What is the meaning of the affirmation that the Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church?
Response: Christ “established here on earth” only one Church and instituted it as a “visible and spiritual community”5, that from its beginning and throughout the centuries has always existed and will always exist, and in which alone are found all the elements that Christ himself instituted.6 “This one Church of Christ, which we confess in the Creed as one, holy, catholic and apostolic []. This Church, constituted and organised in this world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church, governed by the successor of Peter and the Bishops in communion with him”7. In number 8 of the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium subsistence means this perduring, historical continuity and the permanence of all the elements instituted by Christ in the Catholic Church8, in which the Church of Christ is concretely found on this earth. It is possible, according to Catholic doctrine, to affirm correctly that the Church of Christ is present and operative in the churches and ecclesial Communities not yet f
