
The Church founded by Christ is Holy. This Second Mark of the Church is de fide.
The First Vatican Council declared that “in the Apostolic See the Catholic religion has always been preserved untainted, and holy doctrine celebrated.”
The Council of Trent, Session XXII, Can. 7: If anyone says that the ceremonies, vestments, and outward signs, which the Catholic Church uses in the celebration of Masses, are incentives to impiety rather than the services of piety: let him be anathema [cf. n. 943]. (D. 954.)
Pope Gregory XVI declared, “Furthermore, the discipline sanctioned by the Church must never be rejected or branded as contrary to certain principles of the natural law. It must never be called crippled, or imperfect or subject to civil authority.” (Mirari Vos)
Pope Leo XIII declared, “There must need be also the fitting and devout worship of God, which is to be found chiefly in the divine Sacrifice and in the dispensation of the Sacraments, as well as salutary laws and discipline. All these must be found in the Church, since it continues the mission of the Saviour forever. The Church alone offers to the human race that religion – that state of absolute perfection – which He wished, as it were, to be incorporated in it. And it alone supplies those means of salvation which accord with the ordinary counsels of Providence.” (Satis Cognitum)
Pope Pius XI declared, “Not least among the blessings which have resulted from the public and legitimate honor paid to the Blessed Virgin and the saints is the perfect and perpetual immunity of the Church from error and heresy.” (Quas Primas)
A Church that promotes erroneous or heretical teachings or practices by law and decree would not be holy. Even the liturgy is perfect. This article of faith is denied by many because the laws, the liturgy, the practices, or the doctrines are considered crippled, harmful, and unholy.
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