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Rausch Towards A Truly Catholic Church Summary

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Rausch, T., Towards a Truly Catholic Church: An Ecclesiology for the Third Millennium (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2005), 131-151.

Short summary
Since the First Council of Constantinople in 381, we Christian have a belief in “one, holy, catholic and apostolic church”. First, the Church should be one. Eucharistic celebration and the biblical concept of the “People of God” are exemplified for this. However, the Church has been divided into numerous denominations and lost communion each other mainly because of the Reformation. The crucial discrepancy between the Roman Catholic Church and Protestant church is perception on the church; while Roman Catholic and Orthodox regards the Church visible and invisible, reformers did not. Second, the Church is holy. The holiness of the Church can be found in the following three senses: the sole divine existence of God, covenant relationship with God, her deeds from God and holy gifts from God. At the same time, the Church is also sinful, as not a few scandals in the Church shows. …show more content…

However, his arguments have weaknesses. First, he says no one can see God’s face without death by citing the passages from the Bible in order to explain the God’s holiness. However, there is no people who died because of seeing God’s face directly in the Bible. On the contrary, the Bible depict the face-to-face conversation between Load and Moses (Ex 33:11), and all disciples of Jesus should have died since Jesus is divine, and seeing Jesus means seeing the Father (John 14:9). Second, he names the opposition to heresies as a requisition for catholicity (p.140), this idea is not argued. Finally, he does not mention the consecrated life and people in spite of the significance on the Church, although he admits the importance of holy gifts from

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