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A MONTHLY PUBLICATION FOR THE CLERGY
Cum Approbatione Superiorum

VOL. CXXXII
JANUARY—JUNE, 1S55

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Phil. 1:27

Published by
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THE AMERICAN ECCLESIASTICAL REVIEW

why our young Catholics are keeping steady company is the con­
viction that "everyone else is doing it.” Catholics must be warned
against the attitude that they can base their conduct on the ways
of the world. They must be taught from childhood that if they
wish to live up to the principles of their faith they must be willing
to be different from non-Catholics and must be willing to be ridi­
culed as old-fashioned. And, they must know this is the way to
bring to the attention of the world the true standards of morality.
In the words of Archbishop Noll: "If teen-age Catholics have
any duty it is to lead others who have never had any special moral
training and not to follow others. Every one instructed in the
knowledge of God is obligated to be a leader, and may not follow
one who is not so instructed.”18
Priests must direct the laity along this way, by word and espe­
cially by example. Priests are men who have chosen a way of lift
very different from that of people of the world because it exem­
plifies in a high degree the ideals of the Christian life laid down
by Our Lord Himself ; hence, they must be models of virtue for
their people. Catholic men and women—and even children—must
learn that it is not easy to be a good Catholic, and that they must
be prepared to face scorn and hatred and ridicule if they would be
accounted faithful followers of Jesus Christ.

Francis J. Connell, C.SSJl
The Catholic University of America
Washington, D. C.
18 Onr Smday Pietor, June 27, 1954.

BROTHERHOOD IN CATHOLIC THEOLOGY
From the twentieth to the twenty-seven th of last month an or­
ganization called The National Conference of Christians and Jews
sponsored a very well publicized “Brotherhood Week." According
to the material in the “Magazine Kit” for this “Brotherhood
Week,” sent some months ago to the editorial offices of The
American Ecclesiastical Review, the National Conference seeks
"to demonstrate that all creeds can work together to achieve the
goals of brotherhood.” The National Conference further describes
itself as “an educational, civic organization of religiously motivated
men and women.” According to the National Conference’s “Fact
Sheet,” this body “seeks the Brotherhood of Man based on the
Fatherhood of God.’’1
A society which works for this high goal might appear at first
glance to be a religious gathering, but the material in the “Maga­
zine Kit” assures us that this is not so. “While the National Con­
ference,” we are told, “does much of its work through religious
groups, it is not itself a religious organization.” We are informed
that “rather, it is a group of religiously motivated men and women
whose purpose it is to eradicate prejudices and bigotry through
educational programs of good will.”
From the literary material which the National Conference of
Christians and Jews has so generously provided, it would appear
that this group’s aim of “the Brotherhood of Man based on the
Fatherhood of God,” for all practical purposes, means a condition
in which prejudice and bigotry have been largely eliminated. Yet
this printed matter leaves no doubt about the feet that the “brother­
hood” with which “Brotherhood Week” is concerned is something
which goes beyond the limits of any particular religious organiza­
tion. One leaflet insists on the contention “that all men—of all
religions, of all colors, of all languages—are in fact brothers.”
The high position occupied by some of the people who propound
these teachings, as well as the extraordinarily powerful publicity
given to “Brotherhood Week” and its various exercises, make it
1 There are several mimeographed sheets and one printed leaflet in thh
“Magazine Kit” This and the following citations are taken from varkma
parts of the material in this collection.

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imperative that Catholics know something about the divinely re­
vealed doctrine on the subject of a genuine and supernatural
brotherhood here on earth.
That information is readily available in the sources of Catholic
theology. Indeed, the doctrine of the brotherhood with Our Lord
and with each other which men are privileged to enjoy, as the
real though adopted sons of God, is one of the basic teachings of
the New Testament.
In the Greek text of the New Testament the word ά&λφόττρ,
or “brotherhood" occurs twice. Both times it is used in the First
Epistle of St. Peter. The first time it occurs is in the laconic com­
mand issued to die faithful to “Love the brotherhood.”2 The sec­
ond time is in the reminder that “the same affliction [persecution
by Satan himself] befalls your brotherhood that is in the world."*
Thus in both instances the term clearly refers to a social unit within
which men are brothers, and this social unit is obviously the
Church itself. Actually, then, the word “brotherhood,” like the
expressions "Church,” “kingdom of God,” “city of God,” "house­
hold of the faith,” “Body of Christ,” and “temple of God,” is a
genuine name of the Church, one of the designations used in Scrip­
ture to designate the supernatural community which is the con­
gregatio fidelium in Christo* the social unit within which alone
men are to find salvific contact with God in Our Lord. And, along
with such terms as “disciple,” and “called,” and “Christianthe
word “brother” is one of the words which the New Testament em­
ploys as names for the members of the ecclesia? As a matter of
fact, the term “brother” is the most frequently employed of all
these New Testament titles. It is, incidentally, the first name ap­
plied to members of the Lord’s company in the text of the Acts
of the Apostles.
It is very interesting to note that, in the Vulgate, the term
‘"fraternitas,” the Latin equivalent of
occurs no less than
eight times. Twice, of course, it stands as a translation of ά&λφόττ5·
V Pet. 2:17.
31 Pet. 5:9.
♦C£ Fenton, “Scholastic Definitions of the Catholic Church,” in AER,
CXf. 1 (July, 1944), 59 ff.
5 For the particular significance of the term "ecclesia," rf. Fent®, “The
Meaning of the Name ‘Church,’” in AER, CXXXI, 4 (Oct, 1954), 268-76.

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Five times, however, “fraternitas” is a part of the translation of the
term ψιλαδελφία,® and once it is a part of the translation of the
cognate φιλάδιλφον.7 It is highly indicative of the mentality of
primitive Christianity that φιλα&ΐλφία and φιλάΖίλφο·; were taken
to mean, not merely “brotherly love” and “one possessing fraternal
affection,” but precisely as “charitas fraternitatis” or “amor fra­
ternitatis" and “amator fraternitatis." The basically corporate sig­
nificance of the “brotherhood” was axiomatic to the members of
the Church from the very outset.
Those who were privileged to be the disciples of Jesus Christ
during the first few centuries in the life of the Church militant of
the New Testament were very well aware of the fact that it was
precisely by reason of their association in the ecclesia that they
were privileged to be brothers to Our Lord and, through Him, to
each other. Our Lord Himself had brought out that fact with
matchless darity during the course of His public life on earth.
All three of the Synoptic Gospels tell of one occasion when Our
Lord taught this truth. Here is the pertinent passage in the Gospel
according to St. Matthew.
As he was yet speaking to the multitudes, behold his mother and his
brethren stood without, seeking to speak to him.
And one said to him; behold thy mother and thy brethren stand
without, seeking thee.
But he answering him that told him, said : Who is my mother and
who are my brethren ?
And stretching forth his hand towards his disciples, he said : Behold
my mother and my brethren.
For whosoever shall do the will of my Father that is in heaven, he is
my brother, and sister, and mother.8

These people whom Our Lord designated as His brothers and
sisters were members of the community of His disciples. Primarily,
of course, they were μα&ηταί or “disciples,” men and women whom
He had called or invited into His company so that they might hear
from Him that message which St Peter once described so aptly as
“the words of eternal life.”8 But it is essential to remember that

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•The expression “amor fraternitatis” is found in I Pet. 1:22 and JI
Pet., 1:7, where, incidentally, it occurs twice. “Charitas fraternitatis” is the
translation in Rom. 2; 10; T Thes. 4:9; and Heb. 13:1.
’tt I Pet. 3:8.
*Matt, 12 : 46-50.
» John 6:®.
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these disciples were organized into an individual congregation or
social unit, and that to be a disciple of Christ, or, in other words,
to be numbered among those whom He indicated as His brothers
and sisters, actually meant belonging to that social unit.

During the course of His public life, Our Lord organized these
people whom He had gathered around Himself and formed them
into a definite religious society. They were organized so perfectly
that, immediately after His Ascension into heaven, this group ap­
peared as an established religious society, manifestly distinct from
and bitterly opposed by the old Jewish religious commonwealth
within the fabric of which Our Lord had instituted it,1· This so­
ciety of the disciples was in reality the faithful remnant of Israel.
The old Jewish religious community was, until Chur Lord’s death
on Calvary, the genuine and supernatural kingdom of God on
earth. Chir Lord’s sacrificial death marked the ultimate rejection
of the Messias by the group which had hitherto been God’s king­
dom, the congregatio fidelium tn Christo, precisely by reason of
its profession of acceptance of the divinely revealed message that
centered around the promised Messias. It was also the sacrifice of
the new and eternal covenant, the act in which the liturgical activ­
ity of the society of the disciples became valid as that of God’s
kingdom in this covenant. As the kingdom of God on earth, the
society of the disciples was to stand as the company within which
men are to do the will of the divine Father in heaven. Thus, in a
special way, it was constituted as the company of the “brotherhood.”
As the society of the disciples, the supernatural kingdom of God
of die New Testament was and is the community of those who
accepted Our Lord's invitation, or, in other words, the assembly
of those who had received Him. We must not allow ourselves to
forget how intimately Our Lord lived in and with, and was joined
to, this particular group. St. Peter brought out that fact with extra­
ordinary clarity when he was listing the qualifications of those men
whom he would consider acceptable as candidates for the apostolic
post vacated by Judas Iscariot. According to the Prince of the
Apostles, such candidates had to be of the number
«Ct Fenton, “The Proof of the Church’s Divine Origin,” in AER,
CXin, 3 (Sept, 1946), 203-19.

BROTHERHOOD IN CATHOLIC THEOLOGY

195

... of these men who have companied with us, all the time that the
Lord Jesus came in and went out among· us,
Beginning from the baptism of John, until the day wherein he was
taken up from us. . . ,11

The Greek text of the Acts brings out that intimacy of Our
Lord’s association with the company of His disciples even more
powerfully than the Latin and the English translations. In the
Greek, the three verbs in the first of the verses quoted are all
variations of the word ίρχβμαι. The text refers to men "who were
going with us all the time that the Lord Jesus was going in and
going out among us.” It gives the idea of a traveling community
within which Our Lord moved and worked. It tells definitely of
a company within which and from which He taught His divine
message. This group constituted the society of those who actually
received Him.
Now the first chapter of the Gospel according to St. John brings
out the connection between the “reception” of Christ and the basis
of brotherhood in Him and under the Fatherhood of God.
He came unto his own : and his own received him not.
But as many as received him, he gave them power to be made the
sons of God, to them that believe in His name.
Who are bom, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the
will of man, but of God.12

Here we find the fundamental explanation of the supernatural
brotherhood of man under the Fatherhood of God. According to
the Gospel according to St. John, the community of Our Lord's
disciples, the company which received Him and within which He
worked and taught is the social unit within which men are em­
powered to become the sons of God, to be born of God, in a proper
and supernatural sense, although obviously not in the same way
in which the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity proceeds from
God the Father. Thus this society of those who believe in Our
Lord’s name is the organization within which men can be and
should be children of God, and brothers to Jesus Christ and to
each other in Christ. It is the congregation which deserves the
title of the άδίλφότ^ν or the brotherhood.
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it is not by accident that the notion of belief in Our Lord’s name
is joined, in the text of St. John's Gospel, to that of supernatural
and adoptive sonship of God. According to God’s own decree, the
supernatural life in function of which men are designated properly
as adopted sons of God and brothers of Our Saviour is something
which is meant to be lived in that community which is called God's
kingdom or His ecclesia. The standard and traditional definition
of this social unît is congregatio fidelium in Christo. The people
who make up this supernatural kingdom are those who profess
their belief in and their acceptance of the divinely revealed mes­
sage of salvation which centers around the divine redeemer, Jesus
Christ. Their company is the true household of the faith,1* the
social unit within which alone men are to be saved from “this per­
verse generation.”13
14 It is the Church, the community outside of
which, in the words of the Unam sanctam, there is “neither salva­
tion nor the forgiveness of sins.”15
Here we encounter the central and essential factor in the divinely
revealed teaching about that supernatural and adoptive sonship of
the living God in terms of which men may be designated as brothers to Our Lord and to each other, and in function of which the
ecclesia itself may be properly designated as the brotherhood. Men
really become sons of God, though of course, in an analogous way,
in and through the possession of the life of sanctifying grace. The
company or social unit outside of which there is “neither salvation
nor the forgiveness of sins” is nothing other than the community
a man must be “within” if he is to obtain the ultimate and perfective status of the life of sanctifying grace in the beatific vision
(salvation) or the gratia frima, the life of grace given to a person
who has hitherto been deprived of it, the life of grace given by God
with the forgiveness of original or mortal sin,
The life of sanctifying grace can only be understood and described as involving the status of adopted sons of God when we
consider that life in terms of its ultimate and perfective act, that
of the beatific vision. The beatific vision is a clear, direct, and immediate intellectual perception of the living God in the Trinity of
13 Cf. Gat 6: 10.
14 Cf. Ads 2:40.
15 Cf. The Bull L’sam sanctam, issued Nov. 18, 1302, by Boniface VIII.
468.

BROTHERHOOD IX CATHOLIC THEOLOGY

197

His Persons. As such it is something utterly beyond the purely
natural capacity of any intellectual creature, actual or possible. It
is something on the divine rather than on the merely created level.
When creatures possess the life to which the beatific vision be­
longs, the life of sanctifying grace, they have this life as a gift from
God rather than as something which they have earned by their
natural efforts. The life of grace is inherently and essentially super­
natural. something which belongs to the intrinsically supernatural
order, by reason of the nature of the beatific vision itself. And it
is in terms of this essential supernaturalness that the beatific vision
is the basic element in the explanation of Christian brotherhood.
Xow it is axiomatic that a thing acts on the level of its own
being or essence. ''Operatio sequitur esse” is one of the basic ob­
servations of an accurate philosophy. It is natural for any created
intelligence to know about God by realizing that He is the First
Cause and the Final End of the particular grade of reality that
constitutes the proper object of that intelligence. Thus for the
human intelligence, the mind of an animai rationale, the proper ob­
ject is to be found in the essences of things which can be perceived
through the agency of the senses. The mode of knowing God
which is proper or natural to the human being is that by which He
is recognized as the First Cause and as the Ultimate Purpose of
these things.

Acting in accordance with the dictates and the limitations of
human nature, then, man knows God by realizing (1 ) the fact that
there is a being which is a cause but which is not subject to
causality, which is a principle of motion but which is not itself
moved, (2) the fact that qualities which are characteristic of things
subject to causality or motion cannot in any way be present in a
reality which is not thus subject to causality and change, and (3)
the fact that concepts which of their very essence or nature are
not limited to caused and contingent things may be applied properly
and correctly, even if necessarily in an analogical way, to the First
Cause and Last End. Man’s natural knowledge of God may be
perfected and sharpened indefinitely, but the process must always
be carried on within this definite sphere.
As the intellect of an animal rationale, the human mind is entitatively on the lowest level in the scale of intelligences. It would
have been possible to know, even within the bounds of a purely

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natural order, that there could have been an indefinite number of
created intellectual levels superior to the merely human, realized
in created pure spirits. Within the realm of Christian doctrine we
are aware of the fact that the angels are such created pure spirits,
and we know that there are many different levels of perfection
among the angelic intellects. As a matter of fact the principles of
St Thomas’ philosophy make it clear that there are as many
different species of angels as there are individual created pure
spirits.1*
Obviously we cannot know the specific perfection of any indi­
vidual angelic nature. This, however, we do understand: every
created spirit has as the proper object of its intelligence being on
the level of its own existence, in other words, its own essence. In
every case this essence is something which had to be actualized
by God. Thus it is something distinct from the act of its
own existence. And, in every case, according to the intellectual
activity natural to it, the created spirit would know God only as
the First Cause and the Ultimate Purpose of the reality which it
recognizes in its observation of the proper object of its own nat­
ural intelligence. This is not only true of every existent created
pure spirit : it would have to be verified of any created intelligence
which God could bring into existence. In other words, it would be
absolutely impossible to have a created intelligent being which
could naturally perceive God in an act of immediate and direct
intellectual knowledge.
On the other hand, God Himself is the one Being to whom such
an act is natural. God is His own understanding. Actually the
ipsum mteHigere subsistens constitutes what is known as the meta­
physical essence of God.1T The proper object of God’s understand­
ing, the reality which He knows immediately and directly, is His
own essence, subsisting in the Three Divine Persons. There is no
other intelligence, actual or possible, on the level of the divine
Understanding. There is and there can be no other intelligence to
which the immediate and direct intellectual perception of the divine

ie Cf. ivmtna theologica, la, q. 50, a. 4.
it Cf. BiHuart, Summa Sancti Thomae hodiernis academiarum morSms
accommodata sive Curras theologiae iuxta mentem Divi Thomae (Puis:
Lecoffre, 19M), I, 4L

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199

essence, subsisting in the Three Divine Persons, is something nat­
ural. And obviously there is no other being whose intellectual life
consists in such a perception of God’s essence.
The Second Person of the Blessed Trinity is truly the Son of
God because He proceeds from the Father by way of generation,
coming forth from the Father with whom He is con substanti al as
from the Principle subsisting in numerically one and the same
divine nature. And any intelligent creature to whom God grants
the life of sanctifying grace, which is the life of the beatific vision,
can be called the child of God in a real though analogous sense,
since God is giving to that creature the principle of a life which
finds its ultimate and perfective expression in an act of intellectual
perception of the divine essence, as it subsists in the Three Divine
Persons. God acts as the immediate Principle of a kind of life
which is similar to His own in that it finds its perfect manifesta­
tion in an intellectual act which has the same immediate object as
the divine intelligence itself.
It is obvious, of course, that the life of grace is not something
that resembles the life of the Triune God. The act of God’s under­
standing is actually identified with the divine nature and with all
of God’s attributes. It is also identified with each of the Divine
Persons. On the other hand, the quality by which the created in­
tellectual being is raised up to the condition in which it is connaturally capable of activity on the divine level is only an accident,
an entitative habitus. It is something which, during the time the
creature is in via, as distinct from in patria, can be lost. The life
is a grade of activity granted to a creature whose natural level
of operation is indescribably lower than the life of grace.
Yet, precisely by reason of the fact that this created activity at­
tains the same intelligible object as the divine life itself, the beatific
vision and the life of grace into which it is integrated are such as
to constitute the man who possesses them as a real child of God.
The term “son of God” applies to the man in the state of grace in
a proper if analogous fashion.

On the other hand, the possession of created intellectual life on
the natural level of the creature does not constitute a person as a
child of God except in a purely metaphorical way. In other words,
the expression “child of God” is applied to a man in the state of
sanctifying grace in such a way that the definition of “child,’* as

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“one proceeding from an immediate and conjoined principle in simi­
larity of life,” is verified of that man. Strictly speaking there is
no ‘‘similarity of life” when the natural activity of any created
intelligence is compared with the act of the divine understanding,
since the proper object of that natural understanding on the part
of the creature is something quite distinct from the proper object
of God’s own understanding. Hence when we speak of men as
“children of God” merely in terms of their created human nature,
or of their dependence on God the Creator, we are using the term
as a figure of speech. Such metaphorical use of the expression may
be allowable, but it remains something absolutely distinct from
the proper though analogous employment of this expression.
It is at best misleading to speak of men "of all religions” as
brothers under the common Fatherhood of God, as though diver­
sity in religion, or the acceptance or non-acceptance of Our Lord,
could be considered as indifferent to the concept of human brother­
hood. Actually the supernatural brotherhood which men possess
by reason of the life of the beatific vision is essentially a brother­
hood in Our Lord. The life of grace, in function of which men are
constituted as adopted children of God and as brothers to each
other under the Fatherhood of God, is something which men can
possess only because Our Lord, the Incarnate Word of God, has
obtained it for them through His sacrificial death on Calvary. It
is something which men can live only insofar as they are in salvific
contact with Our Lord in His Mystical Body.
In other words, the life by which men may live as adopted sons
of God is something which they can possess only if the natural and
consubstantad Son of God the Father actively communicates that
life to them. They can derive that created sharing of the divine
life only from the Incarnate Word, who is at once their Brother,
their Head, and their Saviour.
The genuine supernatural brotherhood in God's ecclesia affects
the nature of the association itself. The supernatural kingdom of
God is truly the “household of the faith,” the social unit within
which men and women are empowered to live as brothers and
sisters to Our Lord and, in Him, to each other. The relations set
up in function of this brotherhood are real, and they have gemâx
effects in the order of charily. It is God’s command that we should
“work good to aB men, but especially to those who are of the

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201

household of the faith.”18 In the ordo charitatis, which is the ob­
jective order of reality, our brothers within the household of the
faith are closer to us than any other human beings. If we are to
give Our Lord the enthusiastic loyalty that is due to Him, they
should be the first beneficiaries of our charity.
This is a lesson highly important to the Catholics of our own
time. Prior to the issuance of the encyclical Mystici Corporis
there were a certain number of Catholic publicists who worked to
spread abroad the illusion that there was such a thing as an in­
visible church, a kind of community of good men and women in
some way distinct from the visible society which God has consti­
tuted as His supernatural kingdom on earth for the new and
eternal testament. Furthermore, some of them went so far as to
teach that there was a loyalty due to this imaginary “invisible
church” which surpassed the loyalty due to the visible organiza­
tion over which the Bishop of Rome presides as the Vicar of
Jesus Christ on earth. Pope Pius XII stigmatized that blunder
once and for all in his brilliant encyclical letter.19 Unfortunately,
however, bad teachings set up slovenly habits of thought which
do not always disappear once the basic teachings have been ex­
posed and reproved. Hence it is imperative that, in considering
the conditions of the Christian ά&λφο'τ^ν, we take cognizance of
the fact that this fraternity carries genuine obligations in the prac­
tical order with it.
The brotherhood in the ecclesia, the supernatural fellowship
which men are privileged to possess in function of God’s com­
munication of the life of grace, makes tremendous demands. Our
Lord and Brother insists that we subordinate to Him every person
and every thing which is near and dear to us. And the association
in the Church itself is meant to be our dominant social relation.
We speak of “brother priests,” and of “brother religious,” but all
of these unions are based on the fundamental brotherhood within
the
which is the household of the faith and the Church
of the living God.
Our brotherhood in the Christian life of grace is likewise ulti­
mately definable in terms of a common Mother. Our Lady is the
18 Gal. 6:10.
18 Cf. the encyclical Mystici Corporis, issued June 29, 1943. in A AS,
XXXV (1943), especially 199 f., and 224.

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Mother of Christ, the Αοτόκοϊ.20 By that very fact she is the Mother
of the Mystical Body, outside of which there is neither salvation
nor the forgiveness of sins. The person who lives the life of grace
enjoys a favor which has come to him from Christ the divine Re­
deemer, and which has likewise been given to him through Mary,
the Disperser of all graces. The life of grace is a sharing of the
life of Christ, the life of the Person who is the Son of Mary.
The Church itself, the kingdom of Christ within which Mary
reigns as Queen, is the ά&λφότγ:, the brotherhood. And, as the
“household of the faith,” this community has its own family ban­
quet, the divine banquet which is the Eucharistic sacrifice and
sacrament. The life of the brotherhood is signified and caused in
the Eucharist. Indeed, men live the life of the brotherhood only
insofar as they partake, sacramentally or at least spiritually, of the
Eucharist.21 The theology of the Blessed Sacrament is, in the last
analysis, the theology of the Christian brotherhood.
*****

The “brotherhood” with which the National Council of Chris­
tians and Jews is concerned is, ultimately, something to be brought
about if and when all men act toward each other as if they were
joined by family ties. It is definitely our business so to pray and
to act that, insofar as lies within our power, we may bring men to
see that there is a genuine and ineffably perfect brotherhood in Our
Lord available to them. It is our business to bring out the fact
that God wills that all men should enter into that brotherhood. The
only eternal salvation available to men, the only ultimate and ever­
lasting happiness which they may attain, is something which they
are meant to have and can have only within this household of the
true faith.
It is laudable to see people working toward a condition in which
all men would act toward each other as if they were brothers. They
must be assured, however, that this condition will never be attained
outside of that true brotherhood in the supernatural order which
Our Lord has brought about by His sacrificial death. Definitely
they will never attain the good of brotherhood through the family
of Adam.
*•0. the Anatbemarisnis of St. Cyril, in the Acts of the Counrit cd
Este», Dew., Ill

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203

In a certain highly figurative sense men may be called brothers
by reason of their common descent from our first parents. Yet the
good of genuine brotherhood under the Fatherhood of God is not
to be attained in and through the family of Adam. The family of
Adam as unregenerate is a fallen family. We are bom into that
family, and, in order to achieve salvific union with God and
brotherhood in Our Lord, we have to be taken out of that un­
regenerate group and inserted into the household of the faith which
is the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ. The unregenerate family of
Adam, as a fallen social unit, is precisely the “world” over which
Satan holds sway as “the prince of this world.” Our salvation,
our genuine brotherhood with and in Jesus Christ, depends on
our being transferred out of this social unit and brought “within”
the ecclesia, "extra quam nullus omnino salvatur.”
It would be unfortunate were men ever brought to imagine that
whatever “brotherhood” there may be by reason of membership
in the unregenerate family of Adam would be the brotherhood
under God which men need and in which they are to find their
perfection.
On the other hand, Catholics must be reminded that mere mem­
bership in the Church, which is the
does not constitute
and guarantee that the life of the brotherhood, the life of sanctify­
ing grace, is actually being lived. It is unfortunately possible to be,
in this world, »« statu viae, a member of the supernatural brother­
hood in Christ and at the same time to five in a manner utterly un­
worthy of that brotherhood. In this fife we possess the treasure of
the true brotherhood in such a way that we can lose it by our own
malice and infidelity.
It is our business to work and pray so that we may live the life
of the true brotherhood in Christ in this world in a manner that
will bring us to enjoy it forever in the Church triumphant

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Joseph Clifford Fenton
The Catholic University of America
Washington, D. C.

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