Catholicity: The Wholeness of the Church

I. Rival Notions of Catholicity
catholic = universal, holistic (kath' holon)
Ignatius: "wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the catholic Church"
Vincent of Lerins: "that which is believed everywhere, always, and by all"
Cyril of Jerusalem: the Church is sufficient, having everything for salvation

Four visions of catholicity:

1. "Catholic" catholicity

Lambeth Quadrilateral: Scriptures, creeds, sacraments, episcopate
Papacy too?

2. "Protestant" Catholicity

Word and sacraments are formally and materially sufficient

3. Catholicity as an eschatological process

Holy Spirit's work = "catholicizing" the Church

4. Catholicity as human, not institutional, universality (Migliore)

What the Church lacks in universality, it lacks in catholicity
Catholicizing = including the excluded

II. Liberation Theology: God is Not a Capitalist
Class: More real than Americans imagine
Marx: The poor are made poor by society
Conquistador Christianity: Evangelism as civilization, Church as colonizer
Effect: "Christ the conquered" (Latin American crucifixes)
Marxist "conscientization": Unmasking oppressive social structures
Jesus as a radical revolutionary

III. Features of Liberation Theology
1. God is the God of the poor
2. God's work is liberation
3. The poor have a privileged perspective on God
4. Healthy theology reflects and furthers God's work of liberation
5. Eucharist acts out God's character and the Church's mission
6. Salvation/liberation is communal, as God is communal

IV. More evangelical than you think?