^ Pius XII, Enc. Mystici Corporis Christi, 13
  17. ^ Pius XII, Enc. Mystici Corporis Christi, 22
  18. ^ Pius XII, Enc. Mystici Corporis Christi, 23
  19. ^ Pius XII, Enc. Mystici Corporis Christi, 103
  20. ^ a b Heribert Mühlen, Una Mystica Persona, München, 1967, p.51
  21. ^ Pius XII, Enc. Mystici Corporis Christi, 63
  22. ^ Sebastiaan Tromp, Caput influit sensum et motum, Gregorianum, 1958, pp. 353-366
  23. ^ Pius XII, Enc. Mystici Corporis Christi, 110
  24. ^ a b "Mystici Corporis Christi (June 29, 1943) | PIUS XII". www.vatican.va.
  25. ISBN 978-1-57910-195-4
    .
  26. ^ Ruth Fox, “Catholicism and Racism,” Interracial Review 17 (February 1944), 25; Catherine de Hueck Doherty, “The Baroness Jots It Down,” Harlem Friendship House News (April 1944), 6.
  27. ^ "Humani Generis (August 12, 1950) | PIUS XII". www.vatican.va.
  28. ^ Pius XII, Apostolic Constitution Provida Mater Ecclesia, Vatican city, 1947

External links

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