"This is the sole Church of
Christ, which in the Creed we profess to be one, holy, catholic and
apostolic." These four characteristics, inseparably linked
with each other, indicate essential features of the Church and
her mission. The Church does not possess them of herself; it is Christ who,
through the Holy Spirit, makes his Church one, holy, catholic, and apostolic,
and it is he who calls her to realize each of these qualities (CCC 811).
Only faith can recognize that the
Church possesses these properties from her divine source. But their historical
manifestations are signs that also speak clearly to human reason. As the First
Vatican Council noted, the "Church herself, with her marvelous propagation,
eminent holiness, and inexhaustible fruitfulness in everything good, her
catholic unity and invincible stability, is a great and perpetual motive of
credibility and an irrefutable witness of her divine mission" (CCC 812).
