INDEFECTIBILITY

The Church of Christ is like the house built upon rock that is able to withstand the storm and tempest (Mt 16.18; cf. 7.24–27). This is because Christ will be with His Apostles all days even to the end of the world (Mt 28.20). Their faith will not fail, and the Holy Spirit has been sent to them to lead them to all truth and to abide with them for ever (Jn 14.16, 26). The Church will remain until the end of time.

This indefectibility is a basic teaching of Scripture and is bound up with the notion of the Church as the new People of God and the final covenant between God and man. This does not mean that there will be no falling away from the Church on the part of individual members or even sections of the community. History witnesses to heresy and schism. At times these have reached alarming proportions, as was the case with Arianism and at the time of the Reformation. But despite these disasters the Church of Christ continued in existence. The scandal was that its presence was rendered less obvious to the unbelieving world. Neither is one to understand indefectibility as eliminating accidental change and reform. The Church lives in the world, and there is always need to speak to men in their own language; hence accommoda tion as well as the progress of dogma. There is also need to eliminate abuse, which comes from the fact that members of the Church remain men, fallible and weak. But there can be no wholesale departure from the teaching of Christ: however much the future is veiled one does know that on the last day it will be the same Church that is finally taken up to heaven by Christ.

Since the rock on which the Church is built is peter, indefectibility concerns the successor of Peter in a special way. It is the same indefectibility as that of the Church, but it resides in a special way in his successor, the bishop of Rome.

See Also: miracle, moral (the church); church, articles on.

Bibliography: Vatican II, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church 8, 9, 12; Acta Apostolicae Sedis 57 (1965) 11–14, 16–17; and passim. Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, ed. a. vacant et al., 15 v. (Paris 1903–50; Tables générales 1951–), Tables générales 1:1116. i. salaverri, Sacrae theologiae summa, ed. fathers of the society of jesus, professors of the theological faculties in spain, 4 v. (Madrid), v. 1 (5th ed. 1962), v. 2 (3d ed. 1958), v. 3 (4th ed. 1961), v. 4 (4th ed. 1962); Bibliotheca de autores cristianos 1.3:285–329.

[m. e. williams]