reed of the Peop Th e C le of God To mark the fortieth anniversary of Pope Paul VI’s T aith historic Profession of Faith, a statement of his is Our F the essentials of Catholic Faith for the following the Second Vatican Council, the Diocese of Lismore reprints the text as a supplement to Catholic Life. Pope Paul VI pronounced this on 30 June, 1968, at the close of the Year of Faith called to mark the 19th centenary of the martyrdom of the Apostles Peter and Paul in Rome. In its opening dedication, Pope Paul made the Profession of Faith for the glory of God and of our Lord Jesus Christ, trusting in the aid of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, in the name of and in spiritual communion with all the pastors and the faithful of the .

revealing Himself as Father, Son and His natures, but by the unity of His Profession Of Faith , in whose eternal life we are person. We believe in one only God, Father, by grace called to share, here below in He dwelt among us, full of grace and Son and Holy Spirit, creator of things the obscurity of faith and after death in truth. He proclaimed and established visible such as this world in which our eternal light. The mutual bonds which the Kingdom of God and made us transient life passes, of things invisible eternally constitute the Three Persons, know in Himself the Father. He gave such as the pure spirits which are also who are each one and the same divine us His new commandment to love one called angels and creator in each man being, are the blessed inmost life of God another as He loved us. He taught us of his spiritual and immortal soul. thrice holy, infinitely beyond all that the way of the beatitudes of the Gospel: we can conceive in human measure. We believe that this only God is poverty in spirit, meekness, suffering We give thanks, however, to the divine absolutely one in His infinitely holy borne with patience, thirst after justice, goodness that very many believers can essence as also in all His perfections, mercy, purity of heart, will for peace, testify with us before men to the unity in His omnipotence, His infinite persecution suffered for justice sake. of God, even though they know not the knowledge, His providence, His will Under Pontius Pilate He suffered—the mystery of the most Holy Trinity. and His love. He is He who is, as He Lamb of God bearing on Himself the revealed to Moses (Ex 3:14); and He is sins of the world and He died for us on love, as the apostle John teaches us (I The Father the cross, saving us by His redeeming Jn 4:8): so that these two names, Being We believe then in the Father who blood. He was buried and, of His own and Love, express ineffably the same eternally begets the Son; in the Son, the power, rose on the third day, raising divine reality of Him who has wished Word of God, who is eternally begotten; us by His resurrection to that sharing to make Himself known to us and in the Holy Spirit, the uncreated Person in the divine life which is the life of who, “dwelling in light inaccessible,” who proceeds from the Father and the grace. He ascended to heaven and He is in Himself above every name, above Son as their eternal love. Thus in the will come again, this time in glory, to every thing and above every created Three Divine Persons, coaeternae sibi judge the living and the dead: each intellect. God alone can give us right et coaequales, the life and beatitude of according to his merits—those who and full knowledge of this reality by God perfectly one superabound and are have responded to the love and piety consummated in the supreme excellence of God going to eternal life, those who and glory proper to uncreated being have refused them to the end going to and always “there should be venerated the fire that is not extinguished. unity in the Trinity and Trinity in the And His Kingdom will have no end. unity.” The Holy Spirit The Son We believe in the Holy Spirit, who We believe in our Lord Jesus Christ, is Lord and Giver of life, who is adored who is the Son of God. He is the Eternal and glorified together with the Father Word, born of the Father before time and the Son. He spoke to us by the began and one in substance with the prophets; He was sent by Christ after Father, homoousios to Patri,(10) and His resurrection and His ascension to through Him all things were made. the Father; He illuminates, vivifies, He was incarnate of the Virgin Mary protects and guides the Church; He by the power of the Holy Spirit and purifies the Church’s members if they was made man: equal therefore to do not shun His grace. His action, the Father according to His divinity which penetrates to the inmost of the and inferior to the Father according soul, enables man to respond to the call to His humanity;(11) and Himself one, of Jesus: Be perfect as your Heavenly © Gabriela Insuratelu | Dreamstime.com” not by some impossible confusion of Father is perfect (Mt. 5:48). s the Faith of t This i he Ch urch

We believe that Mary is the Mother, fallen, stripped of the grace that who remained ever a Virgin, of the clothed it, injured in its own natural Incarnate Word, our God and Saviour powers and subjected to the dominion Jesus Christ and that by reason of of death, that is transmitted to all men this singular election, she was, in and it is in this sense that every man consideration of the merits of her Son, is born in sin. We therefore hold, with redeemed in a more eminent manner, the Council of Trent, that preserved from all stain of original sin is transmitted with human nature, “not and filled with the gift of grace more by imitation, but by propagation” and than all other creatures. that it is thus “proper to everyone.” Joined by a close and indissoluble bond to the Mysteries of the Incarnation and Redemption, the Blessed Virgin, Reborn of the the Immaculate, was at the end of her earthly life raised body and soul to Holy Spirit heavenly glory and likened to her risen We believe that our Lord Jesus Son in anticipation of the future lot of Christ, by the sacrifice of the Cross all the just; and we believe that the redeemed us from original sin and all Blessed Mother of God, the New Eve, the personal sins committed by each Mother of the Church, continues in one of us, so that, in accordance with heaven her maternal role with regard the word of the apostle, “where sin to Christ’s members, cooperating with abounded, grace did more abound” the birth and growth of divine life (Rom 5:20). in the souls of the redeemed.Original Offence The Church We believe that in Adam all have We believe in one, holy, catholic and sinned, which means that the original We believe in one Baptism instituted apostolic Church, built by Jesus Christ offence committed by him caused by our Lord Jesus Christ for the on that rock which is Peter. She is the human nature, common to all men, remission of sins. Baptism should be Mystical Body of Christ; at the same to fall to a state in which it bears administered even to little children time a visible society instituted with the consequences of that offence and who have not yet been able to be guilty hierarchical organs and a spiritual which is not the state in which it was of any personal sin, in order that, community; the Church on earth, the at first in our first parents—established though born deprived of supernatural pilgrim People of God here below as they were in holiness and justice grace, they may be reborn “of water and the Church filled with heavenly and in which man knew neither evil and the Holy Spirit” to the divine life blessings; the germ and the first fruits nor death. It is human nature so in Christ Jesus. of the Kingdom of God, through which the work and the sufferings of Redemption are continued throughout human history and which looks for its perfect accomplishment beyond time in glory. In the course of time, the Lord Jesus forms His Church by means of the sacraments emanating from His plenitude. By these she makes her members participants in the Mystery of the Death and Resurrection of Christ, in the grace of the Holy Spirit who gives her life and movement. She is therefore holy, though she has sinners in her bosom, because she herself has no other life but that of grace: it is by living by her life that her members are sanctified; it is by removing themselves from her life that they fall into sins and disorders that prevent the radiation of her sanctity. This is why s the Faith of t are Proud to P This i he Ch We rofes urch s It

she suffers and does penance for these belief as divinely revealed, whether by offences, of which she has the power to a solemn judgment or by the ordinary The Sacrifice heal her children through the blood of and universal . Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit. of Calvary We believe in the infallibility enjoyed We believe that the , celebrated by the successor of Peter when he by the priest representing the person of The Word teaches ex cathedra as pastor and Christ by virtue of the power received teacher of all the faithful and which through the Sacrament of Orders and Heiress of the divine promises and is assured also to the episcopal body offered by him in the name of Christ daughter of Abraham according to when it exercises with him the supreme and the members of His Mystical Body, the Spirit, through that Israel whose magisterium. scriptures she lovingly guards and is the sacrifice of Calvary rendered whose patriarchs and prophets she We believe that the Church founded sacramentally present on our altars. venerates; founded upon the apostles by Jesus Christ and for which He We believe that as the bread and and handing on from century to century prayed is indefectibly one in faith, wine consecrated by the Lord at the their ever-living word and their powers worship and the bond of hierarchical Last Supper were changed into His as pastors in the successor of Peter communion. In the bosom of this body and His blood which were to be and the bishops in communion with Church, the rich variety of liturgical offered for us on the cross, likewise him; perpetually assisted by the Holy rites and the legitimate diversity of the bread and wine consecrated by the Spirit, she has the charge of guarding, theological and spiritual heritages and priest are changed into the body and teaching, explaining and spreading the special disciplines, far from injuring her blood of Christ enthroned gloriously Truth which God revealed in a then unity, make it more manifest. in heaven and we believe that the veiled manner by the prophets and mysterious presence of the Lord, under fully by the Lord Jesus. what continues to appear to our senses We believe all that is contained in One Shepherd as before, is a true, real and substantial presence. the word of God written or handed Recognizing also the existence, down and that the Church proposes for outside the organism of the Church of Christ, of numerous elements of truth and sanctification which belong to her as her own and tend to Catholic unity and believing in the action of the Holy Spirit who stirs up in the heart of the disciples of Christ love of this unity, we entertain the hope that the Christians who are not yet in the full communion of the one only Church will one day be reunited in one flock with one only shepherd.

We believe that the Church is necessary for salvation, because Christ, who is the sole mediator and way of salvation, renders Himself present for Christ cannot be thus present in us in His body which is the Church. this Sacrament except by the change But the divine design of salvation into His body of the reality itself of embraces all men; and those who the bread and the change into His without fault on their part do not know blood of the reality itself of the wine, the Gospel of Christ and His Church, leaving unchanged only the properties but seek God sincerely and under the of the bread and wine which our senses influence of grace endeavor to do perceive. This mysterious change is His will as recognized through the very appropriately called by the Church promptings of their conscience, they, transubstantiation. Every theological in a number known only to God, can explanation which seeks some obtain salvation. understanding of this mystery must, st Jesus O In Chri ur Lo rd

in order to be in accord with Catholic progress of civilization, of science or of must still be purified in purgatory, or faith, maintain that in the reality itself, human technology, but that it consists whether from the moment they leave independently of our mind, the bread in an ever more profound knowledge of their bodies Jesus takes them to paradise and wine have ceased to exist after the the unfathomable riches of Christ, an as He did for the Good Thief, are the Consecration, so that it is the adorable ever stronger hope in eternal blessings, People of God in the eternity beyond body and blood of the Lord Jesus an ever more ardent response to the death, which will be finally conquered that from then on are really before us love of God and an ever more generous on the day of the Resurrection when under the sacramental species of bread bestowal of grace and holiness among these souls will be reunited with their and wine,(36) as the Lord willed it, in men. But it is this same love which bodies. order to give Himself to us as food and induces the Church to concern herself to associate us with the unity of His constantly about the true temporal Prospect of welfare of men. Without ceasing to Mystical Body. recall to her children that they have not Resurrection The unique and indivisible existence here a lasting dwelling, she also urges We believe that the multitude of of the Lord glorious in heaven is not them to contribute, each according those gathered around Jesus and Mary multiplied, but is rendered present by to his vocation and his means, to the in paradise forms the Church of Heaven the sacrament in the many places on welfare of their earthly city, to promote where in eternal beatitude they see earth where Mass is celebrated. And justice, peace and brotherhood among God as He is and where they also, this existence remains present, after men, to give their aid freely to their in different degrees, are associated the sacrifice, in the Blessed Sacrament brothers, especially to the poorest and with the holy angels in the divine rule which is, in the tabernacle, the living most unfortunate. The deep solicitude exercised by Christ in glory, interceding heart of each of our churches. And it of the Church, the Spouse of Christ, for us and helping our weakness by is our very sweet duty to honour and for the needs of men, for their joys their brotherly care. adore in the blessed Host which our and hopes, their griefs and efforts, is We believe in the communion of all eyes see, the Incarnate Word whom therefore nothing other than her great the faithful of Christ, those who are they cannot see and who, without desire to be present to them, in order to pilgrims on earth, the dead who are leaving heaven, is made present before illuminate them with the light of Christ attaining their purification and the us. and to gather them all in Him, their blessed in heaven, all together forming only Saviour. This solicitude can never one Church; and we believe that in this mean that the Church conform herself communion the merciful love of God to the things of this world, or that she Temporal Concern and His saints is ever listening to our lessen the ardour of her expectation of We confess that the Kingdom of prayers, as Jesus told us: Ask and you her Lord and of the eternal Kingdom. God begun here below in the Church will receive. Thus it is with faith and of Christ is not of this world whose We believe in the life eternal. We in hope that we look forward to the form is passing and that its proper believe that the souls of all those who resurrection of the dead and the life of growth cannot be confounded with the die in the grace of Christ whether they the world to come. Blessed be God Thrice Holy. Amen.

The full text of this document entitled Solemni hac liturgia, with complete references and footnotes, may be found in the Paul VI section of the Vatican website. www.vatican.va