I Believe in the Catholic Church

Today we hear of Liberal Catholics and Conservative Catholics. We hear of Anglican Catholics and Roman Catholics. We hear of Traditionalist Catholics and Conciliarist Catholics. We hear of Old Catholics and New Catholics. One can find all manner of churches today claiming to be the Catholic Church. Jesus Christ founded one Church, which we know as the Catholic Church. And so just where is this Church? We know that Jesus Christ founded His Church to last until the end of time somewhere on earth. True, it will have its ups and downs. Consider the Arian heresy, when the world groaned and found itself Arian rather than Catholic. And yet the Catholic Church survived and restored herself. The Church has suffered through two schisms. The Eastern Schism produced the Orthodox Church, which remains until this day. The Western Schisms saw a time of two men claiming to be Pope and then three. After forty years of confusion, the Council of Constance was able to obtain the resignation of two of the claimants and the deposition of the third. Then it produced a single Pope to restore order to the Church. And today with all kinds of people claiming to be Catholic, just who are and who are not the Catholics? In order to answer that question this work simply presents the teaching of the Catholic Church on her constitution from two separate sources. The first is taken from 'Exposition of Christian Doctrine' by a seminary professor. This was originally published in 1894 for the use of catechists. In the appropriate places quotes from more recent Encyclicals and the Code of Canon Law have been added. After this, the article on this article of the Creed has been taken from the Roman Catechism, also known as the Catechism of the Council of Trent. No conclusions have been drawn. This work is merely presented to enable people to find the Catholic Church.